{"id":306591,"date":"2020-12-02T07:00:05","date_gmt":"2020-12-02T12:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/%series%\/thinking-biblically-and-acting-compassionately\/"},"modified":"2020-12-02T07:00:05","modified_gmt":"2020-12-02T12:00:05","slug":"thinking-biblically-and-acting-compassionately","status":"publish","type":"podcast","link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/thinking-biblically-and-acting-compassionately\/","title":{"rendered":"Thinking Biblically and Acting Compassionately"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Transgenderism is a real-world, right now topic in need of God&#8217;s navigation! J. Alan Branch, Professor of Christian Ethics at Midwestern Seminary, shares about his book, &#8220;Affirming God&#8217;s Image,&#8221; with the heart of being able to think biblically and act compassionately.<\/p>\n<p>Show Notes and Resources<\/p>\n<p> \tFind resources from this podcast at https:\/\/shop.familylife.com\/Products.aspx?categoryid=130.<br \/>\n \tDownload FamilyLife&#8217;s new app! https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/app\/<br \/>\n \tCheck out all that&#8217;s available on the FamilyLife Podcast Network.\u00a0 https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/familylife-podcast-network\/<br \/>\n \tHave the FamilyLife Today\u00ae podcast and resources helped you?\u00a0 Consider becoming a Legacy Partner, a monthly supporter of FamilyLife.\u00a0https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/legacy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Transgenderism is a real-world, right now topic in need of God&#8217;s navigation! J. Alan Branch shares about his book, &#8220;Affirming God&#8217;s Image,&#8221; with the heart of being able to think biblically and act compassionately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":294104,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"https:\/\/mp3.familylife.com\/fl2020-12-02.mp3","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"00:27:22","filesize":"25.06M","filesize_raw":"26280678","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":""},"categories":[2896,2873,2821],"tags":[6963],"podcast_series":[8413],"cwp_profile":[9677],"series":[2101],"class_list":["post-306591","podcast","type-podcast","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lgbt","category-mental-and-emotional-issues","category-reaching-out","tag-transgenderism","podcast_series-affirming-gods-image","cwp_profile-j-alan-branch","series-familylife-today"],"acf":[],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2024\/09\/FLT-Podcast-Cover-2-508x508-3.jpg?w=508","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2023\/02\/image-scaled.jpg","download_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast-download\/306591\/thinking-biblically-and-acting-compassionately","player_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast-player\/306591\/thinking-biblically-and-acting-compassionately","audio_player":null,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"light","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/familylife-today\/id212174303?mt=2&app=podcast","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/0j5UaKdQOHQCuo1bt0ebEm","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"},"youtube":{"key":"youtube","url":"","label":"YouTube","class":"youtube","icon":"youtube.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/feed\/podcast\/familylife-today","embedCode":"<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"8zcGL8DPpU\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/thinking-biblically-and-acting-compassionately\/\">Thinking Biblically and Acting Compassionately<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/thinking-biblically-and-acting-compassionately\/embed\/#?secret=8zcGL8DPpU\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" title=\"&#8220;Thinking Biblically and Acting Compassionately&#8221; &#8212; FamilyLife\u00ae - A Cru Ministry\" data-secret=\"8zcGL8DPpU\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\"><\/iframe><script>\n\/*! This file is auto-generated *\/\n!function(d,l){\"use strict\";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&\"undefined\"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!\/[^a-zA-Z0-9]\/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),c=new RegExp(\"^https?:$\",\"i\"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display=\"none\";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute(\"style\"),\"height\"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):\"link\"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute(\"src\")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener(\"message\",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener(\"DOMContentLoaded\",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll(\"iframe.wp-embedded-content\"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute(\"data-secret\"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+=\"#?secret=\"+t,e.setAttribute(\"data-secret\",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:\"ready\",secret:t},\"*\")},!1)))}(window,document);\n\/\/# sourceURL=https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-includes\/js\/wp-embed.min.js\n<\/script>\n"},"spectra_custom_meta":{"_wp_page_template":["default"],"transcript_url":["https:\/\/transcript.familylife.com\/fl2020-12-02.pdf"],"audio_file":["https:\/\/mp3.familylife.com\/fl2020-12-02.mp3"],"transcript_content":["<strong>Bob: <\/strong>This is Bob Lepine from <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em> with a heads-up: we\u2019re going to be talking about a sensitive subject today\u2014the subject of transgenderism. There\u2019s an epidemic today of gender confusion that J. Alan Branch says is leaving a lot of adolescents confused.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>If you\u2019re already at an age in life, where you\u2019re worried about your body and what your body looks like\u2014and \u201cDo other people like what I look like?\u201d and \u201cHow am I being accepted by the people?\u201d\u2014and then, suddenly, to have this experience of, \u201cWell, I feel like I\u2019m in the wrong body,\u201d piled on top of that\u2014you can imagine the chaos that can be, especially, in a young person\u2019s mind. It should cause us to have mercy.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>This is <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em> for Wednesday, December 2<sup>nd<\/sup>. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson; I'm Bob Lepine. You can find us online at FamilyLifeToday.com. What should we think about gender confusion and gender dysphoria? What does the Bible say? How can we respond with compassion to those who are experiencing challenges in this area? We\u2019ll talk more about that today. Stay with us.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAnd welcome to <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>. Thanks for joining us. We\u2019re talking today about something that\u2014two decades ago, this would have been a fringe topic, something that\u2019s out on the edges; today, it\u2019s a mainstream topic.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>It\u2019s a mainstream topic that a lot of people want answers and help.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes; I think there is confusion about what\u2019s going on, and the subject is transgenderism.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>I was just going to say\u2014the listener\u2019s like, \u201cWhat are we tackling today?\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>There\u2019s confusion. People want to know how to think biblically and how to act compassionately with people you know, who may be experiencing gender dysphoria, or people who are advocating that this should be normalized and should be a regular part of how you care for people in your life and in your world.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>\u2014and how to talk to our kids about this\u2014\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes; right.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>\u2014and even, what is a biblical worldview about this?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>\u2014and who\u2019s writing about it? Who\u2019s talking about it?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Well, J. Alan Branch is writing about it, and he\u2019s joining us.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>I know; that\u2019s why he\u2019s here.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>He\u2019s joining us on <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>; Alan, welcome.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Thank you. I\u2019m so glad to be here, Bob.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Dr. Branch is a professor of Christian Ethics at Midwestern Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. He\u2019s written a book called <em>Affirming God\u2019s Image<\/em>, where he takes a look at addressing the transgender question with both science and Scripture.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tHelp our listeners understand the term, gender dysphoria; because they may have heard that and not understood what that means. What is that?