Trans Movement Part 2: Seven Choices Parents Can Make to Protect Their Children

Well, it starts with knowing and truly believing what the Bible teaches.

1. He created us male and female. Gender is not on a spectrum with an ever-growing number of choices. There is a gender binary: male and female (Genesis 1:27).
2. Sexuality is a good gift from God, and it is designed to be expressed only within the covenant of the marriage of one man and one woman (Genesis 2:24).
3. We can’t trust our feelings because we have a sin nature. We need to judge everything we think, feel, or believe against God’s Word.

The biblical view is simple and beautiful (though, of course in a world broken by sin, there are struggles and temptations). The secular view is chaos and confusion, leading to lifelong medicalization and body mutilation.

With this in mind, let’s look at seven choices parents can make to protect their children.

1. Pray. Commit your children to the Lord and pray for them. Pray they will stand, rooted in the truth. Pray they will resist the lies of the evil one. Pray, pray, pray!

Truth is the best offense against lies!

2. Establish family worship time. Truth is the best offense against lies! Spend time together each day as a family reading the Word of God, singing praises to the Lord, and praying together. This doesn’t need to be a long time (10–20 minutes is great!), and your children don’t need to reach a certain age before you start this practice. But what it does is feed them a steady diet of truth, orient them daily toward God’s Word, and give you a wonderful time of family fellowship, which builds relationships. (Not sure where to start? Consider our devotional resources that get you and your family into God’s Word.)
3. Teach them the truth. Be the “expert” in your child’s eyes by being the first person who talks to your children about gender and sexuality (this also lets them know that they can come to you with any questions they have). This is as easy as telling your toddler, “God made you a boy—and you’re just how he wanted you to be!” or “God made you a girl—and you’re fearfully and wonderfully made in his very image!” Lay down a foundation of biblical truth, grounded in the truth of creation, from a young age and build on that as your children grow. You can do this by using examples from the media, in schools, or on the news to point out that, without Christ, there is confusion and chaos but we have God’s Word and it gives us the truth—and the truth is that God created us male and female and designed sexuality for marriage between one man and one woman. And don’t forget to tell them that we no longer live in God’s perfect creation—this world is broken because of sin, and in a broken world, people struggle with all kinds of issues, but there is hope for everyone in the gospel!

4. Reconsider access to the smartphone and internet. Okay, this one might step on a few toes, but consider this with me. There’s mounting evidence that the skyrocketing number of “trans” teenage girls are experiencing a social contagion known as “rapid onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD). Girls who never showed any tendency toward “being” transgender suddenly demand they be referred to by male pronouns, change their names, and seek out testosterone and even body-mutilating surgeries. What’s driving this? Well, it’s largely social media and internet influencers preying on young girls who are struggling with mental illness, promising gender transition is the answer to their problems.

   And this is not by accident! Consider a recent exposé of YouTube Kids (and here we’re talking about 9–12-year-olds, not even teens!) that found the platform is curating LGBTQ content to show to children, including videos explaining what it means to be “gender nonbinary” or what all the letters in the LGBTQ alphabet mean. Other videos promote drag queens—including child drag queens—or even teach kids what “consent” entails.

   Or consider the popular video platform TikTok where, in late 2021, videos with the hashtag “#trans” have been viewed more than 26 billion times (and it’s likely higher now). In these videos, “trans” teens and influencers portray gender transition as “cool and edgy” and the “new rebellion,” with the added message of “don’t involve your parents.” (And many schools play right into this by hiding gender transitions from parents!)

   A whistleblower from a gender clinic in Missouri (whose affidavit we will look into in-depth in a moment) said that in 2018 the clinic received a mere 5–10 calls a month, but by November 2022, that number had exploded to 40 or more. Why the sudden increase? She writes,

   Social media is at least partly responsible for this large increase in children seeking gender transition treatment from the Center. Many children themselves would say that they learned of their gender identities from TikTok. Children would arrive at the Center identifying not only as transgender, but also as having tic disorders (Tourette Syndrome) or multiple personality disorders (dissociative identity disorder). Doctors at the Center would ignore and dismiss as social contagion the claims about the tics and multiple personalities; but then those doctors would uncritically accept the children’s statements about gender identity and place these children on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.

