Watching the Lionesses win the women’s football Euros competition was fantastic – moving even.

Once relegated as inferior, and before that, even banned for 50 years, women’s football is finally coming of age. I started playing as a student, when women’s football was just getting going, and had a wonderful ten years of enjoying the beautiful game. Even then, it was seen as a boy’s sport. So well done, Lionesses, who really did the country proud.

One further good thing about it – hopefully now, girls who play football won’t be asked whether they aren’t really a boy.

Gender and identity

Unfortunately, society seems to have reached that point. I don’t know of any footballers asked that question, but one teenager of my acquaintance has had to put up with a few people making the assumption that she should be a boy, simply because of her short hair and grungy appearance.

This assumption that interests and style are part of your gender identity is one of the things that, in the end, has brought down London’s Tavistock Centre, centre for treating those with gender dysphoria – at long last.

It seems ridiculous that, in this day and age, when feminism has succeeded in promoting acceptance that sex shouldn’t influence what activities people choose to do, youngsters are being, effectively, pressurised into buying into the notion that because of their interests they are born in the wrong body.

It may be that now, with the Cass Review leading to the closure of the Tavistock clinic, this issue can, finally, be turned back into a level-headed discussion of the real issues that are going on.

A dangerous agenda

However, there is still a battle ahead. As Clifford Hill has mentioned previously, this is a spiritual issue, with those pushing for these changes having an agenda to pursue.

We are, in effect, facing a movement that has more in common with an organised cult than just a craze. Organisations such as Stonewall and Mermaids have infiltrated many institutions – of which the Tavistock Centre was the most well-known – and too many schools have been heavily influenced. And of course, social media has been played to good effect, such that many proponents don’t even realise they have been taken in by the lies.

We are, in effect, facing a movement that has more in common with an organised cult than just a craze.

You can see just how much this has morphed into a cult-like movement when people who have come through issues with gender dysphoria, finally accepting who they are, find that all their friends reject them.

Of course, as with many cults, the danger lies in the fact that there is an element of truth to what they preach. It is absolutely true that some people have gender dysphoria to such an extent that their lives are massively impacted by this mental health disorder. There are also those who were intersex at birth, and it was unclear to doctors whether they were male or female, but such cases are even rarer. Despite their rarity, they have been hijacked to pursue a dangerous and destabilising agenda.

Brainwashing our youth

What we have had is an attempt to brainwash our entire youth.

Teenage years are known to be volatile for many, as young people face the normal challenges of puberty, finding their way in life and who they really are, apart from their parents. Some can face additional challenges – bullying, disability, autism, family breakdown, academic failure, even sexual abuse. On top of all that, the current generation faces the pressures of social media, and the catastrophic effects of lockdown and mask mandates.

It's very common for teenagers to feel uncomfortable with their bodies. Yet pressure – at times peer pressure – has led many to believe that the discomfort that they feel is because they are trans.  Instead of challenging this, which is the only logical thing to do, teachers and therapists are actually affirming them in their delusion.

I’m pleased that one young man took my advice, offered indirectly (I can’t share any details), to not worry about feeling that he was a girl. I advised him that statistics show that the vast majority of dysphoric young people grow out of it once hormones have had long enough to do their job at puberty, such that it would be best to let nature take its course – and go for help only if it didn’t resolve. I’m pleased to say, the young man grew out of his dysphoria within a year, and is once more comfortable with who he is.

In another day and age, it might have been good to recommend seeking support or counselling earlier, but the affirming approach currently taken is so misguided, it can just make things worse. Another girl I know wants to be a boy – and her therapist insists that all around her should affirm her new identity, even to the point of refusing to engage with her mother unless she uses her daughter’s new, male, name.

No fringe issue

If you think that this is a minor, fringe issue, I can assure you it is not – it is impacting so many of our young people. One mum tells me that both her teenagers (who are strong Christians) claim that they are the only ones in their groups of friends at school who are straight, comfortable in their biological gender, and happy with it. It is an issue that we all need to recognise as we seek to reach out to a hurting, thoroughly confused generation.

We also need to be aware just how much this cult is targeting the most vulnerable of our teens. Statistics show that most girls coming forward with gender dysphoria show signs of autism. Sexual abuse can be a significant factor also. One gender dysphoric girl I know recognises that the source of her discomfort in her identity is the sexual abuse she suffered as a young child.

An affirming approach tries to alleviate the symptom of a disease without looking at the underlying cause, allowing the disease to fester.

Keira Bell, who took the Tavistock clinic to court over the use of puberty blocking drugs, said: “As I matured, I recognised that gender dysphoria was a symptom of my overall misery, not its cause.” An affirming approach tries to alleviate the symptom of a disease without looking at the underlying cause, allowing the disease to fester. Hopefully this fact will now be recognised as the NHS and schools go forward, but there is going to be a lot of fallout from the huge damage done to our young people, who have been persuaded that the cure for their misery is hormone drugs and life-changing, damaging surgery.

Prayer & proclamation of truth

The only real way to target a cult-like movement like this is through prayer, and by proclaiming the truth. Do pray for all the young people around you. Pray for your local high school, and the teenagers there. And pray against the spirit of deception influencing our youth.

And when I mention proclaiming the truth, it’s not (just) about saying obvious things, like ‘God made us male and female’, or ‘you can’t change your sex, as you can’t change your DNA’. No, we have to go deeper than that, to the truth of the gospel, that has been lost in our schools. To declaring that God made each of those precious young people; he fashioned and formed them and delights in them. That he wants them to discover who he made them to be. That he is their father, a loving, caring father, who will never leave them or abandon them, who calls to them daily to have a relationship with him. That their identity can be in being a beloved child of God, not some confected label. That he has a purpose for their lives, and so they shouldn’t waste it on casual sex or sexting, or try to change their bodies.

God sees the mess that they are in, their sadness and confusion; and instead of them transforming their outer shell through drugs and surgery, he wants to transform them into the person he made them to be – whole, purposeful, loving, fulfilled. This transformation will come about through love – the love that led Jesus to sacrifice himself for them, and the love and power that comes through the Holy Spirit.

This is the message our young people so desperately need to hear.