Participants:
Series Code: IC
Program Code: IC180122A
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00:01 The following program discuses sensitive issues
00:03 related to sexuality. 00:05 Parents are cautioned 00:06 this presentation may be too candid 00:08 for younger audiences. 00:29 Welcome to Intimate Clarity. 00:30 I'm Jason Bradley, and I'm here with Jennifer Jill Schwirzer. 00:33 She is a licensed professional counselor. 00:36 And today we're going to be discussing a sensitive topic, 00:39 but it's a conversation we need to have. 00:42 And, Jen, I want to know, should children who identify 00:47 with the opposite sex be supported in transitioning? 00:52 That's a million dollar question, isn't it? 00:53 It is. 00:55 And I'm sure you have a wonderful answer. 00:57 Well, I've looked into it a lot 00:58 because it's a fairly new thing for us here 01:02 in the United States of America 01:03 to be assisting children in transitioning. 01:06 We started in about 2007 at Boston Children's Hospital 01:11 administering puberty blocking hormones, 01:14 to give the children 01:15 who identify with the opposite sex 01:17 a space of time where they can decide 01:19 if they want to transition or not, 01:21 and that's the reason that's given. 01:23 And that was something that was done in Europe 01:25 for some time before that. 01:26 But it only came to the US in 2007. 01:28 So it's really only been the last 10 years 01:30 that we've been dealing with this. 01:32 And there's a lot of debate about it. 01:35 Some people on one hand feel it's necessary these children 01:37 have been struggling for so long, 01:39 we need to assist them, 01:41 and it's a species of cruelty not to assist them 01:43 in that transition 01:45 if they really are identifying with the opposite sex. 01:46 And some people feel that to assist them 01:48 in transitioning is a species of child abuse. 01:52 So obviously the stakes 01:53 are very high in this discussion, 01:54 I'm going to try to be 01:56 as fair as I can with the facts. 01:57 So it's true that children do sometimes identify 02:02 with the opposite sex. 02:03 We call it gender dysphoria. 02:05 And let me actually give you 02:07 the clinical definition of that. 02:09 It is a conflict between a person's physical 02:13 or assigned gender and the gender 02:16 with which he, she or they identify, 02:20 this is from I believe the DSM, 02:22 the American Psychiatric Association. 02:23 He, she or they? I know. 02:25 That's their definition. 02:27 I wouldn't call anybody they, if someone who is possessed. 02:33 I think that's wacky. 02:34 But anyway, that's how they define it. 02:37 So basically it's a child, let's take the simplest case, 02:41 little boy thinks he's a little girl 02:44 and the million dollar question that we're putting 02:46 on the table today in this program is, 02:49 should we help them transition from male to female? 02:53 So 80-95% of those children 02:58 who identify as the opposite sex 03:01 will grow out of it. 03:04 Eighty to ninety five percent? Eighty to ninety five percent. 03:07 And the medical community knows this. 03:09 I went through a phase of my life 10 years old. 03:11 I started dressing like a boy, and I called myself Jeff, 03:15 and I wanted everybody else to call me Jeff. 03:18 And I tremble to think, 03:19 I wasn't necessarily identifying myself as a boy. 03:21 but I was moving down that track a little bit 03:25 and I tremble to think 03:26 if I lived today what would happen 03:29 in regards to that 03:30 and what my parents would do in regards to that 03:32 because of what we're going through right now. 03:34 So these types of things can develop quite easily 03:38 in a number of different cases. 03:40 And I don't have time to really flesh this out, 03:42 but let's just think of a couple. 03:43 If a little girl experiences physical abuse, 03:46 she has a number of brothers and maybe cousins 03:48 that are male 03:50 and she ends up getting physically abused, 03:52 you can see where she would start to think, 03:53 "Well, if I was a boy, 03:55 I would be able to fight them off." 03:56 I would be tough enough, and strong enough, 03:58 and I'd never have to deal with this again. 03:59 Or if for instance a little boy 04:02 is a little on the a feminine side 04:04 and he happens to be from a family 04:05 where machismo is very valued 04:07 and he's told you're acting like a girl 04:09 because you like flowers, and you like colors, 04:12 and, you know, you play like a girl, 04:14 and you act like a girl. 04:15 He might start to think, 04:17 I'm a girl locked up in a boy's body. 04:18 Maybe I should be a girl. 04:20 So there are a number... 04:21 My point is this is, not one formula that fits all. 04:24 But there are a number of developmental problems 04:28 that can burgeon into something like this 04:31 where a kid is basically normal, 04:32 but they go through a patch where they just think, 04:34 you know, I'm the opposite sex. 04:35 It happens all the time. 04:37 Eighty to ninety five percent of them grow out of it. 04:40 That's a huge number. That's a big, vast majority. 04:42 Eighty to ninety five percent. Absolutely. 04:45 That's right. 04:46 And so prematurely rushing them into a transitioning process 04:50 that regards that involves high risk medical interventions 04:55 is to me unthinkable, medically irresponsible 05:00 and potentially even child abuse. 