Confident kids

In the preface of their new book, authors Dr. Kathy Koch and Dr. Jeff Myers write, “Every cultural confusion presents an opportunity.” Based on that claim, the culture’s current confusion surrounding gender identity provides ample opportunity for clarity in the matter of God’s design for the sexes.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, the number of U.S. high school students identifying as transgender rose from 1.8% in 2017 to 3.3% in 2023, marking a near twofold increase in only six years.

Additionally, a 2022 Pew Research survey revealed that just over 5% of young adults ages 18 to 29 identified as transgender or nonbinary. By contrast, only 1.6% of 30- to 49-year-olds, and just 0.3% of those 50 and older, identified as something other than their biological sex.

Though the Pew study focused on an older, broader demographic, the findings suggest that younger generations are far more susceptible to cultural confusion than older ones.

This leaves parents with the difficult task of helping their children and teens work through conflicting cultural messages about identity, biology, and faith.

For this reason, Koch and Myers collaborated on the book Raising Gender-Confident Kids: Helping Kids Embrace Their God-Given Design, offering parents a resource that equips them to nurture and lead their children toward a biblical understanding of God’s perfect design.

Koch, founder and president of Celebrate Kids Inc., specializes in child development and seeks to provide parents and educators with faith-based strategies to help children thrive and embrace their identity in Christ. Myers, president of Summit Ministries, is a recognized expert in youth development and worldview training.

Koch and Myers spoke with The Stand about their book, the gender confusion phenomenon, and the help they hope to offer parents and adults who feel overwhelmed and uncertain in navigating this sensitive, yet pervasive, topic.

Tracing the origins

Myers pointed to several once-trusted cultural institutions, such as the education system and the medical field, as the origins of gender confusion. Myers believes higher education bears much of the blame.

“As a result of postmodernism, many people in higher education were trying to figure out how they could overthrow the biblical Christian worldview,” Myers said. “The easiest way to do that is to deny that there are any absolute truths.”

But gender is “pretty persistent,” Myers suggested, challenging the view that nothing is absolute.

Myers explained that the concept of a “gender spectrum” emerged as academia attempted to cast doubt on the biological and biblical reality that only two fixed genders exist.

Meanwhile, Koch pointed to the effects of social media, especially on young girls.

“There is research to suggest that those who suddenly decide they would rather be boys have spent way more time on social media scrolling than other girls,” Koch said.

Therefore, Koch recommends that young people stay off social media altogether; if they are allowed on, it should be closely monitored and supervised.

In detail, the book delves into the beginning of gender confusion, discussing issues such as sin and ignorance concerning biblical teachings, mental health struggles, language manipulation, public school influence, and more.

The authors point out that these various attacks often succeed because they answer life’s who-am-I question.

Forming an identity

Koch and Myers believe children best answer the who-am-I question when they understand that they are intentionally and uniquely designed by a loving God.

“We want to communicate to our kids that gender isn’t something they have to become; it’s something God designed for them,” Myers said. “And His design is good.”

However, Myers explained that sometimes children may not fit certain stereotypes.

“You may have a son who would rather play the violin than play on the football team, or a daughter who would rather build a tree house or change the oil with her dad than play with dolls,” Myers said.

He explained that those preferences are not contradictions of God’s design but instead reflect the unique way He created each child. Furthermore, Myers said that when children do not conform to the stereotype, it is vital for parents to continually affirm that God created them that way, and they are not trapped in the wrong body.

Koch also said that parents must understand that gender is only a small part of one’s identity.

“Because we are not paying attention to the whole of our children, they’re allowed to camp on gender, and it becomes the issue of the day,” Koch stated.

She explained that there is much more to a person than mere gender.

“There are just so many pieces of us,” Koch said. “We have an intellectual self, an emotional self, a social self, a physical self, and a spiritual self.”

Koch suggested that parents nurture their children, help them discover their full identity, and remind them that they are children of God, created in His image.

