Journal: Eikon
Volume: EIKON 04:2 (Fall 2022)
Article: Transgender And Teenagers
Author: Sharon James

Eikon 4.2 (Fall 2022) p. 69

Transgender And Teenagers

Sharon James

Dr. Sharon James works as Social Policy Analyst for The Christian Institute, UK. She has written many books, including her latest, Gender Ideology: What do Christians Need to Know? For more information about her ministry, visit www.sharonjames.org.

In May 2014, TIME magazine ran a cover story headlined “The Transgender Tipping Point.” It was now no longer possible to ignore the trans movement.1

Eight years later, it is no longer possible to ignore the irreversible damage being done to countless young people in the name of this false ideology. For years, concerns have been raised about the way that the Tavistock clinic in London has been giving out dangerous drugs to children and young people like candy. In July, after an independent report found it was not fit for purpose,2 NHS England announced that it will be closed next year. The Times commented:

The damage done is immeasurable. No one knows how years of ideological dogma, inappropriate treatment, and a culpable failure to consider the overall mental welfare of the children treated by the Tavistock Clinic

Eikon 4.2 (Fall 2022) p. 70

will affect the thousands referred to its Gender Identity Development Service.3

The closure of this clinic is good news. But across the Western world, increasing numbers of teenagers are experiencing gender confusion. What is going on? How should the church respond?

We ought to hold two fundamental principles in mind as we consider these questions. Whoever we are dealing with, whatever their age, we need to treat them with dignity, respect, and compassion. The biblical and Christian conviction is that every human being is made in the image of God. And, whoever we are dealing with, real compassion may not necessarily mean affirming what people claim about themselves. Proof of this comes from the rapidly increasing number of testimonies from detransitioners, those who have lived as the opposite sex, and may have undergone hormonal treatments and surgical procedures, but then regret their transition and go back to live as their biological sex.

The NHS Gender Identity Development Service works with children and young people in England.4 It has seen an increase of more than 3,000 percent over the last decade in referrals for “gender dysphoria,” the feeling that you were born in the wrong body.5 There were 77 re...