The Transgender Agenda
Yesterday the BBC reported that, “US President Barack Obama has condemned psychiatric therapies designed to “repair” gay, lesbian and transgender youth.” What was interesting about this report was not so much that Obama is reflecting what has simply become accepted dogma in most of the western world, as the way it was linked primarily to transgenderism, rather than homosexuality.
The immediate cause of Obama’s statement was a petition started following the suicide last December of transgender youth Leelah Alcorn. The BBC ends its report with a quote from Alcorn’s suicide note: “The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was… My death needs to mean something. Fix society. Please.” The way that this is ‘filtered’ is that the way to ‘fix’ society is by normalising transgenderism, but it would seem at least as reasonable to suggest that a better fix would be to 1. Yes, treat transgender people with dignity and kindness, but 2. Not jump to the conclusion that transgenderism is a positive thing for society.
Rather, it might be sensible to recognise that the transgender agenda is causing us, among other things, to, as Brendan O’Neill puts it, experiment on our children in the most damaging way. O’Neill suggests that the increasing incidence of referring children with transgender feelings to doctors, and offering treatment to prevent the onset of puberty, is as barbaric as the practice of castrating male choir boys was.
There’s one more, seriously dark element to the promotion of the ‘trans kids’ phenomenon: it’s being pushed by adult trans activists as a way of pursuing their own interests and agenda. More and more trans campaigners are using ‘trans kids’ effectively as a moral shield, hoping that if they can convince the world that transgenderism is something that emerges as early as three or four then it must be natural, good, healthy, and thus should be insulated from criticism.
That is, they’re effectively experimenting on children, both socially and medically, both through filling kids’ heads with nonsense about dysphoria and offering them drugs, in order to advance their own adult demands for greater recognition. This is repulsive, the creation of a new generation of castratos who are paraded and praised in public by self-serving trans activists who only want more political clout and respect. Stop it. Let kids be kids. A boy who plays with dolls is not trans or dysphoric – he’s just a boy who plays with dolls.
I think O’Neill is largely right, but he seems to be one of the few media voices bold enough to speak out against the cultural flow.
The momentum that the transgender agenda is building does mean we need to be thinking about these issues. We ought to have some clarity of thought on the kind of big social issues O’Neill is commenting on, and we also need to think about how we will respond when these issues are not abstract but experienced first hand.
I already know several churches where transgender people are attending and these things are having to be faced and worked through. We should expect this to be the case in most of our churches in years to come – even to expect and want it in the same way that we would want gay people to come to our churches.
The kinds of questions we should be asking ourselves ahead of time are obvious:
• How do we create the kind of church culture in which transgender people feel comfortable being among us?
• How do we do this but not muddy the waters in terms of what we believe about the clarity of gender distinctions?
• How do we pastor our churches so that they are accepting of transgender people but discerning about the wider societal issues (which I would argue includes not swallowing the transgender agenda)?
• How will we pastor transgender people? What will be our approach to issues such as baptism or church membership or serving in different areas of church life with the transgendered?
• How will we teach and model sexuality in a way that strengthens and clarifies real marriage and family life, honours singleness, recognises brokenness, accepts those who ‘don’t fit the box’, and challenges sinfulness with truth and love?
I don’t think we can put our heads in the sand on this one. The train is coming.