LGBT

Raising Kids in a Secular Age

Talking with kids about controversial topics has always been a challenge for parents, but today, the stakes are especially high. With an increasing number of kids who have been secretly “transitioned” by public school staff or who have adopted LGBT identities thanks to online influences, parents must know how to navigate tainted cultural waters that are flooding the worldviews of the younger generations.  

Opting for alternatives to public education like home school  or private Christian schooling is a good start.

But it can’t stop there. A 2022 study found that of 57,000 undergrads from 159 of the nation’s most elite posts econdary institutions, home schooled and private schooled kids “are as or more likely to identify as LGBT or non-binary as those from public or private school backgrounds.”  

In other words, it’s not enough to insulate children from bad ideas, especially when insulation is accompanied by silence on issues our kids are hearing about all the time from the wider world. Of course, many parents remain silent because they simply do not know how to think about everything. And yet, as a recent Gospel Coalition article noted, silence on these issues undermines Christian formation.  

On the one hand, we could unintentionally communicate that God doesn’t care about our sexuality. If we never tell our children that God says a clear ‘no’ to same-sex sexual relationships, we could leave them to conclude that Christians can just follow their hearts. … 
On the other hand, our silence could accidentally communicate that sexuality is too shameful to discuss. They might conclude that God wants nothing to do with it because it’s dirty, or that God isn’t interested in saving their friends who identify as LGBT.

This is the same risk churches carry when they never address cultural issues from fear of backlash for being “too political.” But when bad ideas are everywhere, the church, much like parents, must have a response. Scripture is not lacking for real direction in real time and neither should the shepherds of Christian faith be.  

A better approach than insulating kids is to inoculate them. The “inoculation” approach welcomes hard questions, encourages students to think and search for the truth, and helps them learn what it takes to find answers that are both thorough and thoughtful. The goal is to equip students how to handle bad ideas, harmful practices, and sinful behaviors, knowing that they will inevitably encounter these things in an increasingly secular culture.    

In the 1950s, researcher Dr. William McGuire suggested bad ideas operate much like viruses do, and the more exposure one has to bad ideas in a controlled setting, the less likely they are to succumb to those ideas later. McGuire performed a series of experiments in which he tried to convince subjects of a lie, specifically that brushing their teeth was bad for them.

Unsurprisingly, those who received no preparation for what they were about to hear were more easily convinced to stop brushing, while those who had been warned they were going to hear a bad argument were harder to deceive.  

More surprising were those found to be easiest and hardest to dupe.

The most vulnerable were not those with zero preparation, but those who’d merely had the truth reinforced. They had been told things like, “You know brushing your teeth is good for you, right? You’ve been taught this since you were little. Trust us.” When they heard arguments against brushing their teeth that they’d never heard before, this group felt sheltered and even deceived.  

The least vulnerable were those who had not only been warned about bad arguments they’d hear but were also taught how to respond. In fact, they were warned they may face additional bad arguments. In other words, they were prepared to be aware and vigilant.  

This experiment demonstrates that the method many Christian parents and churches use to pass on the faith, reinforcement without seriously countering ideas, is doomed to fail. In fact, it may leave young people more vulnerable to lies. We need to equip our kids to think for themselves. 

This requires courage. It also requires confidence that the truth is, well, true and that answers can be found. The good news is that we live in an age of answers, in which most issues have not only been thoroughly addressed from a Christian worldview but are widely available.  

Dr. Phil is Right: Don’t Let Bullies Bully You

Dr. Phil gave a profoundly important speech this weekend in New York City encouraging his fellow citizens to stand up to bullies.

He told the largest crowd he has ever spoken to in person,

I may not be an expert in politics, but I am an expert about bullying. And bullying is when you seek to harm somebody, you seek to intimidate, coerce, cause distress, fear, and cause risk to their well-being. It can be physical, verbal, relational, or cyber-bullying. And it’s always wrong.

He strongly encouraged Americans to never allow themselves to be bullied by people who use their power to make them feel ashamed of their deepest-felt convictions about life, liberty and the essential values that make our country great.

Dr. Phil acknowledged that bad things happen today to people who stand up for what is right, saying, “They get canceled, intimidated, marginalized, excluded, or even fired or boycotted.”

He continued, “And you know what that means? In short, that adds up to being bullied,” adding, “That’s what happening in this country right now, and that’s not okay!”

It’s time that everyone of us close ranks and stop this now! It’s time that we push back against cancel culture. It’s time that we push back against intimidation tactics.

He’s precisely right.

Good Christians and average citizens have silenced themselves because they fear what could happen if they were to fully speak up for what they believe and the way they vote. They fear what could happen to their reputations, livelihoods and their freedoms. They fear their friends, family members and even their own children with different beliefs might cut off relationships because of these convictions.

