Are you overwhelmed with the confusion about gender in our culture? Gender confusion comes out of an identity confusion. I would even say identity dysphoria. where there are young people today who do not like the whole of who they are. Every confusion is an opportunity and this is simply an opportunity that God is allowing us to have in our culture at this time to connect with our children.
Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of The New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Today, two guests will join us to deal with the topic of raising gender-confident kids. President of Summit Ministries, Dr. Jeff Myers.
and child development expert Dr. Kathy Cook have practical biblical help for you today. I think every parent, grandparent, teacher, concerned citizen is going to be interested in our conversation today. It has such wide-ranging ramifications on the church and the culture as well. If you go to our website, you'll see our featured resource right there, the book by Dr.
Myers and Dr. Cook. It's titled Raising Gender Confident Kids: Helping Kids Embrace Their God-Given Design. Find that linked at buildingrelationships.us. Gary, I think it's going to be an important conversation.
Chris, I think more than ever this conversation is needed and I think our listeners are going to stay with us because this is something every one of us is dealing with in our culture today. Yeah.
Well, let's meet our guest. Dr. Kathy Cook is founder and president of Celebrate Kids Incorporated. Based in Fort Worth, Texas, she's the author of several best-selling parent-child enrichment books, Screens in Teens, Eight Great Smarts, Resilient Kids, and more. She earned a Ph.D.
in reading and educational psychology from Purdue. Dr. Jeff Myers is president of Summit Ministries and a nationally recognized expert in worldview training for young adults.
Somebody equips the next generation to champion a biblical worldview. He's the author of some 19 books, earned a doctor of philosophy degree from the University of Denver. He and his wife Stephanie and their family live in Colorado. And our featured resource today is the book they've written, Raising Gender Confident Kids. Find out more at buildingrelationships.us.
Well, Dr. Cook and Dr. Myers, thanks for joining us today. It's a real honor and pleasure to be here, Gary. Thank you.
Gary, we love your work and are so thankful for the opportunity to be on the show to talk about something that I know is so much in the minds of people in our culture today.
So let's jump in. Talk about where we are in the culture with the gender confusion and why you wrote this book. Young adults today are 1,600% more likely than those over the age of 50 to identify as transgender. They have become convinced that gender is not male or female, but that gender falls along a spectrum. with Barbie at one end, extreme femininity.
G.I. Joe at the other end, extreme masculinity. And since most of us are neither G.I. Joe or Barbie, then we all kind of fall in the middle. We are non-binary.
So everybody is transgender. And it came about through really an ideology promoted in various universities. that was attempting to tear down any sense that there are absolute truths that can be known. And now it's caught on like wildfire in the culture, primarily as we can talk about, a disease of the internet. Yeah, and we wrote the book because we're deeply concerned for young people who have been deceived.
For parents who want to know what to do right, for grandparents, educators who want to know what to do right, pastors. who want to know what to do right, how do we respond to the questions our kids are asking, how do we say no when we believe that they're falling for the lie from culture. And we wanted to equip them and empower them to parent strong in a really difficult time.
Well, Dr. Myers, you alluded to this a bit in terms of where is all this coming from, and you mentioned the academic background. But are there other things in terms of where this came from and why it's so predominant now? And then, of course, we're going to talk today about how parents can respond to that. You know, Gary, since I came from the philosophy background, the philosophical aspect of it is always fascinating to me.
But it's really sort of a postmodern impulse in our culture that if postmodernism says we don't want there to be any distinctions between anything, because that means there's knowable truth. And if truth can be known, then we can't all do whatever we want to do.
Well, there is one. truth at least that's very persistent and that is that male and female actually exist. There are 6,500 biological differences between males and females. And that's a problem. If the postmodernist wants to eliminate truth, they've got to somehow eliminate this concept of gender.
So it goes back. 1950s, 1960s, one of the key researchers, John Money from Johns Hopkins University. Began to say, well, look, let's call biology, let's call that sex, and then psychology, we'll call that gender.
So you may have a male or female body. That's your sex, but your gender is whatever you want it to be. And so now people think there aren't two genders. There are 68 or more different genders. And it spread from the Academy directly into social media through channels like TikTok, where young adults who are wondering about gender will find all kinds of false information, complete lies.
presented as the truth. And adults who Google it will find the same thing. If you Google the word transgender, you'll be pages deep into the search results before you find one single thing that questions the ideology. Everything else is: here's how to legally separate from your parents if they don't acknowledge your gender identity. Here's how to get cross-sex hormones without your parents knowing about it.