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Gender dysphoria is a clinical diagnosis; it\u2019s in the DSM-5 [<em>Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders<\/em>, 5<sup>th<\/sup> edition]. It used to be called gender identity disorder, but they changed it to gender dysphoria. To be clear: if you\u2019re going to follow the clinical diagnosis, someone could hypothetically be transgender but not be clinically diagnosed as gender dysphoric. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tHere\u2019s the difference: someone, who\u2019s gender dysphoric, is experiencing a disconnect between their biological sex and their gender identity that they feel subjectively, and it\u2019s causing them great distress and problems in their life. That person would be clinically described as gender dysphoric. It\u2019s possible for someone, hypothetically, to be transgender and have reconciled all these issues; and thus they wouldn\u2019t clinically be diagnosed as gender dysphoric. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBut on the street, transgender and gender dysphoric get used as synonyms, on the street, all the time.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Somebody, who is transgender, is somebody who has taken <em>action<\/em> to deal with their dysphoria; right?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Well, not necessarily. Let\u2019s clarify a few things. I think the first idea that needs to be clarified in the mind of the listeners is this: we typically use sex and gender\u2014as Christians, we use those as synonyms\u2014and rightly so. The statement of faith for my school and for our denomination refers to the gift of gender as part of the goodness of God\u2019s creation. I affirm that wholeheartedly; but we are using the word, \u201cgender,\u201d as a synonym for \u201csex.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIf you want to understand modern transgenderism, the basic principle is this: that sex and gender are two different things. Sex is your body; it\u2019s the body that God has given you, and the genitalia that one might have, and reproductive organs that one has. Your gender, however, is a subjective sense of your being, either male or female. Separating those two concepts allows the idea of transgenderism to really take place. If you don\u2019t understand that our culture has separated the ideas of sex and gender, then it\u2019s going to be really hard to understand what they\u2019re saying.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>Now, is that a recent separation; or has that been\u2014\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Right; it emerged from the \u201950s and \u201960s. There was a lot of chatter about this in the 1950s and \u201960s, among people doing research. We\u2019re dealing with ideas that have really emerged in the last 100 years. Now, there are concepts like transgender that are in antiquity; they just didn\u2019t call it that. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI think, if I could just give a bit of historical perspective, I think sometimes Christians today, when we hear about all these things happening\u2014we were chatting before about sports, and athletics, and transgenderism\u2014a famous case out of Connecticut, where these two boys self-identified as girls and then set the state record for \u201cgirls\u201d\u2014and I have to put that in scare quotes\u2014and they outran all the other girls. Now, the state of Connecticut\u2019s athletic association\u2019s being sued by these parents of these actual biological females, who are losing these races. It\u2019s interesting; they\u2019re suing them under Title IX, which is really fascinating. But when we see things like that\u2014boys pretending to be girls and outrunning all the girls and setting a female state record in Connecticut\u2014you say, \u201cWhat in the world? We\u2019ve never seen anything like this!\u201d \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tTo give a bit of perspective, in the first century in Rome, there was a cult that was the cult of Cybele; she\u2019d been around for a couple of hundred years as a pagan goddess. You guys know in Acts, where it talks about Artemis\u2014the image that fell from heaven\u2014right?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>Right.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>\u2014probably a meteorite. Something like that was going on with Cybele; apparently, had a meteorite or something that they were venerating related to her. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThis is rather grotesque, but I\u2019ll tell you what happened. March 24<sup>th<\/sup> was called the \u201cDay of Blood\u201d every year in Rome. Men, who wanted to dedicate themselves to be priests of Cybele, would go through the streets; and they worked themselves into a frenzy; and at the height of the frenzy, they would emasculate themselves. Then, after that, would begin dressing as women. Augustine even talks about seeing these folks in North Africa, three and four hundred years later, so this is a longstanding cult. He talked about how they dressed themselves up and painted themselves up, and they would grow their hair long and dress like women.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNow, the degree to which those guys doing that, back in the first century\u2014for, really, several centuries there in the Roman Empire\u2014the degree to that they were experiencing what we might call modern-day gender dysphoria or transgenderism, as opposed to just veneration to a pagan goddess, I don\u2019t know. But at the end of the day, it\u2019s the same thing; I think it does help us get some perspective. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIf we could travel in a time machine, and meet our brothers and sisters in Christ in Rome in 65 A.D.\u2014say: \u201cHey, guys, we have this thing going on in our country; it\u2019s called transgender,\u201d and \u201cHere\u2019s what these men and women are doing\u2026\u201d I think our brothers and sisters in Christ from 65 A.D. would have said, \u201cWell, we don\u2019t have the word, \u2018transgender\u2019; but we\u2019ve seen something like what you\u2019re talking about.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIf you take a deep breath, and you realize we\u2019re not the first generation of Christians to deal with something like this, then it does give us a sense of perspective about the ability of the gospel to persevere through all sorts of challenges.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>You say in your book, that in the 1960s, the sexual revolution then had a big part in what\u2019s going on <em>currently<\/em>.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Yes; the sexual revolution was this <em>radical<\/em> transition. It really started with Kinsey\u2019s work, I think, in \u201948: \u201cSexual Behavior and the Human Male\u201d\u2014that\u2019s the opening salvo. But what comes out of the sexual revolution is a radical rejection of Judeo-Christian ethics, specifically sexual ethics: \u201cWe\u2019re going to throw all this aside and abandon sexual restraint.\u201d It is the height of Romans 1:18-32; it\u2019s radical moral autonomy. They\u2019re saying, \u201cThis is all about freedom.\u201d \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIt\u2019s not about freedom; this is exploitation. It is out of the \u201960s that you get this explosion of pornography, which the Web has accelerated, exponentially, to levels we couldn\u2019t imagine; and it\u2019s all in the name of sexual freedom. It\u2019s no coincidence that you have <em>The Summer of Love<\/em> in \u201967, the sexual revolution; you get <em>Stonewall<\/em> just a couple of years after <em>The Summer of Love<\/em>, in the late \u201960s. Then, in 1973, you get Roe v. Wade. Well, abortion is a brutal coping mechanism for abandoning sexual restraint; there\u2019s no coincidence you get that. All these things are coming, and the latest\u2014if you want to know what\u2019s going on in 2020 with transgenderism\u2014it is the latest and most expansive expression of the sexual revolution. That\u2019s what you\u2019re looking at.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>You know, what we\u2019re describing here is a cultural phenomenon; but I want to zoom in on the personal experience.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Yes.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>I have a friend who, many years ago in another city, opened up to me about his personal experience of gender dysphoria. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Wow.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>It was, for him, something that he never invited. He\u2019s a follower of Christ; he was actively involved in the work of his local church at the time. It was something that he did not seek to indulge. It was something that was just this overwhelming sensation for him that he didn\u2019t know how to wrestle with.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>How old was he when he experienced that?