Activists erupt as Des Moines Diocese enacts anti-wake rules in churches and schools

Activists are speaking out against a sweeping policy change affecting Catholic school children in southwestern Iowa that prohibits them from using their preferred pronouns and toilets that defy their biological sex.

The seven new provisions from the Diocese of Des Moines went into effect Monday and all revolve around how the religious organization treats gender identity in 17 schools and 80 parishes across the state.

A sect of the Catholic Church, the Diocese filed a official document outlining the new rules, which includes a mandate that student athletes play only on teams that match their gender at birth.

Other rules that will apply include that if the school has a dress code, students must follow it based on their biological sex, along with a strict ban on gender blockers. on the school grounds.

The final rule insists that students who question their gender be brought to ministers within the church for guidance, and progressives like state Sen. Claire Celsi are already criticizing the provisions as un-Christian.

“The Diocese of Des Moines codifies the ostracism of transgender children,” Celsi, who took to Facebook to voice her concerns about the diocese’s directives, wrote in a post Jan. 4 after they were announced.

The Democrat went on to point to the fact that the diocese receives more than $100 million in public taxpayer dollars for its schools and, in recent years, has sought even more funding.

“These schools want public money and they want to treat children in a way that could cause them to commit suicide,” the politician said.

Celsi would then brazenly declare: ‘This is not what Jesus would do.’

In another post days later, the state senator renewed her attack on the religious organization, citing the fact that she herself attended Catholic school at Beehive State as a youth.

Directly tagging the diocese, Celsi wrote: ‘The Diocese of Des Moines is trying to prevent and exclude people based on their sexual orientation and gender expression.

“Clearly, this is NOT behavior that should be allowed in schools that already receive $100 million in public taxpayer dollars and are clamoring for more.”

In the post, the politician shared an image of a poster that she said was hung in her class when she was a six-year-old student. The sign read: ‘God doesn’t do garbage.’

Celsi’s sentiments that the diocese is overstepping its bounds and challenging the rights of its young students were echoed by a host of local LGBTQ+ advocates and faith leaders who say the new policies preach hate toward the transgender community.

One such group, the Iowa Interfaith Alliance, recently criticized the policies as “dangerous,” arguing they promote “bigotry” toward transgender Iowans.

Other opponents include Keenan Crow, One Iowa’s director of policy and advocacy, who insists that the newly established rules, which the diocese has since defended as “part of a long process” aimed at addressing questions from leaders in its schools and churches, will harm students and parishioners.

“That sounds like conversion therapy to me,” Crow said Monday of the policies. “What we know for sure not only may not deliver the results it promises, but is in fact … a discredited dangerous practice that every major American medical association has spoken out against.”

Crow’s colleague Courtney Reyes, executive director of the LGBTQ+ equality organization, further criticized the diocese, in a statement that criticized the group for insisting that the policies called for “genuine compassion” for transgender people.

“No other member has to fight to be called the correct name, use their correct pronouns, or have access to the proper bathroom,” the activist wrote in a written statement after the full breakdown of the policies was released Monday. .

“To call this ‘compassion’ is to confuse ‘hate’ with ‘love,’ Reyes continued. “He cannot claim to be compassionate while misunderstanding people and denying them access to any and all spaces under his control.”

The backlash comes after KCCI obtained and reported the as-yet-unreleased content of the plan earlier in the month.

On Monday, the diocese, led by Bishop William M. Joensen, 60, who is responsible for four hospitals as well as its array of schools and churches, released the official policy document, which outlines these new rules and how organization finally decided on the changes.

A spokesman for the diocese wrote that the rules have been “part of a long process” aimed at addressing the concerns of school and church personnel about the gender identity of students.

Diocese of Des Moines director of communications Anne Marie Cox confirmed Monday that the seven provisions, which range from enforcing pronouns and costumes to banning gender blockers, will take effect immediately.

DailyMail.com has reached out to the Diocese of Des Moines for comment on the new guidelines, which opponents like Celsi and Crow have vowed to fight for.

Speaking to the Register on Monday, Celsi explained that many people who are exploring their gender identities are often young, and the new rules now eliminate schools as places of refuge.

“To go out there and say, ‘We’re going to eradicate this, we’re going to pretend it doesn’t exist,’ and issuing this kind of edict is, I think, reprehensible,” he told the outlet. Paper.

Meanwhile, Crow acknowledges that the diocese has the right to set its own policies, but says the rhetoric in the new rules is harmful and should be denounced.

“The most dangerous thing for an LGBTQ person is the lack of acceptance from their family,” Crow said. “So if an institution can convince your family members that this is the way they should be treated, that absolutely skyrockets, than the adverse mental health outcomes, the risk of suicide.”

The Diocese of Des Moines currently operates 80 churches, 17 Catholic schools and four hospitals in southwestern Iowa. It is not yet clear how the new rules will apply to hospitals.