Protecting kids

Pushback grows rapidly to gender-changing treatment for minors. But not in Illinois.

BY LISA MISNER

You see it every day on social media: young men and women in their late teens or early 20s sharing about reversing their gender reassignment. They’re called detransitioners.

Popular culture may say they don’t exist, but their numbers are growing as attested by their growing presence online. They either medically or surgically changed their sex with or without their parents’ permission, often as children. Now they say, they didn’t understand the ramifications of that decision, were rushed and given poor guidance or in many cases none at all, and have had their lives shattered.

As part of a growing pushback to gender transitions among very young people, many states have passed legislation regulating or prohibiting medical practices that have produced ready prescriptions for puberty blockers and quick surgical procedures to change teens’ bodies to the opposite sex. But not in Illinois. Not yet.

In this environment, the church is faced with ministering to children exploring alternate identities in the LGBTQIA+ alphabet, and to the confused parents who are not finding understanding or support in the school system or medical community.

Identifying the problem

It’s a scene that wouldn’t have played out a decade ago, but our culture has been rapidly changing to embrace gender inclusive acceptance at all levels of society.

According to the latest Gallup poll, 7.2% of adults in the U.S. identify as LGBTQ, up from 3.5% in 2012. But it’s not just adults. Among Gen Z, those born between 1997 to 2012 or ages 11-26, 20.85% identify in that category.

Working with Komodo Health, Reuters analyzed U.S. health insurance data and found between 2017-2021 at least 121,882 children ages 6-17 were diagnosed with gender dysphoria. The trends were similar when compared with Medicaid data.

Ethics professor Andrew Walker brings biblical insight to transgender issues. He co-wrote the SBC’s 2023 resolution opposing sexual reassignment.

In the last decade, the Southern Baptist Convention has addressed transgenderism at its annual meeting in at least three resolutions including a statement passed unanimously at this year’s meeting in New Orleans. The resolution was co-authored by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professors Denny Burk and Andrew Walker.

Walker told Baptist Press that although the gender transition movement is growing in the U.S., there is also growing concern— and not just among Christians—about certain medical procedures, especially when it comes to children.

“We’re watching in real time that transgender movement come crashing down,” Walker said. “There are too many cracks in the foundation.” He called transgenderism “unbiblical” and “at odds with what God says about the creation order.”

The transgender movement picked up momentum when the American Psychiatric Association removed the condition known as “gender identity disorder” from its list of disorders in 2013, changing the classification to the milder “gender dysphoria.”

Many claim doctors were all too eager to jump on the cultural bandwagon. One such case is that of a 25-year-old woman in North Carolina who is suing the medical team that started her on the male hormone testosterone at age 17 and performed a double mastectomy the following year. The woman, Prisha Mosely, now says she was suffering from mental health issues when, after a few two-minute consultations, doctors misdiagnosed her and began treatment. She claims they were only after money.

In the video Identity Crisis, produced by the Independent Women’s Forum, Mosley shared how she first learned about transgenderism online at the age of 15. “The trans community really lovebombed me,” said Mosley. “I really hated myself. I was convinced that everyone around me hated me.” When they started “celebrating the fact that I was born in the wrong body, I felt cared for and genuinely loved.”

After having a double mastectomy, she left her parents to move to Florida to live with a trans person she met on the Internet. Soon after her mental health began to suffer. The relationship turned sour and then she was sexually assaulted.

Once not interested in having children, her fertility is likely lost due to the large doses of male sex hormones she was given. It’s a loss she now mourns.

Mosley said emotionally, “I honestly feel like loving me is a lot to ask.... Every other woman is a better option than me because they have their original body, and they didn’t try to live a lie.… They didn’t try to mutilate themselves.”