John Stonestreet and Jared Hayden
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The evidence that “gender-affirming care” harms young people has been widely available for years. However, it has been widely suppressed by policymakers, medical professionals, and media outlets. That is now changing, largely because the stories of those harmed by these dangerous ideas are being told.
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At the most recent Lighthouse Voices event, a series that is co-hosted by Focus on the Family and the Colson Center, Laura Perry Smalts told her story. After eight years of attempting to live as a male, Laura came to faith in Jesus Christ, first as her savior and then as her maker. Her message is a powerful testimony to both the dangerous lies of this movement, especially for young people, and to the potential for reconciling to both God and self.
For example, Laura highlighted the role technology plays in contributing to the widespread confusion about identity:
These kids have grown up on nothing but technology, and they’re not seeing realness in the church and among their parents. … They’re going on YouTube and TikTok and hearing how broken these lives are. But those people are giving them a false salvation. They’re saying, “It’s because I was transgender. That’s the reason I was so broken. But now I’m not broken because I have embraced my authentic self.”
Laura also noted how online, kids are being overly sexualized when they are most vulnerable:
So many of our young people… they’ve been exposed to pornography at such young ages. ... Today these kids are being exposed to pornography that is not like it was 30 or 40 years ago. Looking in the magazine, these kids are being exposed to violent graphic porn. And not only that, but it’s not like they just see it once. If it’s coming up on their phone, it’s going to keep populating over and over and keep coming up until they’re so addicted to it.
Laura also noted something that has been emerging from the accounts of whistleblowers from gender clinics, that mental health comorbidities often exist with young people struggling with their “gender identity” but are often ignored:
Many parents have told me that their kids had lots of anxiety and depression. Those are the two I hear a lot. But also lots of other things. There are high rates of autism. One of the reasons I think there are such high rates of autism is because so much of transgenderism has to do with feeling like you don’t fit in with your same sex. ... So, you think about an autistic kid that feels like they don’t fit in, and they don’t know how to, you know, relate to their own sex. And they probably don’t relate to the other sex well either. But then they come out as trans and then all of a sudden, they’re celebrated as heroes, and they have this immediate friend group.
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Finally, Laura discussed the growing number of people who are “de-transitioning,” including an online forum reserved only for those who are detransitioning that has 50,000 members:
And there’s so many kids on there. “Why didn’t somebody tell me? Why did my doctors let me do this?” I remember one girl said, “I was 14. Then why did the doctor let me cut off my breasts?” And then there was another one where the girl said, “My therapist literally told me, ‘Why deal with your trauma? Just transition and be happy.’”
According to Laura, her story is, at heart, a search for reality.
And I thought, “Why is this still not real? Why is this dysphoria not going away?” And so, I began. I thought, “Well, it’s because I still have all these female organs. Once I have all these female organs removed, then it will be real.” So, I had a hysterectomy, and I had the ovaries removed. And when that still didn’t fix the problem, I was devastated.
By God’s grace, Laura Perry Smalts found what she was looking for. Ultimately, she found Jesus Christ, the Source of all reality. Her recent talk is now available to watch online. Laura also recorded a series of teaching videos on this topic for the Identity Project. Visit identityproject.tv for a comprehensive library of on-demand videos and resources addressing issues of sexuality, identity, and the image of God. For a special discount this month, go to identityproject.tv and enter BREAKPOINT at checkout.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Jared Hayden. If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
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In the recent blockbuster, Dune: Part 2, a character says something to the effect that they shouldn’t try to suppress a religious movement because martyrdom will only make it stronger. This common claim is actually a backhanded compliment to Christianity.
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In most cases in history, repressing religion worked. Among the many religions that failed under the pressure of persecution is Zoroastrianism, once the ruling faith of the Persian Empire. Many former strongholds of Christianity in the Middle East are now Muslim strongholds, and decades of Communism in East Germany virtually wiped out Christianity there to this day.
When people claim that repressing religion makes it stronger, they’re referring to the rare time in which persecution didn’t work. The experience of first-century Christianity is not the norm. Still, Christ’s first followers did not grow from an obscure sect in Jerusalem to the largest religion in history because of persecution, but because its Founder didn’t stay dead.
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