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There Is Kindness in Truth

Thomas Aquinas once said, “The greatest kindness one can render to any man consists in leading him from error to truth.”

I couldn’t help but think about this quote as I read a recent news story about yet another company and its woke policies.

According to FOX Business, Rocket Mortgage sent an email to employees explaining why it was adding tampons to the men’s bathrooms. Was it to allow men to grab a tampon for a girlfriend, wife, or daughter in an emergency?

No. According to the email, the company stated, “We will now see menstrual products in all of our men’s bathrooms in our locations that are using Aunt Flow [a free service that makes sure women have menstrual products]. We have also provided learning opportunities that lead to one of our LinkedIn trainings to help educate our team members about the addition of these products. We are excited to announce this launch that helps us become closer in menstrual equity.”

Menstrual equity?

And so I couldn’t stop thinking of the word truth. It can’t get more factual than this: A woman menstruates every month because her uterus lining thickens and prepares for a baby. If that baby is not created, the uterus will shed tissue and menstrual blood. This is biology 101. And it’s something unique to women.

But in the name of “menstrual equity,” some corporations now apparently want these products in men’s bathrooms—for the tiny percentage of women who live as men and who choose to use the men’s restroom. You see, the women need menstrual products because they are actually still women.

Do you recognize the absurdity here? The same people who want to push others to believe that a man can be a woman and a woman can be a man cannot deny the truth of biology. A male is inherently male, and a female is inherently female. There are both internal and external body parts and organs—not to mention unique traits of bones and tissue—that make a person male or female. If a man decides to live as a woman, he doesn’t wave a magic wand and suddenly have a uterus any more than a woman who lives as a man suddenly has a prostate. Biology doesn’t work like that.

But companies like Rocket Mortgage are so absorbed with being woke and with appeasing the transgender community that they’re alienating those who know this truth.

As Aquinas said, it is our job to speak the truth and to lead people away from erroneous thinking. Teaching the truth is—and should be—an act of kindness, and it should be done with love and compassion because regardless of whether or not we agree with a person’s decision, we must know that hatred and anger will never change hearts and minds. Only a firm adherence to the truth—as Christ Himself taught—will help lead others to Him.

People with gender dysphoria, which usually precedes someone living as transgender, feel unhappy or uncomfortable in their own bodies. This must be incredibly difficult.

As Christians, it is our job to comfort these people, to help them learn to love themselves, and to teach them that they were wonderfully made and that their bodies are not a mistake. We must have compassion, but having compassion does not mean we praise the decisions they make. It is not our job to lie to them or to help facilitate a life of lies. But it is our job to treat them with kindness and to act in the person of Christ. We need to lovingly teach the truth and never back down from that truth.

Catholic writer and scholar GK Chesterton once wrote, “There is a case for telling the truth; there is a case for avoiding the scandal; but there is no possible defense for the man who tells the scandal, but does not tell the truth.”

Indeed. Many in Christ’s time found it scandalous that He ate and spent time with sinners. But we know why He did so. Jesus spent time with those who did not understand the truth so that they could come to know the truth and come to know Him.  

Think about the woman at the well. Jesus didn’t yell at her for having had five husbands and for living with someone. But neither did He say her actions were okay. He didn’t tell her “you do do”; He told her to sin no more.

Think about Zacchaeus, the tax collector known for cheating others. Jesus stayed at his house, not because He condoned his behavior but because He wanted Zacchaeus to repent and change the way he lived. He knew that the best way to draw this man to Him was to be near him, to talk to him, and to love him.

We are called to be more like Christ—to firmly teach the truth and to never waver in our convictions. We are called to love people yet not condone actions that we know hurt them or others. And we are called to speak out against woke policies that threaten morality and the truths of science and our faith. We do so for the love of God, for the love of our fellow human beings, and to avoid the scandal society tries daily to impose upon us.

This article first appeared in the Catholic World Report at catholicworldreport.com/2023/04/24/the-necessary-kindness-of-speaking-the-truth-about-menstrual-equity.

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About the author

Susan Ciancio

Susan Ciancio is the editor of Celebrate Life Magazine and executive editor for the Culture of Life Studies Program.