'Gender' and its Enemies in Trans-continental Perspective

This Paper will examine ways in which arguments for and against what the Vatican, borrowing a phrase from an American Catholic polemicist, calls the "gender agenda," have migrated from and back to the United States over the course of the last 40 years. One principal focus will be trans issues, a central concern of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in the 1980s and today a convenient wedge for those, including incoming US VP Mike Pence, who today, in a way never before seen, are successfully bringing Vatican rhetoric against gender into US law and policy discussions.