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>He had begun the experience after he was married, as a young man, and it had continued for years. When he opened up about it\u2014I mean, he was opening the door to what was the most personally shameful part of his life. It was a huge door to pry open; and yet, prying it open, and the liberation that comes from grace and the gospel applied to that in his life has been so freeing for him.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tTalk about people, who are experiencing this drive, that they never invited and don\u2019t want.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Well, first of all, God bless <em>you<\/em>\u2014that means this man trusts you, so that\u2019s really a great honor.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>No one knows what causes transgenderism or childhood gender nonconformity; no one knows. There\u2019s not one story that explains everyone\u2019s; everyone\u2019s story is unique.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tLet me divide it into two big categories, if I will. Some people experience childhood gender nonconformity and then, later on, gender dysphoria, if we want to call it that\u2014and transgender feelings for reasons we have no idea; right?\u2014it starts young, and they don\u2019t know why\u2014much like your friend.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Maybe he had it repressed and didn\u2019t know how to talk to people about it\/didn\u2019t know who he could talk to about it. It sounds like your friend\u2019s a Christian, and wanted to go the Lord\u2019s way, and so is fighting this; but still has these feelings.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThere is another group, that it emerges older; and frequently, it comes from a fetish behavior\u2014a fetish behavior of cross-dressing for sexual arousal turns into an identity over time.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>That\u2019s not something that started earlier or younger?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>No; this can happen later. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBut even more, a couple of years ago, there were some guys, who did some research. They ran into what they thought was something new; and it was teenagers, who had no previous experience of gender nonconformity, suddenly identifying as transgender. I\u2019m going to oversimplify; but basically what they said was, \u201cThis looks like old-fashioned peer pressure.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>These ideas of transgenderism frequently emerge around puberty; that shouldn\u2019t surprise you. The hormones fire off; it\u2019s just the way the Lord made us. And puberty is such a <em>hard<\/em> time for any of us, anyway; I mean, it\u2019s <em>brutal<\/em>. This has to be part of the fall. At the very point in life, where we suddenly get very concerned about what other people think about how we look, we get acne; right? I mean, it\u2019s miserable! [Laughter]\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tYou\u2019re worried about your body; then, if you\u2019re already at an age in life, where you\u2019re worried about your body and what your body looks like\u2014and \u201cDo other people like what I look like?\u201d and \u201cHow am I being accepted by other people?\u201d\u2014then suddenly, to have this experience of, \u201cWell, I feel like I\u2019m in the wrong body,\u201d piled on top of that\u2014you can imagine the chaos that can be, especially, in a young person\u2019s mind. It should cause us to have mercy; it should cause us to have mercy and be very patient.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNone of that is helped in a culture now that says: \u201cOh yes, sure; just adjust your body to your subjective feelings. We can do all these things: we can puberty suppress, and we can give you cross-sex hormones, and we can do surgery,\u201d\u2014all these enormous steps\u2014instead of saying, \u201cLet\u2019s work through how you\u2019re feeling; let\u2019s try to talk about that.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tGod bless your friend. It sounds like this is someone that just determined he was going to go the Lord\u2019s way and bore a silent pain. I don\u2019t know how many Christians are just like your friend.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>I think we have to be aware that some people are experiencing this battle. They\u2019re fighting it, in part because of shame; but in part because they know, \u201cThis is not what God wants for me,\u201d and yet it kind of comes on them and overtakes them.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>What did you say? I mean, part of me wants to go: \u201cBob, what did you say?\u201d and \u201cDr. Branch, what would you say?\u201d\u2014[Laughter]\u2014not that there\u2019s right or wrong\u2014but I\u2019d love to know: \u201cHow did the conversation go?\u201d I\u2019m sure it wasn\u2019t just one conversation.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Oh, it was a long series of conversations. I asked a lot of questions. I did a lot of listening and tried to understand something that I\u2019ve never experienced, personally, but tried to hear the pain that was a part of that\/the struggle that\u2019s a part of that, and how my friend battled and coped, and what his sense of this was, and where it had led him. It was just a long series of conversations.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBy God\u2019s grace\u2014I didn\u2019t do anything to fix him or cure him\u2014I think just having somebody that he could be open with and talk about it was\u2014we have said on this program, many times, that when sin comes out in the open\/when it\u2019s confessed, half of the power of it is drained out of it at that point.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>That\u2019s right.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>Right.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>I remember the first time we sat down he said something to me\u2014we were talking about issues in his life\u2014and he said, \u201cThere\u2019s a part of my life that nobody will ever know about.\u201d I just left that alone.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWell, within a couple of years, he was being open about what \u201c\u2026nobody would ever know about.\u201d That openness was liberating. Think of James 5: \u201cConfess your sins one to another, so that\u201d\u2014what?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>\u201c\u2026you can be healed.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>\u2014\u201c\u2026healed.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes; \u201c\u2026you can be healed.\u201d I think, in the opening up and confessing, God brought healing and hope. He would say that what was a powerful force in his life is no longer a powerful force.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>Really!\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>God has brought freedom and healing in that area.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>I love that he was that open with you.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>We\u2019re hearing stories of kids coming to their parents, maybe as a teenager or even younger, saying, \u201cI have these desires,\u201d \u201cI have these feelings,\u201d and then we hear of parents putting their children on hormonal therapy. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tCoach us, as parents, biblically speaking, if we are being raised in a household that honors Christ, what should that conversation look like?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Well, I think what Bob did was very wise. First of all, he\u2019s listening and trying to understand. The worst thing we can do, either as a friend or as a parent, is to overreact when someone says that. That\u2019s not what we want to do. What we want to do is to try to stay on an even keel; show them unconditional love; and say, \u201cListen; I love you. You\u2019re in a safe place. The home you\u2019re in is safe; you\u2019re not in danger. Now, God has made you a boy\u201d or \u201c\u2026God has made you a girl, and that\u2019s good.\u201d The best thing parents can do is, from a very early age, to start affirming to their children: \u201cI\u2019m so glad God made you a boy,\u201d \u201cI\u2019m so glad God made you a girl,\u201d and that they hear that message from their parents.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>\u2014and the goodness of that: \u201cHere\u2019s why that\u2019s so great that you\u2019re a boy,\u201d or \u201c\u2026a girl.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Yes; that leads to some interesting conversations. When our children were younger, we were trying to explain to them: \u201cWe\u2019re so glad God made you a girl\u201d; and we explained to them the basic difference between boys and girls. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI remember one day when one of my daughters\u2014I won\u2019t name which one, because they\u2019re grown women now; I don\u2019t want to embarrass them\u2014my mother never had a conversation like that with me when I was growing up, and one of my daughters was about three years old. I heard her in my mother\u2019s kitchen, saying, \u201cGod made me a girl!\u201d I thought, \u201cUh-oh, I have to go in there now!