6 Things to Understand before Ministering to the Transgender Community
There is a war of the worlds going on – an unseen battle between the Creator God (YHWH) with His army of heavenly beings and Satan with his fallen angels and demonic hosts. One major battlefield is the area of transgender confusion.
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Forces of Confusion
1. A Wealthy & Powerful LGBT Movement
A Wealthy & Powerful LGBT Movement (which for most of its history distanced itself from TG people) but who now see it as a cause that can be harnessed to increase their wealth, power and influence.
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2. Wealthy & Powerful Professional Guilds
Wealthy & Powerful Professional Guilds, (such as the American Psychiatric Association & the American Psychological Association), who ceased using science as the foundation for their mental health diagnoses when they began caving to pressure from homosexual activists 46 years ago.
Today you can lose your license if you disagree with the decision – a threat that forces therapists to keep their mouths shut. For example, when Pure Passion Media attempted to interview therapists for its documentary (TranZformed: Finding Peace with Your God-Given Gender), only one could be found (the late Dr. Joseph Nicolosi) to go on camera to talk about the dangers of promoting transgenderism.
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3. The Media
The Media – Ephesians 2:2 tells us that Satan is the “ruler of the kingdom of the air”. Almost all TV, newspapers, films & magazines have thrown themselves wholesale into promoting the great deception that transgender people are just as happy and healthy as the rest of the population and that they are blessed in that lifestyle by a god who they claim created them that way.
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4. Public Organizations
Public Organizations like government, education, the AMA, public schools, colleges & libraries, etc. which have likewise been pressured and deceived into promoting sexually immoral agendas.
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5. The False Church
The False Church – a conglomeration of liberal denominations that have been taken over by activists. Although they do not themselves believe in the authority of Scripture, they invent erroneous versions of it in order to sow theological confusion among those who turn to them for guidance.
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6. A Deceived Public
A Deceived Public that continues to vote the deceivers into office, whether in government, on school boards, professional associations or elsewhere. As a result, those parents who have children who present as homosexual or transgender and who naturally turn to the world’s experts for guidance are deceived into accepting the world’s fallen agenda. They want to do the right thing for their child and naively assume that cultural experts know what they are talking about, but that turns into the blind leading the blind.
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Current American Psychiatric Association Definitions
“Transgender” (TG) is a non-medical, umbrella term describing individuals whose gender identity or expression is at odds with the genetic sex with which they were born - now referred to as “gender dysphoria”.
In modern parlance, however, transgendered individuals include transsexuals, transvestites, drag queens, and (incorrectly) intersex individuals.
Note: TG conditions are independent of sexual orientation.
Transsexual is a medical term that refers to individuals who have undergone some form of medical or surgical treatment for sex reassignment. But in modern use, the term also includes those who want treatment but are unable to get it, for one reason or another.
Transvestism or cross-dressing is a term that defines people who derive erotic pleasure from dressing as the opposite sex, but in modern parlance, it includes those who do so whether it causes erotic pleasure or not.
Drag queens (or kings) are people who dress as the opposite sex for the purpose of entertainment. Some are true transvestites, but others (such as Milton Berle, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Tim Curry & others) have done so simply for laughs.
Some drag queens are driven by a desire to mock the opposite sex by exaggerating their sexuality, but others do it simply for the acceptance that it brings them from a very enthusiastic clientele.
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Serious & Significant Problems Among TGs
1. Significantly higher risk of mental health problems.
2. High HIV, Drug Abuse & Prostitution Rates
3. Surgery Risks & Regret
4. Significantly Higher Depression Rates, even after surgery.
5. Twenty Times Higher Suicide Rates, even after surgery.
6. Three Times Higher Mortality Rate
7. Three Times Higher Psychiatric Inpatient Care
8. Dangers of Hormone Use
9. Higher Lung & Hematological Cancer Mortality Rates
10. Major Problems with False Diagnoses - The profits are so high and the expertize of “professionals” is so low that people are quickly pushed into Sex Reassignment Surgery with little to no merit for the diagnosis (- as illustrated by Walter Heyer’s powerful testimony in TranZformed).
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A Way of Transformation for the TG Person
(This assumes you are working with someone who has repented of sin, believed in & surrendered his or her life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.)
Believers in Jesus Christ should be on the front lines of reaching out with the love of Christ and the answers that He has provided in His Word.
1. Address any childhood sexual abuse or other trauma that may have confused the child’s sense of identity, being and/or sexuality.
2. Correct gender-based misinformation by parents, significant others and/or the culture (as well as any other lies of the enemy that they may have believed).
Parents or other family members may have wanted their child to be the opposite sex and either communicated that to him/her outright or more subtly in the ways they gave or withheld affirmation & acceptance when he/she acted like a boy/girl.
3. Pray for inner healing for any father-wounds and mother-wounds. Teach them how to be intimate with God the Father as a replacement for a male-hating mother or a female hating father.
4. Deal with any “sins of the father” that may have been passed down (Ex 20:5-6; 34:7; Lev 26:39; Num 14:18; Dt 7:9; Ez 18:14-20) / Generational Curses / Anger at God / Roots of Bitterness & Rejection / Inner Vows / Unforgiveness / Occultic Activity, etc.
5. Pray for peer humiliation that they may have experienced, (especially related to a rejection of gender), to be reversed by the acceptance of Christ & His Body, the Church.
6. Pray to renounce the rejection of their biological sex and/or the self-hatred that it induced.
7. Pray with them to accept their biological gender.
8. Repent of any use of pornography and masturbation and the core sin behind such behaviors – idolatry.
9. Pray for revelation of and deliverance from any hidden demonic strongholds.
10. Pray for any yet undiscovered biological contributors (-e.g., hormones, brain chemistry, etc.) to be healed.
11. Pray for being washed (Ephesians 5:26; 1 Corinthians 6:11) and having the mind renewed (Romans 12:2) with the Word of God.
12. Pray with them for God to overturn any contributing cultural factors.
If they grew up lonely and unaffirmed, yet were accepted and celebrated by the trans community, (not having understood that their acceptance had more to do with their youth and beauty than anything else), pray that they learn to receive that needed acceptance and affirmation from God instead of man.
Help them to separate themselves from damaging relationships, (friends, music, media, etc.), and to turn their attention to God’s Word and serving Him.
Help them find a church, ministry & other teaching resources that can guide them in the lifelong process of transformation, such as………
Help4Families Ministry
www.help4families.com
Dr. Neil Whitehead’s website
http://www.mygenes.co.nz/transsexuality.html
http://www.mygenes.co.nz/transsexual_brain.html
Dr. Robert Gagnon’s website
Thinking Biblically About Transgenderism
http://www.proginosko.com/2016/11/thinking-biblically-about-transgenderism/
Powerful video testimonies by
Kathy Grace Duncan – Pt 1- Pt 2
God and the Transgender Debate by Andrew Walker
Transgender by Vaughan Roberts
Transgender Confusion by Denise Shick
Transformation: A Former Transgender Responds to LGBT Issues by Linda Seiler
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Dr. David Kyle Foster (M-Div, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; D-Min, Trinity School for Ministry) is the author of Transformed Into His Image and Love Hunger and is the founder/director of Pure Passion Media (www.PurePassion.us).
Read more of his take on sexual sin and brokenness in his newest book,
The Sexual Healing Reference Edition.
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