Francis Schaeffer said many years ago, “Tell me what the world is saying today, and I’ll tell you what the church will be saying in seven years.” Because of our biblical illiteracy, the Church can soon be found mimicking culture.
But it is also true that if we don’t know what science tells us, we will be duped as well. And yet there is easy access to clear and definitive research which buttresses what we believe as Christians. This article points you toward two.
As we all know, if you shout falsehoods long enough, they will eventually be accepted as truth. But what does the science actually say?
· Are people born with a gay orientation?
· Is gender but a spectrum?
· Is orientation fixed and unable to change?
· Is it merciful and wise to allow kids to transition in order to avoid self-mutilation or suicide?
For a mere $10.00, you can have a journal which summarizes all of the research on these questions of sexuality and gender. Ten bucks! (OK, plus shipping.)
As with any academic journal, each section begins with an abstract which summarizes the results of each section. In fact, the first few pages of this issue contain summary statements of the entire journal, so you don’t have to have a PhD or PsyD to digest it.
The following quotes are a few bullet points that might interest you:
· The understanding of sexual orientation as an innate, biologically fixed property of human beings—the idea that people are “born that way”—is not supported by scientific evidence.
· Longitudinal studies of adolescents suggest that sexual orientation may be quite fluid over the life course for some people, with one study estimating that as many as 80% of male adolescents who report same-sex attractions no longer do so as adults (although the extent to which this figure reflects actual changes in same-sex attractions and not just artifacts of the survey process has been contested by some researchers).
· Compared to heterosexuals, non-heterosexuals are about two to three times as likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse.
· The hypothesis that gender identity is an innate, fixed property of human beings that is independent of biological sex—that a person might be “a man trapped in a woman’s body” or “a woman trapped in a man’s body”—is not supported by scientific evidence.[1]
· Compared to the general population, adults who have undergone sex-reassignment surgery continue to have a higher risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes. One study found that, compared to controls, sex-reassigned individuals were about 5 times more likely to attempt suicide and about 19 times more likely to die by suicide.
This review of decades of scientific research was conducted and compiled by none other than Lawrence S. Mayer, M.B., M.S., Ph.D., from the Department of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Paul R. McHugh, M.D., who served for twenty-five years as psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Both scholars, you will note, practiced at Johns Hopkins University. Catch this significant irony: Johns Hopkins is the same institution where a Dr. John Money coined the term gender identity and established the Johns Hopkins Sexual Identity Clinic in 1965. Believing one’s sense of gender was socially constructed, he conducted a sex-reassignment surgery for one of two twins, instructing the parents to raise him as a girl. Year by year, he met with the twins, even encouraging them with sexual role playing to further the conditioning. Initially, he published the results of the surgery and consequent therapy as a resounding success. As adults, both of the twins who were part of this experiment committed suicide, and the entire experiment came under scrutiny and condemnation. (Read about it here and here.)
Whew. Now for the other source.
Reality’s Last Stand is a no-nonsense blog which provides the science debunking trans ideology. Its author, Dr. Colin Wright, is an evolutionary biologist and the Managing Editor of Quillette, “a publication dedicated to free thought.” I’ve been told he is an atheist.
My thoughtful sister sent me a recent newspaper article describing the efforts of a LGBTQ+ activist to create safety in churches and schools for sexual minorities. While the activist’s efforts are well-intentioned, her “facts” were just plain wrong. Reality’s Last Stand provides the science to refute some of her familiar assertions. Here are actual quotes from the article and the links to Wright’s blogposts which deconstructs them.
“Science is finding that gender is much more of a spectrum.”
“It is completely natural for there to be people who are born with XXX chromosomes, XXY chromosomes, a mix or something else. There are like 16 different chromosome expressions, not two.”
“It is estimated that about 2% of the world’s population has intersex traits of some type.”
Much of what you read from me will equip you with a biblical worldview to address the confusion brought on by the Sexual Tsunami. But supplementing our beliefs with the science that backs it up is so necessary in this time when falsehoods are being trumpeted as though they are scientific and sound.
Do you know of any other reliable sources? Books, journals, websites?
[1] Note that they are referring to “gender identity” and not gender dysphoria, which I’m certain they would affirm.