A seismic shift has taken place in teen culture in just fifteen years. Before 2007, gender dysphoria was so rare among girls that there was no extant scientific literature on teen girls having gender identity disorders. None. In the last fifteen years over three hundred gender clinics have opened in America. In the UK, from 2010-2020, the Tavistock gender clinic saw a 4,400 percent increase in teen girls presenting for gender transformation treatment.

Eva, the mother of a 12-year-old Christian girl was at a church luncheon when she received an email from her daughter, Grace, declaring, “Mom and Dad, I need to tell you I’m not actually a girl. My pronouns are they/them.” Eva hadn’t seen this coming for several reasons. First, a few months before, Grace had shared on social media her belief that God created people male and female. She seemed to be resisting peer pressure. Second, Eva knew that kids who identify as trans usually have numerous comorbidities, and trouble fitting in, which Grace did not. The third reason Eva was blind-sided was that she and her husband were naïve about the impact that social media was having on her daughter’s generation, Gen Z.
Here is what the data show:

In the generation born between 1965 and 1980 (Gen X) one in twenty identifies as LGBTQ+.
In the next generation, born from 1981 to 1996 (Millennials), one in ten identifies as LGBTQ+.
In the current generation of teens and twenty-somethings born, between 1997 and 2013, one in five identifies as LGBTQ+.
In addition, forty percent of millennials and Gen Z identify as religious; so, this explosion is not limited to just secular kids.[i]

These numbers constitute an unprecedented transformation of teen culture in the last fifteen years.
Another study of Gen Z, this one conducted by Dr. Allison McFarland of Bethel College, may give some valuable clues to understand why Gen Z teens and young adults are so attracted to the LGBTQ+ message.
In Dr. McFarland’s lectures on Gen Z[2], she identifies the highest values of those who comprise this age group. At the top of the list is authenticity. Let’s consider the characteristics of the largely pubescent girls who come out as trans. They don’t fit their own or their parents’ stereotype of femininity; they are not girly girls. They don’t fit in with the cheerleaders and homecoming princesses. They don’t like their developing curves, feeling extremely uncomfortable with their body’s transition to womanhood. These pubescent girls coming out as trans are fleeing womanhood, more than they are pursuing manhood. They don’t start lifting weights. If they have tats, they are likely to be butterflies or flowers.
As the first generation to grow up with screens always in front of them, Gen Z teens have been exposed to more forms of broken sexuality than any generation in history. No wonder so many girls want nothing to do with becoming sexually attractive to a male. Very simply these girls don’t want to become women. So, the most authentic thing they can do, in their minds, is to admit all of this and join other girls who feel the same way by coming out as trans.
McFarland points out that the second highest value of Gen Z is finding a place where everyone is welcome. Think about the appeal of the LGBTQ+ community to a group of teens for whom acceptance is the highest value. In the LGBTQ+ world, everyone is welcome. Even Grace, who had posted that God made people male or female, was welcomed with open arms to her school’s Gender and Sexualities Alliance club. Acceptance is the club’s highest value. Nobody bullies the socially awkward there. Nobody tells them same-sex attraction is wrong. Nobody says homosexual sex is a sin. Nobody tells trans kids that transgender identity is a delusion. Approval of every form of sexuality is the highest value of the LGBTQ+ movement. What teen does not crave unconditional acceptance, and a non-judgmental place to belong?
This correspondence between the highest two values of Gen Z members and what the LGBTQ+ community offers is taking place in the midst of another, unprecedented, historic phenomenon—the explosion of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria among teen girls. ROGD (coined by Dr. Lisa Littman) is a sudden, dramatic spike in transgender identification among teen girls who had no childhood history of gender dysphoria at all.
Dr. Littman conducted extensive research with 256 families in which a child had come out as transgender. Two patterns stood out. First, she discovered that transgender identification was sharply clustered in friend groups revealing that it spread through social contagion. “Parents describe that the onset of gender dysphoria seemed to occur in the context of belonging to a peer group where one, multiple, or even all the friends have become gender-dysphoric and transgender-identified during the same timeframe.”[3]
The second pattern that she identified was that the clear majority (65 percent) of the adolescent girls who had discovered transgender identity in adolescence—“out of the blue”—had done so after a period of prolonged social media immersion. This pattern was also confirmed by the parents. “Parents also report that their children exhibited an increase in social media/Internet use prior to disclosure of transgender identity.”[4]
A seismic shift has taken place in teen culture in just fifteen years. Before 2007, gender dysphoria was so rare among girls that there was no extant scientific literature on teen girls having gender identity disorders. None. In the last fifteen years over three hundred gender clinics have opened in America. In the UK, from 2010-2020, the Tavistock gender clinic saw a 4,400 percent increase in teen girls presenting for gender transformation treatment.[5] Thousands of our children are being urged down the path that begins with taking puberty blocking drugs such as Lupron, which is used to chemically castrate sex offenders and has never been approved by the FDA for use with teens to arrest puberty. Ninety-nine percent of those who begin taking puberty blockers go on to take cross gender hormones, which causes sterility one hundred percent of the time. Many go on to permanently disfigure themselves through “top” or “bottom” surgery.
The impact of the LGBTQ+ destructive, fractured worldview of sexual personhood is so recent it is only just beginning to be felt. Yet its impact on the mental health of our children is palpable. The Center for Disease Control’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey of High School Students released these statistics in 2021:

