2018 the polarising of medicine by the transgender issue
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2018
the polarising of medicine by the transgender issue
a series of articles and meditations
There are two mutually exclusive “affirming” pathways for the young child wishing to transgender
i.e. affirming and reassuring of birth sex
vs affirming of feeling sex,
and only one of them can be right
and only one can be labelled as child abuse.
This is a clear ethical divide in which it is essential for medicine, not activists and not governments, to be
decisive and authoritative. There is no neutral, no opt-out.
Lachlan Dunjey, April-October 2018
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Proclaiming Truth. Celebrate!
Celebrate Sex: Male and Female, Masculinity and Femininity.
Let’s be more specific and more dogmatic – God’s Creation is heteronormative! Male and female He made them. Yes, there are the “errors” with a different genetic makeup, the whole 0.02% of them, just as there are other genetic differences.
There is no biological spectrum.
Yes, there are spectrums of personality and character within these biological poles. Yes, we can celebrate the “tom-boy” freedom of the girl and admire and love her and fall “in love” with her but she will always be gloriously female – even in adulthood and the mother of a family. And we can appreciate and admire the sensitivity and gentleness of the male who can also have huge strength of character in putting wrongs right and leading our world. Thank God for these differences. Celebrate.
But to then classify these differences as being fluid or dynamic “genders” along a spectrum using such terms (believe it or not) as masculine and feminine (how weird is that when they are trying to neuter those terms) and then to reinforce (always, never to give light to the situation) these artificial constructs by “treating” with hormones or the amputation of sexual organs into – wait for it – the newly fixed pseudo-biological polar opposites of male and female is a mind-boggling twist.
To argue on the one-hand that there is no polarity, no heteronormativity, and then to amputate sexual organs in order to achieve what they have been trying to eliminate is a travesty with irremediable consequences to the individual concerned.
Ask the crowd at the Commonwealth Games what they think of breast or penis amputation for gender confusion and you will get an appropriate response.
Celebrate truth! God did a very, very good job in creating male and female. We believe that society actually does celebrate the innate differences between male and female sexuality. The intrinsic beauty and appreciation of the female face and form is recognised and extolled in art and literature in all societies by both men and women alike. Likewise, the strength of the male form is extolled in art and literature. No amount of social engineering will ever change this, nor do we believe that the mainstream of Australian society wishes for such change. We believe these gender differences to be God-given and to form the basis for sexual expression within marriage.
Disclaimer: Happily married (almost 55 years) to my childhood girlfriend, both of us having made Christian commitments in our teenage years, I write from a position of privilege that I wish would apply to all who read this.
PS how did God do it? XX and XY and all the complexities that go into that and the wonder of the product resulting. Lord God, You are too wonderful.
Lachlan Dunjey 19 April, 2018 http://www.chooselifeaustralia.org.au/life/proclaiming-truth-celebrate-celebrate-sex-male-and-female-masculinity-and-femininity/
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The real question that needs an answer – re Transgenders
and cancelled UWA meeting.
To all objecting to UWA hosting Dr Quentin van Meter re Transgenders Fri 17 Aug 2018
(venue now shifted for security/safety reasons)
The real question that needs an answer now is when your two-year-old boy tells you that he is a girl, what are you going to say? Will you tell him that’s OK and that no one should tell him otherwise, or will you pick him up, love him and tell him he is welcome to like girl things and pretend at times he is a girl but that you love him as “your boy” and he will always be your boy and that you are so proud of him?
And when your six-year-old girl tells you that because she has so much fun with boys that she thinks – like the school teacher told her she could – she is really a boy, what are you going to say? Will you say “of course, that’s OK and you can continue to work that out for yourself” or will you say that you love your tom-boy little girl and you are so pleased she can do boy things and even think like a boy, but “you will always be my precious beautiful, wonderful little girl” and that she may even grow up into a beautiful queen and yet always be adventurous and mischievous in the way she can think.
