Under pressure, Catholic school pulls policy requiring students to identify by natural sex
The Rhode Island Catholic prep
school that faced
social media backlash for
establishing a guideline against admitting transgender students has eliminated
the policy.
Mount Saint Charles Academy (MSC)
in Woonsocket was the subject of criticism after the prohibition on enrolling
students with gender dysphoria was discovered last week.
The 2015-2016 edition of the
school handbook had stated the school was “unable to make accommodations for
transgender students. Therefore, MSC does not accept transgender students nor
is MSC able to continue to enroll students who identify as transgender.”
That link on the school website
has been replaced with a PDF file identified as the 2016-2017 handbook, which
has no reference to transgender students.
The change was carried out by the
Mount Saint Charles Board, according to golocalprov.com.
LifeSiteNews inquired with Mount
Saint Charles President Herve Richer for comment on the removal of the policy,
but had not heard back by press time.
The regulation against admitting
students identifying as transgender had been in effect at the Catholic school since
October of last year, only recently coming to light.
Some alumni protested, calling the
handbook language “hateful,” and saying the policy goes against the Catholic
school’s own teaching.
A Change.org petition was set up
in opposition to the policy by one alumnus, and a GoFundMe account put in place
to solicit funds for the school to institute the “proper facilities” to accept
transgender students.
A March 4 statement from the school on the policy prohibiting
admission of transgender students remained on its homepage Thursday, saying the
school regrets “unintended hurt feelings and seeming insensitivity” from the
policy, and that it was not intended to be discriminatory.
So-called “bathroom bill” policies
and legislation have arisen the last several years as gender ideology advocates
push to compel schools and municipalities across the country to allow
individuals suffering with gender dysphoria access to restroom facilities of
the opposite gender.
Pope Francis has come out strongly
against gender ideology a number of times, particularly in March of last year
when he stated, “Gender
theory is an error of the human mind that leads to so much confusion. So the
family is under attack.”
His predecessor Pope Emeritus
Benedict XVI had in his pontificate explained the “profound falsehood” of gender theory.
“When the freedom to be creative
becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is
denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God,
as the image of God at the core of his being,” Pope Benedict said. “The defence
of the family is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is
denied, human dignity also disappears.”