Those experiencing persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness: heterosexual students 35%, LGBTQ+ students 69%
Those seriously considering suicide: heterosexual students 15%, LGBTQ+ students 45%,
Actual suicide attempts: heterosexual students 6%, LGBTQ+ students 22%.[6]

Three Ways to Empower Our Children to Safely Weather the Storm

We must get equipped ourselves: This cultural typhoon is not going away any time soon. Our children need us to become equipped to help them weather it, without drowning. Gender theory has already caused many kids raised in Christian homes to abandon their faith, in addition to destroying their bodies.

Here is a list of PCA-friendly resources available to enable parents and church leaders to get equipped for this leadership responsibility.

Anchoring Your Child to God’s Truth in a Gender-Confused Culture, published by the PCA Committee for Discipleship Ministries—seeks to equip parents to conduct a preemptive strike against gender theory, by helping parents guide their kids to celebrate God’s perfect gender design of them as male or female.
Shattered Dreams, New Hope: First Aid for Parents Whose Son or Daughter Has Embraced an LGBTQ+ Identityis an excellent resource from Harvest USA, begun out of Tenth Pres, Philadelphia. It is written for Christian parents whose child identifies as LGBTQ+ and does not desire to live in accordance with God’s Word. It is based upon the CCEF’s counseling model. This parents’ curriculum is available as a FREE digital download at harvestusa.org.
A Biblical Response to Gender Confusion and Transgenderism: Seminar Presented to Potomac Presbytery. After some presbytery members used my book, Our Daughters and the Transgender Craze with their teens, Potomac Presbytery asked me to lead this seminar this past March. Afterwards the brothers urged me to make this material available on video for the whole denomination, which we have done. The free videos are Understanding Gender Theory and Its Origin, Understanding Today’s Transgender Craze, Countering Radical Gender Ideology, and a video for teens to watch with their parents or youth leaders, Biblical Worldview of Sexuality.
Gospel Coalition article, Transformation of a Transgender Teen, by Sarah Zylstra. This article tells the true story of Grace, mentioned at the beginning of this article and what her parents did to win her back to Christ and the biblical worldview of gender and sexuality.

We must speak into the culture. Proverbs 18:17 gives a clear picture of what is happening in gender discussions around the country: “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” To the ears of many, gender theory, when it is first heard seems inclusive, loving, fair, and right because no one comes and examines it. Who will be the salt to retard the culture’s decaying ideas about gender if Christians don’t speak up? Who will shed the light of truth about children being pushed down a destructive path of gender transition if Christians don’t sound the alarm? In some states, twelve-year-olds are allowed, without parental consent, to make medical decisions that permanently mutilate their bodies while at the same time, science is increasingly insisting that the adolescent brain is not fully formed until age twenty-five.

