When Gender Gets Confusing
by Chad Daugherty
According to Barna Research, 69% of Gen Z (those born between 1999 and 2015) believe that it is not that big of a deal when asked, "is it acceptable for someone to be born one gender and feel like another? When asked the same question to teens who would be described as "Engaged Christians," 44% said that it was acceptable.
Today, we live in a culture where our children can be confused about gender confusion. And it can be so confusing because the terms, standards, and ideas about gender identity the world suggest are constantly in flux. So how do we as parents navigate this topic without being confused ourselves?
I want to share three truths that we strive to understand, live out, and share in our own home with our children (one 2 years old and one 9 months old). Sooner than you may think, we may need to tackle the conversation of gender and sexuality head-on. We pray that we will be ready and our children will as well. So, here we go! First, we try to focus on doing our best to share with them …
God’s design. From the beginning of God's creation of the world, we see His intentionality with humans, His prized creation. From Genesis 1:27-28, we learn God's purposeful and specific desire behind the wonderfully complex humans He just created. From this passage, we can observe a few essential truths.
There is an equal quality that God gives to his male and female creations. Both are made in His image. Both have the blessed opportunity to know Him, carry out His commands, and be with Him.
There is a different quality that to His male and female creation. God created males and females. That simply conjunction signifies differentiation. There is a beautiful uniqueness that God has placed upon men and women. And those unique qualities allow each to walk in the ways God has directed so they can walk in the wonderful knowledge they have a purpose given to them by God.
There is a complementary quality to His male and female creation. The command God gives to Adam and Eve cannot be carried out alone by either one but must be accomplished together. He is bringing together their similarities and uniqueness to help one another to bring glory to God and carry out His wonderful plan for them.
Continuing to read further in Genesis, it doesn’t take long to realize that this design is not being carried out by God’s creation. Enter sin. Enter brokenness. Enter humanity’s idea of what their purpose of carrying out life should look like.
This brings us to our second focus. We realize another fundamental truth, especially when it comes to gender and why there is now a struggle. It is because …
We are broken people. This is where we are today. This is where you are. This is where I am. This is where your children are. Broken! Attempting to carry out a plan other than the one designed by God. But God didn't throw His hands up in frustration and say “Forget it! I’m done with you.” Instead, God continued to love His broken creation deeply, and He continued to bring us into the knowledge of His design for us by sending Jesus to die on the cross for our sins, to be raised three days later, and to ascend to the Throne of Heaven where He reigns over all creation.
This love of God should bring us peace and hope in the middle of brokenness. In the middle of chaos. In the middle of gender discussions. The message of the Gospel is hope when things aren’t okay. And even as you navigate gender identity and sexuality in the home the message you need to speak to yourself and to your children is this: it’s okay to not be okay. But Jesus loves you too much for you to stay that way.
The enemy is at work today; he has been from the beginning. They are being bombarded with ideas from every which way, even on just the subject of gender and sexuality. We must walk in love and understanding of the situation your children are finding themselves in. We must walk in the understanding that our children are broken people, just like us.
Those that study money counterfeits don't study the counterfeits. Counterfeiters are constantly changing their forgeries, adjusting ink and paper quality to try and get away with giving fakes. So, to catch a fake, they study the real deal. They know every aspect of the actual piece of currency to immediately catch what is fake. Trying to understand the changing landscape of gender and how to stay ahead of or on top of what's current will leave you frustrated, feeling inadequate, and lost. What we must do then is focus on the Gospel. We must focus on the truth of God. The real deal of how we are meant to live in this world. Knowing the truth will not only allow you to be ready, prepared, and equipped for the conversations and encouragement you can provide for your family when it comes to gender (and really all other "counterfeit" truths), but it will also bring you comfort knowing that you don't have to stress about knowing what the world has to say, you get to rest in the truth of God.
If your child is wrestling with same sex attraction or identity confusion, the best course of action is empathy, love, and truth. And all of that is surrounded by prayer. We must communicate to our children, either in discussions of gender or sin in general, that it is okay to not be okay. But God loves us too much to leave us that way. This is why in our understanding of our brokenness we need to always point our children to God’s plan of redemption. When we do this, we help them focus on this third truth and that is that we will help them …
Walk in the truth of the Good News of Jesus Christ. My wife Shaela and I have begun recently to daily repeat to our son Everett (Nash), “God made you special. God made your body special.” And of course, we help him understand that he is different from his sister Hadley because she is a girl and he is a boy, and that dad is like him because I am a boy, and so on. But we want him to understand that God made him,... him. And God made him so that he could know Him and that God sent His own Son for him. God made Everett Nash for His glory. That is God's design for him. As we help him to understand that design and walk with him through his brokenness, we pray that he would come to know the truth of the gospel, that Jesus died for his sins, was placed in a tomb, and three days later God raised Him from the dead.
Our kids will struggle, and we need to know that these conversations will never be one and done, but constant. But there is always hope in the gospel! I thoroughly enjoy what Jimmy and Kristin Scroggins share about parenting when it comes to talking to kids about gender and sexuality: “Christian parents should be intentional about communicating that no matter what happens, there is always a path to restoration. The gospel always makes it possible to recover and pursue our minds, hearts, and directions.”2
God created your child and their body and their gender as a gift. Not a problem. Psalm 139:14 says, I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. Who we have been made is someone God celebrates, and so should we! We must teach our children to know and understand that who they are; their very bodies are designed specially by the God of the universe. We need to reassure them when they come face to face with the reality that they walk in brokenness and live in a broken world. We do this by pointing them to the truth of the Gospel. We celebrate God for making us so wonderfully amazing, and we love Him by carrying out the commands He has given us, both male and female.
