You're not crazy. You're not alone. You do not have to believe what people at school say to you. They do not love you. They do not know you.
God loves you and God knows you. That. relaxes somebody so they can think, okay, I just need a little bit bigger perspective. That's Dr. Jeff Myers with an important reminder that gender confusion doesn't define your identity or the identity of your child.
Dr. Myers and Dr. Kathy Cook joined us last time on Focus on the Family, and we're looking forward to more of their insights today. I'm John Fuller, and thanks for joining us. John, the discussion yesterday was really good.
I mean, we don't touch this topic very often, but so many parents write to us or call us or talk to our counseling team about these issues of their children who are experiencing gender dysphoria or transgenderism in school. It's getting reinforced in some schools, not every school, but it's an issue, and it's important for us as the broader community of focus on the family to know what's happening and to be able to help our parents better understand how to communicate with their preteens and teens. And so that's the spirit in which we're coming after this topic of transgenderism in the public square today. And that's the goal of our discussion. Again, if you missed it last time, you can go to the website, download it, get the smartphone app and listen to it that way.
That way you have access to all of the programs. But it would be good to listen to that after you hear this. Today, yeah, we uh we kind of eased into just some of the content from Dr. Kathy Cook and Dr. Jeff Myers, both youth experts.
They spend their time talking with thousands and thousands of kids and their families. And the book is called Raising Gender Confident Kids: Helping Kids Embrace Their God-Given Design. It's an excellent resource. We've got it, and you can learn more about our guests and the book at our website. The link is in the show notes.
Kathy and Jeff, welcome back. Thank you. Thanks to you. It's good to have you. Jeff, let me start with you.
Last time we didn't hit this directly, but the goal of the Christian parent is to say, you're made in the image of God. That means your identity is rooted in Christ. And, you know, he died for our sins. He rose again. He is in heaven.
Our aim is heaven, to have eternal life with him. And that's our identity. And speak to that desire of the Christian parent. And sometimes this collides with preteen teens' worldview and what they're getting at school. And do we need to talk about that again, mom, dad?
I mean, right? But that's just part of it. But how do we effectively communicate and live those things out in our homes so that our kids actually catch it? Mm-hmm. Every time something confusing happens in the culture, my instinct is to draw back, try to escape, get around it, not have to think about it.
Oh, you must be human. But in my better moments, I realized that every confusion presents an opportunity. And in this case, the fact that people are confused about their gender is an opportunity for moms and dads to help their children understand. You were made just the way God wanted you to be. Your gender is not something you have to become.
It is something that God gave to you. And our goal is to help you as a boy become a godly man or you as a girl to become a godly woman. That's the journey we're going to take and walk alongside one another. But you're right. A lot of young people, they're a little bit embarrassed to talk with their parents about things that are happening in the culture because they think it's going to shock them.
Or last time I talked about what they did at school, she freaked out. And so I don't, you know, I don't want to say anything now. Learning to ask a few key questions. And my core one is this. Please help me understand.
Help me understand. And then if there's any kind of indication at all, then to follow it with, okay, tell me more about that. I don't quite get it. Help me, what's going on here? What, you know, just those sorts of questions.
Uh As a dad, my best moments were when I just wasn't afraid to play dumb. Yeah, that's not a bad place to be because actually we probably don't know, right? We are dumb in that way. Kathy, let me ask you, again, we kind of kicked this around at the beginning last time, but again, this issue has just erupted since like 2018, 2019 with transgenderism and gender dysphoria. It just wasn't on the landscape that much.
What is going on in the culture that causes young people to be so questioning? their gender. I mean, it just, you go back 15 years ago, it just wasn't happening at the rate it is today.
So that would indicate, scientifically, that would indicate there's some pressure occurring, some change agent occurring that more young people are disturbed with their gender. It is confusing. And we do talk about that or read about that in the book. I think, so I would say we have a security crisis, and that's why we have an identity crisis.
Okay, explain that. And the model that we teach at Celebrate Kids, which is in the book, and I'm grateful Jeff wanted it in the book, is children are desperate to know who they are. That's because God makes us who we are on purpose, intentionally, with a purpose. He counts how many hairs we have on our head. He knows us intimately.
So we're drawn to people who know us intimately because of the way that we've been created. And when we don't have that, like if a mom and dad are distant, if there's been a divorce and there's an overwhelmed single mom, if the grandparents have stepped in, It can be a really, really hard time when we honor that. The gay and lesbian lobby, the transgender ideology, people who endorse that, they're loud and they're present and they're manipulative and they're good at what they do. Wouldn't you say that, Jeff? They know how to tickle the ivories and they know how to get a kid to go, whoa, you know me better than my mom knows me.
Like when the trans person says, oh, I know what it feels like to not like your body. Let's talk about that. And that person can talk about it with what appears to be great integrity and great authority. And that continues to, you know, discourage the child to believe in mom and dad.
