In this replay episode, we will be covering gender and transgender issues. Listener discretion is advised.

As LGBTQ+ advocacy groups push for full inclusion and affirmation, how do we best care for youth and teenagers who find themselves confused in the midst of these times?

Student Pastor in Wheaton, IL, Will Chester shares his expertise on gender dysphoria and navigating these issues with teenagers. We hope this episode equips you to tackle these tough conversations with your family.

RESOURCES

+Books mentioned: When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment by Ryan T. Anderson, Irreversible Damage by Abigail Schrier, Embodied by Preston Sprinkle

+Build Your Family’s Library: Grab our FREE book list here

+Get our FREE ebook: 5 Essential Parts of a Great Education.

+Attend one of our upcoming seminars in 2024!

+Click HERE for more information about consulting with Carole Joy Seid!

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Over the course of this podcast, we've interviewed some amazing guests. During the month of October, we are bringing episodes out of our archives to help us with the hard topics of our time and culture, such as human sexuality, God's design for marriage, and discipling our kids in a divided age. We share these episodes to fortify your confidence in God's word as you face tough questions and hard realities with your children. We hope this conversation will give you the assurance that God's way is always best.

You're listening to the Homeschool made Simple podcast. This is a podcast to help you homeschool simply, inexpensively and enjoyably. Listen in.

Well, this morning I am meeting by Zoom with my dear friend, Will Chester. Will and his wife have two small children, Gabe, age four, and Elodie, one years old. But the reason I'm interviewing Will today is beyond being a dad himself. He is the youth and college pastor at Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton, Illinois. The word on the street is that he is just such a influential voice on this very difficult issue that we're all trying to navigate with our children and our families, which is really the whole gender issue. And so I have asked Will to come and lead us today into these deep waters, and I'm so excited to be with you, Will. God bless you and welcome.

Yeah, thank you, Carol. It's so good to see you. And just to be chatting again is wonderful.

Amen. Well, my friend, talk to us about that. You're on the front lines with this issue, so I'm just going to kind of let you take it. And I might jump in every once in a while, but our listeners are so anxious to hear the information that I know you've got to share with us.

Yeah, well, wonderful. Well, I think, first of all, you know, kind of, as we all know this, gender and transgender issues are just very much in the news right now. I think especially, you know, several years ago after the Supreme Court, you know, legalized gay marriage, this kind of became the front line of the kind of lgbt advocacy front and just pushing for full kind of inclusion and affirmation of, of trans people and kind of everything that goes with that in society, from things like bathrooms and which bathrooms you're allowed to use down to more recently, like with this case in Arkansas, this bill that was being passed around. How do we best care for youth and teenagers who are experiencing gender dysphoria or who identify as transdev?

Yes. Will, can you define some terms? What is gender dysphoria and what is transgenderism? Just for those of us who might want to know.

So, gender dysphoria is a feeling of conflict. It's an internal sense of conflict between one's biological sex and their internal sense of gender, who they feel themselves to be.

Okay.

Anytime, you know, person is experiencing distress because of that perceived conflict, that's what we call gender dysphoria.

Okay.

You'd find gender dysphoria in the, you know, the DSM manual that psychologists use, that sort of thing. Okay, so then to be transgender is to be any person whose internal sense of gender doesn't align with their biological sex in a typical way. Okay, so a transgender person could be somebody who has a physically, biologically male body but feels themselves to be female, or they could be, you know, what's called non binary, meaning their internal sense is, I don't feel like a man or a woman. I'm something else. And so that would be included under this trans umbrella.

Okay. All right. Okay. So keep going. I just wanted to find some terms there. Thank you.

Thank you. And there are so many. So, this is in the news right now, and I think what I found as a youth pastor is oftentimes we avoid topics around sexuality because they feel so freighted and scary. How do we speak into these topics? You feel like you have to know so much, very current information and be up to date with everything. We feel just how scary it is to talk to this generation where these issues matter so much for them, and we're not sure what they think. Oftentimes, we avoid these things. And what I found is that that is not good for a teenager's spiritual development, that what teenagers actually are longing for is for their youth pastors to talk about the controversial issues of the day. Wow.