Urgency about this matter, however, must not lead to a combative attitude towards those in the LGBTQ+ community or those advocating for gender theory. They are not the enemy; they are held captive by the enemy, the Evil One. Here are the words of a Christian speaking at a public meeting to a school board that was being influenced by gender theory—an example that we ought NOT to follow:
“You are all child abusers. You prey upon impressionable children and then indoctrinate them into your insane ideological cult—a cult which holds many fanatical views but none so deranged as the idea that boys are girls and girls are boys….You are poison. You are predators. I can see why you try to stop us from speaking. You know that your ideas are indefensible. You silence the other side because you have no argument. You can only hide under your beds like gutless cowards hoping we shut up and go away.”
In sharp contrast to such hostility, Scripture says, “The wise of heart is called discerning, and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness” (Prov. 16:21), and “The heart of the wise instructs his mouth and adds persuasiveness to his lips” (Prov. 16:23). One of the best ways to be polite, strategic, and winsome is to use questions. Here are some attempts at a wiser approach.
Example #1: So you’re having a conversation with someone and they tell you that sex is not a fixed part of a person’s identity, but something that is merely assigned at birth. They go on to say that since sex is assigned at birth, it can be reassigned later if the persons discovers that a mistake was made. What would you say?
First, A person’s sex is acknowledged, not assigned. There are many things doctors learn about a baby when it is born like height, weight, and blood type. Those things aren’t assigned, they are acknowledged. Other things are assigned at birth, like a name. Babies are assigned names exclusively on the preferences of the parents. Changing a name before, during, or after birth has no real impact on the person because it is not a biological part of their identity. So if we know that some things are acknowledged and some things are assigned, what category does a baby’s sex fall into? Is it more like getting a name from your parents or more like learning your blood type from the doctor? I think the answer to that is pretty clear.
Which leads to the second point, Sex is determined by our reproductive system. In most cases, humans are born with two chromosomes, either XX or XY. Those chromosomes lead to the creation of reproductive organs, which create sex hormones, which in turn create genitalia and secondary sex characteristics, like body hair, bone structure, or an Adam’s apple. Within our species, there are only two reproductive systems, male and female. While they clearly matter for reproduction, that’s not the only reason they matter.
Men and women differ in how their brains operate, how they solve problems, what diseases they are susceptible to, and so much more. “But some people are intersex!” you say. This is all true.
Which leads to the third point. Disorders of sexual development don’t create new categories of sex. Not every person’s reproductive system develops neatly along a male or female path, but that does not mean they are not male or female. Some people are born without limbs, others are born blind. Disorders of sexual development are not evidence of a new sex category any more than disorders of the cardiac or respiratory systems are evidence of new kinds of hearts or lungs. A baby born with ambiguous genitalia is not evidence of a new sex within the human species. How do we know this? Because the disorders of sexual development do not create a new chromosome, a new sex hormone, or a new type of genitalia. They have not replaced the need for male or female nor have they found a new way to reproduce. They are simply evidence that sometimes our bodies don’t develop or function as designed.
But let’s be honest, we’re all evidence if that in our own way aren’t we? The truth is, neither science, nor logic support the idea that sex is assigned at birth. So next time someone tells you it is, here are the three things to remember.

A person’s sex is acknowledged, not assigned. It’s much more like blood type than a name.
Sex is determined by our reproductive system, not our feelings.
Disorders of sexual development don’t prove that there are many different sexes. They just prove that we’re imperfect; which we all kind of knew anyway.

