Transgenderism and the Attack on the Image of God

People are created in the image of God. People who hate God can’t attack him directly, so they do the closest thing they can—they attack the image of God in humans.

The Slippery Slope in Hindsight

Less than 10 years ago, gay “marriage” was enshrined in law. It is surprising to recollect that former President Barack Obama ran for president as being anti-gay “marriage”! That is only one way to measure how the cultural climate regarding gender and marriage has changed, but however one examines it, the Western world is in free fall.

The push for gay acceptance emphasized that gay people were just like heterosexual people with similar goals and dreams—the only difference being that they wanted to share their life with a partner of the same sex. As many have said, why should anyone care what adults do in the privacy of their own home? But as soon as gay “marriage” was passed, the LGBT lobby began pushing transgender issues into public center stage. Suddenly, who could use which bathroom, or who could play on which sports teams, or who could win “woman of the year” were open questions!

Transgender people, we are told, are just like normal people—they just want to participate in society as the opposite sex from which they were born.

And so it continues: transgender people, we are told, are just like normal people—they just want to participate in society as the opposite sex from which they were born. Why should they be denied that if they aren’t harming anyone else? And some indeed are so convincing that no one would even know unless they were told. Sympathetic people such as “Jazz Jennings,” the star of TLC reality series “I Am Jazz,” and conservative commentator Blaire White are trotted out as examples of people who benefit from being recognized in society as the opposite sex, with no apparent cost or trouble to anyone else.

Why Is This Important?

Not too long ago, this sort of gender confusion was so rare that a person could safely go his or her whole life without encountering the idea of transgenderism, let alone anyone claiming to suffer from it.1 Given the stomach-turning nature of some of the information that follows, why even bother learning about it?

In the letter to the Ephesians, Paul wrote,

Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. Ephesians 5:11–12

Queer activists are in the public schools, on social media, and even increasingly, in many churches. We need to be informed so that we can protect our children from these predatory, mutilating ghouls. We also need to be able to communicate, especially with our youth, the goodness of God’s design for men and women.

We also need to be informed so we can be better equipped to share the gospel with people who may have fallen prey to this destructive ideology.

The Gruesome Business of “Sex Change” and Obliteration

Often, people who identify as transgender seek drugs and surgery to affirm their chosen gender. A man who wants to be a woman might have breast implants and his Adam’s apple shaved, while a woman who wants to be a man might get a mastectomy and testosterone. The goal, traditionally, is to “pass” as the other gender to have as seamless an experience in society as possible.

However, as all kinds of gender confusion are being affirmed, with one’s imagination as the only barrier to what gender one might be, many people identify as queer, rather than one of the LGBT letters. It’s a convenient term for people who don’t identify as simply male or female but as some other imaginary gender. It’s also an activist term that is linked to Marxist ideology. There are many subsets to queer, with more being added every day. The common denominator is that none of them feel that they are entirely male or female.

There is a new set of disturbing surgeries that are meant to bring a transgender or queer person’s body in line with his or her perception of him or herself. Arguably the most horrifying surgery option is “genital nullification surgery” that is described as follows:

Nullectomy is the removal of internal and external genital structures to create a smooth appearance from the abdomen to the groin.2

In addition, nonbinary surgery can involve removing breasts (even nipples) and any combination of “gender affirming” surgery. It’s a grim pick-your-own- “adventure” of surgeries, which actually amounts to denial of gender!

Complications and Regret

Any surgery has risks, and surgeries involving the genital area have certain risks of infection, as well as the risk of compromising a person’s ability to urinate or defecate properly. Furthermore, surgeries that remove healthy testicles or ovaries mean that the patient will be on hormone pills for the rest of his (in the case of orchiectomy) or her (in the case of ovariectomy) life. A woman who has her ovaries removed at a young age will immediately commence menopause and have a much higher risk of heart disease, as well as experience overall lower levels of health and a shortened life expectancy.3 A woman given masculinizing levels of testosterone is more susceptible to blood clots and heart issues.4 A man given feminizing levels of estrogen is more likely to get osteoporosis,5 depression,6 and have a heart attack.7 These are not trivial surgeries.

It is heart-wrenching to think of those who, after having irreversible changes from cross-hormones or having healthy body parts removed or moved around to only an approximation of the opposite sex, regret it and realize they were never the opposite sex at all.

It is one kind of horror to contemplate an adult voluntarily having his or her body mutilated and a surgeon being willing to do it, even if the person is happy with the result. It is heart-wrenching to think of those who, after having irreversible changes from cross-hormones or having healthy body parts removed or moved around to only an approximation of the opposite sex, regret it and realize they were never the opposite sex at all.

The website sexchangeregret.com, started by Walt Heyer, who is himself a male-to-female-to-male detransitioner, notes that there is a growing number of people who publicly regret their decision and that the rate of suicide is much higher among those who have surgical reassignment.

Transitioned Children

It is one thing to feel sorry for an adult who made a decision to mutilate their own body. But today, children are often put on the path of gender transition very early. A child could start to be “socially transitioned”—i.e., called by an opposite sex name, encouraged to wear opposite sex clothes, and be referred to as the opposite sex—as early as the toddler years. This is usually called harmless and reversable, but it puts into motion a series of events that is, in practice, rarely halted. And how can this not add to the child’s confusion or likely entrench him or her into the desire to continue down the path?