All of those kinds of things.
So you can imagine that. in a world that turns to the Internet as for discipleship, People are super confused. Yeah.
And it makes us nuts, right, guys? It's just a sad, sad thing that they're going to the internet. And that's, again, another reason we wrote the book.
Something else to just bring up here at the beginning of the show about the explosion of gender confusion would be the whole mental health issue. Many people who have researched and written about this topic would agree with us that many, almost most of the people who choose this route are dealing with other issues, depression, anxiety, stress, being overwhelmed. I'm not having a good belonging. They're looking for. Recognition being known, they want to be celebrated like anybody does.
And they find out, especially in our public schools, that if they come out as trans, they will be celebrated. Their name will be known, their lock will be, you know, decorated. And at least until the next kid comes out, they're going to have some popular feelings, if you will. And we're so we're concerned, Dr. Chapman, because if they think that changing their gender will take care of all the other issues, it won't.
We know that from looking at data and interviewing people. And so now they have the confusion of changing their body, which will not work. Still coupled with depression, stress, being overwhelmed, being anxious. And now it's just a double mess, if I can put it that way.
So, again, there's more reasons than that, but that gets us started today. Yeah.
But Dr. Cook, what is gender confidence? And why does it matter so much today? Oh, we love that question. Gender confidence is, I would say, believing the God of the Bible is good at what he does.
It's believing scripture. Your gender confidence comes from Genesis 1:27, which says that we're created in God's image, which is a very good thing if you know that God is good, and that we are created either male or female. Again, these are the two genders. And so when you are. Believing in scripture when you're a Christ follower.
Or when you're searching for truth and you're believing that the Bible may be true, then you're going to have a greater confidence in gender. And the other thing that I think happens with gender confidence, as Jeff was alluding to, is that you ignore the stereotypes that you have to be a certain way. You know, I'm very tall. I was the tallest kid all the way through ninth grade. I'm only 6'1.
But through ninth grade, for me as a girl, I was tall. And that can be somewhat awkward. Like, who wrote the book that men are supposed to be taller than women? You know, that's not true, it's not biblical. And we've got to teach our kids to believe.
Again, God's best and not necessarily what culture would proclaim. Yeah.
Dr. Myers, we're going to dig into this deeper as we get into our conversation today, but how can parents talk to their kids so they become confident in their gender? And how can they effectively use scriptures, perhaps, in their conversations?
Well, I love this question as well, Gary, because we've got to have the conversations in our book, Raising Gender Confident Kids. We have 200 conversation starters to show you exactly how to do this step by step because parents are nervous and grandparents are nervous. I should mention that as well. I spoke with one grandmother who said, of my 13 grandchildren, five of them now identify as transgender. And they're wondering, well, how do I talk to?
My kids about this. The first thing we want to emphasize is that you approach all these conversations with a sense of compassion. You want to begin by saying, You know, I'm so grateful that you are sharing this with me. Thank you for trusting me with this. And could you tell me more about what you're experiencing?
just to be curious. The second thing is to show that you understand. I remember feeling confused when I was going through puberty. I remember wondering if there was something wrong with me. And I think the third thing, Gary, is to envision.
A different future to say something like, I see you as the kind of person who trusts God with your doubts. and tries to do what is right. And you know what? You're going to be okay. We're going to walk through this together.
Let's just trust God. Let's trust Jesus. In the midst of this. And a lot of passages that are important in scripture. Kathy mentioned one, Genesis 1:27, that God made us male or female.
Another one that Kathy and I both turn to frequently, it's a sense of personal comfort and also a source of ministry to the students we work with, is Psalm 139. Which says that we were knit together in our mother's wombs, that we're fearfully and wonderfully made. God has a good design, He's a good God. And that's the biggest question our students face. They don't ask, is God God?
They're not doubting God's existence, they're doubting his goodness.
So if we can help them understand, no, God's design is good, and what you're developing in this time when you feel uncomfortable is called character. And no matter what else happens, you're going to have that for the rest of your life. I love that, Jeff. And let me add to that, if I could, that we would advocate that parents and grandparents can start talking to their kids about gender very early on. Before the kids ask questions, you know, we can say things like, Man, I love that God gave me a little girl.
I just love watching you twirl in your dress. And then we can also say to our boys, I'm so glad God gave me a son, and I love watching you dance as you worship because it's okay for boys to dance. We can't, again, you know, add to the ridiculous of the stereotypes.