When I do that as a youth pastor, like, I've become convinced I need to have a yearly series on sexuality. And when I do this, the anxiety of my students, it raises initially because, oh, no, here's pastor Will. He's talking about the scary stuff. But then it goes down the more I teach, because the more I teach, the more they realize I'm not crazy for believing what I do. There are good reasons for me to believe what I do. And they feel emboldened. They feel confident. And so, as you know, so I just did this series a month ago on transgender issues, and one of my students said, one, I love this youth group because we talk about the things that really matter.

Yes.

And, of course, you know, the gospel and what Jesus has done for us and his death and resurrection. That's the stuff that really matters. But all of this stuff around sexuality is connected to that because it's about how God created us. So he loves that we're talking about the controversial topics that everybody else is talking about and he just feels great freedom that we do, that deep sense of being empowered. And so I think it's just absolutely vital for our youth ministries to be doing this and absolutely vital for our parents to be speaking into these issues. And so I think one thing I'd want to pass on to your listeners is what I noticed with Gen Z is, and that's this current generation of young people, you know, they absorb so much more than they're able to articulate. And so even amongst my homeschool students that are largely very sheltered, they absorb a lot of cultural messages, even specifically around the trends issue.

Yes.

And you kind of don't know it until they get old enough to articulate it. And oftentimes, you know, you don't know it until they already have a very staunch position, you know. And so, you know, a friend of mine who lives in an urban center and so oftentimes kids there are processing things at a younger age. But his eleven year old, you know, trans something came up. He was talking to his eleven year old and it came to a certain point in the conversation and she said, well, dad, I just want to stop you right here. And I just need to say this, that, you know, trans men are men, trans women are women. And her dad was just blown away. Like, where did you hear this? We haven't even gotten a chance to talk about this.

This is literally the first time we're ever addressing it. You're eleven years old and already you are parroting the dominant views of culture. And this is from a very, very conservative family. And so I just think it's very important when this topic comes up in the news that we're talking about it with our kids because they're going to absorb so much more than we think and that doesn't need to make us afraid, but it is a cause for us to be intentional with them.

So what bring the scriptural bearing. How are you presenting this to, excuse me, the young people you're influencing?

Yeah, well, I can, I'll give you kind of three things that I presented to my students and this will kind of give you an idea. And basically what I spoke, I spoke to them over two weeks and in the first week I said, I basically got up and I gave them kind of a quick biblical summary and I'll give that to you in a moment. Or actually, here it is. Here's the biblical basis for what we think about trans issues. And this is actually. It's not complicated. It makes a lot of sense, okay. And it's this.

It's that our bodies are good. Our bodies are good. Creation is good. It is good to be made male and female. And, of course, because of the fall, our bodies are broken. And so then we need to say, how are our bodies broken? And we can look around, and we can see that, you know, we. We're liable to disease. We are liable to various disablements, you know, blindness, deafness, whatever.

And we are, of course, liable to death, you know, so disease, disability, death. That means for the fall to affect our bodies, okay. But it doesn't mean that our bodies are ever wrong. There is no one who has ever been born into the wrong body. That's not how the fall works. So that when you look at somebody's body and you see a healthy, functioning, biologically male or biologically female body, you are not seeing a sign of the fall. You are seeing a sign of God's good creation. You are seeing a body that bears the image of God.

So, for this transgender person that says, I was born into the wrong body, theologically, we would say, no, you weren't. You were born into a broken body. Sure. But your body is never wrong.

Yeah.

So, what does health and wholeness look like for the transgender person? Yeah, it looks the same as what it looks like for all of us to receive the goodness of their body. And every single teenager can relate to the experience of looking in the mirror, not liking their body.

Yes.

Thinking, God made a mistake. I'm too short. I'm too tall. I'm too skinny. I'm too fat. I don't like this part. I don't like this part. Yes.