You’re having a conversation with a teenager. He says, “Gender is not a fixed part of a person’s identity, but something that is merely assigned at birth.”
What makes you say that?
That is what my social studies teacher said.
So, use your imagination. Picture the birthing room right after a baby comes out. The doctor cries out, “it’s a boy.” What makes the doctor say that?
I guess the doctor looks at the baby’s privates.
Right, so did they arbitrarily “assign” it’s gender or “observe” its gender?
I guess they observed it.
So, is gender “arbitrarily assigned at birth” or is it a biological reality “discovered at birth?”
You’ve got me.
Example # 2: Someone says, “Transgender athletes should be able to participate on whatever sports teams they choose. Girls’ sports should be open to anyone who says they are female.”
May I ask a question?
Sure.
Do you know why men’s and women’s athletic competitions have long been separate?
Not really.
Guess how much more muscle mass the average man has than a woman?
Ten percent?
Thirty-six percent. Men’s bones are thicker and denser. Conversely, women have lower lung volume and lower airflow capacity because they have smaller lungs and airway diameter.
Okay I’ll accept your generalizations.
Did you know that the International Olympic Committee has a geneticist from UCLA to consult about male and female differences?
No, I didn’t know that?
His name is Eric Villian, and he says the differences in male and female bodies make a ten to twelve percent difference in male and female athletic performance. So, if a male who claims to be trans, is allowed to compete against women, who is being treated unfairly?[7]

We must start fighting for our children in prayer. I realize that there are currently millions of different, vital, prayer efforts requiring the church’s attention for the kingdom of Christ to go forward. Yet, at this cultural moment, can we ignore what is happening to the children of our land inside and outside the church? I’m reminded of Jesus view of the importance of children. Matthew recounts,

Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea…See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven (18:5ff).
Although my ministry’s primary focus is men’s ministry, we are sponsoring a five-month intentional prayer campaign until Easter 2024 entitled, Protect Our Children from Gender Confusion. We would love to have as many prayer warriors as possible join this effort. It is doubtful that much progress will be made by today’s church to combat gender theory’s spread without using spiritual weapons. “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor 10:4-5).
At this cultural moment the perfect storm’s winds are howling furiously. Our precious children can’t weather this typhoon alone.
Dr. Gary Yagel served over ten years as the Committee for Discipleship Ministries’ Men’s Ministry Consultant. He is the author of Anchoring Your Child to God’s Truth in a Gender-Confused Culture published by CDM and the follow up booklet, Our Daughters and the Transgender Craze also available in the PCA bookstore. He is currently the executive director of Forging Bonds of Brotherhood and producer of the weekly podcast, Mission Focused Men for Christ.  

[1] Sarah Zylstra, “Transformation of a Transgender Teen,” The Gospel Coalition, July 6, 2022.
[2] See notes from Dr. McFarland lecture, https://calvaryheadmaster.wordpress.com/2023/01/17/trying-to-reach-gen-z/.
[3] Abigail Shrier, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, (Regnery Publishing, Washington, D.C.) p.25.
[4] Ibid p. 38.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Data taken from “Youth Risk Data Survey 2011-2021,” Published by US Government CDC, https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/pdf/YRBS_Data-Summary-Trends_Report2023_508.pdf, p. 60-67.
[7] The examples are variations of the thoughtful use of questions demonstrated by the Colson Center’s What Would You Say website, https://whatwouldyousay.org/.
 
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Most abortions are committed by women destined to remain childless. A vast majority of normal American women intend never to commit an abortion, never do, and instead want to start a family. Rejecting abortions is normal. Having abortions is not.