So if there's a creative, music-smart guy, Dancer boy that he's lied to by a peer who says, Oh, you must be trapped. You know, you're clearly a girl. You dance like a girl. No, we've got to affirm them out of the mouths of parents, right, and grandparents. Let's affirm them.
And back to the idea of using scripture, you know, one of the sections we wrote in the book that I think is really important. Is a section about how do you help young people believe the Bible's true? Because parents and others have told us that if the kids don't believe the Bible's true, then it's of course hard to use the Bible as a reason that they should not try to transition. But I wanna say to the parents who are listening: you need to know the Bible's true. Like, I pray that we're talking to believers and Christ's followers who have dug into the word of God.
And even if you don't verbalize it, because your kids would resist you in that moment, and that's where you have. Compassion and understanding for who they are in this moment, you still need to stand on the authority of God's word. And you can still stand on the reality that you were given a girl because God chose for you to have a girl and you get the privilege of raising a girl. Use the scripture when you can. In fact, you know what, guys?
We can use scripture without a kid knowing it's scripture. Right? Like, I remember teaching in the public school and being a university professor at a secular university, and I would use scripture. They didn't know it was scripture, but I would use it, and I knew that it had power. And then the Christian kid is like, oh, cool.
She's using scripture. Let me ask this, what are some of the most common mistakes that parents make when talking about navigating the topics of gender and identity? You know, I'll start that. I think one of the interesting things that actually Dr. Jeff contributed to in the book is the idea that parents don't have to know everything.
We don't expect you to know everything. You know, young people are sadly researching on the World Wide Web. They're being manipulated by members of a peer group or perhaps. Adults that they hang out with at school or in a coaching situation or something. And so kids come into the conversation knowing a lot, or they think they know a lot.
So they'll say to a mom or a dad or a grandparent, Hey, I've decided that I'm going to transition. I don't like my gender anymore. And now the parents are shocked and they're unaware. We want to say to you that it's okay for you to not know everything.
Now, ideally, you start to get some information because this is. A cultural moment that will affect just about everybody, even if it's not your kid, it'll be the friend of a kid, or you'll be in a grocery store and you'll see clearly a man in a dress, and the kids are going to ask questions.
So, wisely, we do some research and we talk to some experts, we read books like what we've written. You make sure that there are spiritual leaders in your church who can advise you on cultural issues like this.
So, but we want to say to you that you don't need to know everything, so you can pause and you can say, Man, I haven't thought much about this, let's research it together. And then you can make sure that you go to a site that's going to be speaking truth. You can say to your kids, Man, help me understand. You know, why this seems like a new idea? What's causing you to believe this?
So you don't need to know everything, don't pretend, don't lie, don't fake it. Simply say, man, help me understand what's going on, and then listen. With a heart to understand, not with the idea that you're going to share something quickly, but listen longer. and have a heart to understand. You know, Gary, one thing that parents sometimes do, and I don't want anybody to feel a sense of guilt or shame if you think, oh, I did that.
Because what we do from this point forward is what really matters. We don't want to just end up feeling bad about what we did in the past. One mistake parents sometimes can make is to try to debate their children or to not take seriously, oh, it's crazy. What you're saying is crazy. There's just male and female.
Those can be mistakes because this is a very real thing that young adults see they're working with. They perceive what's going on in the lives of their friends. And so they take it very seriously, even though we might think, what a silly thing for us to be debating about. In what ways of social media, you've alluded to this somewhat, social media and peers contributed to gender confusion? Hmm.
Well, I had a student last year at Summit Ministries who, when she announced to her peers that she wanted to be an engineer, They immediately said to her, Oh, well, then you must be a boy trapped in a girl's body because no girls are engineers. Notice how those peers were relying on stereotypes to communicate that. Notice also the underlying cruelty of a statement like that. To say you were born in the wrong body is not to say that there is something wrong with your body. It is to say that your body itself is an actual thing.
is somehow wrong. And so peers sometimes, and they do this thinking that they're doing the right thing based on what they're learning in school. I mean, half of the schools in the United States of America teach gender ideology in the classroom, half of them.
So the children are in many ways just reflecting what they think their teachers would be saying if they were in those. situations But social media also affects it because if somebody says, I don't feel comfortable in my own body, I wonder why that is. And they type in some search term into TikTok. All the videos are going to come up and say, well, the reason you don't feel comfortable in your body is because you were born in the wrong body. You may actually be a boy in a girl's body.
