Sue Bohlin exposes some of the lies being told about the transgender deception in our culture.
I am deeply concerned about how the cultural narrative about transgender keeps ratcheting up. I believe this is a massive display of spiritual warfare, where the enemy of our souls is screaming lies about gender and identity—especially to teens and younger and younger children. Jesus warned us that the devil’s agenda is to “steal, kill and destroy” (John 10:10), and this deception about gender is, I believe, one of the most wicked and insidious deceptions he’s ever come up with.
Consider some of the lies that have become commonplace:
“People can be born into the wrong body.”
This represents a thinking disorder, not a biological problem. There is no such thing as being born into the wrong body; God creates each person’s body exactly as He wants us (Ps. 139:13-16). There is a false dichotomy between the body and the person, as if they could be separated. But God makes us spirit/soul/body, a unified whole.
Studies have reliably demonstrated that the vast majority of children allowed to go through puberty resolved their discomfort with their bodies. There is something about going through puberty, with the massive hormonal changes that bring a child’s body into adulthood, that resets the vast majority of discomfort-which is a normal part of adolescence. Change is uncomfortable for most people, but it’s an essential part of being human. The best solution to gender dysphoria is “watchful waiting.”
The idea of being born into the wrong body is as nonsensical as being born into the wrong species.
“If you are uncomfortable with your body, it probably means you’re transgender.”
Traversing the path from child body to adult body can be hard and confusing. There is a massive influx of sex hormones on top of significant body changes that can happen relatively quickly. No wonder there can be discomfort in the adolescent body!
Particularly in our highly sexualized culture, many girls are dismayed by the attention they receive from their developing breasts. One teenage boy told me that he hated the internal storm that higher levels of testosterone caused in his brain. These are normal degrees of discomfort. The solution to this kind of discomfort is to grow in resilience, not to embrace the magical thinking that being the other gender will solve the problem.
One parent made this insightful comment on the online Substack “Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans”:
“I know we did it from love, but we raised a generation of children who have NEVER been uncomfortable. We’ve loved them and sheltered them and kept them from all harm, and then they hit puberty, which is inherently a time of uncomfortableness. Then we tell them that if they are uneasy about these changes they are trans. It’s like we wrote a script for this to all happen.” (pitt.substack.com/p/an-unremarkable-story-from-the-age/comments)
Kids who are uncomfortable with their bodies need compassion and understanding. They need to be reassured that “this too shall pass.” They do not need to be given an untrue label.
“People are the gender they prefer to be.”
Feelings do not determine reality. If someone feels like they want to be a cat or iguana or peacock, that doesn’t make it so. Feelings need to be submitted to the reality of the world God created.
Transgender ideology elevates feelings above what is objectively true. That doesn’t work with gravity; it isn’t going to work with gender issues either.
Social contagion (especially those on Tumblr) results in massive numbers of teen girls identifying as trans. The same social pressures that have resulted in anorexia and cutting in the past are now producing huge numbers of girls declaring they are trans.
The very wise Abigail Shrier, author of Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Crazy Seducing Our Daughters, writes, “The teen girls susceptible to this social contagion are the same high-anxiety, depressive girls who struggle socially in adolescence and tend to hate their bodies.” [Gender Ideology Run Amok | Imprimis (imprimis.hillsdale.edu/gender-ideology-run-amok/)]
“Transwomen are women.”
No. People with XY chromosomes are male.
Only people who possess female biology are female.
Males who possess larger lung capacity, longer and stronger bones, higher metabolism, greater strength and speed than females, have an advantage over females.
People born male, who can only father babies and never give birth to them, are not women.
Men declaring they are women are trying to erase the boundaries of femaleness, which is a form of bullying and disrespect.
“Mental health issues and autism have nothing to do with transgender.”
There is a very high prevalence of depression, anxiety, and self-harm in those identifying as trans. Instead of referring to a gender clinic, it would be wiser and more loving to investigate the mental health pressures experienced by those who say they are trans.
Many people embracing a transgender identity are on the autism spectrum; they already feel a lack of connection with others. It’s not surprising they also feel a lack of connection with their own bodies.