So, for our children’s sake
According to most surveys 60-90% of children with “gender confusion” will, without interference, revert to or choose their biological/anatomical/genetic sex by adulthood.
According to Dr Quentin van Meter, with appropriate management, this figure is 98%.
We want to reassure parents that this is so and that giving hormones to delay puberty is not good medicine.
We want parents to be able to reassure their children – who have been confused by people, including through public schooling, insisting that they not be known as he or she – that they really are the biological sex they are and anatomically and physically apparent.
We want children and the parents of these children to rejoice and take pleasure in the sex that they are and that masculine and feminine traits in their personality are in fact normal and do not determine gender.
We do not want to see them going down the track of double mastectomy or penile amputation.
Yes, if as adults, they have made such a transition we will accept and respect them as they now are. Likewise, we will accept and respect someone who has had a leg amputation because they were convinced that they should not have that leg – a state or condition that we would usually put into the bracket of Body Dysmorphic Disorder and would seek to persuade from such a course of irreversible action. Further we would regard such mutilating surgery as being unethical.
And although we now receive criticism (and hate) and accusations that we are in fact hateful (how weird is that) we still regard such states of mind as being disturbed and of psychological origin – and therefore, despite the recent re-classification of gender dysphoria, a disorder of psychology.
I call upon the students of UWA to uphold science above dangerous and damaging social theory and I do hope in their own parenting of their children they affirm and take delight in their children’s natural sexuality.
For parents – and all of our society: reassure our children they are what they obviously are and to take pleasure in this obvious fact and that they are not to listen to anyone trying to confuse them.
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PS from an article by Dr Michelle Cretella December 11, 2017 https://www.dailysignal.com/author/michelle-cretella/
If a girl who insists she is male has been on testosterone daily for one year, she is cleared to get a bilateral mastectomy at age 16. Mind you, the American Academy of Pediatrics recently came out with a report that urges pediatricians to caution teenagers about getting tattoos because they are essentially permanent and can cause scarring. But this same AAP is 110 percent in support of 16-year-old girls getting a double mastectomy, even without parental consent, so long as the girl insists that she is a man, and has been taking testosterone daily for one year.
To indoctrinate all children from preschool forward with the lie that they could be trapped in the wrong body disrupts the very foundation of a child’s reality testing. If they can’t trust the reality of their physical bodies, who or what can they trust? Transgender ideology in schools is psychological abuse that often leads to chemical castration, sterilization, and surgical mutilation.
IMPORTANT POSTSCRIPT
The “reassurance” approach to the two-year-old boy and the six-year-old girl, which we would normally have labelled “affirmative”, is now at risk of being labelled “child abuse” – and even possibly criminal – for not encouraging them along a transitional path.
And it is extraordinary how the politically correct have stolen our terms: “affirming” the child now only means affirming transition; “child abuse” means not affirming treatment, whereas we would regard hormonal and surgical treatments as abusive given that 60-90% without interference, will revert to biological sex by adulthood.
Lachlan Dunjey 17 August 2018 http://www.chooselifeaustralia.org.au/life/the-real-question-that-needs-an-answer/
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What is child abuse?
The transgender issue is polarising medicine as well as community.
There are two mutually exclusive “affirming” pathways of approach to the young child wishing to transgender i.e. affirming and reassuring of birth sex vs affirming of feeling sex, and only one of them can be right and only one can be labelled as child abuse.
This is a clear ethical divide in which it is essential for medicine, not activists and not governments, to be decisive and authoritative. There is no neutral, no opt-out.
Transgender activists accuse parents of abuse if they fail to affirm the child’s “transgendering”. They also accuse doctors if they fail to affirm.
But, with the knowledge that 70-80% of such children will “desist” spontaneously and that 98% will desist with education and counselling, it seems clear that giving hormone treatment to delay development of secondary sex characteristics thus perpetuating feelings of wrong gender, and further, the amputation of normal sexual organs, is medical and surgical abuse. There are now reports of 13-year-old girls in the USA having mastectomy.