05:02 I have to be honest. 05:03 Yeah, I agree with you 05:04 because I mean first of all as a kid, 05:07 you know, as you grow up your tastes change, 05:10 your way of thinking changes like, 05:12 you know, that's why you don't get married 05:14 at 14, 15 or even 18, 05:17 you know, it's kind of dangerous 05:19 because your taste 05:20 might change at 25, 30, you know. 05:24 And so far we haven't in our society approved 05:27 of or affirmed man-boy love, man-boy love being, 05:31 you know, an older adult male with child partner 05:36 or man-child love I should say. 05:38 We haven't approved of that. 05:39 Everybody recognizes that pretty much is wrong 05:41 because that child is, 05:43 you know, a minor and they don't even have 05:45 the brain capacity to be able to make a judgment about that. 05:48 But what we're doing here is we're giving children 05:51 the right to choose their sex. 05:54 I don't think it's too far in the future to give them 05:56 the right to choose their sex partner. 05:58 Yeah. 05:59 I'm just trying to think logically. 06:01 And that's a scary thing, but it is a slippery slope. 06:03 That's where it's headed it seems like. 06:05 Very frightening. 06:06 So let me tell you what the approach generally 06:10 is when a child is according to the current thinking, 06:16 the current narrative of boy trapped in a girl's body 06:19 or a girl trapped in a boy's body 06:21 what is typically done 06:22 is they're given puberty blocking hormones 06:24 as a first step that buys them 06:26 a little bit of time and they can think about 06:29 whether they want to transition or not. 06:31 Often this is a decision 06:32 that's made primarily by the child, 06:34 but with the support of the family. 06:36 The side effects 06:37 of these puberty blocking hormones 06:40 are unknown. 06:41 We don't really know, 06:42 but there are some concerns about bone density 06:44 because bone density has much to do with hormonal, 06:48 you know, especially during puberty. 06:51 I went through anorexia as a young person, 06:54 and I basically went back into puberty, 06:56 when backed up through adolescence 06:58 into prepubescent 07:00 in terms of my hormonal levels because of the eating disorder, 07:03 and I ended up with osteoporosis. 07:05 I can only imagine what happens 07:07 when you actually give a medication 07:08 that suppresses those hormones. 07:11 Hormones are involved in neurological development. 07:14 So what are we doing to the brains of these children 07:16 when we give them 07:17 these puberty blocking hormones? 07:19 It's just frightening to me. 07:20 You know, in censoriously, 07:21 you said they don't know the side effects 07:23 of those puberty blocking hormones. 07:26 The side effects that we do know for medicine, 07:29 you know, you see those commercials 07:30 where it's talking about specific field... 07:32 I know, it list up the side effects. 07:35 It's for this particular cause, 07:38 but some of the side effects are ache, pain, 07:42 and they say in a real high pitch voice. 07:46 And in rare cases... 07:48 You know, I mean like you should be happy about that, 07:49 like what is that? 07:51 Exactly. 07:52 So we're taking big risks on sometimes 07:54 when you give medications and especially 07:55 when they haven't been road tested 07:57 or even studied for a long period of time. 07:59 So that's the first step though, 08:00 it gets worse. 08:02 The second step in transitioning 08:03 a child is giving them the opposite sex hormones, 08:05 that begins at about 16 years old. 08:08 So if I'm a little boy, 08:09 I think I'm a little girl 08:11 giving the puberty blocking hormones until about 16, 08:13 then they're going to start giving me 08:15 opposite sex hormones. 08:16 So estrogen in the case of a boy. 08:18 And then sometimes surgical transition 08:21 as early as 18 years old. 08:23 In my view this gives children far too much determining power 08:27 to make a life altering decisions 08:29 that could bring about permanent destruction 08:32 of healthy organs, permanent sterility, 08:36 and other health complications like that's giving that kid far 08:38 too much power to make it of that. 08:40 So the million dollar question 08:42 then is what do you do with the transgender child. 08:44 It's a real thing. I'm not denying the problem. 08:47 I am denying the solution 08:49 or I am questioning the solution. 08:52 I want to give an example of that of how to treat this. 08:55 I would say 08:57 that extensive counseling to find out 08:58 if there are any developmental issues presenting. 09:01 And I would also say that we need to take 09:04 a careful look at other developmental problems 09:06 that that child might be experiencing. 09:08 There's a high higher level of autism spectrum disorders 09:12 in the transgender communities 09:13 so often that child will be also autistic. 09:18 And one of the features of autism 09:20 is you tend to think in black and white. 09:22 So if I'm a little girl that enjoys boy things, 09:24 I'm kind of a tomboy, I might be thinking in black, 09:27 well, I must be a boy because I like boy things. 