And all of those are messages saying there's something wrong with your body. And the gospel message to those people, those students, is, there's nothing wrong with you. Your body is good. So that's our message to the gender dysphoric teenager who's experiencing distress. Your body is good, and we want to help you in a variety of ways to receive the goodness of your body being made male or female. And then we can start talking about this internal sense of conflict that they have. Why is it that you don't feel at home in your male or female body?

Okay.

That's the theological case.

Okay. That's excellent that I've never heard it explained so simply and beautifully. So, how do we help someone who says, well, you can say that all you want, Will, but I don't feel comfortable in my body or I don't like my body or I don't relate to my body. And then what do you say to them?

Yeah, well, you know, I think there. It's. It's a lot of. I think it's a lot of questioning of just when did this start? You know, when did you start feeling that way? When do you notice it more strongly? You know? So, I've had some transgender students in our youth group, and so that's been a question I've asked them. When did you start thinking you might be transgender? Are there situations where your gender dysphoria increases, things like that? Yes, and I think that all of that is very fruitful, but it's a conversation that happens over time. And I think one thing that we're doing in this case is we are affirming there are a variety of ways to be a male or man or a woman made in God's image. And so I put it like this. In Christianity, there is room for a Saint Francis, you know, this guy who's out there hanging out with the birds, writing poetry, singing songs.

He is not less of a man because he is an artist. Okay. And in Christianity, there's room for a Joan of arcanous, this powerful warrior woman leading her nation. Right? Yeah. There is room for that. She is not less of a woman because she has one of these kind of typically masculine virtues.

Yes.

And so that's. I think that's part of what we want to articulate to our students, that. That they don't have to feel like they need to fit into these rigid gender stereotypes, that we can affirm the goodness of our male and female bodies. We can affirm the goodness of typically masculine or typically feminine virtues without saying you need to fit into this very narrow category.

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Tell me more.

Okay, so, here's what I. Here's what I thought was really important to do with students. So I gave them that big theological idea, and then I took my Bible in my hands, and I said, okay, guys, this is going to be really strange, but for the rest of the night, on this first night, I am not going to talk about the Bible. And I set it aside, and I said, because here's what I want you to understand. It is not just christians who are concerned about this kind of transgender ideology and movement. There are many, many reasons medically, psychologically, philosophically, neurologically, many, many reasons that have nothing to do with the Bible for us to be concerned about this kind of transgender movement.

I never thought about it that way.

Yeah. And I think our kids need to hear this. Yeah, of course. They're swimming in this culture where, you know, even if they're not articulating it, they feel very strange to have the views on sexuality in the body that their parents do, that their church does.

Yes.

And they need to hear, you're not crazy. And so it's incredibly faith building for them to hear some of the kind of natural. Kind of natural law arguments for why we're concerned about this issue.

Yes. Yes. I like that. Yes.

And then, of course, bringing them back to the biblical, theological, you know, picture that I was presenting. And so here's what I said. I think there's kind of three things that I was trying to impress on my students and I think would be good for your listeners to hear. So three things you need to know about this current kind of trans movement or ideology.

Yes.

So, number one, it rests on this hard distinction between biological sex and internal sense of gender. So, for most of western history, sex and gender are basically synonymous. You're a man or you're a woman. And we can see that when we look at your body. And that's what you are, that's what your identity is. It's kind of unquestioned.

Yes.

So then, of course, with the sexual revolution in the last 50 years, whatever, we've developed this distinction between this internal sense of identity and our biological sex. And as a christian, you know, we can use these concepts. We can understand the distinction that's being made, but this current ideology would drive a hard line between those and say, it does not matter what your biology is. That has no bearing on your internal sense of gender. So that's why you can have a male body but feel, yeah, like, I'm not male.

Yes.

And so, of course, identity is really important. Who are you? And so this movement would say, who you are is whatever inside you feel yourself to be.

Yeah.

Who you are is not who your body is. And again, so as christians, we'd say, well, that, you know, we've actually dealt with this before, from the earliest days of Christianity, talking about this distinction between soul and body.

Okay.

