Here is a sensitive, honest article by a gay man with a different perspective from most LGBTQ+ activists, activists who want to keep parents in the dark about their children.
Activists who say telling parents about a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity will endanger that student.
Years ago he was “outed” to his parents by a school counselor. And he is so glad that happened.
Read about it here. [Standard link disclaimer1Links from this blog to online resources don’t necessarily mean I support everything found there. But as adults we should embrace viewpoint diversity. And make alliances where we can.].
A huge parental backlash over this issue is making for some unusual political coalitions. People in the U.K. are voting “Tory” for the first time. I expect this will be concerning to many political liberals and moderates. So much so, that the upcoming mid-terms in the U.S. will find many “crossing the aisles” to vote Republican for the first time.
When you get between parents and their children expect political fallout.
People with Gender-Critical views like mine are constantly told that “the science” is unequivocal on this issue and in favor of “gender-affirmative care.”
Dr. Rachel Levine
Assistant Secretary of Health, Dr. Rachel Levine, who is a Trans-female, and the highest-ranking transgender member of the federal government dismisses those of us who criticize new federal guidelines that recommend “gender-affirming” care for transgender minors — saying that no responsible doctors oppose it.
A few days ago, Dr. Levine made the following comment to National Public Radio (NPR)
"There is no argument among medical professionals - pediatricians, pediatric endocrinologists, adolescent medicine physicians, adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, etc -- about the value and the importance of gender-affirming care."
To suggest that “the science is settled” on this issue is patently false.
Here is a recent peer-reviewed and heavily researched article with links to more studies than you could ever read on the subject.
In less than a decade, the western world has witnessed an unprecedented rise in the numbers of children and adolescents seeking gender transition. Despite the precedent of years of gender-affirmative care, the social, medical and surgical interventions are still based on very low-quality evidence. The many risks of these interventions, including medicalizing a temporary adolescent identity, have come into a clearer focus through an awareness of detransitioners.
When uncertain parents of children and teens consult their primary care providers, they are usually referred to specialty gender services. Parents and referring clinicians assume that specialists with “gender expertise” will undertake a thorough evaluation. However, the evaluations preceding the recommendation for gender transition areoften surprisingly brief(Anderson & Edwards-Leeper, 2021) and typically lead to a recommendation for hormones and surgery, known as gender-affirmative treatment.
Despite the widely recognized deficiencies in the evidence supporting gender-affirmative interventions (National Institute for Health & Care Excellence, 2020a; 2020b), the process of obtaining informed consent from patients and their families has no established standard.
Social transition, hormones, and surgeries are unproven in a strict scientific sense, and as such, to be ethical, require a thorough and fully informed consent process.
...the dramatic growth in demand for youth gender transition witnessed in the last several years that has led to a perfunctory informed consent process. A rushed process does not allow for a proper discussion of not only the benefits, but the profound risks and uncertainties associated with gender transition, especially when gender transition is undertaken before mature adulthood.
Although the incidence of natal males asserting a trans identity in adolescence has significantly increased, the dramatic increase is driven primarily by the natal females requesting services. Many suffer from significant comorbid mental health disorders, have neurocognitive difficulties such as ADHD or autism or have a history of trauma.
To respond to growing demand, an innovative informed consent model of care has been developed. Under this model, mental health evaluations are not required, and hormones can be provided after just one visit following the collection of a patient’s or guardian’s consent signature....we believe this model is the antithesis of true informed consent, as it jeopardizes the ethical foundation of patient autonomy. Autonomy is not respected when patients consenting to the treatment do not have an accurate understanding of the risks, benefits, and alternatives.
It is common for gender-affirmative specialists to erroneously believe that gender-affirmative interventions are a standard of care. Despite the increasingly widespread professional beliefs in the safety and efficacy of pediatric gender transition, and the endorsement of this treatment pathway by a number of professional medical societies, the best available evidence suggests that the benefits of gender-affirmative interventions are of very low certainty and must be carefully weighed against the health risks to fertility, bone, and cardiovascular health.
The ‘transition or suicide’ narrative falsely implies that transition will prevent suicides. [N]either hormones nor surgeries have been shown to reduce suicidality in the long-term.
For those of you sitting on the fence about where the science comes down on this issue (forget the ethical-religious questions for a moment), you need to read this article published in a medical journal.
Rachel Levine transitioned as an adult in 2011. Rachel Levine had the chance to have a fully functioning body with capacities for arousal and reproduction. And now the Secretary wants to take risks with other people’s children.
There exists an elegant creational dance witnessed daily. The sun rises and sunsets. And underneath the surface of things, below the dance floor, the part we don’t see, green pigment chlorophyll gathers energy from the sun to empower the greening of the planet. All around us we see a living, breathing, beautiful embrace, and the fruitful coming together of difference, a union seen and unseen, dancing above ground and beneath. We witness daily the mystery of life. In God’s more complex life forms, we observe the give and take between male and female. At the pinnacle of creational complexity, we humans dance to melodies and harmonies which produce ever deepening companionship, complementarity and, of course, children.
Where would we be without that dance?
I believe God created both Heaven and Earth, Spirit and Matter, Soul and Body, invisible and visible things. I believe God designed us humans for body-soul integration. If you are a person who values God’s good creation and also believes God intends the bi-natured world to exist in loving harmony, as a integrated creation, with an overlapping and interlocking existence, mirroring the life of our Triune God, then you may be assigned the label “bigot” in this fluid world full of endless imaginings.
Why? Because you don’t believe that inner desire trumps biology. Or that the mind can be fruitfully separated from the body. Rather you believe in an inherent creational structure ordained and blessed by God. At the human level, you believe God created us male and female. And those are the only options. You also believe it is illicit to do irreparable harm to the body in service to one’s gender identity.
(It must be admitted that some Christians have reimagined the Faith and have expanded this project into reimagining our anthropology as well.)
We each, male or female, possess half of a reproductive system. So the long term purpose and intention, if humans want to remain a “going concern,” is the uniting of two into one flesh so that they might become three. This Trinitarian pattern of two becoming one that then becomes three, father, mother, child, echoes the existence of Classic Christianity’s Triune God.1I realize twins and triplets, etc…break the analogous pattern, but the coming together of difference to create life remains valid. Of course I won’t deny the mystery of the Trinity transcends this basic pattern of earthly existence, but I believe this particular “trace of the Trinity” in our created order speaks wisely & soberly to us.
At least it should.
To frame today’s most important debate as purely a question about loving people is insufficient. It is necessary but not sufficient if your main desire is to lead broken humans to wholeness. Jesus, as John tells us, was full of Grace & Truth2John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”.
You are not loving a person if you affirm their delusions. No matter how sincerely held those delusions might be.
“Love” separated from Truth is infertile, it cannot create life. It can’t make us whole. And that is what God desires for us. Fruitful, flourishing, wholesome life.
Individuals with a Gender Identity Disorder (Gender-Dysphoria) need Truth-filled Love. Please read this post for more details.
For anyone interested in an extended review of the Gender-Critical Pro-Creation argument presented on this blog, but without having to scroll through every post, please visit the Menu at the top of each page and click on the Top Posts link.
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I’m a Classic Christian and think Gender Ideology is anti-creational to the core. This blog is about “God’s Good Creation.” That’s why I’m writing about Gender Ideology. And “speaking up” as I’m confident Jesus would.
"Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female.'" [Matt 19:4]
If you would like more detail on how my Christian worldview informs my understanding of Sex and today’s Gender Ideology please read the following posts.