And so it is that senior respected paediatricians, with good justification, are confirming that to affirm “feelings”, in direct contradiction to anatomical evidence, is abuse.
Normal opposite sex “behaviour” in children is not to be considered evidence of transgender. To label such children as being transgender or “gender diverse” itself creates confusion and is abuse.
And we certainly should not teach gender exploration in our schools as if it was something to explore, to “find out what gender you really are”. Are we already seeing an artificial “collective” of children wishing to transgender?
Thought disorder in childhood can take many forms e.g. that the birth mother is “not my real mother”, or “I am blind, I cannot see”, or “I am deaf, I cannot hear”, or “I am paralysed, I cannot walk” and then acting out the dysphoria as if an actual disability.
We would not contemplate affirming these dysphorias. Nor should we with gender dysphoria. It is no more possible to deny an erect penis that can also ejaculate than it is to deny the presence of eyes that react to light.
It may be possible to say “I don’t want to be the sex I am” but it is not possible to deny the physical actuality.
To share in and reinforce the deceptive thought and be convinced that it is real is an example of folie à deux – a shared delusional state – or even folie à famille when it might involve others in the family.
Despite the physical, medical and genetic illogic (yes, “nonsense”) of the transgender argument it is gaining momentum in the medical community as illustrated by the inclusion in the Medical Journal of Australia 6 August 2018 Volume 209 No 3 of the Consensus Statement by the Australian and New Zealand Professional association for Transgender Health that states “practices attempting to change a person’s gender identity to be more aligned with their sex assigned at birth… lack efficacy, are considered unethical, and may cause lasting damage…”.
This is another threat to the future of Medicine as we have known it to be. Should doctors not come out in outright condemnation of this as we have with other public health issues? Yes, we can and should be civil to adults who have made the transition, but yes, there is a time to condemn destructive coercion of our children.
And our lawmakers certainly should not be legislating in this madness perpetuating child abuse – folie à parlement.
For our children’s sake! 16 Sept 2018
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What is child abuse?
Transgender community clusters.
The mutually exclusive “affirming” pathways for children wishing to transgender represent a clear ethical divide in which it is essential for medicine, not activists and not governments, to be decisive and authoritative.
Normal opposite sex “behaviour” in children is not to be considered evidence of transgender. To label such children as being transgender or “gender diverse” itself creates confusion and is abuse.
And we certainly should not teach gender identities in our schools as if it was something to explore. Are we already seeing an artificial “collective” of disturbed children confused by programs under the disguise of “safe schools” to wipe out “heteronormativity”?
In the meantime there is a sharp rise in children presenting with gender confusion with some commentators referring to “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” – before the child truly understands.
Yes, the rise can be explained as simply being recognition of pre-existing gender confusion, but might it also be the result of children suddenly clutching at a possible solution to distress – particularly relational distress or even “existential” distress? Could this be a cry for help?
Does this sound familiar? Could it be a similar phenomenon to other clusters of aberrant medical behaviour – with a smaller coterie of “real” cases – such as self-cutting, anorexia nervosa, “recovered memory syndrome”, even RSI “repetitive strain injury”?
Let me hasten to add that RSI really is a clinical syndrome and that, once given a diagnostic category, many undiagnosed musculoskeletal pains were recognised and managed correctly, but for the decade of the 1980s the numbers spiralled and have been referred to as an epidemic. A similar “epidemic” of recovered memories took place in the 1980s and 90s. And in the first decade of this century we have seen what might also be called an epidemic of self-cutting.
As with other community conversion reactions in “epidemic” clusters this too may pass, but in the meantime how many children will have been permanently damaged?
When will the people of Australia rise up and say Enough! Stop exposing our children to this rubbish. Let our children be children. And let our educators and our lawmakers stop pandering to this nonsense foisted upon them.
