Raising Families in a Gender-Confused World

I sat on the exam table, uncomfortable in my gown. “What do you mean?” I asked my female family physician of five years.

“Well, do you identify as a female?”

“No, I don’t identify as a female,” I responded. “I am a female! I don’t have to choose an identity. It’s just a fact.”

I was not pleased that she was caving to false ideologies. Would she ask my teenage son this question at his next appointment?

Since this encounter over 10 years ago, our culture has only become increasingly confused.

In a four-year period (2019–2023), nearly 14,000 American children underwent a sex-change treatment.1 In that same time period, Stop the Harm reported that almost 6,000 children had sex-change surgeries, and over 8,500 children received hormones and puberty blockers.2 Since 2019, transgender-affirming clinics and pharmaceutical companies have submitted insurance charges to the tune of $119,791,202 at the expense of children’s lives.3 Data from the CDC shows the rate of trans-identifying youth, ages 18–24, quintupled from .59% in 2014 to 3.08% in 2023.4

The ideological attack on our children and society is attempting to change our children’s beliefs, behaviors, and bodies away from their God-given image and purpose. I should know: I was once a comprehensive sex educator trained by the LGBTQ+ community and Planned Parenthood. The so-called education my former industry peddles destroys families, children, and vulnerable communities. I can attest that what we are witnessing is the incremental yet aggressive attempt to dismantle families.

So how do we raise children biblically in this gender-confused world?

Embrace Your God-Given Role as a Parent

Genesis 2:24 says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Here we start to understand God’s design of marriage between one man and one woman with their distinct roles.

Deuteronomy 6:7 commands, “You shall teach them [commandments] diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” God created the family and charges parents to raise children to walk in obedience to the Creator’s good commands.

My former career taught me that family and parents were a barrier to indoctrinating children into sexual promiscuity, sexual freedom, and abortion. The secular world wants to eradicate the family by establishing the state as the primary educator and authority of children. But God’s very good creation of men and women, marriage, family, and parental authority were divinely ordained and are supernaturally powerful when we submit ourselves to God and embrace his call for us to instruct our children according to God’s Word.

As a parent, you have been commanded to teach your children all of God’s Word, including what it teaches about their good design as male or female.

Teach Your Children the Created Purpose of Sex

When parents talk to their kids about their biology, they often start with how that biology works in the act of sex. However, we cannot simply give a “sex talk” without first emphasizing their creation as male and female and God’s design of marriage.

In my prior worldview while working as a sex educator, I viewed humans much like animals who lived solely by instinct or impulse with no purpose for their gender or sexual activity other than pleasure or fulfillment of self-identity. If we do not discuss the purpose of sex within the bounds of marriage, we objectify sex just as Satan does through secular teaching.

To teach our children about the goodness of marriage, we must teach them that they were divinely created as male or female in the image of the triune God with the purpose of living in a relationship with him and one another (Genesis 1:26–27).

After God created the first man, God did not want Adam to be alone, so he created woman from Adam’s rib. The woman, Eve, was given the role of Adam’s helper. This was the first marriage, God’s prototype for all marriages to follow (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:4–6; Mark 10:6).

When I was a new believer, reading Ephesians 5:22 challenged my lingering feminist views: “Wives, submit to your own husbands.” What brought me to submission was the instructions for men: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). I thought, “A godly man will not take from me, but rather he will give his life to me.” My role was to submit to him and be his helper.

Though sin distorted God’s original design through power struggles, abuse, and dysfunctions, marriage between a man and woman is still good, a picture of Christ’s love for his church.

Teaching children a biblical view of marriage means teaching them that just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one and equal with distinct roles in a harmonious relationship, men and women are created for one another, equal and with distinct roles and that sex within marriage was created for our pleasure and procreation.

Fathers and mothers can exhibit for their children the unity that comes from living according to God’s design and helping one another grow closer to Christ.

Be Ready to Give an Answer

Our children are bombarded with LGBTQ+ lies every day—too heavy a burden for them to bear on their own. To combat these lies, parents must be aware of secular ideologies and be aligned with God’s truth, praying together for wisdom, faith, and strength.

When your children ask questions, such as when they spot a “they/their” pronoun preference on a grocery clerk’s name tag or when they encounter a school friend with two fathers, try not to react emotionally. Praise your children for asking about it and show them what God’s Word says on the matter. Point out the reality that God has created two genders and remind them of God’s design for marriage. Reinforce the importance of trusting God’s Word over our fickle feelings and sinful desires.

The world will not hesitate to tell your children how to think on these issues. Embrace every opportunity to discuss the goodness of God’s created order in contrast with the chaos of a world trying to recreate itself.

Emphasize God’s Good Design in Your Children

Though our children are created as male or female, they are created foremost to bring God glory as his followers. To do that, they can contribute to their family, church, and community. Help them discover their God-given gifts, encourage their interests, and provide them opportunities to use their gifts to serve others and glorify God. As children grow closer to Christ, they will flourish into the young men and women they were created to be.

The LGBTQ+ community taught me that they are keen to give children a new identity, mission, and purpose. They encourage children to use their gifts to advocate for LGBTQ+ identity and ideology. They manipulate children with a distorted view of human rights and “reproductive justice.” If we do not actively encourage our children to find purpose in Christ, they will feel a void that the world will rush to fill.

Overcoming Evil with Good

Heartache, dysfunction, and suffering result from going against God’s good designs, as evidenced by the chaos reigning in the world. But Christian families can “overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21) by exhibiting the joy and beauty that come from obeying God’s commands and living according to his created order.

As you grow closer together as a God-honoring family, you will shine the light of his good design so that others “may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).