VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis faced calls to overturn the Catholic Church's ban on gender-affirming care for transgender people on Saturday (Oct 12) when he held talks with LGBTQ activists at the Vatican.

The 80-minute meeting, held privately at the guesthouse where the pope lives, included a Catholic sister who works with LGBTQ people, a member of the transgender community, and a US medical doctor who helps run a clinic providing gender-affirming hormonal care for adults.

"I really wanted to share with Pope Francis about the joy that I have being a transgender Catholic person," Michael Sennett, who took part in the meeting, told Reuters.

Sennett, a transgender man from Boston, said he told the pontiff about "the joy that I get from hormone replacement therapy and the surgeries that I've had that make me feel comfortable in my body".

The unusual encounter was not listed on the Vatican's official agenda of the pope's meetings for the day.

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