And in the early church, we said, we do not want a view where who you are is just a soul. Because when you do that, you start thinking, my body's really bad.

Exactly.

Thinking what I do with my body doesn't matter.

Exactly. Gnosticism.

That's right. We're talking about gnosticism.

Yes.

And so from the earliest days, we've said who you are on the inside soul. You know, it's kind of an older way of talking about it. Soul and body are a unity. We are embodied souls. And so that's part of our response is that, you know, philosophically, theologically, we don't have this hard distinction between an internal sense of who you are and what your body is. These two are united.

Yeah.

That's the first thing you need to know about this movement, this hard distinction in this locating identity as the inside part. Nothing to do with the biological external part.

Okay.

So secondly, it's then this, the dominance of the gender affirmative care model. And so this is a model that was developed in psychological circles, actually, in the Netherlands, that has become basically the way to treat gender dysphoria, that feeling of distress.

Okay.

And so, you know, if you're a. You're a psychologist, you know, your training is going to push this on you. If you're a teacher, your school policies are going to push this on you. If you're a medical professional, this is everywhere. And this is what our kids absorb, that if somebody feels themselves to be something different than their biological sex, that should be affirmed what somebody's feeling. And then if they desire, if it relieves their internal sense of distress, if it relieves their dysphoria, to transition, you encourage that?

Yes.

And so that looks like a social transition. So starting to go by opposite sex pronouns. So if you're biologically male, starting to be called her and she, that sort of thing.

Yes.

So social transition, changing clothes, maybe taking on a different name.

Right.

And it becomes very important in this kind of ideology that you do not use someone's dead name. That's the language for it.

Oh, wow.

You don't use someone's birth name. You only use the name that they are asking you to call them.

Yeah.

So that's the social transition. And then a medical professional might encourage, or a psychological professional would encourage a hormonal transition. That would either be taking puberty blockers, which basically halt the development of puberty in a young person, which you can talk more about. Or perhaps what is more common is taking opposite sex hormones for a young woman, taking testosterone, hormones that will alter her body in different ways and bring out more of those masculine physical characteristics.

Yes.

And then, of course, when they're an adult, encouraging surgical transition. Now, none of these things have to happen for a person to be considered trans, except that they identify as trans. But this is kind of the developmental path that's encouraged that's part of this gender affirmative care model, as, basically, this is what you have to do, because if you don't have. If you don't affirm somebody, they will take their own life.

This is the theory.

Yes. That's the rhetoric.

Okay.

And so we can talk more about, you know, suicidality and mental health in the trans community. That's really important. But I'm saying that that's how weighted this is.

Okay.

So, for our students, they're like, I'm gonna be responsible for someone's death if I don't affirm them. And, wow. Of course. That's a powerful argument.

Yes. So how do you answer that?

Well. Oh, well, okay, so this is. So then we get to the third thing.

Okay, sorry.

First thing, this hard distinction between sex and gender. The second thing, the dominance of this. The only way to care for somebody is to affirm the gender affirmative care model. Then the third thing that I'm telling them is, guys, there are good medical, psychological, neurological reasons to be suspicious about the gender affirmative care model. And then I start raising the stories of what are called d transitioners.

Yes.

These are oftentimes. Oftentimes young women, actually, and I'll explain that more in their twenties who have said, you know what? When I was a teenager, I transitioned. I started taking hormones. They had a permanent effect on my body. Some of them might say I had top surgery. I had my breasts removed. I had a mastectomy. Then I got to 25, 26 years old, and I realized I made the mistake of a lifetime.

I was hurting. I thought that this would make me feel better, and it did for a little while. But now I'm living with a permanently disfigured body, and that didn't help my gender dysphoria. And so I just bring up those cases, which are increasing to say to my students, the gender affirmative care model is not only not helping some people, it is causing permanent damage to some people, and their stories matter, too. So, yes, the stories of gender dysphoric kids matter, and the stories of kids who are hurting, and the stories of transgender people, those matter. But the stories of these detransitioners, you gotta listen to those. You have to listen to those, because the gender affirmative care model is hurting people. And then I kind of just lead them through the reasons for that.

