June 17, 2021

June 17, 2021

This is Keira Bell. I came across her sad story (told by Allison Holt) on the Preaching Today website and as our world celebrates “pride month,” I felt led to share it.

Keira says she was fourteen when she first began to think she might be a boy in a girl’s body. Two years later, she was prescribed puberty blockers and testosterone. At twenty, she underwent a double-mastectomy to remove both breasts. Now, at 23, she identifies again with her biological sex and recently won a lawsuit in the UK against the doctors who allowed her to go down this path at such a young age.

At the time, Keira believed that these treatments would help her “achieve happiness.” She said, “I was stuck in severe depression and anxiety. I felt extremely out of place in the world. I was really struggling with puberty and my sexuality, and I had no one with whom I could talk these things through.”

When she sought medical help, she was given the impression that the doctors and therapists would be neutral, but that wasn’t the case. “Once I arrived [at the gender identity clinic], I was not challenged in any sense, and I was affirmed [as a boy] from the beginning. When I was questioning my identity there was nowhere to find support that didn’t affirm the delusion of being in the ‘wrong body.’ No organizations existed that might be able to tell me that it was okay to be a girl who didn’t like stereotypically ‘girly’ things.”

Keira began questioning the ideology behind her transition when she found herself upset about the case of Rachel Dolezal, a white college professor who “identified” as black. “I couldn’t come up with a reason why being transgender was ‘more valid’ than transracial. It was the start of a slow wake-up call. I had finished my physical transition and my health was beginning to decline. It was at that point I realized I didn’t want to live a lie and that it was really important to be myself.”

Keira looks back on her transition with sadness. Her treatments have left her with permanent facial hair and a lower voice. She says, “There was nothing wrong with my body, I was just lost and without proper support. I should have been challenged on the proposals or the claims that I was making for myself. That would have made a big difference. I was allowed to run with this idea that I had, almost like a fantasy, as a teenager…and it has affected me in the long run as an adult.”

Jesus referred to Satan as “the father of all lies” and as the prince of this world, one of the main lies our adversary is spreading is that gender is a social construct. It is a construct---but not a social one. God constructed gender. As it says in Genesis 1:27, “God created [constructed] mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created [constructed] them; male and female He created [constructed] them.”

This doesn’t mean some men and women don’t struggle with their biological gender. This is yet another part of being a flawed creature living in a fallen world.

The sad thing is that when young people struggle, many adults encourage them to embrace their feelings instead of doing the good work of listening and challenging and helping. Saddest of all is the fact that the loving guidance of the Creator of our bodies is ignored.

Our children must be taught that no matter what, we love them; God loves them; He knows everything about them and He is ready and fully-able to help.

Father empower us to teach Your truth to our young people so they, “…will no longer be tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching.” (Ephesians 4) Give us the courage and grace to help them stand up against the lies of our adversary.

Keep the SON in your eyes!
Mark