Recently in Ohio, a constitutional amendment to allow some abortion-on-demand narrowly passed a popular referendum. The amendment would have failed had only about seven percent of voters switched from “yes” to “no.” This contrasts with recent pro-life wins in states that are in some cases arguably less red than Ohio such as the traditional swing state of Florida, Texas, and the blue-leaning state of Georgia. There, Republicans who passed laws that protect unborn babies with heartbeats have lately won statewide and even won big.
The Ohio setback is what results when the political right argues law instead of culture. The right outsourced its arguments on abortion mostly to its kindly Christian women, who have so far avoided using one of the most powerful tools they have: Shame. But shame is the way to train abortion proponents to care about the unborn, and shame comes from culture.
The political left knows this well. The left for a century has changed culture before law, turning the unimaginable into the standard, through relentless campaigns of public shaming. That’s how it trained a generation to avoid fanciful horrors of the so-called “politically incorrect,” even though no one ever believed it. The political right, if only it is willing, can far more quickly teach a generation to avoid real horrors everyone already knows are wrong.
The Median Abortion Seeker Is Far from the Median Woman
Trained to avoid the politically incorrect, much of the right assumes that condemning women who get abortions is like staring at a solar eclipse: something you just can’t do. But the left’s cultural wins are reversing. As more and more reject the bizarre racial and sexual pities of the aughts and the vapid norms of the nineties from which they sprang, now is the time to question whether it really is bad to shame women when they kill their children. Now is the time to break free from the Millian paradigm that negates historically normal enforcement of social norms and morality: shame and stigma. These things are always operative anyway. It is just a question of which morality governs and what “lifestyles” are elevated. 
There aren’t many women to shame anyway. The typical woman is far from the typical woman who commits abortion. Roughly half of all abortions are committed by women who have already had at least one. About a fifth of women who get abortions have several. Overall, only about one in ten who get pregnant ever go on to commit even one abortion.
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The major theme in these five chapters, which can be observed by the sheer force of repetition. In 35:1, Moses said, These are the things that the LORD has commanded you to do. In 35:4, he says, This is the thing that the LORD has commanded, and in 35:10, let every skillful craftsman among you come and make all that the LORD has commanded. In 35:29, the men and women bring anything for the work that the LORD had commanded. In 36:1, Bezalel and Oholiab are given skill to work in accordance with all that the LORD has commanded. Then in chapter 39, after each item of the priestly garments is made, we are told that it was as the LORD commanded (vv. 1, 5, 7, 21, 26, 29, 31). 