And when will our churches teach regarding the issues that concern every Christian in the every-day world so that we are equipped to really love our neighbour and be concerned for their welfare in society and for the protection of succeeding generations?
What to teach? Creation. Male and female created He them.
Lachlan Dunjey 17 Oct 2018.
http://www.chooselifeaustralia.org.au/life/what-is-child-abuse-transgender-community-clusters/
also see Outbreak: On Transgender Teens and Psychic Epidemics
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00332925.2017.1350804
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A Christian Basis re Transgenders
and a safe place for our children.
What did Jesus say?
- Firstly, Jesus affirmed the creation story. Matt 19:4-6 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh.”
The warfare against heteronormativity – male and female – is an unprecedented rebellion against God and His Creation.
We must preach and teach the fundamentals of creation and their application – male and female (no spectrum), its complementarity as the ordinance of marriage and the Imago Dei – to be created in the image of God.
- Secondly, Jesus explained and affirmed the command (Luke 10:27) to love our neighbour. Loving our neighbour and our neighbour’s children means not only caring for them in present calamity but also warning against approaching calamity (e.g. a flash flood) or helping to protect their future from encroaching evil – in this instance state mandated sexual indoctrination.
Loving our neighbour is not optional. “Hate evil and love good, then work it out in the public square” (Amos 5:15 Msg)
- Thirdly, Jesus said “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt 18:6).
Jesus’ condemnation re leading children into sin is quite specific as is its judgment. Other evils that concern us do not merit the same specific judgment. May this truth be reflected in our thinking and our living.
If we, as informed Christians, support politicians and educators whose firm commitment is sexual confusion and indoctrination of our children, then we too are guilty of allowing our little ones to be led into sin.
Lachlan Dunjey 25 October 2018
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What is child abuse? the polarisation of medicine and
medical defence organisations.
The mutually exclusive “affirming” pathways for children wishing to transgender represent a clear ethical divide in which it is essential for medicine, not activists and not governments, to be decisive and authoritative. There is no neutral.
It is inevitable that at some point there will be consumer legal action for either affirming OR failing to affirm.
Who will decide? Will it be doctors, psychologists or the lawmakers? If doctors, then will it be the psychiatrists or paediatricians who tend to have opposing views? Associations of paediatricians hold very definite opposing views.
Which side of the polarity regarding child abuse will Medical Defence Organisations defend? If they defend surgeons who do transgender mastectomy for a 25 yr-old on the grounds that fully informed consent was given, will they also defend surgeons who have done the same procedure for a 13 yr-old who decides to sue when an adult?
Further, will MDOs defend the surgeon who refuses to do a mastectomy for a 13 yr-old?
And how will MDOs decide? Will different MDOs have different approaches to these matters because their boards have been taken over by people with set ideologies?
Will MDOs simply side with what is legal – if governments declare that affirmation of birth sex or reversal counselling is child abuse and punishable by law?
For the sake of our MDO insurance premiums we need decisions now, rather than a decade from now. It is to be hoped that MDOs will continue their honourable, professional status and be much more than just another insurance company.
This is a clear ethical divide in which it is essential for medicine, not activists and not governments, to be decisive and authoritative. There is no neutral.
A note re affirmation of feelings unsupported by evidence.
“Yes, you must affirm the feelings – progress is not possible unless you do.”
“The evidence doesn’t have to support the feeling – it doesn’t have to be totally true.”
Déjà vu?
Consider “recovered memories syndrome”. After attending a seminar in 1995 on Memories of Abuse, I wrote inter alia the following
If we have not ultimately questioned historical accuracy by using intervention strategies at some point and 20 people are imprisoned as a result of subsequent criminal charges, and it is then found that the memories were not factual, then – despite the existence of disclaimers and contracts – we may be accused of having failed in this wider responsibility. This is equally true even if only 1 person is unjustly imprisoned, and it is also true even if only 1 person is unjustly accused.
