Among the most significant developments of the past year has been the strong pushback against radical gender ideology and the growing evidence against so-called “gender-affirming care.”
Early in 2024, internal files leaked from the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), the self-anointed medical association that has pushed for the chemical and surgical “gender transition” of minors, were made public.
For years, clinical, political, and pop culture activists have cited WPATH in order to claim that the science on “gender-affirming care” is “settled,” and that social, chemical, and surgical “transition” interventions are safe, reversible, and lifesaving.
The leaked files from WPATH revealed a different, and far more damning story.
Far from being settled science, these “treatments” were known to be experimental and known to lead to painful complications, including life-threatening conditions like cancers. In a leaked video, a leading WPATH doctor admitted that a minor could not fully understand the implications of “treatment,” especially for his or her future fertility. In other words, this pseudoscience was being pushed on minors who were unable to grant consent.
A few weeks later, the U.K.’s National Health Service released an almost 400-page report on the state of “gender identity services for children and young people.” The Cass Review was a bombshell. Contrary to the standard narrative peddled by activists, this report affirmed that “gender-affirming care” is built on “shaky foundations” and that the evidence supporting the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex-change surgeries to “treat” gender dysphoria is “remarkably weak.”
According to the report, most of the studies cited in support of social, chemical or surgical “transition” lacked the quality required to reliably and safely guide clinicians and families in caring for gender dysphoric young people.
Much was also learned in 2024 about the comorbidities accompanying gender confusion.
For example, research out of the U.K. exposed that adults who identified as transgender were six to seven times more likely to have ADHD, four times more likely to suffer from depression, five times more likely to have bipolar disorder, more than five times as likely to have obsessive compulsive disorder and, shockingly, over 28 times more likely to have a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Another study found that youth who experience gender dysphoria are far more likely to have experienced emotional abuse and physical and emotional neglect. Before the summer heat arrived, a survey of millions of patients over the course of two decades dropped suggesting that those who undergo “gender transition” surgery are 12 times more likely to attempt suicide than the general population.
That last study exposes the evil of the suicide myth, an enduring lie that has effectively driven the transgender epidemic for years now. Counselors and activists have pressured parents into “affirming” their children’s dysphoria, with the manipulative question, “Would you rather have a live son or a dead daughter?”
These revelations that continued to emerge throughout 2024 confirm what Christians should already know to be true. Even more, they should inspire us to steward this cultural moment faithfully. To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, we must be a church not moved by the world, but stubborn in our belief that the world can be moved by a church committed to Christ and to truth. For us, this means having the courage to counter the lies of gender ideology while caring for those victimized by these bad ideas.
This proper response requires a worldview big enough to make sense of the world. We not only must know what is true, we must have the courage to live by truth. Just a year ago, the trans agenda seemed unstoppable and out-of-control. Today, its lies have been exposed, and more people are speaking out. Praise God.