-
Biblical Families is not a dating website. It is a forum to discuss issues relating to marriage and the Bible, and to offer guidance and support, not to find a wife. Click here for more information.
Handling a gender confused child.
- Thread starter Boaz
- Start date
Even though the LGBTQ+ activists combine sexual preferences and gender confusion, I do not. Sexual preferences can be a real preference that can be shown through brain scans that the preference exists. Gender confusion is claiming a physical reality should be ignored and an untruth be treated as a truth.
A daughter who is attracted to other women, I would encourage her to pursue a plural marriage, but understand she has a duty to any husband she may find.
A son attracted to men is a bit harder. I would make sure he knows I love him, but be clear that serving God is first in my life and I will not support any homosexual relationship he may enter into. I would encourage him to remain celibate.
A gender confused child of either sex, I would make it clear I will not participate in their make believe, but I still love them and that love requires me to be a voice of sanity in their life.
A daughter who is attracted to other women, I would encourage her to pursue a plural marriage, but understand she has a duty to any husband she may find.
A son attracted to men is a bit harder. I would make sure he knows I love him, but be clear that serving God is first in my life and I will not support any homosexual relationship he may enter into. I would encourage him to remain celibate.
A gender confused child of either sex, I would make it clear I will not participate in their make believe, but I still love them and that love requires me to be a voice of sanity in their life.
Boaz
New Member
I agree with you on establishing to them that you love them before anything else. Once you have that in place I feel the duty is upon you as a parent to guide them through these confusions. It’s sickening how in our world today, a naive child would say they are interested in changing their gender and an irresponsible parent would make haste to facilitate the change only for the child to grow up into eternal regret which is often the case.
@Boaz, is this a real problem you or someone you know is having to deal with, or a hypothetical one? If real, please clarify if you are dealing with a "gender-confused" child or a "homosexual-attracted" child. As @NS4Liberty said, these are completely different things that should never be conflated, and we can't really offer useful advice without knowing which one you are talking about.
Edit: The child may of course be experiencing both simultaneously, it does happen, but they are still two separate things, and you would need to be able to see evidence of both before assuming they experienced both. Just because they are experiencing one does not mean they are experiencing the other, it seems more common to experience one or the other than both.
Edit: The child may of course be experiencing both simultaneously, it does happen, but they are still two separate things, and you would need to be able to see evidence of both before assuming they experienced both. Just because they are experiencing one does not mean they are experiencing the other, it seems more common to experience one or the other than both.
Last edited:
Take the child out of the public school that caused this problem.
I don't have children of my own but I raised my niece and nephew, they're teenagers now. These discussions always come up because they're exposed to it in public schools and online so often, thankfully we're close enough to discuss it.
I always make sure to stress how much we love them no matter what and offer to get them outside counseling/help if needed for anything that they don't feel comfortable discussing with me, relating to this topic or any other.
I like to remind them in a loving, humorous way that they're still growing, learning and changing, remind them their preferences now will most likely change when they're older and emphasize the fact that they don't have to make any decisions now and shouldn't. I caution them on making any decisions at their young age that will effect their lives drastically in the future, like experimenting sexually, dating, being online around strangers, watching porn, associating with specific crowds of people etc.
Sadly their generation is misguided and promotes self-centered thinking. They think it's normal to pay 5k for a purse to impress others because some vapid Kardashian did it. They're pressured by perverted adults to decide their sexuality and experiment with it at a young age.
They're encouraged to post their entire lives, thoughts and opinions to social media for likes when they have absolutely no experience in the real world yet, only repeating what is popular just to impress strangers. This creates a mindset of self importance for things they shouldn't be proud of to begin with.
Try redirecting their attention to something important outside of themselves that will build confidence for things they actually should be proud of, like church with an active youth group or volunteering. Just an example, I take my niece and nephew to the animal shelters, they love bathing the dogs, walking them and playing with the kittens. Me and my niece like to cook so we make baked goods, sell them and donate the money to a charity. Find something the child or your child enjoys doing and use that to redirect them to something positive.
I always make sure to stress how much we love them no matter what and offer to get them outside counseling/help if needed for anything that they don't feel comfortable discussing with me, relating to this topic or any other.
I like to remind them in a loving, humorous way that they're still growing, learning and changing, remind them their preferences now will most likely change when they're older and emphasize the fact that they don't have to make any decisions now and shouldn't. I caution them on making any decisions at their young age that will effect their lives drastically in the future, like experimenting sexually, dating, being online around strangers, watching porn, associating with specific crowds of people etc.
Sadly their generation is misguided and promotes self-centered thinking. They think it's normal to pay 5k for a purse to impress others because some vapid Kardashian did it. They're pressured by perverted adults to decide their sexuality and experiment with it at a young age.
They're encouraged to post their entire lives, thoughts and opinions to social media for likes when they have absolutely no experience in the real world yet, only repeating what is popular just to impress strangers. This creates a mindset of self importance for things they shouldn't be proud of to begin with.
Try redirecting their attention to something important outside of themselves that will build confidence for things they actually should be proud of, like church with an active youth group or volunteering. Just an example, I take my niece and nephew to the animal shelters, they love bathing the dogs, walking them and playing with the kittens. Me and my niece like to cook so we make baked goods, sell them and donate the money to a charity. Find something the child or your child enjoys doing and use that to redirect them to something positive.
Last edited:
Boaz
New Member
Sadly it’s a heartbreaking situation a close family friend is having at the moment, and the young lady currently wears only male outfits and seem to be lusting after other girls according to the dad. The part about the gender change is just an aside. The whole family is in confusion as to how to handle this, without creating more problems like depression and so on.