And, re transgenders, if we have not even queried whether there are possible contributing factors or stressors in children wishing to transgender – such querying itself labelled as abuse by those who insist on affirming the wish – then we have failed our ethical and professional responsibilities as doctors, and our duty as community leaders and parents.
We have failed the child and we have failed the community. We have failed medicine.
Lachlan Dunjey 28 Oct, 2018. http://www.chooselifeaustralia.org.au/life/what-is-child-abuse-the-polarisation-of-medicine-and-medical-defence-organisations/
Sharper and Harder
Where is the battle going next? What will be the next front? The intensity of attack seems exponential.
“Have you ever noticed,” said Dimble, “that the universe, and every bit of the universe is always hardening and narrowing and coming to a point?”
His wife waited as those wait who know by long experience the mental processes of the person who is talking to them.
“I mean this,” said Dimble in answer to the question she had not asked. “If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family – anything you like – at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren’t quite so sharp; and that there’s going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing. The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder.” ―C.S.Lewis That Hideous Strength
Our presentation of truth, natural law, Biblical truth (Ps 119 law, statutes, principles, ways, precepts, decrees, commands) will be interpreted as hate speech.
How does this relate to the previous post re A Christian Basis re Transgenders? http://www.chooselifeaustralia.org.au/life/a-christian-basis-re-transgenders-and-a-safe-place-for-our-children/
The warfare against heteronormativity – male and female – is an unprecedented rebellion against God and His Creation.
There is NO spectrum
Loving our neighbour and our neighbour’s children means also warning against encroaching evil.
As watchmen WE are responsible if we do not sound the alarm.
If we, as informed Christians, support politicians and educators whose firm commitment is sexual confusion and indoctrination of our children, then we too are guilty of allowing our little ones to be led into sin.
Will we, in our voting, support an evil that Jesus condemned outright as evil?
Yes, the choices for our nation are sharper and harder – where “there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous”. Sharper because the choices are more clear; harder because of the consequences to us if we fail in our watchman duty to love our neighbour, and because of the consequences to our nation if it does not heed the warning.
Lachlan Dunjey. 30 Oct 2018. http://www.chooselifeaustralia.org.au/life/sharper-and-harder/
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Counteracting the Trans Culture.
Christian Parenting “…around the kitchen table”.
How to respond to your 7-year-old boy who thinks he might be a girl.
Is the situation different from that of the second half of the 20th century in terms of the sexual culture?
Yes, primarily then the culture was accepting of heteronormativity with “normal” sexual desires between “normal” male and female but seeking to make this a “free sex” culture, to hook-up with anyone you like free of consequences.
The contraceptive pill aided the illusion of free consequences. Abortion became a battleground of women’s rights and the baby was relegated to a piece of tissue that wasn’t – by any stretch of the imagination – really human (yes, stated openly in our national parliaments as recently as a decade ago).
At least masculinity and femininity were accepted and even (perversely) celebrated, and pornography became and continues to be a huge industry and battleground. Then came the flagrantly homosexual Mardi-Gras and families with children shared in the showtime.
And then came the trojan horse of the Safe Schools Coalition of Australia, born as an anti-bullying program for schools and endorsed in our parliaments, despite the revelation that this was an indoctrination program to prematurely sexualise our children. It is still endorsed by party policies and still supported by people who still (!) vote for the MPs that support these policies.
The principal spokesperson for SSCA is on the public record – visually – as saying the program was not really about bullying but about eliminating heteronormativity.
The evils of the safe-schools program are on the public record but included is the permission and implied encouragement to find out what sexuality you are by allowing more than one virginity with more than one orifice with both male and female, that pregnancy can be avoided by using a different orifice, and that techniques and aids – including for “acceptable” masochistic sex – could be found on online helpfully linked, and we can show you how to avoid your parents discovering any of this.
