Words from a pope mean something to some people. Personally, I was raised Lutheran, so I grew up already excommunicated by the Vatican...as Lutherans had been for centuries.

But I have to admit I had expected better from Francis.

And people have been trying to interpret his words actions to me as more pro-trans than I've ever interpreted them. Now the cat is out of that bag.

Remarks from behind closed doors have surfaced.

Today, in schools they are teaching this to children — to children! — that everyone can choose their gender.

--Pope Francis

No, Francis. That's just ignorant for you to think that.

Francis railed against what he called "ideological colonizing" in "very influential countries." He blamed textbooks financed by wealthy people and institutions for the societal changes, though he declined to specifically name any countries, people or institutions.

Speaking with Pope Benedict, who is well and has a clear mind, he was telling me: ‘Holiness, this is the epoch of sin against God the Creator, he’s intelligent! God created man and woman, God created the world this way, this way, this way, and we are doing the opposite."

--Pope Francis

It is deeply [disappointing] that so soon after his healing apology to LGBTQ Catholics regarding their treatment the church, Pope Francis would choose to deny the very humanity of transgender people, including children.

--Sarah McBride, Human Rights Campaign

Our nation just witnessed the single deadliest mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, specifically targeting the LGBT community, and what we need now is for our world leaders to spread messages of tolerance and acceptance.

Our children deserve to know that of course they have the right to choose, and GMHC applauds all schools that teach students not to oppress who they are, but instead live the life as the gender they most identify with.

--Kelsey Louie, Gay Men's Health Crisis

Let us not fall into the sin of trying to replace the Creator. Creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift. At the same time, we are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created.

Yet you, Francis, the bishop of Rome, refuse to accept that your god could choose to create transgender people...even when it is clear that He has done so.

Perhaps you should meditate on that.

Most transgender people would likely say their gender isn’t chosen — that they know they are innately male or female, even if their body leads others to perceive them as the other gender. (Some, of course, do not identify with a binary gender.) However, many in the nontrans world, including the pope, would probably say that undergoing hormone therapy or gender-affirming surgery, or simply living as a different gender than the one assigned at birth, amounts to choosing gender.

--Trudy Ring, The Advocate

And we also have these words from Cardinal Raymond Burke:

Gender theory is an invention, an artificial creation. It is impossible to have an identity that does not respect the proper nature of man and that of woman. It is madness that will cause immense damage in society and in the lives of those who support this theory. With gender theory, it is impossible to live in society. Already today, in certain places in the United States, anyone at all can change identity and say, ‘Today I am a man; tomorrow I will be a woman.’ That is truly madness. Some men insist on going into the women’s rest rooms. That is inhuman. In the schools, you can imagine the confusion. … Nowadays there is enormous confusion, which is based on the false idea that there are practically an infinite number of possible sexual orientations. The twofold expression of the human person is not heterosexuality and homosexuality, but male and female. This is the authentic theology of anthropology: that God created man: ‘male and female he created them.

If I actually did believe that one day I would "meet my maker" and be accountable for the life I have lived, I'm perfectly ready and willing to do that.

I've lived my life according to the dictum inscribed upon the Temple of Apollo at Delphi: γνῶθι σεαυτὸν (i.e. Know Thyself). I cannot believe that my Creator would not know completely who I am. Nor can I believe that my Maker would want me to live an inauthentic life. I am transgender and that's just the way I was put together. Reassembling the grains of dust used to create me was the best I could do to allow me that authentic life.

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

--Proverbs 4:23

I spent nearly four decades of life spreading the Gospel of Knowledge (i.e. teaching) and the last two and a half decades trying to improve the lives of other people of similar origin.

These have together allowed me to consider my life to have been a worthy one.

I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.

--Jeremiah 17:10

I stand here ready for inspection.