\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tMy mom said, \u201cYes; that\u2019s good.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s good to be a girl!\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s right.\u201d She [daughter] started naming the body parts for girls, and my mother was just mortified. [Laughter] I said [to his mother], \u201cWell, no; this is what you do. You try to teach your children that their body is a good thing\u2014not to be afraid\u2014it\u2019s not a dirty thing.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>I have to say\u2014we have a one-and-a-half-year-old grandson that is right in that stage, where he\u2019s telling <em>everyone<\/em> that he\u2019s a boy and <em>why<\/em> he\u2019s a boy\u2014 [Laughter]\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>\u2014and what he has!\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>\u2014and what his grandmother and mom have. [Laughter] He\u2019s very excited about telling everyone. [Laughter] \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBut keep going.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Right; I think, at the end of the day, children have to be children. Listen; that\u2019s age-appropriate behavior. Now, if you have a 21-year-old talking like that, we have a problem; right? [Laughter] But age-appropriate behavior; we understand that.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBeyond that, if a child starts demonstrating these things\u2014I\u2019m not a parenting expert; I teach ethics; that\u2019s what I do. I\u2019m not a psychologist; I\u2019m not a psychiatrist; I\u2019m not an endocrinologist, I\u2019m not an M.D.\u2014but based on the Bible, what I know is we don\u2019t want to exasperate our children; the Word tells us that.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>What we need to do is stay firm, and stay loving, and stay calm, and realize that we\u2019re probably in for a really long fight. But so often children gauge their reactions off of our reaction. We have to think very carefully about, if our child demonstrates gender nonconformity, what are we going to do with that?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNow, when they get older\u2014\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>What would they be doing that\u2019s demonstrating that?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Well, they\u2019ll tell you, \u201cI\u2019m not a boy; I\u2019m a girl.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>Will they dress such as that?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Yes; sometimes they\u2019ll want to do that; right? You can\u2019t freak out, because sometimes kids are just going to do dumb things; right? You know, a boy\u2019s going to see his sister\u2019s tutu and put it on, and run through the yard, or whatever\u2014I don\u2019t know\u2014they\u2019re just going to be silly, so that\u2019s why you don\u2019t want to overreact.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBut sometimes they\u2019ll say that, and you just want to\u2014you don\u2019t want to overreact\u2014but you want to firmly: \u201cWell, no; you\u2019re a boy\u201d, and \u201cGod made you a boy, and that\u2019s good.\u201d These things can emerge at early ages, and sometimes they can be quite defiant about it.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNow, the challenge we\u2019re dealing with when children get older\u2014especially teenagers\u2014and they start saying, \u201cWell, I really think I\u2019m in the wrong\u2026\u201d\u2014and I want to preface this by saying my children went to public school. Both my girls graduated from North Kansas City High School, and they got a good education\u2014but we are in a situation, now, where in many school districts there are sexually-enlightened adults that think it is their responsibility to rescue children like that from Christian parents.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>They think it\u2019s their job to do that, and they think they\u2019re being beneficent by doing it, and they have no moral qualms about telling that child, \u201cOh, no, don\u2019t you listen to your parents; that\u2019s really who you are.\u201d You can\u2019t lump all school districts into one, but you just have to be aware that\u2019s the environment; and you really, really have to be aware.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThe other thing is\u2014if I could do one thing different as a parent\u2014this is especially true if you\u2019re dealing with a child with transgender issues or gender dysphoria\u2014one mistake I made is I got my children one of these\u2014I\u2019m holding up my smartphone\u2014I got my children one of these at too early an age. I mean, if I had to do it over again, I\u2019d make them use a flip phone until they\u2019re 18, and they\u2019d have to deal with the social stigma; right?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>You\u2019re not alone in that. The inventors of these phones and these apps are saying, \u201cWe don\u2019t give them to our kids until they\u2019re at a mature age and can handle it.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>I wish I\u2019d done that. I have good girls; they\u2019re fine Christian young women, living for the Lord; but I\u2019m just saying; right?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThis is true with transgenders as well, because what you have to understand is\u2014you\u2019re giving a 12-year-old, going through puberty, who suddenly feels this, \u201cWell, maybe, I\u2019m in the wrong body,\u201d two clicks on this phone and one search, and you have all sorts of people telling them, \u201cOh, no\u2026\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>There are YouTube videos that go on and on of testimonies\u2014recruiting videos\u2014\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>\u2014that are educating our children in this area.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>That\u2019s right. I think, with our kids\u2014you\u2019re going to handle it, with a six-year-old, who is\/we used to call a girl a tomboy, who wants to go play football with the boys\u2014you\u2019re going to handle that differently than you\u2019re going to handle it with a fourteen-year-old, who is saying, \u201cI think I\u2019m a girl in a boy\u2019s body.\u201d \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI think the principles that you\u2019ve talked about here, Alan\u2014the principles of patience, not freaking out; compassion; understanding; asking a lot of questions; and then protecting your kids from a culture that is going to be aggressively trying to change the way they think about what they\u2019re feeling and move them away from a biblical approach to this\u2014your book, I think, is helpful. The book is called <em>Affirming God\u2019s Image: Addressing the Transgender Question with Science and Scripture<\/em>. It\u2019s a good book for any of us to go through. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tGo to FamilyLifeToday.com to get a copy of J. Alan Branch\u2019s book; <em>Affirming God\u2019s Image<\/em>. Order it from us, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com; or call if you prefer to order by phone\u2014the number is 1-800-FL-TODAY\u20141-800-358-6329\u2014that\u2019s 1-800-\u201cF\u201d as in family, \u201cL\u201d as in life, and then the word, \u201cTODAY.\u201d Again, the book is called <em>Affirming God\u2019s Image: Addressing the Transgender Question with Science and Scripture.<\/em>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNow, I hope you find conversations like the one we\u2019ve had today helpful. I hope it helps you think more biblically about issues related to marriage and family. We have the president of FamilyLife<sup>\u00ae<\/sup>, David Robbins, here with us. If you do find these conversations helpful, you need to know that they don\u2019t happen without your help. David\u2014\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>David: <\/strong>Thanks, Bob. I want to remind listeners, as we approach the end of the year, that this is a <em>critical<\/em> time in FamilyLife\u2019s ministry. Over 40 percent of our donations for the <em>entire<\/em> year come in this month, and these 30 days determine how FamilyLife is going to be able to fuel ministry and our future broadcasting over the next 12 months.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAs you can imagine, we\u2019ve had to make some tough choices this year; and we\u2019re hoping that, through the generosity of people like you, we can continue to be on this station in the year ahead and keep offering help and hope for the relationships that matter most in your life. If you believe in what we\u2019re doing here on <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>, would you give today? Your financial partnership means torn-up divorce papers; it means restored families and legacies intentionally shape generation after generation. I once heard someone, who went to a FamilyLife <em>Weekend to Remember <\/em>getaway, after hearing about it on the radio, say, \u201cI came here a roommate, and I left a wife.\u201d Your gift is what makes that possible.