Earlier this year, I shared a report that claimed that TikTok content with “#trans” has been viewed a whopping 26 billion times and that child advocates were concerned that this constant exposure to gender-questioning content would lead more young people towards the irreversible harm that is transgenderism. Given reports like that, combined with the radical sex ed, which usually includes transgender content, taught in many schools, I wasn’t surprised by this sad headline, “Report Reveals Sharp Rise in Transgender Young People in the US.” But it’s not to do with biology: it’s conditioning!
According to the latest CDC health survey, which looked at data from between 2017 and 2020, “1.4 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds and 1.3 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds were transgender, compared with about 0.5 percent of all adults.” This number represents about 300,000 young people (double the previous estimate)—and it doesn’t necessarily include those who would identify as nonbinary, gender nonconforming, or other monikers. If such data were included, the number would be much higher!
The New York Times article declares the data “captures a stark generational shift and emerging societal embrace of a diversity of gender identities” and that “young people increasingly have the language and social acceptance to explore their gender identities, whereas older adults may feel more constrained.”
But is that really the reason for the sharp increase? Or is it because society is pushing children away from the biblical definition of male and female and indoctrinating and seducing impressionable young people with the lie that happiness is found in freedom from the “shackles” of manhood and womanhood?
But this lifestyle does not bring freedom! God has created us male and female (Genesis 1:27). Gender identity is not a spectrum. We are either male or female, and pretending to be something we are not does not bring freedom. It brings slavery to an identity grounded in ever-changing desires and feelings.
Consider a new study from the Heritage Foundation that found that “lowering legal barriers to make it easier for minors to undergo cross-sex medical interventions without parental consent does not reduce suicide rates—in fact, it likely leads to higher rates of suicide among young people in states that adopt these changes.” Our culture’s answer of rushing children into medical procedures that “affirm” their identity doesn’t help—it hurts them!
The affirmation of transgender feelings doesn’t bring freedom—it’s dangerous and, sadly, in many cases, does irreversible harm to the person it’s supposedly helping. This shouldn’t be surprising to Christians who understand the deceitfulness of our hearts and emotions and the pervasiveness of sinand how it distorts everything, even how we view ourselves.
Transgenderism is already on the rise, and it’s likely only going to continue in popularity (for a time, anyway). We as Christians must be prepared to share the hope of the gospel with those who have bought the culture’s lie—which is the Devil’s lie.
John 8:44 KJV – “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”
We need to share that Christ gives us a new identity, which is not grounded in our desires but grounded in Christ and what he has done for us on the cross when he freely forgave the sin debt you could never pay. If we are in Christ, he is our life (Colossians 3:4), and we are a new man or woman in him (2 Corinthians 5:17).
That’s the truth every man, woman, boy, and girl needs to hear and believe.