Maybe you were even misgendered. at birth and and it plants a seed of doubt in the mind of a vulnerable young person who's going through something that every person in human history had to go through through puberty But then changing the terms so that it becomes a political ideology rather than just a personal struggle that calls for walking alongside of wise adults. Yeah, I love all that, Jeff. And another thing that I would say about social media is that. In addition to the reality that they're often following If I can put it, you know, the wrong people, they're gonna get trapped, to use that word again, in an ideology that is not biblical.
The other thing that happens with social media is that it separates them from their parents. You know, ideally, our parents are the primary influence on our children. And ideally, parents are present, and parents are putting their phones down and available to the hard questions because parents and grandparents want to be influential. But when we allow our kids often in their own bedrooms, scrolling social media, watching video on top of video on top of video, That means that mom and dad are not the influence that God has designed them to be. And that makes us sad.
We understand it. But we want to empower parents to take back the authority that they've been given, if I can put it that way, and step into the mess and parent strong and try to keep your kids off of the devices as much as you possibly can. Yeah, in today's culture, that's hard, right? Right, it is very hard. Yeah, yeah.
You know, it's possible, Gary, especially if we are the example, right? And if we are examples of vibrant eye contact relationships, vibrant relationships with God of the Bible, do they see us turning to scripture and praying and worshiping as if? Our heart is closely Aligned with God, and that that's where we get our life from, not from what social media says about us. Yep. Our spiritual model that we put before them.
Yes, powerful. You're right.
Now in the book you say that truth and love must go hand in hand. But what does that look like in real conversations? I think truth and love happen in relationships when we're sensitive to what our children are seeing.
So for an elementary child, If there's somebody walking down the grocery store aisle who has a large beard and is wearing a dress and high heels, your child is going to notice. They might just look at it, look at the person, or they might actually say something. But that's an appropriate time to say, hey, I don't know if you noticed that, but how did that strike you? And then when they say, yeah, that was strange, I felt really uncomfortable in that situation. Then you can say, you know, a lot of people are really confused today about who they are.
They just don't have a sense of purpose. They don't feel like their lives have meaning. And isn't that sad? Because we all want to have a sense of meaning. We all know that God made us on purpose.
and that our lives are valuable. But some people get so confused they aren't even sure whether they're a boy or a girl. And this is very sad. But we treat everybody with dignity because behind that person's whatever persona they're presenting, they're an image bearer of God and God loves them very much.
So we always treat people with dignity. But I want you to know I love the fact that you're a girl or that you're a boy. And I just want you to know God's design is good. And even when things are confusing, he made you that way on purpose. And he's growing you into who he wants you to be.
I can hear a listener saying, Ooh, I'd like to have that soul speech he just gave. And let me say, you're going to find that kind of thing in this book. I'm telling you, this book is going to help you.
Well So talk about the connection between identity formation and gender clarity. I love that question. Yeah, we talk a lot in the book about identity in general. We actually believe that. gender confusion comes out of an identity confusion.
I would even say identity dysphoria. where there are young people today who do not like the whole of who they are. You know, they've always wanted to be better at math to please their dad. They've always wanted to enjoy art to please their mom, and they're struggling with connection with the people who love them, who they want to love back. They're questioning again: am I okay if I earn a B when dad keeps saying, you know, how do the other kids do?
So, identity formation in general. It's significant. It's the question: who am I? Not who was I. Got to live in the present reality that this is who I've been created to be.
Identity formation is rooted on security. You know, we believe here at both Celebrate Kids and Summit Ministries that We have an identity confusion largely because we have a security confusion. If kids don't know who to trust and who to listen to and where to turn in times of need, they won't know who they are because one day they'll listen to this teacher, one day that coach, one day the lyric from this musician, one day this TV sitcom that they're binge watching who has horrific things to say about gender and their culture and their age group, you know, etc.
So there is a connection. I can almost guarantee you that if a kid is confused about gender, they're confused about other realities of their identity as well. And we need to hone up their security. And then what all of us know here on the call is that identity leads to belonging. Who am I will help me figure out who will want to hang with me and who I would be wise to hang out with.
So if I don't know my identity, I will not know for sure who would be good for me, who is on my side, who I might want to listen to in the hallway on the bench that I'm on the soccer team with. And so, again, Belonging, show me your friends, I'll show you your future. You know, Gary, you're excellent, obviously, at this whole relationship piece. We're so honored to be with you today. If kids are confused by relationship, they're going to be confused in their identity because people will cause us to become The people we are.