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes; that\u2019s right. As you know, David, right now, when any of our listeners make a donation, their donation is going to be matched, dollar for dollar, up to a total of \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t$2 million. We have this matching-gift fund that\u2019s been made available to us. We hope to take full advantage of the fund. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tSo when you give today, whatever you give is matched, dollar for dollar; <em>and<\/em> we\u2019re going to send you two thank-you gifts. We\u2019ll send you a copy of my book, <em>Love Like You Mean It<\/em>, which is all about how the Bible defines love and what that looks like in a marriage relationship; and we\u2019ll send you a thumb drive\/a flash drive that has more than a hundred of the top <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em> radio programs from the last 28 years. Both of those are our thank-you gift to you when you donate today. You can donate, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com; or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNow, tomorrow, we\u2019re going to talk more about how parents can be prepared for and navigate the challenges if their children or friends of their children are experiencing gender confusion. What do you do in that moment? J. Alan Branch joins us again tomorrow. I hope you can join us as well.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I\u2019m Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<em>FamilyLife Today<\/em> is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas; a Cru<sup>\u00ae <\/sup>Ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWe are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you\u2019ve benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider <a href=\"http:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/donate\">donating today<\/a> to help defray the costs?\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tCopyright <sup>\u00a9<\/sup> 2020 FamilyLife. All rights reserved.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/\">www.FamilyLife.com<\/a>\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t1\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>"],"_seopress_titles_title":[""],"_seopress_titles_desc":[""],"_seopress_robots_index":[""],"duration":["00:27:22"],"show_notes":[""],"_thumbnail_id":["294104"],"filesize":["25.06M"],"filesize_raw":["26280678"],"_uag_css_file_name":["uag-css-306591.css"],"_uag_js_file_name":["uag-js-306591.js"],"_uag_page_assets":["a:9:{s:3:\"css\";s:82560:\".wp-block-uagb-container.uagb-block-e11dbe9f .uagb-container__shape-top svg{width: calc( 100% + 1.3px );}.wp-block-uagb-container.uagb-block-e11dbe9f .uagb-container__shape.uagb-container__shape-top .uagb-container__shape-fill{fill: rgba(51,51,51,1);}.wp-block-uagb-container.uagb-block-e11dbe9f .uagb-container__shape-bottom svg{width: calc( 100% + 1.3px );}.wp-block-uagb-container.uagb-block-e11dbe9f .uagb-container__shape.uagb-container__shape-bottom 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is a real-world, right now topic in need of God's navigation! J. Alan Branch shares about his book, \"Affirming God's Image,\" with the heart of being able to think biblically and act compassionately.","meta_box":{"show_notes":"","transcript_url":"https:\/\/transcript.familylife.com\/fl2020-12-02.pdf","transcript_content":"<strong>Bob: <\/strong>This is Bob Lepine from <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em> with a heads-up: we\u2019re going to be talking about a sensitive subject today\u2014the subject of transgenderism. There\u2019s an epidemic today of gender confusion that J. Alan Branch says is leaving a lot of adolescents confused.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>If you\u2019re already at an age in life, where you\u2019re worried about your body and what your body looks like\u2014and \u201cDo other people like what I look like?\u201d and \u201cHow am I being accepted by the people?\u201d\u2014and then, suddenly, to have this experience of, \u201cWell, I feel like I\u2019m in the wrong body,\u201d piled on top of that\u2014you can imagine the chaos that can be, especially, in a young person\u2019s mind. It should cause us to have mercy.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>This is <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em> for Wednesday, December 2<sup>nd<\/sup>. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson; I'm Bob Lepine. You can find us online at FamilyLifeToday.com. What should we think about gender confusion and gender dysphoria? What does the Bible say? How can we respond with compassion to those who are experiencing challenges in this area? We\u2019ll talk more about that today. Stay with us.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAnd welcome to <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>. Thanks for joining us. We\u2019re talking today about something that\u2014two decades ago, this would have been a fringe topic, something that\u2019s out on the edges; today, it\u2019s a mainstream topic.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>It\u2019s a mainstream topic that a lot of people want answers and help.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes; I think there is confusion about what\u2019s going on, and the subject is transgenderism.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>I was just going to say\u2014the listener\u2019s like, \u201cWhat are we tackling today?\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>There\u2019s confusion. People want to know how to think biblically and how to act compassionately with people you know, who may be experiencing gender dysphoria, or people who are advocating that this should be normalized and should be a regular part of how you care for people in your life and in your world.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>\u2014and how to talk to our kids about this\u2014\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes; right.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>\u2014and even, what is a biblical worldview about this?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>\u2014and who\u2019s writing about it? Who\u2019s talking about it?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Well, J. Alan Branch is writing about it, and he\u2019s joining us.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>I know; that\u2019s why he\u2019s here.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>He\u2019s joining us on <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>; Alan, welcome.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Thank you. I\u2019m so glad to be here, Bob.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Dr. Branch is a professor of Christian Ethics at Midwestern Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. He\u2019s written a book called <em>Affirming God\u2019s Image<\/em>, where he takes a look at addressing the transgender question with both science and Scripture.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tHelp our listeners understand the term, gender dysphoria; because they may have heard that and not understood what that means. What is that?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Gender dysphoria is a clinical diagnosis; it\u2019s in the DSM-5 [<em>Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders<\/em>, 5<sup>th<\/sup> edition]. It used to be called gender identity disorder, but they changed it to gender dysphoria. To be clear: if you\u2019re going to follow the clinical diagnosis, someone could hypothetically be transgender but not be clinically diagnosed as gender dysphoric. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tHere\u2019s the difference: someone, who\u2019s gender dysphoric, is experiencing a disconnect between their biological sex and their gender identity that they feel subjectively, and it\u2019s causing them great distress and problems in their life. That person would be clinically described as gender dysphoric. It\u2019s possible for someone, hypothetically, to be transgender and have reconciled all these issues; and thus they wouldn\u2019t clinically be diagnosed as gender dysphoric. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBut on the street, transgender and gender dysphoric get used as synonyms, on the street, all the time.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Somebody, who is transgender, is somebody who has taken <em>action<\/em> to deal with their dysphoria; right?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Well, not necessarily. Let\u2019s clarify a few things. I think the first idea that needs to be clarified in the mind of the listeners is this: we typically use sex and gender\u2014as Christians, we use those as synonyms\u2014and rightly so. The statement of faith for my school and for our denomination refers to the gift of gender as part of the goodness of God\u2019s creation. I affirm that wholeheartedly; but we are using the word, \u201cgender,\u201d as a synonym for \u201csex.