   And according to many, many personal stories from parents of girls who experienced ROGD, much of their supposed “transition” was driven by online forums, Reddit, chat rooms, and dark web pornography addictions that slowly sucked them in and separated them emotionally from their parents. The internet is a dangerous place! Protect your children by reconsidering giving them devices and access to the internet (and also look into software that will help protect you and your family, like Accountable2You). Your children might not enjoy it now, but they will thank you later as adults!

5. Pay attention to their peer groups. Another common denominator in many of these ROGD cases is peer groups. Often an entire group of friends (usually girls) will transition together, one after the other. So keep open lines of communication with your children about their friends, and make sure they know they are not betraying their friends by seeking wisdom from Mom and Dad about how to respond to friends who are struggling with mental illness or their identity as male or female.

Actively pay attention to what your child is being exposed to in school and combat those lies with the truth of God’s Word.

6. Pay attention to what they’re learning in school. If your child attends public school in this country, it’s very likely they are being exposed to LGBTQ content, even from a very young age. Highly sexualized content is now in curricula: it’s in suggested book lists, in peer interactions—it’s everywhere (with some teachers proudly boasting on social media about how they’re purposefully confusing children!). Actively pay attention to what your child is being exposed to in school and combat those lies with the truth of God’s Word.

7. Don’t trust the experts. The so-called “gender experts” don’t have your child’s best interest in mind—they care about their ideology and, very likely, the vast sums of money to be made from making life-long patients through the hormones and surgeries that have now become routine for any children that question their gender.

   Consider that the “standard of care” from the so-called “experts” is (1) to tell the parents of a gender-confused child to immediately “socially transition” their child (call them by a new name and new pronouns, dress them in opposite-sex clothing, etc.) and (2) if the child is nearing puberty, to prescribe them hormone blockers, or if the child is older, issue cross-sex hormones.

   Now, parents are often told that puberty blockers are fully reversible and are being issued to delay puberty so the child will have more time to naturally discover how they identify before any permanent measures are taken—but that’s not true!

   Hormone blockers can cause sterility and other life-long health consequences, such as lower bone density leading to back pain and easily broken bones. According to the whistleblower report we will get to in just a moment, in July 2022 the FDA gave these puberty blockers a “black box warning,” the very strictest warning any medication can receive, because some patients were experiencing brain swelling and loss of vision!

   And when children “socially transition” and begin puberty blockers, very few turn back. A stunning 98% of children who take puberty blockers will move forward with a gender transition. Compare that to children who do not socially transition or take puberty blockers: “as many as 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty.” Puberty blockers and social transitions aren’t a “pause button”—they hit the gas pedal full throttle!

   The Affidavit

   Okay, now consider the affidavit I have referenced a few times above from a former case manager at Washington University’s St. Louis Children’s Hospital (and just know this woman, Jamie Reed, is not a Christian or some kind of conservative—she identifies as “queer” and is married to a woman who identifies as a man). Reed says she left the clinic because

   I could no longer participate in what was happening there. By the time I departed, I was certain that the way the American medical system is treating these patients is the opposite of the promise we make to “do no harm.” Instead, we are permanently harming the vulnerable patients in our care . . .

   Almost everyone in my life advised me to keep my head down. But I cannot in good conscience do so. Because what is happening to scores of children is far more important than my comfort. And what is happening to them is morally and medically appalling.