This is the iron sharpening iron principle in scripture, and it goes both ways.
So it's huge. We want parents and grandparents not to pay attention only to gender. But to pay attention to the whole a person is and again, are they believing stereotypes, as Dr. Jeff has already mentioned? That can really mess up their gender clarity for sure.
What Kathy is saying is so vital. We need to listen to that over and over again. Most of the young people we know. Aren't they experiencing a gender dysphoria? They're experiencing the identity dysphoria.
I mean, 75% of young adults today say they don't have a sense of purpose that gives meaning to their lives, and they're going to get that. When their parents help envision for them the kinds of things that they have been given by God and how those things connect to what our society desperately needs at this time. This is the Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman podcast. Gary is the New York Times best-selling author of "The 5 Love Languages" .
Dr. Jeff Myers and Dr. Kathy Cook are joining us today. Their book, Raising Gender Confident Kids. It's our featured resource at buildingrelationships.us.
You can find out more at buildingrelationships.us. Let me ask this. Is it ever too early? are late. for parents to talk with their children about gender.
Gary, I don't think there's a time that is too early, but it is difficult if your child has no concept, if they're just living their lives. It's not something where you sit down and say, let's talk about gender identity. Usually it's going to be in relation to something. You see somebody in a grocery store who's dressed in a way that you didn't expect. or something like that.
That's with how it's usually going to happen with elementary children. With middle school children, it's usually a discussion around puberty. When a child's body is changing, it becomes very awkward. And this is especially true for girls. because their bodies begin developing.
They might receive teasing in their school and begin to think something is wrong with me and I don't know what to do about it. Then they seek help from the internet. With high school students, it's usually a question of vocation. What am I here for? What is my calling in my life?
And sometimes that relates to a job. I have a daughter who's a helicopter pilot. That's a 99% male-dominated field. Surely if she was growing up today, she would be told, you must be a boy trapped in a girl's body.
So, for those high school students, it's important to understand that we want you to pursue what God wants you to do. You might get a little bit of teasing about it, but that's okay. Because when we get teased, it just helps us understand how to be more compassionate toward other people and it helps firm up our own decisiveness so that we can pursue what God wants us to do. What are the warning signs that a child may be struggling with gender identity? And how can parents then respond?
You know, one of the things that We've written about, and that we both speak about: is if a child has changes, like major changes in the way that they're relating with you, something's going on. For instance, if your daughter or son usually comes in and is your sous chef before dinner, cuts up the vegetables, washes the lettuce, gets ready for the salad portion of your dinner. And two, three, four nights in a row, this child doesn't come into the kitchen, doesn't want to hang out with you, something's going on. If you've normally had an older sibling, Teach a younger sibling how to play a game well, and they even let them win and they have a good time. And you notice that this child is critical and not engaging well, and actually causes the younger sibling to cry.
Something's going on.
So, what we would say is: notice if there's been changes in general, and then assume that. There's something that's you know, disquieting their soul. There's some confusion there. Also, certainly if they begin to change wardrobe, hairstyle. A girl who used to wear makeup who isn't wearing makeup.
There's some obvious things like that that might indicate confusion. It doesn't mean that they're going to transition to the opposite gender or try to, but it certainly means that they're paying attention to somebody who's perhaps teased them or confused them. And how do we respond? With compassion, with hope. with courage to say no to the no things, yes to the yes things.
We respond with prayer. We respond by listening longer. And we respond by being sad before we're mad. And it's really, really important that we Are present to the struggle that we don't believe instantly we've done something wrong. We don't believe that they're so stupid.
We don't call people that, they're deceived, they're confused. That's where I would go. in the warning signs. I wonder if Jeff has anything to add to that. Kathy, that was fantastic.
It's so important to look for the changes in your child. And here's how to have the conversation. with them to say hey honey i noticed that you seemed really frustrated with your sibling today and that's not like you i'm just um I'm just wondering if, you know, something has happened. Is there something that may have happened in school or something that you've been thinking about? that you would be willing to share with me.
My five key words in any conversation are tell me more about that. If I can get them to talk at all, I ask them, tell me more about that. I want them communicating. I want them to feel like I'm a safe person to discuss things with. But the key conversation I have with students who are transgender identifying is this.
