“A person’s discomfort with his or her sex, or the desire to be identified as the other sex, is a complicated reality that needs to be addressed with sensitivity and truth,” Bishop James Conley of Lincoln wrote in a diocesan newspaper column. “Each person deserves to be heard and treated with respect; it is our responsibility to respond to their concerns with compassion, mercy, and honesty.”

“Children especially are harmed when they are told that they can ‘change’ their sex, further, when they are given hormones that will affect their development and possibly render them infertile as adults,” he continued. “Gender ideology harms individuals and societies by sowing confusion and self-doubt. For these reasons, the state has a compelling interest in maintaining policies that uphold the scientific fact of human biology and supporting the social institutions and norms that surround it.”