So when moms and dads are security, when moms and dads tell the truth, when moms and dads have the guts to say, I don't know, but let's find out together. When a mom and dad will say, Whoa, I've never dealt with that before. Could I have some time to pray and then let's come back and let's go for a walk? Like, I'm so proud of everybody listening who's present to their kids and not afraid. Because we can't just go, oh, Genesis 1:27 says, You're created male and female in God's image.
Now go to bed. You know, no, that's a true. Statement, right? But Jeff, it doesn't sound simple to the confused kid, does it? It seems strange that we need to be talking about this.
But a very high percentage of young adults today identify as transgender or non-binary, either because they've believed that gender is irrelevant to who they are, or because they believe there's a gender spectrum where you've got G.I. Joe on one side and you've got Barbie on the other. And since neither one of us are really either, then we're all actually transgender. This is what a social movement does: it tries to put itself in a place where everybody fits into its grouping. That's how it gains power.
So it releases power when a parent can say, Let's talk about this. Let's talk about you. I know these people who are talking to you, they seem caring. They do not love you. They do not know you.
God loves you. God knows you.
So let's have a discussion on that basis. And when you do, When you begin to sort of break that ice to talk about these issues, if you do it in a way that shows caring, that shows understanding, that shows that you have a vision for your child's life. I just picture you being this someday. I picture you being the kind of person who helps other people. I picture you being the kind of person who isn't afraid to take risks and to explore things like that.
Then it begins to help that child develop the secure identity, which is an inoculation against some of the cultures. And I want to speak to that in gender terms. When you're a father raising sons, Jeff, speak to some of the goals in that relationship. What are you trying to say and to do as a dad transmitting what it means to be a man in this culture and to do it in a healthy way, not in a, you know, in a derogatory way? This is what it means to be a man.
We spend a lot of time in raising gender-confident kids on this because you aren't going to find the answers on the internet. If you Google trans. Gender, the first five pages are all propaganda. They will say, Here are the facts, quote unquote, about this, which are lies. And then they will say, Here's how to legally separate from your parents, here's how to sneak past your parents to get the drugs that you need to transition, those kinds of things.
So, what do we do? We go back to, as Dr. Kathy talked about, the core needs that every person has. For young men, first of all, it's to be a sage. The core need is to be a person who's wise because you're going to face all kinds of complicated situations in life.
There's a lot of misinformation. How do you discern the truth? A second one is to be an explorer. One interesting thing about boys is they don't get to know themselves by looking inside of themselves. They get to know themselves by knowing the world around them.
And so they have to be able to explore it. A third one is the warrior. We focus on this. And I don't mean it in militaristic terms.
Some people go to war by fighting against actual physical enemies. Others go to war. I have a brother who's an orchestra conductor. He goes to war every day against musical inadequacy by helping his orchestra be excellent in everything they do.
So we focus on that. One of my sons was having terrible dreams, and he asked if I would pray with them. And I said, Yes, I will. And I prayed, God, would you help him dream about puppies and kittens? And birds, and his eyes flew open.
He said, 'Birds aren't nice.' And I thought, Oh, Lord, forgive me. I was trying to psych him into having good dreams. I just said, Can I start over? He nodded. He closed his eyes.
I said, God, would you at this very moment, this very night, turn him into a man of courage? He was four. Turn him into a man of courage. Turn him into a man who helps the little guy, who takes his stand on behalf of what is right against what is wrong. And now that young man is in EMT training to be a firefighter, it literally has become part of his mission.
It wasn't my prayer, it was God. giving him this and then I was just identifying it and calling it out. Why do we let all these false prophets in the culture curse us with all of these things about us that are not true? Just believe what God says. Yeah, but it takes intentionality on the part of the parent to think these things through, be equipped, which is another good reason we're doing this today.
So Kathy, explain what the five core needs are. Yeah, thanks.
So security, who can I trust? Not what can I trust. Don't put your faith in yourself or your looks or your body even. Identity, who am I? Not who was I?
Not who do I want to be, but who am I? Belonging, who wants me? And so I can't have healthy relationships if I don't know who I am. See, identity is the core of the book, and really what we're talking about. Who am I leads to who wants me?
The fourth one is purpose. Why am I alive?
Okay, I'm not alive to change my gender. I'm alive to serve the Lord, to know him, to let other people know him through my behavior. And then competence: what do I do?
Well, okay. All things through Christ who strengthens me.
So, security, identity, belonging, purpose, and competence. And they're in that order. We have all five, they have to be met. We are very convinced in the research that young people who do not have them met in healthy ways will have mental health issues, they will have an insecurity that can rob them of beauty. They're going to be less likely to believe scripture because they're looking for the scripture to affirm their lie, and it will not do that.
And one of the things that we write about that's really strong, kind of to piggyback off of Jeff, what Jeff was just talking about, would be the stereotype of the identity, right?
So, you know, like boys can like musicals, sure, and girls can like westerns, and boys can like cooking in the kitchen more than a sister, and girls can like helping dad change the oil in the truck. There's nothing wrong with that. And parents and grandparents and educators have to understand that. That it's okay if a girl likes to sweep out the garage, and it's okay if a boy doesn't. It's okay for a girl to be a tomboy.
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