Yes, yes. And will. I mean, having been a teenager, I mean, the crazy ideas that I had as a teenager, like, if anyone had put those into stone, I just shudder to think about, you know, how it's the blind leading the blind.

Yes, it absolutely is. I mean, everybody knows that a child's brain is not fully developed until they're 25.

How about 75?

Right, right. So it is just absurdity that teenagers are leading the way on these things that have physical repercussions that will affect their whole lives.

That's right.

And they need to be slowed down for their own good.

Yes.

And we don't just believe that as christians, we should believe that as anybody who cares about a teenager.

Exactly. It's like giving the keys of a Maserati to a toddler. Who would. Who would do it?

Who would do that? Yes. Yes. That's where I feel like this is a perfectly. It's a reasonable view. It's a reasonable concern for anybody to have. Yeah. And I think when our students hear that, it really opens up a world for them, and they're like, oh, this isn't just like a weird christian thing. Like, that's right.

The weird christian thing is really grounded in facts that are available to everybody. Well, hey, isn't that exactly what you'd expect from the God who created the world? I'll lead you through some of those medical, psychological reasons to be confirmed about the gender affirmative care model. So the first is that gender dysphoria is beginning to look very different than it used to look. So we've been studying this. Psychologists have been studying this for the last 40 or so years. This disconnect between some people's internal sense of gender and their biological sex and the way that it was classically seen is it would have these three characteristics. One, it was incredibly rare. It's incredibly rare.

And most, 60% to 90% of the time, depending on what study you're looking at, it would resolve in puberty, somebody would go through puberty, and their gender dysphoria would just kind of naturally go away.

Yes.

And so we're, for adults, we're talking about this very. This small segment of a small segment whose gender dysphoria in childhood didn't go away. It persisted into adulthood. Okay. Number one, it's rare. Number two, classically, gender dysphoria was twice as many boys as girls.

Yes.

And then three, it would. It showed up in early childhood. So three to five years old is when it would first appear. And then, of course, 60% to 90% of the time going away in puberty, and then ten to 40% of the time persisting into adulthood. So rare. Twice as many boys as girls. Early childhood, what we've seen in the last five years, and I'll send you a bar chart that you can show your listeners.

Yeah, we'll put it in the show notes. Thank you.

We have seen an explosion of young people requesting gender care services. So something's changing. It is no longer incredibly rare. It's increasingly common. So that mimics us. Think, okay, what's going on there? Secondly, we're seeing like 4000% increase in young women asking for these services. You know, so that number isn't totally exact, but you'll see this bar chart. You can do the math for yourself.

Okay.

It is now much more common that young women are requesting these services than boys. And then thirdly, the age is different. So young women with no previous history of gender dysphoria in early childhood, young women who are never even a tomboy, you know, none of that, are getting into early adolescence, you know, eleven to 16 and presenting with gender dysphoria.

Yes.

And so this has caused people to say, like, wait, something different is going on here. Like, why. Why is there an explosion of cases and why young women? And why the difference in age?

Tell me. I can't wait to know.

Well, I think it's a variety of things. Some of these social changes, you know, the gnosticism, all of that. But really, I mean, we're seeing an explosion since around 2015. And what happened in 2015? Most Americans started using smartphones. So we're still figuring out why. But what do we know? What do we know about the Internet? You get on the Internet and you can. Like, if you're growing up in the nineties, right? I grew up in the nineties. You know, there might be one lgbt character on some sitcom, right? Maybe one episode where this topic comes up, and that's kind of all of your interaction with this topic.

It's very limited.

Yes.

Well, now, if you're a kid and you go on YouTube and just search transgender, there are more videos than you could ever watch in a lifetime. You can immerse yourself in this community and really take on this ideology, take on this. I think they're describing my experience of discomfort, and that's what the Internet enables us to do.

Wow.

Our smartphones for our kids end up becoming this. This mirror that supports, affirms, and encourages what they're feeling, so much so that I think they just wind up confused. They've lost an external sense. Somebody outside speaking into their lives saying, no, this is who you are, honey. Like, I know who you are.

