For years, we were sold the lie that “gender-affirming care” saves lives. Those of us who hold to a biblical worldview knew that wasn’t true. Now, a major study out of Finland confirms it.
On a recent episode of At the Core, I discussed the study, which looked at every young person under the age of 23 who was referred to the country’s gender identity clinics between 1996 and 2019. That’s more than 2,000 young people, compared against a control group eight times as large.
The findings are not surprising, but still staggering. Among those who underwent medical gender transition – cross-sex hormones and surgeries – the share of males needing specialized psychiatric care jumped from about 10 percent to 61 percent after. Among females, it rose from 22 percent to 55 percent.
Read that again. The very treatments that had been promised to relieve these young people’s suffering were followed by a dramatic increase in it.
This matters because the entire moral case for these procedures rested on one claim: that without them, these children were at greater risk of suicide. Parents were pressured to consent out of fear that their child might take his or her own life. Now, the data is catching up with the truth.
Many young people go through seasons of insecurity, confusion, and discomfort as they grow and mature. Many, if not most, come through it and embrace the truth of how God created them. But instead of walking alongside them through a temporary struggle, society has offered them permanent “solutions” – procedures that can leave them infertile and scarred for life.
As adults, we are supposed to be the protectors, providers, and shepherds of the next generation. Affirming a confused child’s feelings and then turning to medical interventions is not “care”; it is betrayal.
The answer has never changed: God created us male and female, in His image, and His design is good. Affirmation doesn’t heal a child’s confusion; it compounds it. Real love tells children the truth.
Listen to the full episode here.
Sincerely,
