I know her. I watched this video that is making its rounds through social media – the one being praised by revolutionary LGBT activists and decried by those brave enough to still cling to reality in our culture – and I realized I know this girl they're all talking about.
"This is kind of scary, because I only realized this a couple days ago and I've only come out to a few people. I'm a guy. I use he/they pronouns and I'm gonna go by Theo. I told my mom today. And I have to go home every day and be called my dead name, and have she/her pronouns used every time I go home. And no one realizes how hurtful it is. It's like a slap in the face. And I dyed my hair last night so I could feel more masculine, and I was afraid I was gonna get thrown out of the house."
Having taught in the public school system for two decades, I know exactly who this is – not personally, but with an alarming specificity. No, central Indiana certainly isn't a hotbed of revolutionary thought. It's no San Francisco, Portland, or Seattle. But while the embrace of radical anti-science and sexual experimentation may be more common in those areas, its existence, impact, and influence are nearly universal.
The spirit of the age is all-encompassing these days: that's why I'm quite sure I'm not alone when I say I know this young lady.
She's the conflicted, inconsistent adolescent with a kind – even if rebellious – heart, desperate for acceptance, frantically searching for her place in this world. The evidence of such a tormented and anxious mind is everywhere in this small speech.
The pressure to stand out, to have "a story," heightened by the advent of social media, has never clamped down on young people as it does today. Almost paradoxically, society demands conformity to its overriding expectation that they exhibit a uniqueness, to the point where there is now rebellion in not being different or pushing the boundaries of truth and reality.
The quickest way to escape the unrelenting awkwardness and social anxiety of adolescence is to slip under the blanket of gender and sexual zealotry, where online mobs and tolerance brigades serve as pop culture scarecrows, staring and stalking anyone who would dare utter an unsupportive or disobliging word.
There is safety for the insecure in this movement. You see it on this girl's face right after she announces she's a "guy." Go back and watch it. The claim, utterly at odds with rationality, biology, and physiology, is met with thunderous applause, celebration, hugs, and cries of, "We love you, Theo."
Would it be easy to intellectually dismantle her words and claims? No question.
- The very assertion to be a "guy" presupposes a gender binary that transgenderism denies.
- The silliness of only "realizing" your manhood "a couple days ago," coincidentally occurring at the precise moment where alternative genders and unconventional sexual proclivities are granted a month of unprecedented pomp and pander.
- The logical inconsistency of embracing a life predicated upon the rejection of gender stereotypes while simultaneously relying on them to make your point (i.e., dyeing your hair blue to be more masculine).
But like I said, I know this girl. And articulating all those reasonable points, as crucial as it is to speak truth to cultural powers that willfully mislead, will fall short in reaching her. Satan's echo chambers are well constructed and are often impenetrable by reason alone. He is the author of chaos after all, and excels at forcing us into a dizzying confusion between what feels right and what is right. That reality is magnified multi-fold for self-doubting, self-conscious teenagers looking for a place, any place, to belong and to be celebrated.
It is my belief that the Church of Jesus is a far better place for her to choose. A place where we don't celebrate our insecurities, but the One who secures us. A place where we don't surrender to our urges, but surrender our urges to the will of One who fulfills us more than they ever could. A place where acceptance and justification isn't contingent upon what we say or do, but rests entirely in who He is and what He's done.
I know this girl. You know this girl. She wants to find meaning, community, love, purpose, and fulfillment. May God help us undeserving recipients of His saving grace to reach her with the awareness that those things cannot be found in blue hair, changed pronouns, and the temporal applause of the masses, but in obedience to the will of Christ, and Christ alone.