Yeah.

And instead, they're just. They're looking into this. This smartphone, this world of all of these other voices. Who don't know them, who are saying the same thing in a very powerful way. Smartphones certainly have something to do with it. But let's even just think adolescent girls. Is it a surprise to us that adolescent girls are struggling with body issues? Right. Like, we know that adolescent girls struggle with various mental health issues having to do with their body.

Anorexia, bulimia, cutting body dysmorphia. Looking in the mirror, I hate this part of myself. I can't stop thinking about my nose, about this little piece of fat on my arm, whatever it is, right? We know this about adolescent girls. So it's no surprise that we're seeing this explosion in gender dysphoria, because now, when our girls are growing up, entering puberty, where they feel awkward in their bodies for a variety of reasons, maybe they feel sexualized by our culture as their bodies develop. And they say, oh, I'm a little uncomfortable. Comfortable with the way my hips look, the way my bottom looks, my breast looks.

Yes.

Instead of just processing that, as this is normal, difficult puberty stuff, they're starting to say, maybe I'm not a girl. Maybe this discomfort I'm feeling means that I'm not really a woman. I'm a boy.

Wow.

And the way to deal with this is to, you know, is to transition socially, is to make my appearance less feminine.

Less feminine. Yeah.

All these kind of things. And so.

How about the issue. Excuse me, will. How about the issue of feeling that women are powerless, that men have more power, more rights? I mean, I can remember as a teenager saying that I wish that I was a Mandev because that. Not that I felt sexually that I was a male, but that I saw that men had freedoms, privileges, particularly back in my generation, that women weren't allowed to have.

Yeah. Yeah, I think. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, it's. It's the bizarre fact that as our. On the surface, as our culture becomes more equitable and egalitarian.

Yeah.

Really, it feels like our culture is becoming increasingly misogynistic. Right. Where it is, ironically, becoming more and more difficult to be a woman. Today's culture.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think this is a way to escape that. And so, you know, what's interesting is that, you know, JK Rowling, who wrote the Harry Potter series. Right? So she took a lot of flack earlier this year because she came out as being very concerned about this issue.

Yes.

And what she said is, if this option had been open to me when I was a young woman, I would have taken it, because in the back of her mind, she could hear her dad saying, I would have preferred if you had been my son. And so she takes that misogynistic voice that her dad had given her. She said, if it would have been open to me, if the option would have been available to me to escape being a woman and become a man, I would have done it. And she said, what a tragedy that would have been because I would have never experienced how wonderful it is to be a woman, how wonderful it is to be an adult woman, how wonderful it is to be a mother.

Exactly.

And that's what's at stake in this issue. Right.

Well, because it locks you in prematurely. It locks you in. And that's. I mean, for someone who knows nothing about it, like me, all I can think is, if I had been locked into my crazy, lunatic ideas, thank you, lord, for my wonderful parents who did not allow me, you know, to go down crazy roads. But nowadays, would they have been counseled differently when I would say these crazy ideas that I had?

Yes. So let me just give you a few more things, because I know we got to go here soon. Okay. So I give them that. I say, look, like gender dysphoria is looking very different today. And here's the problem. The gender affirmative care model developed by these dutch guys in the Netherlands, that was for the old model. And even one of those researchers has even said, do not use the gender affirmative care model on these young adolescent women because that's not who it was developed for.

And we have not studied them enough. Not enough time has gone by to assume that what they need is for us to affirm their transition.

So that who was it designed for, will?

In their mind, it was designed for this kind of classical model where twice as many boys as girls, incredibly rare, showing up in early childhood. Got it.

Okay.

As christians, we don't think that's even the best care model.

Right.

But I'm just saying, even, even, even.

From them, it was not designed. Okay?

Yes. And that's why we have this increasing, these increasing testimonies of d transitioners. And I'd encourage you, go on social media, go on YouTube and type D transition. Listen to the stories of these young women, of these young men. That was the most competence building thing I did in my research, because then I realized what's at stake. Because here's what these detransluition, detransitioned women report. You know, they say, like, look, I was on. If you take puberty blockers and hormones, you just made yourself infertile.