   Here’s an overview of what she reports happened at the clinic where she worked:

   During my time at the Center, I personally witnessed Center healthcare providers lie to the public and to parents of patients about the treatment, or lack of treatment, and the effects of treatment provided to children at the Center. I witnessed staff at the Center provide puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children without complete informed parental consent and without an appropriate or accurate assessment of the needs of the child. I witnessed children experience shocking injuries from the medication the Center prescribed. And I saw the Center make no attempt or effort to track adverse outcomes of patients after they left the Center.

   And here is my summary of just a few of the specifics:

   • Children were not offered counselling or psychiatric care: they were shuttled straight into puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones with very little assessment.
   • While parents believed a multidisciplinary team of experts were reviewing a child’s case, this was not truly the case as parents were not informed if the panel did not reach a consensus.
   • Nearly all the children coming into the clinic had “very serious mental health problems” and comorbidities such as “autism, ADHD, depression, anxiety, PTSD, trauma histories, OCD, and serious eating disorders.” These were completely ignored by the doctors who merely prescribed cross-sex or puberty blocking hormones. For example, one child came in identifying as a “communist, attack helicopter, human, female, maybe non binary”—this child was immediately put on cross-sex hormones. Another child came in self-identifying as blind. That was labeled as a “somatization disorder” (but left untreated), while the child’s gender confusion was immediately “treated” with cross-sex hormones.
   • The clinic regularly refers minors for irreversible gender-transition surgeries.
   • Every child who meets the “minimum criteria” is prescribed cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers—and the “minimum criteria” is very minimum: the child must be a certain age, the child must have a letter of referral from a therapist (and if the child couldn’t get such a letter, an in-house therapist would provide one), “consent,” which Reed alleges was often coerced as doctors would issue dire warnings of suicide—in front of the children!—to uncooperative parents, and a clinical visit (which Reed calls a “box-checking exercise”). If a child met these criteria, he or she was immediately prescribed hormones—even children who used the pronouns of inanimate objects (“mushroom,” “rock,” or “helicopter”), said they wanted hormones so they “wouldn’t be gay,” changed their identity on a “day-to-day basis,” or were clearly being coerced by parents.
   • Reed even highlights a patient who was given cross-sex hormones later revealing she just wanted the hormones so she wouldn’t get pregnant and another who had a mastectomy and then later came back in thinking she could easily undue the surgery!
   • Reed reports seeing “most” children on cross-sex hormones suffering from substantial weight gain, high blood pressure, increased cholesterol levels, and constant abdominal pain, along with other severe and painful side effects to private areas of the body.
   • Reed claims at least one doctor was prescribing drugs that treat pancreatic cancer as a “cross-sex hormone” despite no trials ever being done with this drug for that purpose and it having known side-effects, such as liver toxicity.
   • The clinic does not track the complications or adverse effects from the drugs or the outcomes of their patients.

   Whew—and that’s just some of what’s in the affidavit! I encourage you to read it in full because Reed lays out example after example of how the gender machine is purposefully pushing vulnerable children into a gender transition and shutting up worried parents with the threat that their children will commit suicide—even though drugs and surgery don’t improve the long-term mental health of these children—if they don’t go along with this gender transition.

The Solution

God is sovereign and nothing that is happening is a surprise to him!

Yes, what’s happening in our culture is heartbreaking, concerning, and even scary to informed parents. But God is sovereign and nothing that is happening is a surprise to him! We can trust him with our children (the doctrine of sovereignty), and we can also “do something” by obeying his command to raise our children in the teaching and admonition of the Lord (man’s responsibility). Be encouraged.

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

Oh, and if you’re a transgender young person (or identify as anything on the LGBTQ spectrum), I want to say this to you: ultimately, changing your gender won’t satisfy (and it’s just an illusion anyway!), engaging in sexual acts that the Bible calls sin won’t satisfy, and finding identity in ever-changing subjective feelings won’t satisfy. The only One who can truly satisfy the thirst we all have for identity, meaning, and purpose is Jesus Christ. He is the “living water” you’ve been looking for! Come to Christ today!

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13–14)

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.