The Biden administration’s newly announced opposition to gender transition surgeries for minors is welcome. But Christians could be mistaken to let this news make us less vigilant on this issue.
The announcement only got here after The New York Times reported late last month on efforts by the administration to “remove age limits for adolescent surgeries from guidelines for care of transgender minors.” And the White House clarified that the administration still supports “gender-affirming take care of minors, which represents a continuum of care,” and respects “the role of oldsters, families, and doctors in these decisions.”
Youth gender medicine of all types also stays a live issue in state government and the judicial system. On June 24, the Supreme Court agreed to review a case difficult a Tennessee law that prohibits “gender-affirming take care of transgender youths.” United States v. Skrmetti addresses whether the state ban violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Tennessee’s law currently differentiates the rights of a minor for treatment of a “congenital defect, precocious puberty, disease, or physical injury” from treatments rendered for “gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder, gender incongruence, or any mental condition, disorder, disability, or abnormality.” Even so, medical groups just like the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Medical Association (AMA) oppose such laws based on the claims that such medical procedures have reduced suicide attempts and decreased rates of depression and anxiety amongst minors who discover as transgender.
The neglected query is whether or not that’s true. What has been neglected in these debates is that the well-being and long-term health of minors is taking a back seat to appeasing activists and politicians.
Such procedures, whether or not they be puberty-blocking medications or various surgeries, are misguided attempts by medical professionals who sincerely consider that they’re helping children. However, sincerity doesn’t sanctify an motion. As Charles Spurgeon once said, “If you sincerely drink poison, it’s going to kill you: for those who sincerely cut your throat, you’ll die. If you sincerely consider a lie, you’ll suffer the results. You must not only be sincere, but you need to be right.”
In the case of “gender-affirming care,” those who are suffering the results of the lie are children. To even speak of “gender-affirming care” in an unqualified manner betrays a Christian’s fundamental convictions concerning the dignity of human life. Medicine heals the body; gender reassignment surgery disfigures it.
In fact, while American activist and medical groups claim that “gender-affirming care” works, other medical groups in Europe are questioning these claims, raising serious concerns concerning the ongoing health impact of those procedures, which is giving pause to medical professionals and lawmakers alike around the globe. Recently, UK researcher Hilary Cass released her review of relevant studies and flagged the unstudied long-term impact of such medical procedures on minors, especially regarding “cognitive and psychosexual development.”
That should come as no surprise to Christians. These procedures are steeped within the demonstrably false concept that our gender has no relationship to our biology. If we desire to supply compassionate care to those that are in distress, we’re best to counsel our kids on the goodness of their created bodies as those made in God’s image. God’s design for his creation is superb (Gen. 1:31). The compassionate and loving plan of action in these cases is just not present in embracing a lie but in speaking the reality in love (Eph. 4:15).
With children experiencing gender dysphoria, we have to be patient, hearken to them, pray for them, teach them, and, when crucial, connect them with knowledgeable Christian counselor. But social or medical transition is just not the reply.
Doctors and surgeons currently perform these irreversible procedures with near impunity resulting from poorly researched studies that suggest there may be some immediate profit conferred to the kid affected by these mental disorders. Long-term studies, nonetheless, show that people “with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the final population.”
What can also be rarely mentioned are the rates of desistance amongst children who grow up with puberty-blocking medication and surgical alteration to their bodies, or the distress that many proceed to feel after these procedures. Our government has an ethical obligation to handle these purported treatments and to reveal the true harm that takes place within the name of “care.”
The bodies and brains of our kids ought never to be considered pawns for political gain. They hold inherent dignity as image-bearers. Caring for them well within the midst of their mental distress forbids us from considering or acting in any way that denies the rights of their Creator and Lord.
The Biden administration’s opposition to surgery is a start, nevertheless it’s only a start. Christians should support comprehensive bans on these treatments out of regard for God’s good design for humanity and his express purpose for governments in society (Rom. 13:1–17). Such laws guide our governing authorities and serve a very good purpose that advantages all of humanity. We should desire and support such laws, for they prevent irreparable harm to essentially the most vulnerable people amongst us and affirm that God has created and ordered us for his glory and our good.
This is just not only a political and medical matter; it’s a theological matter as well. If, as Christians, we consider that God has created humanity in his image, then any debate regarding the health and well-being of youngsters is inherently theological. The themes of God as creator, humanity as a part of his creation, and the obligations of humans as stewards over the remainder of creation bear great significance for the way we should care for kids in society.
In Matthew 18, Jesus tells his followers that unless they change into like children, they may not enter the dominion of heaven, and that whoever welcomes a fellow believer (child) welcomes Christ as well. He continues: “If anyone causes one among these little ones—those that consider in me—to stumble, it will be higher for them to have a big millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned within the depths of the ocean” (v. 6).
Jesus’ point here is that just as children were to be protected against harm on this planet, so also his disciples ought to be protected and never be caused to stumble by others. This comparison only works if Jesus’ audience understood that he expected each children on this planet and the “children” of his kingdom to be protected against harm. If anyone ought to grasp the importance of protecting children on this planet, it ought to be those that have taken on the identity of a baby of God and know the results of causing little ones to stumble.
Protecting children is the precise and loving thing to do. It ought to be a priority for our government and for us because the people of God.
Casey Hough is director of partnerships and curriculum at World Hope Ministries International and assistant professor of biblical interpretation at Luther Rice College and Seminary. He is writer of Known for Love: Loving Your LGBTQ Friends and Family Without Compromising Biblical Truth (Moody, 2024).