So sexual experimentation was encouraged. Permission was given to “discover” whether you were heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual. Ultimately you could be whatever “gender” you liked despite your birth sex and physical anatomy (and genetics) along a spectrum of genders and that you could change your gender whenever you liked.
And somehow, when we were asleep, moves came to change our birth certificates to eliminate sex “assigned at birth” from the certificate. Also of course, substitution of mother and father with “Parent 1 and parent 2”. (How was it that such legislation has been passed and is still being pushed? Yes, it is and was by wilfully ignorant MPs who blindly supported the anti-discrimination logic of the LGBTI agenda.)
We warned our MPs and the public of the consequences of legalising same-sex marriage but we were told there were none, that this was a step that needed to be made to counter discrimination against same-sex attracted people and that legal safeguards would be introduced to protect freedom of speech, freedom to believe, freedom to teach and freedom to act and live accordingly in our culture and occupations.
And now we know these freedoms are under threat – despite international treaties that clearly state these rights.
What are the current specific battle fronts?
Premature sexualisation of our children has intensified through our schools, pre-schools and media but the two main fronts that we must now battle in our parliaments, in our schools, and in our homes “around the kitchen table” are
- our freedom to believe, speak, teach and live what we believe
- to be whatever gender you like – with all the lifetime consequences of this – with the accusation of being a child abuser if we do not affirm this process, ultimately with the threat of having children taken from us.
Why “around the kitchen table”? Because the stated sadness of the retiring president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Professor Gillian Triggs, was that “you can say what you like around the kitchen table”, her regret being that the AHRC did not get this far in eliminating wrong teaching and discrimination. One would hope that she was joking but given the history and the serious responses of many commentators it would seem not.
So, what can we do? Yes, we must be a Voice. Yes, there have been many valiant Australian voices in this battle. We give honour to the many who have been at the forefront of this battle and the books that have been rapidly produced to educate us in this serious conflict of worldviews.
In our connections with the public, with our schools – state and private – we can all be a voice and in terms of informing and teaching in our churches and Sunday Schools and young people’s work it is essential to be involved.
But most of all we must win “around the kitchen table” in our homes, in our parenting.
We can be very grateful to Professor Gillian Triggs for highlighting this fundamental battleground focus against totalitarianism. This is where we must win for the sake of our children.
The rest of this short paper then is about what we model and what we teach “around the kitchen table” with an emphasis on transgenders.
OK, so what is needed – and for some was always there – over and above normal “good” Christian parenting? Over and above seeking for our children to grow in the “nurture and admonition” of the Lord? Over and above loving our children, spending time with them, teaching and memorising Scripture, praying with them, agonising with them in times of rejection or conflict with others?
In a word – Celebrate! Even with joy!
Celebrate creation, not just teach it and point out the magnificence of design and beauty and give thanks for it, but actually celebrate. Jump up and down and get excited about concepts of “irreducible complexity” and how God might have done it and the pleasure He had in doing it.
Celebrate the child, giving praise to God for the gift that He has given to us as well as the gifts He has given to the child and making him/her so special. Loving the child just as they are and who they were created to be, not just for what your child has done although we must give praise for that too – but for who your child is. Yes, jump up and down and get excited with your child giving the praise to God.
Affirm and celebrate purpose for your child in reading (and celebrating!) God’s word to us e.g. in Psalm 139.
Extol and celebrate the wonder of design in all of nature pointing all the time to the God who did it. Get excited about male and female and the reproduction – in kind – of the species. Get excited about your child’s boyhood or girlhood and that this was determined too. Celebrate masculinity and femininity.
And in all of this and underlying it, Celebrate God, the Giver and Designer. The Beginning and the End. The Father of the Lord Jesus Christ who gave His life that we might live. Get excited – and stay excited – about this too with your child.
Celebrate and teach truth.
We should be certain in our own minds as to God’s truth so that we can effectively communicate this in our conversations and teaching and correcting if needed. The Creator genius made male and female. There is no biological spectrum.