“For those therapists (gender idealogues), the parents are the problem. Not the child’s social anxiety, autism, irrational thinking, or social media addiction. No, the issue is mom and dad’s refusal to embrace their teen’s two-week-old identity and allow a kid to run the show.” -Dr. Miriam Grossman, psychiatrist and therapist (thefederalist.com/2021/11/11/therapists-have-betrayed-the-parents-of-gender-confused-kids-and-therell-be-hell-to-pay/)]
“Social transitioning and medical transitioning (puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones) are reversible.”
Pretending to be the other sex (social transitioning) can’t be undone because it creates personal history. For example, a boy identifying as and pretending to be a girl lives a childhood of practicing lying about reality. He will never experience getting his first period as girls do because he will never menstruate. He cannot enter the world of females because he’s not a female.
Medical transitioning—administering cross-sex hormones and puberty-blockers— results in:
• Deepened voice and hair loss in females
• Decreased bone and muscle growth
• Infertility
• Vaginal and uterine atrophy
• Preventing the body from maturing sexually (ending up with a child’s genitals), which also prevents the possibility of normal sexual experience or pleasure
• Greater risk of: heart attack, endometrial cancer, testicular cancer, obesity
There are no longitudinal studies on use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in children. It is wrong and evil to make this promise when we just don’t know the long-term effects of unnatural chemicals in the body.
Adults taking hormone replacement therapy, such as menopausal women and rare medical conditions, are warned of the health risks. Going on hormones that are natural to one’s sex can make one a permanent medical patient. Going on hormones of the opposite sex will make one a permanent medical patient. (Which also means a vast, reliable stream of income to the pharmaceutical industry and the hormone-prescribing physicians.)
Amputating healthy body parts does not create the opposite sex, it mutilates one’s body. Surgeries cannot be reversed. This is a particularly evil and heartbreaking lie.
“Not allowing someone to transition will make them commit suicide.”
There is little evidence of this in children/teens. The few studies that exist were poorly constructed and poorly analyzed.
Kids are instructed via social media on what to say to get their way. Playing the suicide card is breathtakingly effective to get parents to give in.
In reality? A Swedish study discovered that those who transitioned were 19 times more likely to attempt or commit suicide than the general population.
We are called to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), not cooperate with a delusion or fantasy. The pro-transgender idealogues are lying, whether they know it or not. At the very least, they are being used as puppets by demonic forces that are out to hurt and destroy people loved by God, made in His image, and created with His good choice of either male or female.
This blog post originally appeared at blogs.bible.org/the-lies-you-hear-about-transgender/ on July 19, 2022.
Sue Bohlin
Sue Bohlin is an associate speaker/writer and webmistress for Probe Ministries. She attended the University of Illinois, and has been a Bible teacher and conference speaker for over 40 years. She is a speaker for MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers) and Stonecroft Ministries (Christian Women's Connections), and serves on the board of Living Hope Ministries, a Christ-centered outreach to those dealing with unwanted homosexuality. Sue is on the Bible.org Women's Leadership Team and is a regular contributor to Bible.org's Engage Blog. In addition to being a professional calligrapher, she is the wife of Probe's Dr. Ray Bohlin and the mother of a son in San Francisco and another son who joined his baby sister in heaven in 2024.. Her personal website is suebohlin.com.
What is Probe?
Probe Ministries is a non-profit ministry whose mission is to assist the church in renewing the minds of believers with a Christian worldview and to equip the church to engage the world for Christ. Probe fulfills this mission through our Mind Games conferences for youth and adults, our 3-minute daily radio program, and our extensive Web site at www.probe.org.
Further information about Probe's materials and ministry may be obtained by contacting us at:
Probe Ministries
2001 W. Plano Parkway, Suite 2000
Plano TX 75075
(972) 941-4565
[email protected]
www.probe.org
Copyright/Reproduction Limitations
This document is the sole property of Probe Ministries. It may not be altered or edited in any way. Permission is granted to use in digital or printed form so long as it is circulated without charge, and in its entirety. This document may not be repackaged in any form for sale or resale. All reproductions of this document must contain the copyright notice (i.e., Copyright 2024 Probe Ministries) and this Copyright/Limitations notice.
