When I was 6

When I was 6 years old I wanted to ride my bike. I knew I wanted to play in the dirt and occasionally I wanted to watch football with my dad on the black-and-white television in our living room. I knew I didn’t like liver and that peas were icky. I knew that if I skinned my knee, my mom would be the one to fix it. That one time I ran across the road in front of a truck and it knocked my shoe off, I knew my mom would be there to dry the tears and to cause new ones. I knew I liked the Miami Dolphins, not because they were a great team with a strong line and effective pass attack, but because my best friend liked the Dolphins.

But 6 year-old me didn’t know anything about American involvement in conflicts around the globe and the ripple effects they would have at home, about the increasing cost of a gallon of gasoline or that declining US relations with the Middle East were the reasons behind the increase, or even about the complex machinations behind how my hotdog got from the farm to my hand. Those concepts required experiences, education and skills that 6 year-old me didn’t have – complex thought processes that weighed choices with consequences and accepted the results. No, 6 year-old me ran in front of an 80,000 lb. truck because I wanted to tell my mom about my day at school. Complex thought never entered that equation.

Six-year-old me also wasn’t aware that God made mistakes. (Pin this here for a second)

According to the American Psychiatric Association, gender dysphoria involves a conflict between a person’s physical or assigned gender and the gender with which he/she identifies. Gender assignment is based on the presence of specific genitalia. Gender dysphoria, according to the APA, is a mental disorder.

Last year the Department of Education issued a letter requiring all US public schools to offer kids to use restrooms and locker rooms “consistent with their gender identity.” Before that, schools in California and Washington had already converted restrooms for kids as young as Kindergarten to gender neutral.

According to the Department of Education and the American Psychiatric Association, gender dysmorphia is a real problem and the solution is tolerance. However, I have to disagree. The solution is love and sometimes love is tough – just ask my mom and that truck driver.

Romans 1:26 – 28 condemns homosexual acts. It calls same-gender relations as unnatural and shameful, the result of a “depraved mind” doing what ought not to be done. Combine that with the warning in Matthew 18:6 not to cause a child to sin because “it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (NIV) You’ll see why I disagree with the Department of Education.

Ok – remember where I said I wasn’t aware God made mistakes?

God doesn’t make mistakes. To call me intolerant for loving one’s eternal soul more than his temporal privilege – well I’m okay with that. I’ve been called worse. But to say that 6 year-old me had the complex neurological process and sufficient life experiences to weigh consequences of gender dysphoric choices is not love, it’s failure. Gender identity is a choice. Let’s leave that choice for when we can evaluate the consequences for ourselves, not through external pressure, but through our own life experiences and mature thought processes. Let’s love our children enough not to create unnecessary problems for them – life will do that in its own time.

“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.” (Revelation 4:11, NIV)