That is emotional bullying in the extreme.

It is unhealthy behavior, but it works in silencing people.

Dr. Phil is telling all Americans to refuse to be bullied by such tactics. Be bold in speaking up for what you believe. Never back down. Disregard what those who disagree with you might say or do to intimidate you. Our country needs good people to strongly stand for what they know is right.

It seems to be women who are more willing to take bold, convictional stands. They are doing it on the life issue. They are doing it on gender and trans issues. They are doing it on legal issues like religious freedom. They are doing it on racial politics. They are doing it on DEI and media manipulation.

We should all encourage such strength and do our best to replicate it.

As we engage the profoundly important issues facing our country and its future, we must do so with resolute courage. You will likely be bullied for those beliefs, but courageous citizens are never swayed or intimidated by such ploys. Strong individuals know what is true and always stand for it.

That was the important message that Dr. Phil delivered this weekend in New York City.

We should all take heed of it.

Women Golfers Protest LPGA Policy Allowing ‘Transgender’ Competitors

Two hundred seventy-five women golfers sent a letter to the Ladies Professional Golf Association, the International Golf Federation, and the United States Golf Association protesting policies allowing men to compete against women.

The LPGA hosts a qualifying series of tournaments, known as qualifying schools, where players compete for a tour card, giving them membership in next year’s tour. This membership allows them to compete in many events without having to compete to qualify.

This year, “transgender”-identified golfer Hailey Davidson is set to play against 245 women at the LPGA Qualifying Series, October 20-25, in Venice, Florida.

The Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), a conservative group that “celebrates women’s accomplishments and fights to expand women’s options and opportunities,” believes:

Men and women are equal, but we are not the same. Biological differences between the sexes are more than skin-deep, and profoundly shape our lives.
The law must recognize this reality in certain circumstances, such as in sex-segregated sports teams or prisons, or it risks placing women and girls in harmful or even dangerous situations. E]

Men and women are equal, but we are not the same. Biological differences between the sexes are more than skin-deep, and profoundly shape our lives.

The law must recognize this reality in certain circumstances, such as in sex-segregated sports teams or prisons, or it risks placing women and girls in harmful or even dangerous situations. 

IWF shared the golfers’ letter with Fox Corporation’s Outkick, a sports and culture website. The letter states:

We all know there can be no equal athletic opportunity for women without a separate female golf category. Yet, the Ladies Professional Golf Association continues to propagate a policy that allows male athletes to qualify, compete and win in women’s golf, even as several national and international governing bodies of sport and state legislatures increasingly reject these unjust and inequitable policies that harm female athletes.

The 275 female athletes who signed the letter oppose the LPGA’s Gender Policy, which seeks “to provide transgender athletes an avenue to membership and opportunity to participate in events, and in an effort to assure fair competition for all members and participants.”

The policy states:

Tournaments and membership are open only to female athletes, including transitioned female athletes.

“Transitioned female athletes” don’t exist, of course. Only men and women exist, and they cannot “transition” to the other sex.

Transgender-identified applicants must notify the LGPA Tour of their “gender reassignment from male to female after puberty” and “provide proof of gender.” The policy lists two requirements:

The applicant must have undergone gender reassignment surgery (i.e., a gonadectomy) prior to submitting an application for membership or entering the tournament; and
The applicant must have undergone, for at least one (1) year, appropriate hormonal therapy and maintained testosterone levels in a verifiable manner sufficient to minimize or negate gender-related advantages in sport competitions

But a male athlete who has gone through puberty, even if he has his testicles removed and is taking estrogen, still maintains most of the size, strength and performance advantages of a male athlete, as the letter to the LPGA explains:

The male advantage in driving the ball is estimated around a 30% performance advantage; this is an enormous difference in the context of sport. Anatomical differences between males and females affect clubhead speed and regulating consistency at ball contact.
Females have higher mean heart rates and encounter greater physiological demands while playing, especially at high altitudes. The anatomical differences are not removed with male testosterone suppression. There is no way to turn a male into a female. Being female is not equated to being male with a reduction in strength [our emphasis].

Outkick reports that the female golfers are asking the LPGA, the U.S. Golf Association, and the International Golf Federation to:

Repeal all policies and rules that allow male golfers to participate in women’s golf events” and “establish and enforce the right of female professional golfers to participate in women’s golf based on sex-eligibility must be limited to members of the female sex.

Allowing men to compete in women’s athletics is inherently unfair, as men take opportunities, scholarships, places on teams and victories from women. Women’s privacy and safety are also at risk when men play women’s sports.

The website SheWon.org lists hundreds of “female athletes who were displaced by males in women’s sporting events and other types of competitions expressly for women.”