What happened to you that causes you to see yourself the way you do? And I'll tell you why this is so important. I don't want to scare people with this, but last week I was speaking to a pediatrician, and this pediatrician told me 100% of the patients who have come in transgender identifying have experienced some kind of sexual abuse.
Now, that's not going to be true for all of our children. I mean, she's talking about the ones who are actually seeking medical treatment. But what we do understand is that there might be a child who was bullied. Maybe we had one student who his friends, he thought were his friends, began texting him very sexually suggestive messages. And it took a while for him to understand that they were trying to groom him for sexual contact.
This kind of thing happens in schools every single day, and parents are almost always the last ones to find out about it. And I know it's a difficult message to hear, but we need to be aware. Yeah.
I think many parents are not aware of what's what's going on in the lives of their children. And sometimes it's a long time before this subject even comes up.
Now, you write that stereotypes contribute to gender confusion, and you offer an alternative. What is that alternative?
Well, Gary, stereotypes are the impressions that people get in a society. We always think Blue is the boy's color, pink is the girl's color, and so forth. These are social constructions. They are impressions that we have. We would prefer to think in terms of what we call imago types.
based on the image of God, the Imago Dei. Because what's important is not what our society says boys should do, boys fish and girls sew or whatever, but that we're asking, well, how has God made you? in his image as a person who is unique, who's going to make a unique contribution in the world.
So I don't know if that term will catch on, but amogotypes versus stereotypes, we think is an important discussion.
Well, Dr. Cook, let me ask you this. What do you recommend parents do when they're overwhelmed? Fearful. and unsure of themselves.
That's a good question, Gary. Let's not walk this journey alone, first of all.
So, we would love for parents who are overwhelmed and fearful and unsure to find like-minded people, maybe other people who are overwhelmed by the same things or overwhelmed by culture in general, other Christ followers who, without gossip, You know, we can pray. We need to be careful who we're honest with. Adult children, in particular, tell us that they believe that prayer circles become gossip mills and it's not good for the parent-adult-child relationship. And, you know, we all understand that.
So let's be careful. But let's find like-minded people who will support us, pray with us. Let's not journey. Alone. Let's certainly be people who pray, who worship, who read scripture.
And I think it's okay to admit to our kids: you know, man, this is these are difficult times. You know, I grew up when there were clearly, you know, anybody, even if you didn't go to church, you knew that there were two genders, and we didn't ask these kinds of questions. And so, you know, again, I need some time to understand it. I think it's okay to admit to our kids that, you know, you weren't prepared for this. Don't be.
Embarrassed by that. And then, you know, we need to, frankly, this sounds maybe silly, but we need to be sleeping and eating and just really taking care of ourselves. We don't need to be people of fear. Parenting from fear is not from the Lord. And I think all the the lack of sleep, the lack of nutrition, all those kinds of things contribute to the parent being overwhelmed and being unsure and feeling alone.
And all those things make us weak. And that's not good. And I would add, reading books like the one we're discussing today will help parents who are struggling. Thank you. Thank you.
When I was reading this book, I was thinking, oh, man, I wish every parent could read this book. It's really helpful. And Gary, one of the things we really want to have happen for parents is not that they wait until their child experiences gender confusion. Every confusion is an opportunity. And this is simply an opportunity that God is allowing us to have in our culture at this time to connect with our children on a deeper level.
But we view this book as a preemptive thing. How do we help our children become confident so that little boys feel confident growing into godly men and little girls feel confident growing into godly women? Yeah.
What do you advise a parent if their child is friends? with a child who has gender confusion. Uh how do you navigate that situation? It's a tough situation. It's very difficult for a child because they're thinking, this is my friend.
I don't want my friend to hurt. My friend is mistreated and I don't like that. And they can very easily begin to assume that the. the identity that this child is developing, even a transgender identity, must somehow be legitimate.
So there's a tricky thing, and Dr. Kathy alluded to this earlier. We've got to help our children learn how to be friendly. Being friendly is different from being a friend. Because you will never go farther in life than the people you are hanging out with.
So, how can you be friendly and sh and understand and display the dignity that this person has as an image bearer of God. without being Influenced by that person to change your worldview away from what God says is true. Yeah, I love that, Jeff. And I would say too that depending upon the The depth of the relationship, you invite that child to your home for fellowship, but you might not want your child to go to that child's home for fellowship for fear that the entire home is full of an ideology that goes against. The values and the systems through which you're raising your children.
But invite that girl or boy over for Friday night movie night. Invite that k kid over to go to a ball game with you so that you have influence on the child and it's less likely that the child will be alone with your child to have influence on him or her. Yeah.