When reading through the book of Exodus, most find the second half much less exciting than the first half because of laws and because of these chapters and the previous chapters that they mirror, 25-31. Yet the structure of Exodus wants us to see that this what all the marvelous works that God did to bring Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness has been building toward. Yahweh redeemed His people from their slavery in Egypt so that they could know Him and be His covenantal people.
The tabernacle was the physical expression of that covenant. The LORD appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at certain moments throughout their lives, but He would now dwell in the midst of their descendants. Indeed, the tabernacle is also called the tent of meeting because it marked the place where Israel would always be able to meet with God. If they desired to seek Him, they knew that He would be found at the tabernacle.
The importance of the tabernacle explains why even more space is devoted to it in these chapters. The previous three chapters have recounted Israel’s breaking of the covenant through their worshiping of the golden calf, Moses’ continual intercession for them before the face of Yahweh, and the LORD’s pardoning of their sin. Now with the covenant reestablished, Israel is commanded to build the tabernacle according to the designs that Moses was given upon the mountain. Although the text before us is large, there are two large points that we will observe in them: first, the great giving of all Israel toward building the tabernacle and second, the obedience of the people in building the various elements of the tabernacle exactly as Yahweh commanded.
Sufficient to do all the Work
Chapter 35 begins with one final command for Israel to keep the Sabbath. While these verses again feature some unique wording, they appear to be rather out of place in relation to the remainder of the text. Yet I believe that the reason for placing this command at the beginning of the building of the tabernacle is similar to the reason for commanding the Sabbath to be observed at the end of the instructions for the tabernacle. Although Israel was about to begin one of the most important building projects in all of history, the LORD is preemptively reminding them that it was no excuse for breaking the Sabbath. As glorious as the work on the tabernacle was, whoever does any work on [the Sabbath] shall be put to death. Douglas Stuart gives a great explanation for why the Sabbath was so important:
In a certain sense Israel’s formal starting point for keeping Yahweh’s covenant was keeping the Sabbath, that is, the fourth word/commandment, not because doing so was more important than fulfilling the first three words/commandments but because obedience to the Sabbath requirement was the most obviously measurable of them—either in the keeping or in the disobeying. By the fact that he kept (or did not keep) the Sabbath each week, an Israelite showed without ambiguity whether or not he was committed to keep the covenant. Merely keeping the Sabbath did not confer righteousness if other commandments were violated, but it was an openly visible essential—a sine qua non—of covenant loyalty. Not to keep it would be to say publicly to the world “I am not in covenant relationship with the Lord of the Sabbath.” (748)
In verses 4-9, Moses again speaks to the entire congregation of Israel and commands them to make their contribution for the building of the tabernacle. They were to bring gold, silver, bronze, blue and purple and scarlet yarns and linen, goats’ hair, tanned rams’ skins, goatskins, acacia wood, lamp oil, spices, and gems. These were the materials that would be used to build the tent of meeting. As we noted when Moses first received this command upon Sinai, this nation of former slaves was able to offer such valuable materials because the LORD caused them to plunder the Egyptians as they left.
But lest we think that the LORD gave Israel their treasures simply for the purpose of using them for the tabernacle, notice the emphasis on how the contribution was to be given in verse 5: whoever is of a generous heart. In other words, there was no particular demand made to anyone. Giving was commanded generally to the entire nation, but the particulars of gifts were left to the conscience of each individual. God enriched Israel out of His love for His people and to further humble the Egyptians, and those gifts were really given. The Israelites could have refused to make their contributions, foolish as that decision would have been. Of course, there is a sense in which all that we have properly belongs to God, meaning that we are stewards of our possessions rather than owners. Yet that reality should be balanced with God’s gracious giving of gifts, particularly to His people but even upon the wicked as well. Indeed, the fact that the contributions will be stopped in 36:6-7 shows that God had no intention of taking all of Israel’s riches for use in the tabernacle.
Verses 20-29 then show all the people doing what Yahweh commanded of them.
Then all the congregation of the people of Israel departed from the presence of Moses. And they came, everyone whose heart stirred him, and everyone whose spirit moved him, and brought the LORD’s contribution to be used for the tent of meeting, and for all its service, and for the holy garments. So they came, both men and women. All who were of a willing heart brought brooches and earrings and signet rings and armlets, all sorts of gold objects, every man dedicating an offering of gold to the LORD. And every one who possessed blue or purple or scarlet yarns or fine linen or goats’ hair or tanned rams’ skins or goatskins brought them. Everyone who could make a contribution of silver or bronze brought it as the LORD’s contribution. And every one who possessed acacia wood of any use in the work brought it. And every skillful woman spun with her hands, and they all brought what they had spun in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen. All the women whose hearts stirred them to use their skill spun the goats’ hair. And the leaders brought onyx stones and stones to be set, for the ephod and for the breastpiece, and spices and oil for the light, and for the anointing oil, and for the fragrant incense. All the men and women, the people of Israel, whose heart moved them to bring anything for the work that the LORD had commanded by Moses to be done brought it as a freewill offering to the LORD.
Again, notice the great emphasis upon everyone who heart stirred him, and everyone whose spirit moved him, as well as all who were of a willing heart. This is, of course, the pattern for Christian that we are under today. Although giving a tenth of one’s income (a tithe) is generally a fine enough principle, the New Testament does not give us a particular amount or percentage or even formula for governing our giving. Instead, 2 Corinthians 9:7 tells us plainly: “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” That is the principle that must rule over our hearts.
We should also take that all of Israel participated in these contributions. The leaders who possessed gemstones and spices brought them freely. Both men and women are emphasized as giving, and the text specifically spotlights skillful women bringing their weavings. Whenever we couple this with the call for all skillful craftsmen in verse 10, we find a beautiful picture of how Yahweh used the various gifts and skills of His people to build His dwelling place.
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