It has been observed that a child who has some level of gender confusion, if allowed to go through the normal process of puberty, will become comfortable with his or her biological sex around 80–90% of the time.8 Puberty does not just involve maturing sexual development—the surges of hormones also play a role in brain development and shape a girl into a woman or a boy into a man mentally as well as physically.

However, today, a gender-confused child who has by the age of puberty been encouraged in their confusion by “social transition,” possibly for years at this point, may be put on hormones to suppress the natural puberty. This is also called a reversible step, but it is far from that.

To give an analogy, humans develop language naturally as infants and toddlers hear their parents and others talking. Language acquisition will follow several stages, from babbling to using single words to using words in combination to more and more sophisticated sentences and strings of sentences that form bigger ideas. Deaf children similarly learn sign language and use the same areas of their brain to process it. But we have learned from cases of severely neglected children that, if a child is deprived of hearing language and is unable to learn it before a certain age, that window for fluency closes forever. The child may be able to learn vocabulary but will never speak a language fluently.9

There is a similar window for puberty. A child’s body is biologically programmed to undergo these maturing changes at a specific time. If that is suppressed, some things are lost for good. Children who have been put on puberty blockers are shorter than their peers. They have less-dense bones, and there is even evidence their IQ may be impaired by these drugs.10 And most will never be able to have children of their own.11

We can have all the sympathy in the world for people, especially children, who feel uncomfortable in their own skin. We’ve probably all been there at some point in our young lives. But the answer is not to lie to them, encourage them in their confusion, then put them on drugs that will suppress their natural development, leaving them frailer than they would have been otherwise, and then poison them with high doses of hormones that their bodies are not designed for.

There is a growing number of teens and young adults speaking out against what was done to them. Young women who have had hysterectomies and their healthy breasts removed, young men who have been turned into eunuchs—people who through surgery can never be the men and women they might have been had parents, doctors, and psychologists exercised just a little patience and let the natural maturing process run its course.

What Can We Do?

Throughout history, Christians have confronted cultural errors with biblical truth—even in cases where that was deeply unpopular, led to social consequences for the Christians, and when it caused legal consequences, up to and including imprisonment and death. However, increasingly today, Christians are hesitant to speak boldly about this issue for fear of being banned from social media!

We have the responsibility to speak the truth in love.

We have the responsibility to speak the truth in love. And the truth is that someone who was born a man does not cease to be a man if he has his male body parts removed or has parts added to resemble a female. And a woman does not cease to be a woman if she gets a double mastectomy and facial hair as a result of testosterone injections. And it is impossible to get rid of one’s biological sex through any number of queer identities.

However, when we repent and believe in Christ, one thing that happens as we live a Christian life is that he renews our mind. Over time, we become more conformed to his image and what he created us to be. For instance, Walt Heyer of sexchangeregret.com lived as a “transgender woman” for years but then realized that no amount of surgery could turn him into a woman. He trusted in Christ, and with help from his Christian community, he found acceptance and healing. He now affirms that he is a man and helps people coming out of transgenderism.12

Parents and grandparents need to know what’s going on, because the young people in your family will increasingly encounter the propaganda from gender activists. We have to proactively teach a Christian view of gender and sex, because educators, media companies, and influencers are actively trying to indoctrinate youth and silence the biblical view of gender and sexuality.

What About People Who Are Questioning Their Gender?

There are times when there are all sorts of painful, embarrassing, and awkward things about being either male or female. Especially during puberty, it is pretty common to not be entirely comfortable with all the changes that happen as part of growing from a boy into a man or from a girl into a woman. On top of that, as a person starts looking more mature, people have higher expectations of that person, and it can be overwhelming. When someone comes and offers that the solution to all this discomfort might be to live as the opposite sex, it is understandable that this might be seen as a good solution.

But any type of transgender hormones or surgery involves choosing a road of irreversible damage and permanent medicalization, with a very high chance of realizing that the painful, expensive, mutilating “treatments” did nothing to solve the real problem. There is no way for a woman to become a man through surgical intervention, nor can a man truly become a woman.

God created each of us as either male or female. It is impossible for someone to have the body of a woman but the brain or soul of a man and vice versa. If we trust in Christ, we acknowledge that we don’t have the ability or right to define ourselves; rather, we recognize that God has defined who we are in Christ. It is possible to live out manhood or womanhood according to our biological sex in many different ways and still glorify God.

What About People Who Have Already Transitioned?

As many people who identify as queer and transgender realize they were lied to, there will be many hurting people looking for hope and answers. As Christians, we need to be prepared to love these people, present the gospel to them, and help integrate them into churches and communities where they can be supported as they seek to return to acknowledging their biological sex.

Eunuchs (most of whom had this imposed upon them) and people who repented of sexual immorality were part of the church from the time of the book of Acts. Philip had no second thoughts about baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch when he expressed faith in Christ. We can pray that similarly, we might see a trend of “detransitioners” and repentant people turning from the lies of the queer lobby to the truth of Christ and his loving plan for their lives.