The Pope, Hollywood and Transgenderism

By Catholic League president Bill Donohue

If there were any doubt that the religious vision of sexuality, as represented by the pope, and the secular vision, as represented by Hollywood, were dissimilar, they were wiped away over the weekend.

On March 10, an Argentine daily newspaper, La Nación, published an interview that Pope Francis gave on the subject of transgenderism. "Gender ideology, today, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations. Why is it dangerous? Because it blurs the difference and the value of men and women." 

The pope also said that "some people are a bit naïve and believe that it [gender ideoogy] is the way to progress." Such persons, he said, do not recognize "an anthropology of gender, which is extremely dangerous because it eliminates differences [between men and women]." 

Two days later, at the Academy Awards, Daniel Scheinert, the co-director of the Oscar-winning movie, Everything Everywhere All at Once, took the occasion to defend drag queens and drag children. He said they were "a threat to nobody!" The crowd loved it. 

The pope understands that human nature is fixed: there are only two sexes. Hollywood thinks human nature is fluid: there are many sexes, or what they inaccurately call "genders." 

Is the Hollywood crowd naïve, as the pope says, or are they something more sinister? To conclude they are naïve is to say they can be educated as to their follies. But if they are not naïve, and they know exactly what they are doing, then they are willfully promoting what the pope calls "one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations." 

In a burst of honesty, drag queen Kitty Demur warned parents two years ago about taking their kids to drag events. 

"I have no idea why you want drag queens to read books to your children... What in the hell has a drag queen ever done to make you have so much respect for them and admire them so much? Other than put on makeup and jump on the floor and writhe around and do sexual things on stage? I have absolutely no idea why you would want that to influence your child. Would you want a stripper or a porn star to influence your child?" 

The drag queen asks all the right questions. Too bad Hollywood isn't listening.