If a parent has a child struggling with gender identity, one of the first (false) things they’re often told by counselors, doctors, and therapists is, “You must immediately affirm your child’s new identity or your child will likely commit suicide.” Of course, this approach of lying to your child and affirming a confused and sinful identity is unbiblical—and yet another study confirms that God’s design is best.
A recent study of over 100,000 gender-confused Americans found that those who underwent a “sex-change” surgery (a surgery, or series of painful surgeries, that amputates and reconstructs body parts to appear more like the opposite sex) have “substantially increased rates not only of depression, but of anxiety, suicidal ideation, and substance use disorders.”
The abstract for the study highlighted that men who underwent these surgeries had a depression rate of over 25%, compared to 11.5% of men who hadn’t gone as far as surgery. And for women, it was similar: nearly 23% vs. 14.6%. In other words, surgery doesn’t fix the identity crisis! It only makes things worse!
Now, this study was comparing those who had socially and maybe even chemically “transitioned,” versus those who “transitioned” and then later underwent surgery. Those who had surgery had a substantially higher risk of depression (the opposite of what you would expect if so-called gender-affirming “care” worked), but even the group with the lower depression rates—those who only socially and/or chemically transitioned—still have a much higher rate of depression than the general population (which is 5% according to the CDC). Again, our culture’s answer to gender confusion is not working!
And that’s no surprise. We aren’t our own creators who can just do anything with or to our bodies. We were created by God, in his image, as either male or female. That’s God’s very good design, even in a world that’s fallen and broken because of sin. When we stray from God’s design and try to be our own gods, pain and suffering follows just as it did in the garden!
The answer to the gender confusion of our day isn’t “transition” or surgery—it’s a new identity rooted in Christ, what he did for us on the cross, and our design as a man or woman made in his image. And we have to understand we live in a fallen world where our fallible feelings cannot be trusted to dictate truth.