Honestly she may already be experiencing depression or other mental health issues and her behavior could be related to that. Sometimes children tell you things by their actions rather than their words. I had a similar experience with my niece though not the same situation, therapy really helped her, no matter how close you are to a child there are still things that they do not want to share with their family.
Thanks for clarifying. Noting that I haven't had to deal with this, as I've avoided it by homeschooling so the children don't get confused in the first place, I would suggest:
First, think carefully about what the desired outcome is, and what the opposite outcome could be, and be careful that the way you are acting is likely to result in the first and not the second. What I mean is that the worst possible outcome would be to push her away from the family, and into the arms of other people who she thinks love her more, and will just mess her up even more. You cannot influence her if she won't even talk to you - you have to maintain contact. While also directing her in the right direction.
The most common mistake "conservative" parents make when dealing with this sort of thing is to take so negative an attitude that they push the young person away entirely and even further into their negative behaviour. The most common mistake "progressive" parents make is to take so accommodating an attitude that they don't encourage any change in behaviour at all. The right approach is in the middle.
Like herding sheep. Run at them yelling and they'll scatter. Do nothing and they won't move at all. But approach them carefully and strategically, maintaining contact with the flock but not spooking it, and you'll get them through the gate.
So:
- Accept her for who she is - but who she really is, not just what she thinks she is right now. She is a person going through the confusion of puberty, and having the same sorts of confusing feelings that many young ladies have at that time of life. She needs to feel loved, and feel that she can talk to her parents about ANYTHING and will be calmly listened to without fear of being yelled at, even if everyone in the conversation disagrees on something.
- Reinforce to her that such feelings are normal. Many women feel bisexual to some degree at some time - women are pretty, and other women can recognise that too. It doesn't mean she's a boy. It means she's a normal woman.
- Find out if there are any other things going on other than noticing that women are attractive that are making her feel this way. Find the root causes. They're also probably entirely normal and simply being misinterpreted due to wrong teaching.
- And get her out of school and/or whatever social clubs are influencing her into misunderstanding her body, into real life and sensible adult conversations.
Last edited:
Boaz
New Member
Thanks for this. Even learned from this. I’ll make sure to get this knowledge across to the family.
Boaz
New Member
I concur
I am not responding to any one thing here but more the overall spirit of what you wrote. The sum of it and not the parts, if that makes sense.
And I apologize in advance if what I write offends anyone. It's just how I am seeing this.
Okay...
Letting* girls get married and start families at puberty (the way it used to be in the world up until the 1800's and 1900's) solves much of this teenage confusion before it even gets started.
As it is it seems that every aspect of Western society wants to skew sexuality for young people. The liberal zero-population growth types want kids to be sexual deviants who don't have children. Secular society tells kids to wait until late adulthood to have families (or not to have them at all) and then to pursue sex as an entertainment which is itself a form of deviancy. And I hate to say but most religious faiths prefer that teenage girls stifle their sexuality which in turn leaves the girls vulnerable to liberal and secular influences.
* I chose the word Letting on purpose. If a girl wants to get married then let her. But don't force her to get married.
If I could get a do-over in life I think I would have married at 16 and started a family. My life today would have been far less complicated and I'd be far less messed up than I know I am.
This is one of those times where as a parent, where we get one shot. Being sensitive to the kid and listening is job one. It is common for a young person to have questions or have confusion. Its obviously a complicated matter, but if not handled from a place of love the parent can inadvertently cause true damage.
Though not always the case, many times when a person decides they are homosexual, it is because they have suffered abuse as a child. This confuses them, confuses the brain, and the only way to make sense of it is to change to make it seem 'right' or to change to avoid it happening again.
Handling this woman with love and care is crucial, because she needs the chance to be able to tell anyone if someone has done something to her they shouldn't. This may be something the parents are not aware of, and it may have happened at a very young age, or only a few months ago.
It's also possible that this is not the case in this circumstance, as the whole gender changing thing has gone out of control right now.
Handling this woman with love and care is crucial, because she needs the chance to be able to tell anyone if someone has done something to her they shouldn't. This may be something the parents are not aware of, and it may have happened at a very young age, or only a few months ago.
It's also possible that this is not the case in this circumstance, as the whole gender changing thing has gone out of control right now.
If it’s a younger teen girl I would pause before panicking. There’s no identifiable sin happening and it may resolve itself.
I've often thought the same way you do but felt odd thinking that way. Mostly because i'm so close to my teenage niece and the thought of a man touching her, at her present age or in the near future, even a good man- makes me want to do things that i'd be in prison for the rest of my life for. However I watched a documentary about a man who married his wives young and as disgusted as I was by it, there was no doubt that his wives were mature, caring, wonderful mothers even at their young age. Maybe if our society would start preparing women for motherhood and to be wives at a younger age I could possibly see the benefit in it. At the present I just don't think a teenager should be in the position to make such a life altering decision.
Unfortunately our society now presses such teens into making physically life-altering decisions using drugs and surgery, so she does need protection from that and can't just be left with the hope this will resolve itself. You'd have been right a decade ago but sadly the world has now become a more dangerous place for such vulnerable teens.
And there is a clearly identifiable sin (Deuteronomy 22:5). I would personally presume it is not a serious sin, and the last thing anyone should do is lecture her about being a filthy sinner because she's wearing men's pants - the lines between men's and women's clothing in present-day society are too blurry for any such conversation to be productive. But it is worth remembering in the back of our minds that what she is doing is wrong, so worth the effort gently steering her away from.
I took from the OP that the girl was expressing lesbianism. If it’s transgenderism then that’s different.
Transgenderism is spread in teenagers very commonly through social contagion. She needs to be broken off from her current friend group.
I suspect she's experiencing same-sex attraction but misinterpreting that under the influence of social contagion to think that it means she must be a boy. But that is from a very limited amount of information and could be completely wrong.
Ditto