Christians and Gender Dysphoric Children 

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Co 5:17) 

 
God works deep within us to be the people we sensed we could be—the one he knew and chose before the creation of the world (Eph 1:4). It’s simply profound, and yet everything about God inspires awe and wonder.
 
This is true for every Christian, including children and teens who struggle with gender confusion. They desperately need a place to belong and what better place than the church! These children might feel like the most unwanted people on the planet, but in Christ they are beloved children of God (1 Jn 3:1).
 
One Story
 
Thirteen-year-old Ashleigh had no inflection in her voice and her blue-grey eyes stared at me from a distant place in her. A year earlier, a psychiatrist diagnosed her with a mental illness and prescribed medication. The treatment enabled her to do well academically and make friends at school. Sometime within the last year, she sensed that she was a boy living in a girl’s body. Her new friends dressed as boys and so did she. Her Christian parents were devastated that their daughter changed from a sweet, fun-loving girly-girl to a person they hardly recognized.
 
What is Gender Dysphoria?
 
The psychiatric diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria (GD) is given when children and adolescents experience distress due to an incongruence between their biological sex and gender identity. Biologically, the sex of a person is determined at conception and verified at birth. Gender identity refers to a person’s psychological and emotional sense of being male or female.
 
Gender Dysphoria is rare. Children and teenager with GD are an infinitesimal segment of the population: 0.005% to 0.014 percent of males and 0.002 to 0.003 percent of females. Generally, people resolve gender identity issues by early adulthood, often during adolescence.[1]
 
Like Ashleigh, most children diagnosed with GD have other psychiatric conditions, such as depression, phobias, anxiety, and personality disorders. These disorders strongly influence a person’s identity and interpersonal functioning, which makes them even more vulnerable to peer pressure. To make matters worse, transgender activists have highjacked these children for political gain.    
 
Transgender Activists

Activists put Gender Dysphoria as a subcategory of Transgender which includes transsexuals, transvestites, drag queens, cross-dressers, and intersex. They argue that changing one’s gender identity is a civil right. Males who feel like females have to the right to participate in society as a girl/woman. A young man who senses that he is a she has the right to play women’s sports and to shower in their locker room.
 
Activists argue that gender identity is a social construct. Societies determine the do’s and don’ts of male and female behavior, and children and teens have the right to determine their gender. Sometimes radical surgeries and hormone therapy are required for them to live out his or her chosen gender.
 
Thankfully, this insanity is ebbing in western cultures. Congress is passing laws affirming that gender is based on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth and that biological males cannot play in female sports.  
 
Reframing mental illness as a civil right misconstrues the very real human devastation of mental illness. Does a psychotic man have the right to sleep night after night on the streets? No, human suffering is not a right; it’s a tragedy. People need treatment, love, and protection from their worse impulses. They need Christ and his church.
 
God’s Truth

The Bible tells us that God created human beings in his image, male and female (Ge 1:27). The Psalmist praises God,
 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful; I know that full well (Ps 139:13–14).

 
Christians need not let what they read and hear in the news about gender confusion influence their ministry to children. Activists clammer for rights, but Christians know better than to argue on their terms. They have God and the Bible.
 
Children with GD need love, guidance, and a place to belong. It’s not complicated. Christ equips Christians to minister to children. Christians intuitively recognize anxious, sad, or mad children and interact with them in the love of Christ. They offer a gentle hand, a kind word, limits when necessary, and invitations to join with others. They share the gospel, bible stories, and God’s truth. Children learn that Jesus loves them and has brought them into the family of God. They hear the Word, worship Jesus, and take communion when saved. Pronouns and bathroom debates pale when the light of Christ shines on a child.
 
Jesus Christ heals his people. God is Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who heals you (Ex 15:26). As these children cling to Jesus and his Word, Jesus works within them and they mature in Christ. They learn that their true identity is in Christ. They are fearfully and wonderfully made.

 DSM-V, p. 54; Mark A 
1. Yarhouse, Understanding Gender Dysphoria: Navigating Transgender Issues in a Changing Culture (Downers Grove: IVP, 2015) 37–38.