What’s behind the Polish Bishops crusade against Gender Theory?

In what appears to be an attempt to deflect attention from a string of paedophile priest scandals the Catholic Church in Poland has launched an attack on what it is calling gender theory. It’s reactionary theological musings are tricky to unpick but in essence the church seems to be trying to use the fact that people’s gender identities can be other than what they were assigned or simply fluid and that in any case do not define who they are in a ‘blue for boys, pink for girls’ fashion, to create a populist panic in defence of ‘traditional’ male privilege.

In what appears to be an attempt to deflect attention from a string of paedophile priest scandals the Catholic Church in Poland has launched an attack on what it is calling gender theory. It’s reactionary theological musings are tricky to unpick but in essence the church seems to be trying to use the fact that people’s gender identities can be other than what they were assigned or simply fluid and that in any case do not define who they are in a ‘blue for boys, pink for girls’ fashion, to create a populist panic in defence of ‘traditional’ male privilege.

A letter from the bishops was read out at every mass Sunday on the topic attacking the idea that everyone could "freely define himself as a man or woman and choose his sexual orientation." It also opposed gay marriage and sex education, proclaiming an ultra patrichial view view of the family as headed by a man. The Catholic magazine Sunday carried an interview with a priest warning "gender ideology is much worse than bolshevism" and under it "youth can easily fall into promiscuity, sex-addiction." He suggested it was being promoted by "sexual maniacs". "leftist atheists" "freemasons" "American multimillionaires" "fighting gays" and "fanatic feminists (also often lesbians)."

All of which would be the material for a Father Ted episode were it not that the catholic church still has the sort of influence in Poland that it had in Ireland 30 years ago and this bigoted rhetoric is aimed at maintaining and expanding the oppression of anyone who does not fit imposed gender norms. The church in Poland says it is attempting to build the sort of political movement that we see in "Hungary, Lithuania, in Estonia and Russia" that uses state power to jail, sack and oppress anyone who wants to live outside the rigid boundaries of patriarchal and/or heterosexual identities. Their gamble is that this is a small enough minority to act as a scapegoat and that those directly effected by such oppression can be either mobilised into defending traditional patrichial male privilege or scared into silently accepting such oppression because it appears popular and to speak out in solidarity becomes dangerous.

WORDS: Andrew Flood – Follow Andrew on Twitter