After upgrading to Catalina from High Sierra, I can not longer do simple things in my home direction (e.g., ls, etc.) under XQuartz, getting an error: Operation not permitted.
I recognize that this is due to the new access controls introduced in the previous version. There are many articles available online describing how to fix this for Terminal, by adding Full Disk access under the Security section of System Preferences. However, although it seems like an obvious variation, I don't see anything about making this work for XQuartz. And in fact, giving XQuartz and Xterm full disk access doesn't seem to solve the problem.
Has anyone understood what is going on here?
The solution, as pointed out by @dmr195 in the comments, is to add /bin/bash (or whatever shell) to the Full Disk Access list under the Security area of System Preferences.
The selector window that opens when you click the + button in that window does not allow you to navigate to /bin. However, by going there in a regular Finder window, you can drag and drop bash into the Full Disk Access list.