Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast

John Fuller: Everything Focus on the Family has to offer, all in one place. Just download the Focus on the Family app. You'll have access to our entire library of resources to help your family thrive in Christ. Like Adventures in Odyssey, informative articles, and over a dozen podcasts, as well as free marriage and parenting assessments. Download the Focus on the Family app today for free at your app store or at focusonthefamily.com/app. That's focusonthefamily.com/app.

Well today, we're going to be tackling a tough topic, and that is what to do when your child expresses doubts or concerns about their God-given identity, sexual identity. I'm John Fuller, along with Dr. Danny Huerta, who heads up our parenting team. We're going to jump right into it as Jim Daly had a conversation with Dr. Jeff Myers and Dr. Kathy Koch about gender dysphoria and how to help children who are struggling.

Jim Daly: Jeff, let me just ask you, Summit real quick. I mean, Summit's been around for a long time and you do such great work with young people. What's the goal for Summit?

Jeff Myers: We're equipping and supporting a rising generation to embrace God's truth and to champion a biblical worldview. We want these young adults, especially as they emerge into college and into their career, to be confident in their faith and not afraid to take a stand for the truth, but to be able to do that in a spirit of grace.

So we take, in our in-person programs, we take two weeks at a time to really work with them, train them. Dr. Kathy's one of our core instructors in that program. We have 65 instructors, people who love Jesus and who are the experts in their field, who help them in everything from theology to philosophy to economics to apologetics, so they're equipped.

Jim Daly: That's really good. Kathy, infomercial time for you. Celebrate Kids.

Kathy Koch: Celebrate Kids is all about helping people celebrate kids the way Jesus did and still does. Back when He walked on earth, they were the forgotten generation. They weren't paid attention to. But when the learned men said who among us is the greatest, Jesus called up a child.

Can't you imagine how they looked at each other and they're like, "Did he hear the question right? There's no way he heard the question right." No, he did hear the question right, and He's always valued children, and we want people to value children. So that's what we're all about, and we do that in a variety of ways.

Jim Daly: Let me start here, and this is again, a tutorial on what's happening, sexual issues, sexual identity in the culture, etc. So that's the spirit in which we're trying to hit this. Dr. Dobson said this many years ago, coming out of USC and of course he had a PhD in child development, and he was always concerned about gender dysphoria, homosexuality, and other things because he said it should be relatively steady in a culture.

I think as they measured some of those things, it stayed steady between 2.5 to 2.8% of the culture around the world—Japan, France, US—that would identify as LGBT. You have episodic moments, and he would say those episodic moments are more behavioral in nature. Discuss that. I think right now with gender dysphoria it's up 1600%. I've seen estimates as high as 4000% increase in transgenderism and gender dysphoria. Both of you have PhDs. When you're looking at this, you're studying it, you're looking at research. Why do we have this episodic thing occurring, and what does that point to typically?

Jeff Myers: There are two things that come immediately to my mind. One of them is social media. That is a phenomenon that wasn't really in the picture 15 years ago. It is an influence. There was a particular study done by Lisa Littman that found that of young women who thought of themselves as gender dysphoric, 66% of them admitted to overusing social media. So they felt there was something wrong with my body, "I feel uncomfortable, there's got to be a solution to this. Isn't there a pill I can take?" And then all of a sudden they started looking at TikTok and, "Oh, there are other people like me. Now I understand who I am."

I think also, and you mentioned this in the intro, Jim, the public schools have really grabbed onto this. Now there's an anti-bullying impulse. We don't want kids to go to school and feel bullied, any child. What we didn't realize is how many people in the educational sphere take that anti-bullying impulse and weaponize it for an agenda. This particular agenda is we're going to get rid of all distinctions that would make people even think they could know the truth, and then if nobody thinks they can know the truth, then everyone will be fine.

Kathy Koch: I obviously agree with everything Jeff said. Let me bring up the mental health crisis. You have done many excellent episodes about that here. We both have studied that. We talk about that every chance we get. Depression, anxiety, stress, loneliness, confusion, being overwhelmed. And they're thinking, "Oh, if I could change my gender, then everything would be fine." They actually think that's a simple solution to something that's rather complex, and that's not true at all.

The research would say that they become even more suicidal after they've medically transitioned because it didn't work and they were sure that this would be the cure. What's really sad for us about that is if they choose to medically transition through medication or even surgical decisions, then we don't treat the mental health. Everybody assumes, "Oh, now they'll be fine." Now we have somebody who's radically changed their lives, and it won't be good for them in so many ways. And now they're still depressed, they're still anxious, they're still overwhelmed, they're still suicidal, and we're not treating them because the assumption is that change that they've made is going to take care of all of this.

I do love the stat that you shared at the very beginning, Jim, that if we keep our hands off, if we do long waiting, if we listen well—and we have a lot in the book about conversations—if we listen well, if we continue to talk about all of who they are and not just the fact that they're male and female, then they can overcome this confusion. They'll be introduced to abilities and talents and habits that they have that they'll go, "Oh, it's good to be a girl." If we wait, and if we don't wait like in the background, but we wait present with them and introduce them to the whole of what life can be.

