Christianity,  Culture

12-year old boy transitions to female (then changes his mind)

60 Minutes Australia reports on a 12-year old boy who was diagnosed with gender dysphoria and who decided to “transition” to become a female (watch above). With the help of his mother, he adopted a female identity, began taking female hormones, and grew breasts.

Two year later, however, at the age of 14, he changed his mind. He decided that he didn’t want to be a girl after all. But his body had already been permanently changed by the female hormones. His reversal will now require surgery, including breast reduction surgery to try and make his feminine-looking frame look more masculine.

A few thoughts on this:

1. The science conclusively demonstrates that 80-90% of children with gender confusion grow out of it by puberty, and they do so without any medical intervention at all. In light of that incontrovertible fact, everyone on all sides of this debate should agree that it is cruel and abusive to make permanent changes to the bodies of minor children based solely on their self-reported gender confusion.

2. Is gender dysphoria real? I think that it is. Some children experience real distress because of a perception that their body doesn’t match their mind. But what is the solution to this? Is it not far better to teach such children to resolve their distress in a way that affirms and embraces their biological sex? In other words, it is better to change their mind to fit their body than to amputate healthy body parts to make the body fit the troubled mind.

3. God’s “purposes for us include our personal and physical design as male and female. It is common to think that human identity as male and female is not part of God’s beautiful plan, but is, rather, an expression of an individual’s autonomous preferences. The pathway to full and lasting joy through God’s good design for his creatures is thus replaced by the path of shortsighted alternatives that, sooner or later, ruin human life and dishonor God” (source). Among those “short-sighted” alternatives are gender transitions of minor children. That radical measure is but one of the ways that people are harmed by failing to recognize God’s good design.