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIf you want to understand modern transgenderism, the basic principle is this: that sex and gender are two different things. Sex is your body; it\u2019s the body that God has given you, and the genitalia that one might have, and reproductive organs that one has. Your gender, however, is a subjective sense of your being, either male or female. Separating those two concepts allows the idea of transgenderism to really take place. If you don\u2019t understand that our culture has separated the ideas of sex and gender, then it\u2019s going to be really hard to understand what they\u2019re saying.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>Now, is that a recent separation; or has that been\u2014\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Right; it emerged from the \u201950s and \u201960s. There was a lot of chatter about this in the 1950s and \u201960s, among people doing research. We\u2019re dealing with ideas that have really emerged in the last 100 years. Now, there are concepts like transgender that are in antiquity; they just didn\u2019t call it that. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI think, if I could just give a bit of historical perspective, I think sometimes Christians today, when we hear about all these things happening\u2014we were chatting before about sports, and athletics, and transgenderism\u2014a famous case out of Connecticut, where these two boys self-identified as girls and then set the state record for \u201cgirls\u201d\u2014and I have to put that in scare quotes\u2014and they outran all the other girls. Now, the state of Connecticut\u2019s athletic association\u2019s being sued by these parents of these actual biological females, who are losing these races. It\u2019s interesting; they\u2019re suing them under Title IX, which is really fascinating. But when we see things like that\u2014boys pretending to be girls and outrunning all the girls and setting a female state record in Connecticut\u2014you say, \u201cWhat in the world? We\u2019ve never seen anything like this!\u201d \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tTo give a bit of perspective, in the first century in Rome, there was a cult that was the cult of Cybele; she\u2019d been around for a couple of hundred years as a pagan goddess. You guys know in Acts, where it talks about Artemis\u2014the image that fell from heaven\u2014right?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>Right.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>\u2014probably a meteorite. Something like that was going on with Cybele; apparently, had a meteorite or something that they were venerating related to her. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThis is rather grotesque, but I\u2019ll tell you what happened. March 24<sup>th<\/sup> was called the \u201cDay of Blood\u201d every year in Rome. Men, who wanted to dedicate themselves to be priests of Cybele, would go through the streets; and they worked themselves into a frenzy; and at the height of the frenzy, they would emasculate themselves. Then, after that, would begin dressing as women. Augustine even talks about seeing these folks in North Africa, three and four hundred years later, so this is a longstanding cult. He talked about how they dressed themselves up and painted themselves up, and they would grow their hair long and dress like women.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNow, the degree to which those guys doing that, back in the first century\u2014for, really, several centuries there in the Roman Empire\u2014the degree to that they were experiencing what we might call modern-day gender dysphoria or transgenderism, as opposed to just veneration to a pagan goddess, I don\u2019t know. But at the end of the day, it\u2019s the same thing; I think it does help us get some perspective. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIf we could travel in a time machine, and meet our brothers and sisters in Christ in Rome in 65 A.D.\u2014say: \u201cHey, guys, we have this thing going on in our country; it\u2019s called transgender,\u201d and \u201cHere\u2019s what these men and women are doing\u2026\u201d I think our brothers and sisters in Christ from 65 A.D. would have said, \u201cWell, we don\u2019t have the word, \u2018transgender\u2019; but we\u2019ve seen something like what you\u2019re talking about.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIf you take a deep breath, and you realize we\u2019re not the first generation of Christians to deal with something like this, then it does give us a sense of perspective about the ability of the gospel to persevere through all sorts of challenges.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>You say in your book, that in the 1960s, the sexual revolution then had a big part in what\u2019s going on <em>currently<\/em>.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Yes; the sexual revolution was this <em>radical<\/em> transition. It really started with Kinsey\u2019s work, I think, in \u201948: \u201cSexual Behavior and the Human Male\u201d\u2014that\u2019s the opening salvo. But what comes out of the sexual revolution is a radical rejection of Judeo-Christian ethics, specifically sexual ethics: \u201cWe\u2019re going to throw all this aside and abandon sexual restraint.\u201d It is the height of Romans 1:18-32; it\u2019s radical moral autonomy. They\u2019re saying, \u201cThis is all about freedom.\u201d \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIt\u2019s not about freedom; this is exploitation. It is out of the \u201960s that you get this explosion of pornography, which the Web has accelerated, exponentially, to levels we couldn\u2019t imagine; and it\u2019s all in the name of sexual freedom. It\u2019s no coincidence that you have <em>The Summer of Love<\/em> in \u201967, the sexual revolution; you get <em>Stonewall<\/em> just a couple of years after <em>The Summer of Love<\/em>, in the late \u201960s. Then, in 1973, you get Roe v. Wade. Well, abortion is a brutal coping mechanism for abandoning sexual restraint; there\u2019s no coincidence you get that. All these things are coming, and the latest\u2014if you want to know what\u2019s going on in 2020 with transgenderism\u2014it is the latest and most expansive expression of the sexual revolution. That\u2019s what you\u2019re looking at.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>You know, what we\u2019re describing here is a cultural phenomenon; but I want to zoom in on the personal experience.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Yes.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>I have a friend who, many years ago in another city, opened up to me about his personal experience of gender dysphoria. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Wow.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>It was, for him, something that he never invited. He\u2019s a follower of Christ; he was actively involved in the work of his local church at the time. It was something that he did not seek to indulge. It was something that was just this overwhelming sensation for him that he didn\u2019t know how to wrestle with.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>How old was he when he experienced that?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>He had begun the experience after he was married, as a young man, and it had continued for years. When he opened up about it\u2014I mean, he was opening the door to what was the most personally shameful part of his life. It was a huge door to pry open; and yet, prying it open, and the liberation that comes from grace and the gospel applied to that in his life has been so freeing for him.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tTalk about people, who are experiencing this drive, that they never invited and don\u2019t want.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Well, first of all, God bless <em>you<\/em>\u2014that means this man trusts you, so that\u2019s really a great honor.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>No one knows what causes transgenderism or childhood gender nonconformity; no one knows. There\u2019s not one story that explains everyone\u2019s; everyone\u2019s story is unique.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tLet me divide it into two big categories, if I will. Some people experience childhood gender nonconformity and then, later on, gender dysphoria, if we want to call it that\u2014and transgender feelings for reasons we have no idea; right?\u2014it starts young, and they don\u2019t know why\u2014much like your friend.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Maybe he had it repressed and didn\u2019t know how to talk to people about it\/didn\u2019t know who he could talk to about it. It sounds like your friend\u2019s a Christian, and wanted to go the Lord\u2019s way, and so is fighting this; but still has these feelings.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThere is another group, that it emerges older; and frequently, it comes from a fetish behavior\u2014a fetish behavior of cross-dressing for sexual arousal turns into an identity over time.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>That\u2019s not something that started earlier or younger?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>No; this can happen later. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBut even more, a couple of years ago, there were some guys, who did some research. They ran into what they thought was something new; and it was teenagers, who had no previous experience of gender nonconformity, suddenly identifying as transgender. I\u2019m going to oversimplify; but basically what they said was, \u201cThis looks like old-fashioned peer pressure.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>These ideas of transgenderism frequently emerge around puberty; that shouldn\u2019t surprise you. The hormones fire off; it\u2019s just the way the Lord made us. And puberty is such a <em>hard<\/em> time for any of us, anyway; I mean, it\u2019s <em>brutal<\/em>. This has to be part of the fall. At the very point in life, where we suddenly get very concerned about what other people think about how we look, we get acne; right? I mean, it\u2019s miserable! [Laughter]\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tYou\u2019re worried about your body; then, if you\u2019re already at an age in life, where you\u2019re worried about your body and what your body looks like\u2014and \u201cDo other people like what I look like?\u201d and \u201cHow am I being accepted by other people?\u201d\u2014then suddenly, to have this experience of, \u201cWell, I feel like I\u2019m in the wrong body,\u201d piled on top of that\u2014you can imagine the chaos that can be, especially, in a young person\u2019s mind. It should cause us to have mercy; it should cause us to have mercy and be very patient.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNone of that is helped in a culture now that says: \u201cOh yes, sure; just adjust your body to your subjective feelings. We can do all these things: we can puberty suppress, and we can give you cross-sex hormones, and we can do surgery,\u201d\u2014all these enormous steps\u2014instead of saying, \u201cLet\u2019s work through how you\u2019re feeling; let\u2019s try to talk about that.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tGod bless your friend. It sounds like this is someone that just determined he was going to go the Lord\u2019s way and bore a silent pain. I don\u2019t know how many Christians are just like your friend.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>I think we have to be aware that some people are experiencing this battle. They\u2019re fighting it, in part because of shame; but in part because they know, \u201cThis is not what God wants for me,\u201d and yet it kind of comes on them and overtakes them.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>What did you say? I mean, part of me wants to go: \u201cBob, what did you say?\u201d and \u201cDr. Branch, what would you say?\u201d\u2014[Laughter]\u2014not that there\u2019s right or wrong\u2014but I\u2019d love to know: \u201cHow did the conversation go?\u201d I\u2019m sure it wasn\u2019t just one conversation.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Oh, it was a long series of conversations. I asked a lot of questions. I did a lot of listening and tried to understand something that I\u2019ve never experienced, personally, but tried to hear the pain that was a part of that\/the struggle that\u2019s a part of that, and how my friend battled and coped, and what his sense of this was, and where it had led him. It was just a long series of conversations.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBy God\u2019s grace\u2014I didn\u2019t do anything to fix him or cure him\u2014I think just having somebody that he could be open with and talk about it was\u2014we have said on this program, many times, that when sin comes out in the open\/when it\u2019s confessed, half of the power of it is drained out of it at that point.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>That\u2019s right.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>Right.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>I remember the first time we sat down he said something to me\u2014we were talking about issues in his life\u2014and he said, \u201cThere\u2019s a part of my life that nobody will ever know about.\u201d I just left that alone.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWell, within a couple of years, he was being open about what \u201c\u2026nobody would ever know about.\u201d That openness was liberating. Think of James 5: \u201cConfess your sins one to another, so that\u201d\u2014what?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>\u201c\u2026you can be healed.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>\u2014\u201c\u2026healed.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes; \u201c\u2026you can be healed.\u201d I think, in the opening up and confessing, God brought healing and hope. He would say that what was a powerful force in his life is no longer a powerful force.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>Really!\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>God has brought freedom and healing in that area.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>I love that he was that open with you.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>We\u2019re hearing stories of kids coming to their parents, maybe as a teenager or even younger, saying, \u201cI have these desires,\u201d \u201cI have these feelings,\u201d and then we hear of parents putting their children on hormonal therapy. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tCoach us, as parents, biblically speaking, if we are being raised in a household that honors Christ, what should that conversation look like?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Well, I think what Bob did was very wise. First of all, he\u2019s listening and trying to understand. The worst thing we can do, either as a friend or as a parent, is to overreact when someone says that. That\u2019s not what we want to do. What we want to do is to try to stay on an even keel; show them unconditional love; and say, \u201cListen; I love you. You\u2019re in a safe place. The home you\u2019re in is safe; you\u2019re not in danger. Now, God has made you a boy\u201d or \u201c\u2026God has made you a girl, and that\u2019s good.\u201d The best thing parents can do is, from a very early age, to start affirming to their children: \u201cI\u2019m so glad God made you a boy,\u201d \u201cI\u2019m so glad God made you a girl,\u201d and that they hear that message from their parents.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>\u2014and the goodness of that: \u201cHere\u2019s why that\u2019s so great that you\u2019re a boy,\u201d or \u201c\u2026a girl.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Yes; that leads to some interesting conversations. When our children were younger, we were trying to explain to them: \u201cWe\u2019re so glad God made you a girl\u201d; and we explained to them the basic difference between boys and girls. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI remember one day when one of my daughters\u2014I won\u2019t name which one, because they\u2019re grown women now; I don\u2019t want to embarrass them\u2014my mother never had a conversation like that with me when I was growing up, and one of my daughters was about three years old. I heard her in my mother\u2019s kitchen, saying, \u201cGod made me a girl!\u201d I thought, \u201cUh-oh, I have to go in there now!\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tMy mom said, \u201cYes; that\u2019s good.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s good to be a girl!\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s right.\u201d She [daughter] started naming the body parts for girls, and my mother was just mortified. [Laughter] I said [to his mother], \u201cWell, no; this is what you do. You try to teach your children that their body is a good thing\u2014not to be afraid\u2014it\u2019s not a dirty thing.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>I have to say\u2014we have a one-and-a-half-year-old grandson that is right in that stage, where he\u2019s telling <em>everyone<\/em> that he\u2019s a boy and <em>why<\/em> he\u2019s a boy\u2014 [Laughter]\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>\u2014and what he has!\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>\u2014and what his grandmother and mom have. [Laughter] He\u2019s very excited about telling everyone. [Laughter] \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBut keep going.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Right; I think, at the end of the day, children have to be children. Listen; that\u2019s age-appropriate behavior. Now, if you have a 21-year-old talking like that, we have a problem; right? [Laughter] But age-appropriate behavior; we understand that.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBeyond that, if a child starts demonstrating these things\u2014I\u2019m not a parenting expert; I teach ethics; that\u2019s what I do. I\u2019m not a psychologist; I\u2019m not a psychiatrist; I\u2019m not an endocrinologist, I\u2019m not an M.D.\u2014but based on the Bible, what I know is we don\u2019t want to exasperate our children; the Word tells us that.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>What we need to do is stay firm, and stay loving, and stay calm, and realize that we\u2019re probably in for a really long fight. But so often children gauge their reactions off of our reaction. We have to think very carefully about, if our child demonstrates gender nonconformity, what are we going to do with that?