The Gender Nonconformity Movement in the Light of the Gospel
I’ll be up front: This blog is an appeal to Christians to take up arms against the enemy. I’m ticked off. Said enemy is leading our young people into destructive ideas of identity. In my line of work I have been encountering more and more examples of these heart-breaking stories. I wish to arouse my friends and followers to engage the current moment compassionately, intelligently, and Biblically.
Identity Development
Developmental psychologist Erik Erikson pointed out that adolescence marked the beginning of an intense identity-formation process. He was right. During the growth spurt of adolescence we begin to ask big questions about who we are. Young people today are being asked a new version of the question “How do you identify?” and it is crushing them.
I remember my own teen identity crisis. It led to questions such as: Would I attend college? What career would I choose? Did I want to marry and have a family? The weight of these questions felt overwhelming at the time. Imagine tweens and teens adding to that load: What sex am I? What unique sexual drives and appetites do I have, or do I have any? Which of the LGBTQ+ alphabet of labels for my sexuality will I assume?
Anxiety and depression of teens has doubled over the last 30 years.[1] Could this avalanche of complexities be contributing? I think so. Within the last week I have heard three accounts of classmates pressuring teens to adopt an “alternate” sexual identity, and the administrations doing nothing to stop the peer grooming. In all three cases the teens experienced negative mental health and social effects. Do we not remember how hard it was to grow up? These young people need our protection.
These scenarios are the most tragic when they occur in church schools. Bible-believing teachers, deans, and principals should be offering the best antidote for identity confusion that can be found anywhere under the sun—the gospel. We can hardly fault those who don’t know the Scriptures; but God gives His children something better. What follows is a brief presentation of the gospel on identity.
Gospel Identity Reset
We are God’s children, part of the family of God, and called by His name.[2] In the face of sin which separates us from God, He renews this identity in Christ: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17.
It is from this new-creature identity that God calls us to dissociate with our sinful selves:
“To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” Ephesians 4:22-24, ESV.
“We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin” Romans 6:6, ESV.
Concerning our struggle to do right, identity is the link between temptation and sin. This is simple to diagram: TEMPTATION >>> IDENTITY >>> SIN
This is why Satan hisses, “This is who you are!” as he dangles various iniquities before us—he knows that if he can claim our identities, he’ll have our souls.
This is why the Babylonians gave new Babylon-god names to Daniel and his friends. They knew that if they could claim those boys’ identities, they’d have their souls.
And this is why the enemy of all good is working hard today to steal the identities of the young. He knows that if he can claim their identities, he’ll have their souls.
The Current Craze
The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. He tries to preoccupy us with false identities to eclipse our identity in Christ. And in the current moment he is leading a historical number of young people into an identity based on a lie that they are not their biological sex.
Historically, most cases of gender dysphoria onsetted in childhood and resolved by young adulthood. Today we see a massive spike to double the incidence of teen onset gender dysphoria from 2017-2022. Double the number in five years![3] More and more, young people are faced with pressure to decide what sex and sexual orientation they are. Consider this partial list: Agender Androgynous Asexual Bigender Bisexual Cisgender Gay Genderfluid Genderflux Heterosexual Lesbian Non-binary Pangender Pansexual Polyamorous Queer Questioning Transgender Two-Spirit
Most sadly, our healthcare system being what it is, identifying as the opposite sex can lead to life-altering, irreversible physical changes. The standard treatment for young people diagnosed with gender dysphoria entails puberty blocking hormones, then cross-sex hormones, then possibly gender reassignment surgery in which surgeons remove or permanently alter healthy, viable organs.
According to some sources, the number being referred for gender transitioning has increased 1000 times in the US and 3000 times in the UK.[4] The insane speed at which this mass-scale movement is taking place before our very eyes is creating its own backlash. Sensible people are waking up to what is being done in the name of medicine. The detransition movement is growing; most of the detrasitioners say they realize their gender dysphoria related to other issues such as autism, anxiety, mood disorders, or body dysmorphia. Imagine looking in the mirror at your mutilated body knowing that what you really needed was to talk to a therapist about your depression.[5]
From The Economist: “Though blockers are often described as operating like a pause button, most children prescribed them go on to cross-sex hormones. This combination can have irreversible consequences, including sterility and the inability to orgasm.”[6]
Inability to orgasm. Irreversibly. This whole movement, as sexually-obsessed as it is, is not sexy, is it?
For the sake of our young people we need to speak out plainly. God has given them an identity as His children through creation and redemption. They are new creatures in Christ! Believing these truths will lead them to heights of spiritual, moral, and creative greatness. Believing in a false self, rooted in a lie, they may end up lacerated, infertile, and inorgasmic.
Will we leave them to thrash desperately without our clear guidance? I spoke to a young person yesterday who avoids socializing with peers because she feels self-conscious as a cisgender person. Today a friend told me he had to withdraw his child from a Christian school because a popular student was grooming and “converting” them. Did you know that some kids transition to become a protected class? To avoid cancellation? The TikTok brainwash machines have our young mesmerized. Should we stand by passively just because it feels more “accepting”? Or out of fear we will be canceled? Or should we call out the enemy’s counterfeit and present them with their true identity in Christ?
Please tell me “yes” to the latter.
[1] https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/news/increased-levels-of-anxiety-and-depression-as-teenage-experience-changes-over-time [2] 1 John 3:2; Ephesians 2:9; Isaiah 43:1 [3] https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2022/06/10/study-estimates-transgender-youth-population-has-doubled-in-5-years [4] https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/irreversible-damage-abigail-shrier/ [5] https://segm.org/first_large_study_of_detransitioners [6] https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/10/16/opinion-on-the-use-of-puberty-blockers-in-america-is-turning