Let's talk about the situation where you and your spouse disagree. about the issue of gender. Ha ha ha ha. You know, you've you've got to come to a point of agreement. You know, I think.
in any issue if there is disagreement. It's going to result in confusion. That's as far as I'm going to go, Jeff. What would you say? In any confusion or disagreement, and this is as true in homes as it is in businesses or in international relations.
You try to figure out the things that you do agree on and just get those marked down. First thing is we know that God is real, he is on his throne, and God is good. We know that our child is an image-bearer of God. We want to affirm our child. in the truth.
And if you can agree on those things, then you can begin to talk through the very difficult. topic of gender confusion.
Now, this it's a real situation. I did a podcast recently with a woman whose daughter came home from a supposed afternoon art class. And announced that she was transgender. And it turned out it was a transgender indoctrination seminar that the child had ended up going to because she thought she was going to learn about art. And it was a very difficult thing for the husband and wife.
And ultimately, they said, you know, we have to believe that God made our child. On purpose, she is not born in the wrong body. We want to affirm her as a person, but that does not mean that we affirm this radical new identity that says. that she says she has taken on. Yeah.
I'm sure that's a very painful situation for couples, then it's probably very common that Couples would have a different perspective on that, especially if one of them is a strong Christian, the other goes to church once in a while. You know.
So what do you say if a child's friend asks you to use a different pronoun? for them. I don't know.
Well, we address the pronoun issue, and I know there are a lot of people who disagree about this, even in the Christian community. We address it in our frequently asked questions section of the book, Raising Gender Confident Kids. Where we take on 24 of the hardest questions we have ever received. This might be one of the hardest. Mm-hmm.
Our thought on it is this. A child might have a name or a nickname. That's one thing, because a name is an identifier. But a pronoun is a statement about reality itself. And so if a child says you need to use they them.
with me. You probably would never even need to do that. If you're talking to the child, you're going to use the child's name. You're not referring to the person in the third person in their presence. And I know it may seem a little bit awkward, but this happens all the time when I work with students.
You just use the person's name. And that solves a lot of the issue. But if they say, why aren't you using my preferred pronouns or you misgendered me or something like that? That's a tough conversation. And you've got to be able to swap.
follow and say, you know. I understand that this is a very difficult thing, and I hope that it's not something that comes between us. But my conscience tells me that this is not the best way. And I hope that you will support me wanting to live according to my conscience as I support you wanting to live according to your conscience. Do you do the same thing then with names?
You know, if Mike comes over, but Mike wants to be called Michelle. Do you use that same rubric, Doctor Cook? Boy. As Jeff said, the name isn't reality like the pronoun is.
So again, I think it's a personal preference. I would avoid it. I would maybe use a nickname. Hey, you there? I have a friend who calls every person precious because that's who they are.
I think there's ways to avoid it. And what I would add to the conversation is that we don't lie to people. Uh love is true. Love is honest. Love is also enduring and long-suffering, and love is for you, not against you.
And so, I would add to what Jeff said: to say, you know, I just, in my conscience, I just can't lie. And you are Mike, you've always been Mike. You are still Mike. I don't think transitioning is a healthy, good, wise idea for you. I don't think it's life-giving.
I might even call it a lie.
So I'm going to call you Mike. That's who I know you to be. Both Jeff and I know of people whose parents did that and it helped the children come back to reality. When the parents loved them unconditionally and spoke the truth and heard them and understood them and didn't shame them, but said, I just can't contribute to the lie. The children appreciated that.
They didn't say thank you in the moment. But one of the reasons that some children have detransitioned and come back to the reality as they lived through the confusion, the research says if you let them live through the confusion, many of them will write themselves. by the time they're 18.
So I think we we stand strong in that reality and we find a nickname or we just don't refer to them in any way if we can avoid it. If a friend of your child comes over to your house, It's confusing, right? There's a lot going on. They're playing. They're doing things.
You're trying to get. maybe dinner ready and all of that. But if there is an opportunity, if this child says, you know, last week I was Mike, but now I'm Michelle. It can be helpful to sit, say, can we just sit down for a second and chat? That's a big change from Mike to Michelle.
Can you help me understand? what happened to you that causes you to see yourself the way you do. And if you're willing to have that conversation and you find that it can be helpful, you can bring it up because it's certainly front of mind for that child. And we want them to know that we notice. And the struggles that they go through are important to us.