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNow, when they get older\u2014\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>What would they be doing that\u2019s demonstrating that?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Well, they\u2019ll tell you, \u201cI\u2019m not a boy; I\u2019m a girl.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>Will they dress such as that?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>Yes; sometimes they\u2019ll want to do that; right? You can\u2019t freak out, because sometimes kids are just going to do dumb things; right? You know, a boy\u2019s going to see his sister\u2019s tutu and put it on, and run through the yard, or whatever\u2014I don\u2019t know\u2014they\u2019re just going to be silly, so that\u2019s why you don\u2019t want to overreact.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBut sometimes they\u2019ll say that, and you just want to\u2014you don\u2019t want to overreact\u2014but you want to firmly: \u201cWell, no; you\u2019re a boy\u201d, and \u201cGod made you a boy, and that\u2019s good.\u201d These things can emerge at early ages, and sometimes they can be quite defiant about it.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNow, the challenge we\u2019re dealing with when children get older\u2014especially teenagers\u2014and they start saying, \u201cWell, I really think I\u2019m in the wrong\u2026\u201d\u2014and I want to preface this by saying my children went to public school. Both my girls graduated from North Kansas City High School, and they got a good education\u2014but we are in a situation, now, where in many school districts there are sexually-enlightened adults that think it is their responsibility to rescue children like that from Christian parents.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>They think it\u2019s their job to do that, and they think they\u2019re being beneficent by doing it, and they have no moral qualms about telling that child, \u201cOh, no, don\u2019t you listen to your parents; that\u2019s really who you are.\u201d You can\u2019t lump all school districts into one, but you just have to be aware that\u2019s the environment; and you really, really have to be aware.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThe other thing is\u2014if I could do one thing different as a parent\u2014this is especially true if you\u2019re dealing with a child with transgender issues or gender dysphoria\u2014one mistake I made is I got my children one of these\u2014I\u2019m holding up my smartphone\u2014I got my children one of these at too early an age. I mean, if I had to do it over again, I\u2019d make them use a flip phone until they\u2019re 18, and they\u2019d have to deal with the social stigma; right?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dave: <\/strong>You\u2019re not alone in that. The inventors of these phones and these apps are saying, \u201cWe don\u2019t give them to our kids until they\u2019re at a mature age and can handle it.\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Alan: <\/strong>I wish I\u2019d done that. I have good girls; they\u2019re fine Christian young women, living for the Lord; but I\u2019m just saying; right?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThis is true with transgenders as well, because what you have to understand is\u2014you\u2019re giving a 12-year-old, going through puberty, who suddenly feels this, \u201cWell, maybe, I\u2019m in the wrong body,\u201d two clicks on this phone and one search, and you have all sorts of people telling them, \u201cOh, no\u2026\u201d\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>There are YouTube videos that go on and on of testimonies\u2014recruiting videos\u2014\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ann: <\/strong>\u2014that are educating our children in this area.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>That\u2019s right. I think, with our kids\u2014you\u2019re going to handle it, with a six-year-old, who is\/we used to call a girl a tomboy, who wants to go play football with the boys\u2014you\u2019re going to handle that differently than you\u2019re going to handle it with a fourteen-year-old, who is saying, \u201cI think I\u2019m a girl in a boy\u2019s body.\u201d \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI think the principles that you\u2019ve talked about here, Alan\u2014the principles of patience, not freaking out; compassion; understanding; asking a lot of questions; and then protecting your kids from a culture that is going to be aggressively trying to change the way they think about what they\u2019re feeling and move them away from a biblical approach to this\u2014your book, I think, is helpful. The book is called <em>Affirming God\u2019s Image: Addressing the Transgender Question with Science and Scripture<\/em>. It\u2019s a good book for any of us to go through. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tGo to FamilyLifeToday.com to get a copy of J. Alan Branch\u2019s book; <em>Affirming God\u2019s Image<\/em>. Order it from us, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com; or call if you prefer to order by phone\u2014the number is 1-800-FL-TODAY\u20141-800-358-6329\u2014that\u2019s 1-800-\u201cF\u201d as in family, \u201cL\u201d as in life, and then the word, \u201cTODAY.\u201d Again, the book is called <em>Affirming God\u2019s Image: Addressing the Transgender Question with Science and Scripture.<\/em>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNow, I hope you find conversations like the one we\u2019ve had today helpful. I hope it helps you think more biblically about issues related to marriage and family. We have the president of FamilyLife<sup>\u00ae<\/sup>, David Robbins, here with us. If you do find these conversations helpful, you need to know that they don\u2019t happen without your help. David\u2014\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>David: <\/strong>Thanks, Bob. I want to remind listeners, as we approach the end of the year, that this is a <em>critical<\/em> time in FamilyLife\u2019s ministry. Over 40 percent of our donations for the <em>entire<\/em> year come in this month, and these 30 days determine how FamilyLife is going to be able to fuel ministry and our future broadcasting over the next 12 months.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAs you can imagine, we\u2019ve had to make some tough choices this year; and we\u2019re hoping that, through the generosity of people like you, we can continue to be on this station in the year ahead and keep offering help and hope for the relationships that matter most in your life. If you believe in what we\u2019re doing here on <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>, would you give today? Your financial partnership means torn-up divorce papers; it means restored families and legacies intentionally shape generation after generation. I once heard someone, who went to a FamilyLife <em>Weekend to Remember <\/em>getaway, after hearing about it on the radio, say, \u201cI came here a roommate, and I left a wife.\u201d Your gift is what makes that possible.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob: <\/strong>Yes; that\u2019s right. As you know, David, right now, when any of our listeners make a donation, their donation is going to be matched, dollar for dollar, up to a total of \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t$2 million. We have this matching-gift fund that\u2019s been made available to us. We hope to take full advantage of the fund. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tSo when you give today, whatever you give is matched, dollar for dollar; <em>and<\/em> we\u2019re going to send you two thank-you gifts. We\u2019ll send you a copy of my book, <em>Love Like You Mean It<\/em>, which is all about how the Bible defines love and what that looks like in a marriage relationship; and we\u2019ll send you a thumb drive\/a flash drive that has more than a hundred of the top <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em> radio programs from the last 28 years. Both of those are our thank-you gift to you when you donate today. You can donate, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com; or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNow, tomorrow, we\u2019re going to talk more about how parents can be prepared for and navigate the challenges if their children or friends of their children are experiencing gender confusion. What do you do in that moment? J. Alan Branch joins us again tomorrow. I hope you can join us as well.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I\u2019m Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<em>FamilyLife Today<\/em> is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas; a Cru<sup>\u00ae <\/sup>Ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWe are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you\u2019ve benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider <a href=\"http:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/donate\">donating today<\/a> to help defray the costs?\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tCopyright <sup>\u00a9<\/sup> 2020 FamilyLife. 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