By Judie Brown
Webster defines transformation as “an act, process, or instance of transforming or being transformed.” Change can be exhilarating, life-affirming, or simply necessary to avoid boredom. But what about transformation that claims to alter the sexual identity of a human being?
Genesis 1:27 reads, “God created mankind in His image; in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.”
This quote from Genesis makes clear what God intends, yet man is thumbing his nose at God in ways I could never have imagined. Groups like Planned Parenthood are using the fact that some people suffer from gender dysphoria and need help as a way to manipulate them, including children as young as thirteen, into thinking that they can actually change whether they are a man or woman. While Mayo Clinic defines gender dysphoria as “a feeling of distress that can happen when a person’s gender identity differs from the sex assigned at birth,” Planned Parenthood sees it as yet another cash cow.
Recently, an organization called Do No Harm has suggested that Planned Parenthood is miscoding patients. Catholic World Report explains that DNH is “a nonprofit that says it works to keep identity politics out of medical education — asked the Health and Human Services inspector general to investigate Planned Parenthood over alleged miscoding tied to youth cross‑sex hormone prescriptions.”
According to LifeNews, “A data broker hired by Do No Harm reviewed Planned Parenthood coding from 2015 to 2025 and found ‘a subset of approximately 800 patients from across the country for whom Planned Parenthood affiliates wrote between 1,100 and 1,200 prescriptions seemingly related to gender dysphoria while potentially failing to use the correct diagnosis codes for the associated office visit.’”
We are concerned that the tangled web involving Planned Parenthood and its allies has grown so thick with deception that it will be difficult for the government to take meaningful action. Planned Parenthood has been receiving our tax dollars for more than 30 years. During that time, and in fact well before then, PP’s track record has been abysmal, to say the least.
In addition, the Trump administration is literally dipping one toe in this sludge, having made a deal that secured agreements with a paltry few healthcare facilities to end “pediatric gender-affirming care.” The Department of Justice has claimed that its efforts to secure more agreements are ongoing, but we have our doubts about its success.
They are swimming upstream in the dung and apparently not interested in the damage that is being done to America’s youth, while those in a position to take major action yawn.
Looking closer to our Catholic leaders, the bishops in particular, we note the same sort of timidity on the matter of teaching the truth regarding gender ideology. Yet while he stands in the minority, Arlington Catholic bishop Michael Burbidge has not been cowed into silence. He wrote, “The differences between man and woman are ordered towards their complementary union in marriage. Indeed, the differences between man and woman, male and female, are unintelligible apart from such a union.”
Simple words in a very complex time, but words that hold the truth clearly for all to hear.
Those who are beating the drum to undo the designs of God by convincing man that he is the arbiter of all things true, including his own nature, are going to fail. Of that we are certain. Thus, we are grateful for these healing words from the National Catholic Bioethics Center, addressing gender dysphoria:
It is clear that those with gender dysphoria suffer greatly and must be treated with great compassion and sympathy. However, the attempt must be made to dissuade them from actions that ultimately will not contribute to their individual flourishing and may cause irreversible harm. We must always be with them in their difficulties and help them make truly therapeutic choices. Even when they have engaged in actions that have done irremediable harm, we must continue to accompany them and show them the love and compassion of Christ.
Enduring in the truth with love, grace, and understanding is the way we provide the essence of what it means to love others—born and preborn—as Christ loves us. May we persist in rejecting the theory of identity manipulation that leads others astray as we affirm life as gift from God and bear witness to it without apology.