You know, which leads me to this. How do you teach your child? to love their peers who have different beliefs. without compromising their own faith, if your child is a Christian. How do we do that?
You know, the first thing that comes to mind, and I love the question: the first thing that comes to mind is: have we been doing that? Have they observed us loving Our neighbor who might be in a same-sex relationship? Do they see us loving our neighbors who might be cohabitating? We know for a fact they're not married. Do they see us loving people who do not share our Christian faith?
Do they see us love? People and have we raised them to put love first and that love is unconditional, love is without condition. And so we love because they're image bearers. We love because we hope that we might be in relationship with them to the extent that when they find themselves in a hard place, they will turn to us. For support and comfort, and then we might be able to talk with them about why we love differently from the other neighbors on the block.
So, have we done it? And I think we teach a lot by example.
So you you're saying that our model And the way we handle these situations, loving unconditionally, is probably going to have the greater impact on our child than any. words that we might say. Yeah, there's no question about that. If they've seen us. be judgmental and and separate and then we talked to him about You know, loving well, they'll just laugh inside and we lose credibility and we lose the hope that they'll come to us with their next question.
So, let's be honest: we can say it's hard, we can say that we struggle, we don't want to get too close, that we're influenced by them. We can admit that it's challenging. But we admit that God is a God of love and he calls us to put himself first, which means that We're not worried about those situations. You know, this isn't something that's theoretical for Dr. Kathy and me.
We work with students every single day, thousands of them over the course of a year. And I'm thinking of one student in particular who I met recently in a Summit Ministries program who said, I just, I really struggle with this. I genuinely struggle. I feel like I was born in the wrong body. I don't like my body.
I don't, if I'm made this way on purpose, then I don't like God. And it was about a three-hour conversation with our team, you know, just listening. Tell me more about that. And at the end of it, he said, you know, I think I understand. God didn't make me the way I wanted to be.
He made me the way he wanted me to be. And I need to learn that that is good. And at the end of that conversation, that young man not only said he felt a greater sense of confidence in who God made him to be, but he had actually trusted Jesus Christ as his savior. I don't want people to feel that, oh, these transgender struggles, there's no solution to this. It's just, it's never, it's never going to get any better.
We always live in hope that God is working, even in the difficult situations, to bring about his glory in our benefit. Yeah.
Well, Dr. Cook and Dr. Myers. As we come to the end of our time together, let me ask this. What is your hope for parents and others?
who read this book, Raising Gender Confident Kids. What do you hope will happen for them? Certainly, we want them to have hope. uh and compassion and To see where truth fits into this, we want them to be available to the conversations. That's why we have.
the 200 conversation starters in the book because we know that Kids are having questions, and we want them to come to parents for those honest dialogues.
So, hope, confidence, courage. to not parent from fear. Um specific Uh answers to specific questions they may have. are also a part of the design that we have in mind. You know, Gary, when I was A boy being raised, and it was in the Midwest.
I think there was kind of a mindset of, you know, we just don't talk about the tough things. It's, you know, buckle up. Life's going to be hard. Don't whine about it. Don't talk about it.
But we don't have to ruminate in order to discuss something that's really significant. And I hope that what people get from this book is Oh, you know, I can actually be a person who has the hard conversations. It's not going to kill me. I'm not going to be terrified. I can actually be direct.
I can love. I can do all of these things that allow my child to feel known and heard. And to be the kind of person who helps other people feel known and heard, I have a sneaking suspicion. that if we could do that, then a lot of these Cultural trends which come and go would not be as dominant. in our mindsets and in our lives.
Yeah.
Well, having read the book, I can say to our listeners, this book will help you understand this whole. topic and relate to your children and grandchildren in a way that will be healthy.
So let me thank you each again for being with us today and for taking the time and energy to write a book like this. and God bless you for what you've done. Thank you, Gary. Thank you, Gary. You're very welcome.
That's Dr. Kathy Cook, along with Dr. Jeff Myers. They've written Raising Gender Confident Kids. We have a link for you at buildingrelationships.us.
Again, go to buildingrelationships.us. And next week, I'm going to take your calls and questions about the love language and relationship struggles. Don't miss our October edition of Dear Gary. And if you'd like to call and leave a message, our number is 1-866-424-Gary. That's 866-424-4279.
We'd love to hear your question. Our thanks today to Janice Backing and Steve Wick for their work behind the scenes, Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman as a production of Moody Radio. In association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.