We just know that you're infertile forever. That's it? Yes, if you. So then let's say puberty blockers are not as common as hormones. So the world Transgender Health, you know, association. I'm not getting the acronym totally right. This is the world advocacy group.

Yeah.

They say that somebody should only begin hormone treatment after an extensive exploration of their gender dysphoria. Okay, but what I know is going to the Planned Parenthood website in Illinois, all right? And I took a screenshot of this for our students, that in two visits you can go to Planned Parenthood and they will prescribe you hormones. If you have parental permission, you can be a 15, 1416 year old. You can go get on hormones within two visits. That is not extensive exploration.

Planned Parenthood is giving out sex change hormones. I never even knew this.

Yes, yes. Isn't that crazy? I mean, not so crazy when you think about it, but yeah, they're one of the bigger providers.

Do you ever feel like we've been swapped by Martians? That we're living like, in a. Another universe? I can't believe the thing that I'm here.

Yeah, it is lunacy. And so here's the effect. If you even take a short course of hormones, like maybe a year, I don't know how long this would take, but not very long. You take cross sex hormones for a year and you're a young woman.

Yes.

Then permanently, you could have a lower voice register. You could have the voice of a man that you live with for the rest of your life. You could have permanent facial hair for the rest of your life because of what you were convinced was true when you were 16 years old.

Or, I mean, I read articles about kids 8910 and their parents are arranging for sex change operations. Right. Is this not true?

Yeah, well, so. And yes. So I'm. I think there. I'd want to look at, you know, I don't know how often that's happening.

Okay.

But I think so. I think what I hear on one side is like, they're doing this to eight year olds, and I don't know how common that is.

Okay.

I think surgeries, I mean, especially surgeries, are typically like, you know, adults only. But then on the other side, they're saying none of this has happened. And I'm not sure that's true either. Yeah. Our young kids, our eight year olds are being. They're being told, hey, when you're a teenager, we can put you on some hormones and that's gonna be.

Well, I mean, I had people tell me that their child was told in kindergarten, you can decide what you want to be. And a little girl going home, absolutely true to her parents and saying, what am I? And they said, what do you mean, what are you? Well, am I? Because the teacher said, I can be whatever I want to be. And their parents pulled them out of school at that moment.

But, yes, and that's the social transition. You know, that kind of, that first thing that's encouraged. And again, that's the lunacy of this. I mean, my own wife, you know, she looks back on her childhood, chasing after her two older brothers. Yes. Saying, you know, mommy, I want my hair cut short. I want pants.

That's right.

What the boys do. I want to go to the bathroom the way my brothers do.

Totally.

For teacher, it said, well, honey, you must be a boy. It's totally absurd.

It is. It is.

Our students, you know, we're worried about the lasting effects of this, the lasting physical effects. And then. And then saying, you know, guys, why is it so many women, why so many women are struggling with this? And shouldn't that clue us in if we're living in what we know as a misogynistic culture where it's difficult to be a young woman in our culture?

Yes.

Shouldn't we ask why? And so I'll just leave you with this one of these testimonies from a detransitioner. She said, you know, I went to the clinic and I told them that I hated my body, and nobody ever asked me why. Nobody ever asked me why. And so this is what I was saying. With Planned Parenthood in Illinois, on your second visit, you can get on hormone treatments. This is not good for any kid, not good for them to be allowed to make, even with parental consent, a permanent, life altering decision before they can really explore. Like, why do I feel like it's wrong for me to be in a woman's body or a man's body? Any kid, regardless of what we believe biblically, theologically, any kid deserves for that to be explored extensively.

Yes.

That is not happening today, even though the official documents, you know, this advocacy group, say that it should be happening and it's not happening in our schools, doesn't happen in many doctor's office, therapist's office, and. Yeah, and that's why we're concerned.

Wow, this has been so helpful. Are there any resources you want to leave our folks with? Will books.

