Gender Ideology Harms Children Says the American College of Pediatricians

Recently The American College of Pediatricians published an article entitled Gender Ideology Harms Children, in which they list eight points to back up their claims. Here are the first three points:

The American College of Pediatricians urges educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex. Facts – not ideology – determine reality.

1. Human sexuality is an objective biological binary trait: “XY” and “XX” are genetic markers of health – not genetic markers of a disorder. The norm for human design is to be conceived either male or female. Human sexuality is binary by design with the obvious purpose being the reproduction and flourishing of our species. This principle is self-evident. The exceedingly rare disorders of sex development (DSDs), including but not limited to testicular feminization and congenital adrenal hyperplasia, are all medically identifiable deviations from the sexual binary norm, and are rightly recognized as disorders of human design. Individuals with DSDs do not constitute a third sex.

2. No one is born with a gender. Everyone is born with a biological sex. Gender (an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female) is a sociological and psychological concept; not an objective biological one. No one is born with an awareness of themselves as male or female; this awareness develops over time and, like all developmental processes, may be derailed by a child’s subjective perceptions, relationships, and adverse experiences from infancy forward. People who identify as “feeling like the opposite sex” or “somewhere in between” do not comprise a third sex. They remain biological men or biological women.

3. A person’s belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best, a sign of confused thinking. When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind not the body, and it should be treated as such. These children suffer from gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria (GD), formerly listed as Gender Identity Disorder (GID), is a recognized mental disorder in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-V). The psychodynamic and social learning theories of GD/GID have never been disproved.

You can read the rest of the article, together with the references supporting the claims, here. They have also announced in the article that this is only "a temporary statement with references" and that "a full statement will be published in summer 2016."

We Christians who hold to sola Scriptura are of course not surprised to hear of these dangers, for we know that "God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them" (Gen. 1:27 NKJ). We also know -- despite the well-intentioned point made above -- that people are "born with an awareness of themselves as male or female" but that they "suppress the truth in unrighteousness" (Rom. 1:18 NKJ). We thus know that inherent sin, together with a sinful environment which encourages it, are what leads leads to gender confusion. However, we must pray that more people in our culture begin to think clearly about the real dangers of ignoring the notion that "facts – not ideology – determine reality."