09:30 So it's either or whereas, you know, in nuanced thinking 09:33 I'd be able to entertain the possibility that, 09:35 you know, I am kind of a masculine girl, 09:38 but I'm still a girl. 09:39 Yeah. You know, I could do that. 09:41 So there was a man named Kenneth J. Zucker 09:43 who ran a gender identity clinic in Toronto, Canada, 09:47 in connection with the hospital there. 09:48 He took a very moderate approach. 09:51 He would transition children sometimes. 09:53 He would assist them in transitioning. 09:54 But he was cautious about it. He exercised caution. 09:57 So he's not even the most conservative. 09:59 He's not coming 10:00 from a biblical perspective at all. 10:02 But he's just more moderate 10:03 and trying to be I think responsible medically. 10:06 And what he would do is try to see 10:08 if he could get that child to associate 10:10 with their biological sex. 10:13 The activists closed his clinic in 2015. 10:17 He was helping scores of people. 10:19 He had a waiting list, they closed him down. 10:22 That's the environment we're dealing with. 10:24 You know, the people brought their children to Jesus 10:28 and they wanted Jesus to bless their children. 10:31 And, you know, the disciples said, 10:33 you know, he doesn't tie for this, like, 10:35 you know, like bug off kind of thing. 10:38 And Jesus said, 10:40 "Let the little children come to Me. 10:43 Forbid them not, 10:45 for of such is the kingdom of God." 10:48 I tremble to think of what we're doing 10:49 to our children in this day and age. 10:52 First and foremost, parents bring them to Jesus. 10:54 Amen. Amen. 10:55 Because they need say a Savior 10:57 and He will give them a primary identity. 11:00 I think what we're dealing with often in 11:04 when we're talking about transgender identity 11:06 is an identity crisis at its core, 11:09 people really over identifying. 11:11 It's true that I'm a woman. 11:13 But I'm first and foremost a child of God. 11:16 And because I'm a follower of Jesus, 11:17 I'm first and foremost a new creature in Christ, 11:20 the purchase of His blood a candid of grace. 11:24 And I'm all of those things first and foremost 11:26 and my woman identity is a secondary identity. 11:31 I think because people 11:32 don't have a primary identity in God. 11:36 And in particularly 11:37 in His creatorship in their lives 11:39 in the way that He made them, 11:41 they're struggling to find an identity. 11:43 And so some of these things 11:45 are born out of that identity crisis. 11:47 Yes, yes. 11:48 And, you know, it's seems like 11:50 when they're struggling with that, 11:51 it's almost as if they're denying 11:53 their very existence 11:56 because God created you the way that you are. 12:02 If you were born boy, He created you to be a boy. 12:07 And sometimes if you work with children 12:09 what you do is kind of a nuanced approach. 12:11 And this is what Kenneth Zucker did is he would first help them 12:15 not feel badly about the fact 12:18 that they felt like the other gender, 12:21 that's called secondary disturbance 12:22 when you're disturbed and then you're disturbed 12:24 about being disturbed. 12:26 So as a counselor I often help people, 12:28 "You know, it's okay, that you feel this way." 12:30 So kids that feel bad about the fact 12:32 that they want to be the other gender. 12:34 He would resolve that first, 12:35 and sort of help acclimate them, 12:37 and then he would work with them 12:38 to try to get them to identify 12:40 and engage in some of the behaviors 12:42 of their biological gender. 12:44 And that's why they came down on him. 12:46 They couldn't deal with that. And they closed the doors. 12:48 He had a very careful approach. 12:50 And I'm not saying he did everything perfectly. 12:53 I don't know the details of his practice, 12:54 but I can just see the attitude in society today 12:57 is presenting transitioning as if it's a snap answer 13:01 to really a very complicated issue. 13:03 And we need to, I think have a lot more sobriety 13:06 and a lot more care and, you know, for people 13:09 that are following the Lord a biblical foundation. 13:13 Absolutely. 13:14 And that's, you know, biblical principles are solid, 13:16 you know... 13:18 And they're even solid for people that are choosing. 13:19 Absolutely. 13:20 And we see how our culture shifts, 13:22 it's constantly shifting. 13:23 So if you're not standing on something that's firm, 13:27 you're going to be carried everywhere. 13:28 Well, and what's going to happen 13:30 is we're going to see a blowback from this. 13:32 I read a story this morning of a girl that transitioned 13:34 and then de-transitioned. 13:36 And I want to just read this in closing. 13:37 This is from her grandfather. Her parents broke up. 13:41 She ended up living with her grandfather 13:43 and this is what he said 13:44 when she transitioned he said, "I couldn't handle it, " 13:47 this is what he said, "I couldn't handle it. 13:49 I said I can't change. 13:51 If you want to change you change but I can't." 13:55 And then he says, 13:56 "But I wasn't going to kick her out. 13:58 I love her." 13:59 That's a beautiful balance right there. 14:00 Wow. Yeah, that's deep. Well, Jen, we are out of time. 14:05 And I want to share how people can get more resources. 14:08 If you want some more resources, 14:11 please visit intimateclarity.tv. 14:14 Check out the resources we have there. 14:16 And we will see you 14:17 on the next episode of Intimate Clarity. |
Revised 2018-10-29