Yes, there are spectrums of personality and character within these biological poles. Yes, we can celebrate the “tom-boy” freedom of the girl and admire and love her and fall “in love” with her but she will always be gloriously female – even in adulthood and the mother of a family. And we can appreciate and admire the sensitivity and gentleness of the male who can also have huge strength of character in putting wrongs right and leading our world. Thank God for these differences. Celebrate.
But to then classify these differences as being fluid or dynamic “genders” along a spectrum using such terms (believe it or not) as masculine and feminine (how weird is that when they are trying to neuter those terms) and then to reinforce (always, never to give light to the situation) these artificial constructs by “treating” with hormones or the amputation of sexual organs into – wait for it – the newly fixed pseudo-biological polar opposites of male and female is a mind-boggling exercise and an abuse.
When the situation is confused and when your two-year-old boy tells you that he is a girl, what are you going to say? Will you tell him that’s OK and that no one should tell him otherwise, or will you pick him up, love him and tell him he is welcome to like girl things and pretend at times he is a girl but that you love him as “your boy” and he will always be your boy and that you are so proud of him?
And when your six-year-old girl tells you that because she has so much fun with boys that she thinks – like the school teacher told her she could – she is really a boy, what are you going to say? Will you say “of course, that’s OK and you can continue to work that out for yourself” or will you say that you love your tom-boy little girl and you are so pleased she can do boy things and even think like a boy, but “you will always be my precious beautiful, wonderful little girl” and that she may even grow up into a beautiful queen and yet always be adventurous and mischievous in the way she can think.
And, as appropriate, point out the errors and false teaching that are around, that create confusion directly in opposition to God and finally, if needed, to be wary of rebelling against God’s Creation. Continue to pray openly and with your child about all such things
Appendix 1: A Disclaimer
I hope this short paper will be of use in stimulating discussion. Although I have talked in public – and many times in my 50 years in the consulting room – on parenting issues including “A Safe Place for our Children”, I do not pretend special authority in this area. We count ourselves fortunate in the family we have and thank God for His grace in helping us in the parenting journey. Our family backgrounds and our friends have been a part of this journey. Thank you, Lord.
I am also painfully aware that sometimes it seems no matter how “good” the loving Christian parenting is that children turn away from family, from Christian values, and from God. Yes, there may be family of origin background factors – even genetic – that we do not and should not pretend to understand (that being too hurtful), but sometimes we must just regard as a “mystery” and continue to pray for their salvation and welcoming into heaven where ultimate healing and restoration takes place. And pray with and support the parents.
Appendix 2: re celebration and feelings
OK, we all have (celebrate this too) different personalities. Some of us find it hard to overtly celebrate, yes, being thankful to God for His goodness and grace and love and expressing this continually – in our weakness – in word and song and in our writing but miss celebration, what I would call a more effusive declaration of praise and deliberate joy and excitation with the ability to transmit this sense to others.
Is this too hard? Is it possible for us of quiet personalities? Is it hypocritical to celebrate when we find it hard to feel it? No, praising our child, praising God, even celebration, are things we must do independent of feelings and as we do this – particularly in concert with others – so the feeling of joy may or may not also be restored.
There is quiet joy and there is effusive joy felt and experienced. Ultimately it may be as with Amy Carmichael “Joy is not jolliness; joy is not gush, but joy is acquiescence to God’s will”. Or, as a free paraphrase of Psalm 84v10, “I’d rather be here with You, my Lord and my God, in the valley, than anywhere else without You” – and celebrate even that. For further discussion of depression and joy see Understanding Depression – A Christian Perspective
Lachlan Dunjey 1 Nov 2018.
PS also see helpful article https://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/view/fathers-sons-and-the-sexual-revolution-we-really-need/21883 particularly “Fathers, take back your sons.”
If links not working go to http://www.chooselifeaustralia.org.au/life/counteracting-the-trans-culture-christian-parenting-around-the-kitchen-table/
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