So far, the site lists 717 female athletes who lost 1,055 “medals, scholarships or other opportunities,” in 522 competitions in 37 sports – everything from cycling to disc golf, skiing to track and field, and swimming to rowing. She Won shows the women who would have won – if men had been kept from competing against them.

Related articles and resources:

Addressing Gender Identity with Honesty and Compassion

Counseling Consultation & Referrals

No, It’s Not ‘Complicated’ to Keep Men Out of Women’s Sports

Riley Gaines and 15 Other Female Athletes Sue NCAA Over ‘Transgender Policy’

#SaveGirlsSports – New Campaign Launched by Family Policy Alliance

Shoving Girls Off the Podium: More Male Athletes Participating in Girls Sports

Third Court Halts DOE’s Title IX Rewrite, Girls’ Sports & Spaces Preserved

Transgender Resources

Image from Shutterstock.

Yes, Gender Confusion is Socially Contagious

Epidemics demand explanation. When a hospital receives a sudden influx of patients with similar symptoms, doctors look for a shared cause, contagion, or incident. However, for some reason, a public health crisis that emerged in recent years has not triggered a large-scale investigation into causes. In fact, we are hardly allowed to acknowledge it as a problem.  

At her Substack, Generation Tech, psychologist and author Jean Twenge explained a new paper she and two colleagues published on the explosion of gender confusion. Analyzing government data on nearly two million adults since 2014, Twenge and her colleagues found that transgender identification in the general population has increased by nearly 70%. For Americans 18-25, trans identity skyrocketed from just over half a percent of the population in 2014 to over three percent of the population in 2023. In other words, in less than a decade, the share of American young people identifying as transgender quintupled, with the vast majority of that increase among women and girls.   

The story that has been told to explain this, one the public has been almost required to believe, is that gender expression is an expression of one’s authentic self, probably something people are born with, and finally we are a culture that allows people to be their true selves. However, if that is the case, why is this epidemic occurring overwhelmingly in one age bracket and one sex? The usual rationalizations that there is less social stigma and more diagnosis and treatment cannot explain these disparities. 

The phenomenon that does explain them is one about which Twenge has written extensively. Social contagion, the spread of disorders among peers consciously or unconsciously imitating one another, often explains the measurable spread of mental health conditions among vulnerable populations. Factors known to fuel social contagion today are digital devices and social media.  

When rates of mental illness, smartphone and social media use, and transgender identification are traced, the graphs align with eerie precision. One particular year, in fact, stands out. 2013 was the first year most Americans owned a smartphone. It was also the year adolescent mental health problems began to noticeably climb. For example, rates of depression and anxiety rose by nearly 50% in the decade following 2013, and suicide among teen girls more than doubled. That same year, transgender identity among teenage girls also began its epidemic spread. 

Social contagions are often accompanied by co-morbidities, or conditions not caused by the contagion but that often make patients more vulnerable to it. In a Breakpoint Forum earlier this year, Dr. Stephen Grcevich, president and founder of Key Ministry, shared a bevy of statistics that showed a troubling connection between disability and gender confusion.    

For example, a 2020 analysis by the pro-LGBT Human Rights Campaign found that in every category of disability, including cognitive, mobility, and sensory, transgender adults were overrepresented. A 2020 study in the U.K. found that transgender-identified persons are over five times more likely to have autism, over six times more likely to have ADHD, almost four times more likely to have depression, five times more likely to have bipolar disorder and OCD, and over 28 times more likely to have schizophrenia. 

The politically correct explanation for these data points is that transgender identity is innate and immutable, and just happens to occur more readily among young people with smartphones, especially women and those with disabilities. The far more likely explanation is that these groups are, in different ways, more susceptible to social contagion than the general population. 

Dr. Grcevich favors the second, noting how many young people with disabilities that he works with experience other forms of body dysmorphia, like anorexia. These individuals may cling to dysmorphia with intense devotion as a way to make sense of suffering that actually arises from their co-morbidity. When they are told, maybe the reason for this suffering isn’t disability, but the fact that you were born the wrong sex, it’s a lie with sinister appeal. 

In the end, the explosive epidemic of people identifying as transgender is a real phenomenon, and it is not because more people are “coming out of the closet.” It is a social contagion, fueled by digital tech, that predictably and disproportionately attacks certain groups of vulnerable people.  

Any adequate response to this kind of a mental health crisis must be multi-pronged and cannot resort to quickly administering “treatments” that are irreversibly damaging. The first, non-negotiable step is to give up on this myth that transgender identity is innate. It is far more often caught like a virus.  

If our society continues to refuse to address this now obvious and manifest fact, more vulnerable people will suffer unnecessarily.