John Fuller: Danny, it seems there has been kind of an apex, if you will, of some of the gender confusion, a little bit of a retreat in the culture to say, "Oh yeah, there is a difference between boys and girls and, oh yeah, kids are born with a specific sexual identity." But still there's so much difficulty and confusion. You work with a lot of families and kids. You've seen some success stories, but you've seen some families overcome some of the confusion and difficulties. Give us some hope and encouragement.

Danny Huerta: It's challenging because there's so much to every single person's story, whether it's with gender dysphoria or anything else that is creating relational issues, mental health issues. And on the gender dysphoria side, there's a normalizing side that also creates a challenge for parents. Because if you're thinking that they shouldn't have this struggle or you're going against it, somehow you're a hateful person or you're bad. So you're getting that message from society and your child may bring that message to the mix and be pushed in a way that, "Man, these people don't care about you if they're wanting to get you back to the way that you were designed to be." So it's created some misunderstanding and some big emotional explosions in some of the sessions.

Really when you get to the root of this, it's important to ask the youth a question. "What are you dissatisfied and why? Where did that come from?" Because usually there's a hurt, there's fear, there's a sense of "I'm different than others." We know that the gender dysphoria tends to happen more so with children or young adults with autism. They have a logical progression that if I'm this different, I must be in the wrong body. It's just a logical conclusion. Society is saying, "Yeah, that's probably true, and you can choose your own avatar and go this way or that way." With social media came this message that got normalized across the board, and we saw the effects of that here in early 2020s.

The success stories that I've seen are parents who have patiently stepped in and said, "Help me understand more. What are you dissatisfied? Why? We realize you feel different. Here are the traits that we see that you were born with. Here are the things that we love about who you are," and affirming that and allowing for the child to express without defensiveness where they're at. That information is gold because you can go beneath that a little bit and see that there's pain behind that. You don't have to be a different sex, a different gender to resolve that pain, to resolve that difficulty, or to resolve that challenge.

If a girl tends to love boy sports, loves to be in the dirt, loves to do things like boys, it doesn't mean she's a boy. It means she's a girl that enjoys doing those boy activities. And you can help mirror that and go, "Man, you love activities that boys tend to like. As a girl, man, you can bring the feminine into that. You may have gotten a certain definition of what feminine is what you're looking out there, but you are a picture of feminine with interests that match boys' interests." And vice versa, a boy may enjoy dance and dolls and different things that they go, "Man, I must have been in the wrong body." No, you're a masculine boy that tends to enjoy what comes from those activities that girls tend to like. Let's explore that. Let's understand that better in your unique design.

As you do that with patience and no immediate conclusions, what you end up doing is creating a bridge of conversation, and over time, especially later in the teen years, kids do reset and go, "Yeah, you know, I am a boy or I am a girl," and they come to that conclusion. We see that now with longitudinal look to this, that a lot of kids end up resetting back after they get past that confusion.

Don't pressure your kids on this identity thing. What I'd encourage you to do is set the picture that identity is a lifelong process where you're learning bits and pieces. When you become a husband or wife, that's a piece of your identity. When you go into your profession, it's a piece of your identity. When you're a grandparent, it's a piece of your identity. But ultimately, we're discovering what it means to be a child of God. And that means that we're created with a certain body and certain professions and interests that over time help us form an understanding of our identity. And when we get to heaven, that's when we get to truly understand in fullness what it means to be a child of God.

John Fuller: I appreciate that encouragement, Danny. A couple of things come to mind as you were speaking. I was thinking about our documentary that we produced some time ago called Truth Rising, in which we have stories like Chloe Cole, who had this dissatisfaction with her body and, unfortunately, the prevailing thought did prevail in her life. There were surgeries and there were medication treatments to help her get into a boy's body, but it failed. And she did what you talked about, Danny. She did this course correction to recognize, "It's not my body that's the problem." So she's a powerful voice in this matter of gender dysphoria and gender confusion.

Learn more when you watch the documentary. We've got the link to find out more about Truth Rising. And then as you learn more, it's so good to get equipped before these things become an issue in your home or in your child's circle of friends. So get equipped by reading the book by Dr. Jeff Myers and Dr. Kathy Koch. It's called Raising Gender-Confident Kids, and we have that here at the ministry. Support this show and this ministry, and we'll send a copy of the book to you. You can make that monthly pledge or that one-time gift of any amount and we'll send the book. Just click the link in the show notes.

Next time, we'll hear from Heather Gray Blaylock about being a military wife and some of the challenges that brings to being a parent. For now, on behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and the entire team, I'm John Fuller, and thanks for joining us for the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast.

Everything Focus on the Family has to offer, all in one place. Just download the Focus on the Family app. You'll have access to our entire library of resources to help your family thrive in Christ. Like Adventures in Odyssey, informative articles, and over a dozen podcasts, as well as free marriage and parenting assessments. Download the Focus on the Family app today for free at your app store or at focusonthefamily.com/app. That's focusonthefamily.com/app.