Some people feel very uncomfortable with the sex of the body they’ve been given, and Christians should be more understanding about it than anyone else.
After all, we know what Paul says in Romans 8:20: “Creation was subjected to futility — not willingly, but because of him who subjected it.” In other words, this world isn’t right. It doesn’t work the way it should. And “not willingly.” Not because it was designed that way. Because of “him who subjected it.” Because our sin corrupted the world.
If that’s true of all creation, then it will also be true of our bodies. Which means sometimes people will feel like they’re trapped in the wrong bodies. They intensely feel the brokenness of the world.
Here’s the problem: increasingly in the Western world we’re told to celebrate the brokenness rather than look for ways to heal the brokenness. That’s increasingly true for teenagers and young adults. 20% of Gen Z Americans now identify as LGBT+, compared to millennials (10%) and Gen Xers (5%).
As Wall Street Journal writer Abigail Shrier says in her recent book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, there are many reasons for the recent surge in gender dysphoria, especially among pre-teen and teenage girls. All girls in puberty experience anxiety, many times because they don’t measure up to society’s physical expectations. They believe they’ve failed as women when their social media photos don’t gather the number of likes they were looking for.
As a result, Shrier says many teenage girls “flee womanhood like a house on fire, their minds fixed on escape, not on any particular destination. Many would say, “I don’t know exactly that I want to be a guy. I just know I don’t want to be a girl.”
So if a child, family member, or friend confides in you that she feels like she should be a boy, or he should be a girl, you don’t need to respond with fear, outrage, or judgment. You can respond with compassion and hope, because we know that Christ came to heal our broken world and broken souls.
As Paul completes his sentence in Romans, “Creation was subjected to futility — not willingly, but because of him who subjected it — in the hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. (Romans 8:20-21). Jesus came to make all things new in this broken world.
The reality is that none of us are what we’re supposed to be. All of us feel the brokenness of this world, the brokenness of our hearts, and the brokenness of our bodies. And that’s why the body of Jesus was broken on the cross.
That’s what we can communicate to loved ones who are struggling with gender dysphoria. Yes, we’re all broken, but Jesus was broken so we could all be made whole.
Not immediately. Not completely in this lifetime. Which is why your child, family member or friend needs you to “bear one another’s burdens” over the long haul.
There may be practical strategies required, like removing a child from social media, from a class, or even from a school. This Christian family’s story details the ups and downs of how they patiently loved and discipled a pre-teen who announced she was a boy.
There will be lingering questions, doubts, conflict, and frustration for years, possibly decades. There will be seasons when sin seems to be winning. But the hope of the gospel is that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18).
For more about the rise of the LGBT+ movement, I recommend Carl Trueman’s book Strange New World. For a helpful, practical, and Christ-centered book about our bodies, pick up What God Has To Say About Our Bodies by Sam Allberry.