Transgender issues have seemed to become an important consideration in high schools and clinics across America. Breakpoint, a publication of the Colson Center, recently covered the push toward child gender change, noting that The Economist recently reported a flood of adolescent girls seeking treatment for gender dysphoria over the last eight years. “Transgender identity has become a trend, as ‘droves of adolescents, with no prior history of gender confusion,’ are suddenly announcing they’re transgender after ‘immersing themselves in niche websites,’ or ‘after similar announcements from friends’.” This confusion has been identified as “social and peer contagion,” as in “some teenage circles, particularly among girls, it’s reaching epidemic proportions. In a third of the peer groups researched, half or more of the individuals involved came out as transgender. To put this in perspective, less than one percent of Americans aged 18-24 identify as trans. In fact, gender-transition is not only fashionable, “Most children,” says the Economist, “who came out became more popular as a result”.”
Cases such as In re JNS of an Ohio questioning teen present some challenging concerns for the best interests of the child standard, as there the court declined to make any decision on custody or gender transition, but rather demurred, ordering all parties to wait for the child to reach the age of majority. The judge expressed grave concern that 100% of the clinic’s questioning patients, all children, were recommended by them for gender reassignment surgery, according to the doctor treating the child JNS. Children can get caught up in trends from those they trust, including peers, doctors, teachers, and extended family.
A faith perspective sheds valuable light on the matter of gender identity. Christianity embraces the concept that body and soul together form an integrated unity, that each human being is an embodied soul, rather than one individual in a misfitted body. Holding that the biologically engendered human body is teleological, people of faith view one’s body as having a structure and purpose ordered for male or female sexuality.
Transgender people may feel they are trapped in ‘the wrong body’ and sense a mismatch between physical sex and psychological gender, experiencing gender dysphoria. Facebook, for example, has over fifty different genders with which users may identify. Transgender advocates might argue that gender identity is not rooted in biology, but that gender identity is independent from the body. Others may argue that gender is merely a social construct, a product of social forces, where “gender is one’s innermost concept of self as male, female, a blend of both or neither – how individuals perceive themselves and what they call themselves.” This notion has been expressed in constitutional jurisprudence in Planned Parenthood v. Casey: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” Sexual orientation and gender identity laws, however, may seem to open opportunities for some children and parents, or they may actually work to place heavy pressure on those children and parents who may be struggling with gender dysphoria to begin transitioning process through hormones and surgery.
Children and their families need places where they can be safe to find hope and restoration, and the freedom to think through the best process for a child whose body is constantly changing during adolescence. Courts are available merely as a last resort to help heal and restore those conflicts, rather than to tear apart families over them, as noted in JNS, to “give a voice and a pathway to youth similarly situated as JNS without attributing fault to the parents and involving them in protracted litigation which can and does destroy the family unit.”
Family restoration encourages children and parents to wait and rethink such a dramatic decision. As Breakpoint stated,
… Transgender ideology today will gladly sacrifice a teen’s true health on the altar of life-altering decisions like hormone therapy and even gender reassignment surgery. We must support our own teens in understanding who they are. They must know that their identity lies not in the latest mixed-up gender ideology or in keeping up with their friends’ fashion choices, but only in the God Who created us male and female.
No comments:
Post a Comment