By his rhetoric, it sounds like the Pope is preaching against transgender people.

Yes, that sums up the entirety of hetero thinking. They are clueless, and deny all rational evidence in front of them that we just are natural as could be, and don’t “create” or “change” or “forsake” or do any such thing but live; they are equally unappreciative of the astounding forbearance and Christian decency we maintain towards mush heads like the pope who abandon their own teaching when it comes to gay folks and call for hate, and not love.

And still, yet, the vast majority of heteros, even our friends, are still clueless as to why God might have put us, the, um, “platypuses” of the human race, around for the enjoyment of one and all. They say, “it’s largely unexplained.” Clarity; I love it. Ahem.

Jesus, since it’s His birthday, I’m told, would have said: “It’s to test everyone on that ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’ bit… you’ve all failed.”

Meanwhile, sorry Mr. Pope, I’m not Catholic, so I won’t listen or follow.

This is bizarre to me: “When freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied…” So, for the Pope, non-straight orientation is something we create, and by acknowledging it, we have created a new person, discarding the old one.

In fundamental ways, though, each of us is perpetually creating the person that we are, guided by our aptitudes, talents, opportunities and other factors beyond our control. We are made up of our chosen values and attitudes, we are self-directed into being social and/or solitary, we invest ourselves in arts, or technology, service, commerce, or health care. We create relationships that matter, sustain them, change them, and sometimes end them. At surface level, we even create much of our appearance — we shape, shade or shave the hair we’ve been given, tone up, trim down, dress, accessorize, whatever.

In the midst of all choices we make to create a meaningful life and be our best selves, the simplest choice — to embrace our capacity to love another person — is written off as counterfeit. Or, maybe the Pope is vying for veto power over people’s free will generally… it’s just too “creative.”