The first one is called when Harry became Sally. Responding to the transgender moment by Ryan T. Anderson. So Ryan Anderson is a Roman catholic conservative thinker, and this is the best most thorough introduction to all of these topics.

Okay. And that is the book that's been taken off of Amazon.

That's right. Yeah. So I got mine on Amazon before it was taken off.

Okay, what do we do now?

I think you go on Barnes and noble.

Oh, good. Publisher.

It looks like. It's called encounter books. You can find this from another bookseller, but, no, you can't find it on Amazon.

I wonder why. Just a joke. Just a joke. Go ahead.

His arguments make too much sense.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay. The second one. This is written by a. And, you know, fairly progressive jewish woman named Abigail Schreier. Okay. Writer for the Wall Street Journal. All right. It's called irreversible damage, the transgender craze, seducing our daughters.

So this one's. She's a pretty in your face writer.

Yes. Would you spell her last name?

Will Schreier. S h r I e rhe. So it's pretty in your face book. So if you have a student, a teenager, who's, you know, kind of pretty open to the gender affirmative care model, that sort of thing, I wouldn't give them this book, but if you're their parent, I would read it.

Okay. For parents, irreversible damage is for mom and dad. All right?

It might. It might trigger your kid if they're.

Yes.

Feeling pretty open. So the book to read with your teenager.

Yes.

If they're really processing. This is called embodied by Preston Sprinkle, transgender identities and the church. What the Bible has to say.

Who published that book?

It's by David C. Cook.

Oh, interesting.

Awesome.

Okay. And would you spell his last name? Sprinkle. Like sprinkles on a cupcake?

That's exactly like sprinkles on a cupcake.

Okay.

And it's just. He just has such an irenic tone. It's just clear that he has talked to a lot of trans people.

Yes.

And he lays out a very good biblical case and is just very sensible. So if you have a student who's really thinking about these ideas, really feels uncomfortable with a biblical sexual ethic, them read this. Because it's clear that Preston sprinkle really loves the transgender community, really cares about them, and wants to think about this from a biblical perspective.

Oh, that's so helpful. Well, all right. I am going to put a bunch of this in the show notes. So if people are driving down the highway at 85 miles an hour, don't panic, but I'd love you to pray for our families, our churches. We need wisdom. We are walking the gauntlet as a society, and we need wisdom. So would you. Would you mind, is there anything else you want to say before?

Yes, I will pray. Yeah. Thank you again, Carol, for having me.

My pleasure.

Well, father, you created this world, and you created it to be a good world where we collaborate with one another as men and women, made in your image, where men and women bring life through marriage and where we commune with you. And of course, Father, we live in a fallen world that is broken. And so, Lord, I pray that you would just embolden our parents that where they feel afraid that you would give them great courage to testify to the gospel that this world is good, and that you came to redeem this world through the person of your son, the second person of the Trinity, dying for our sins on the cross, rising again, ascending into heaven on our behalf. Lord, the resurrection means that our bodies are good and that our bodies will always be good. And so, Lord, would you embolden our parents to just pass this message on to our students? Lord, would they not be afraid? And, Lord, would you raise up a generation of young people who love the fact that we are made male and female in your image, and would you give them a winsome witness to our world that has lost this vision? And, Lord, we pray for not just the protection of our students and their minds, but just the strengthening of their minds so that they can go out and share this good news with others as they mature into adulthood. And we ask these things in the powerful name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen. Well, thank you so much. And, you know, I didn't mention your education, but you and Emma are both highly qualified to delve into these issues. Share where your. Your degrees where you've studied both you and Emma.

Yes, both Emma and I went to Wheaton College, and then I went for our undergrad, studied philosophy. She studied psychology and philosophy. And then I got a master's of divinity from Gordon Conwell theological Seminary outside of Boston. And Emma got a degree in counseling from Boston College.

Awesome. Yeah. So your mothers and fathers didn't raise any stupid children, and you're highly qualified to address these issues. And we are so glad that the body of Christ has you both in it to lead us through these troubled waters. So thank you.

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