“The more that children know about who they are, the more likely gender becomes less significant,” she said.

Involving parents

Of course, the authors’ advice presupposes that parents are engaged with their children. Koch emphasized the importance of being present, putting the phone down, listening, and asking wise questions.

“We believe that conversations are where lives can be impacted and changed,” she said. “And we really want to guide parents into the right kind of conversations and how to ask questions that kids want to answer.”

That is why Raising Gender-Confident Kids includes 200 “conversation starters” in the form of scripts, questions, and prompts to help parents have open and meaningful discussions about gender and identity with their children.

Such conversations and parental involvement are vital to detecting potential warning signs that a child may be struggling with gender identity, according to Myers. He explained that one of the primary indicators that a child is struggling in this area is a dramatic change. For example, a child who is normally talkative about his day now regularly retreats to be alone in his room. Or a child who usually gets along well with his siblings is suddenly rude or harmful to them.

“There’s some kind of anger or frustration,” Myers said. “And though it can sometimes be difficult, and each parent may have to ask this question in a little different way, we need to ask, ‘Can you confide in me what happened to you?’”

Myers said in their experience, they have discovered that the child’s shift in behavior is often brought about because they are bullied for not fitting gender stereotypes. Other times, their anger may come from outright transgender propaganda, often in school settings.

“Those little seeds, when they are nurtured along by social media and the way educators are taught to try to move people into a transgender pipeline, can be very disturbing to a child,” Myers added.

Without parents present and willing to discuss what their child is going through, a child can easily be misled.

“If we don’t pay attention to our kids, they’ll go find somebody else who will,” Koch said. “There is a recruitment buzz within the LGBTQ gender-confused population. They know how to recruit. They’re very manipulative; they’re very present, especially in our public schools. So, we need to be available to our kids.”

Respecting differences

Myers noted the importance of educating children that the differences between males and females are positive and intended to complement one another.

“We live in this culture that promotes the idea that eliminating all differences is a good thing, that there’s no real right or wrong, there’s no real good or evil, that male and female are just social constructs,” Myers said. “But God designed us to be biologically different on purpose.”

To illustrate, Myers pointed to the difference in how males and females perceive things with their eyes. He explained that research shows that females’ eyes have a preponderance of P-cells (cells that process information about texture and color). In contrast, males’ eyes have a preponderance of M-cells (cells that process information about movement and direction).

“If you want to accurately see the world, you need to perceive both movement and direction as well as color and texture,” Myers said. “God literally designed males and females so that we need each other to accurately see the world.”

Another illustration is the difference in how males and females respond to stress.

Males typically respond to stress through the portion of the brain that promotes action, while females are more likely to process stress through the portion of the brain that stimulates thinking, he said.

“If you’re in a stressful situation and all you do is ruminate, you can’t solve it. But if you’re in a stressful situation and all you do is immediately act without thinking, you may make it worse,” Myers explained. “Males and females literally need each other to accurately respond to stress.”

Myers said there are about 6,500 catalogued biological differences between males and females, data that reinforces the idea of intentional, purposeful creation.

“When young men and women learn about these differences and how they harmonize with one another, they gain a new respect for the other gender, which I think is powerful and helpful in resolving the transgender confusion,” he added.

Instilling confidence

Koch and Myers long to help parents raise children who are secure and confident in who God made them to be.

“My hope is that young adults will begin to see their gender the way God designed them,” Myers said, “both biologically and theologically, as part of His good plan for the world.

“I want them to see that God designed male and female to be different on purpose, to work together to make the world a better place,” he continued. “I want them to understand that God did that for our benefit and His glory.”

Koch added that she hoped people would celebrate God because He “is a good, strategic, personal, intentional Creator.”

“We want young people, people of all ages … to know that God has been good in the way He’s designed us,” Koch concluded, “and we don’t want kids to question that; we want them to be confident in that.”