Leaders of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender groups expressed dismay Wednesday after Pope Francis said that schoolchildren are being taught they can choose their gender as part of what he called an “ideological colonization.’’

Francis was meeting privately with bishops in Poland last week when he broached the matter. “Today, in schools they are teaching this to children — to children! — that everyone can choose their gender,’’ he said, according to a transcript released Tuesday by the Vatican.

Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, a leading organization of LGBT Catholics, said the comments represented a “dangerous ignorance’’ about gender identity, which is no more a choice than height or hair color.

“It’s very troubling that the pope would say this,’’ Duddy-Burke said Wednesday. “It also shows that the pope doesn’t understand the danger that his words can mean for gender-nonconforming people, particularly those who live in countries with laws or cultural pressures that put these people at risk for violence.’’

In his remarks, the pope said the idea of choosing gender was being taught with schoolbooks supplied by influential donors and countries. He did not identify which.

“This is terrible,’’ he said, according to the transcript.

Francis, who is Argentine, also did not offer examples of classrooms using such a curriculum. But church analysts say he has long harbored resentment over so-called ideological colonialism, the notion that international groups offer aid to developing nations contingent upon the adoption of Western values.

During a trip to the Philippines in 2015, the pope warned of “the new ideological colonization that tries to destroy the family.’’ Asked what he meant, he was reported to have given the example of an education minister in Argentina who was offered a loan to build schools on the condition that the textbooks include “gender theory.’’

The pontiff’s latest remarks represented a letdown for gay rights groups that were encouraged by the pope’s conciliatory remarks in June after the massacre of gay patrons at a nightclub in Orlando, Fla. Francis said at the time that gays were owed an apology for past mistreatment by Christians.

Sarah McBride, a spokeswoman for the Human Rights Campaign, said the words sent a ripple of hope through the LGBT community that the Vatican might be embracing a broader stance on inclusion.

She added, however, “I think what’s clear in this last statement is that maybe those sentiments weren’t universally applied — that for transgender people, the pontiff is applying a different standard.’’

Francis, whose papacy began in 2013, has won admirers, and detractors, for his relatively progressive views on social issues, once declaring, “Who am I to judge?’’ on the matter of gay priests.

Austen Ivereigh, author of “The Great Reformer,’’ a biography of Pope Francis, said the pontiff also has a track record of reaching out to transgender people and telling them they are “children of God and part of the church.’’

Perhaps the best-known example was in early 2015, when a Spanish daily reported that Francis had invited a transgender man to the Vatican after he wrote that he had been rejected by his parish. The man, Diego Neria Lejarraga, later said the experience “changed my life.’’

Ivereigh said the pontiff’s remarks last week represented no prejudice toward transgender people, but rather a rejection of so-called gender ideology.

“His view is that gender is a gift of God — it’s part of the created world,’’ Ivereigh said. “And that gender ideology, which says that gender is something that you can choose and select, is an abstract ideology which doesn’t correspond to that human reality.’’

LGBT leaders said Wednesday that the pope had failed to grasp that one’s gender identity is discovered, often at a very young age, not chosen. McBride, of the Human Rights Campaign, noted that transgender people have been a part of humanity throughout time and across cultures.

“There have been times where he’s demonstrated compassion,’’ she said of Francis. “Then there have been other times where his words have been not only hurtful, and frankly harmful, but really demonstrating a misunderstanding of what it means to be transgender.’’