Of all the current-event pieces I read, the most heartbreaking are the stories of young people who are in the real-time and painful process of ‘de-transitioning’.

What does it mean for a young person to ‘transition’? It means that adults have agreed to help a boy or girl medically attempt to take on the physical traits of the opposite sex by artificially manipulating and/or mutilating his or her still maturing body.

Toward this end, a physician might prescribe hormones to an adolescent girl to stop her natural menstrual cycle, or to a pre-pubescent boy so that his reproductive parts will remain permanently undeveloped and minute as he matures. Later on, a plastic surgeon might remove the young male’s stunted penis (like an unnecessary appendix) or the female’s breasts entirely.

And then these young people grow up, and the raw regret for an astonishing number is profound and deep. What have I done? What has been done to me? Why didn’t anyone intervene? What do I do now? Where do I turn? Where do I fit? Who will ever love me? Will I ever have my own family? And the grief over all that’s been lost and stolen – all the deaths – is utterly overwhelming. I cry over every one.

And yet, it is this point in the story that the fortunate ones discover they have will have an adult male or female in their lives who models what it means to be a man or a woman in the world, and not play one. There is a male or female who hopes for them; who cares about them; who promises to walk with them as they turn and climb the staggeringly difficult uphill journey back to themselves. And so the process of de-transitioning back to real life begins.

I’m not an activist by any stretch, but I am an adult woman and so I will speak freely: Our children today desperately need to see adults be men and be women. They need to see males and females of all shapes, sizes, abilities, and personality traits, living not as grossly cartoonish stereotypes of a gender, but as a man or woman in the world and for the world. What do I mean?

Women’s bodies are designed to carry and care for life. This doesn’t mean all women must or should or can conceive and raise their own children – some will choose not to, while others will not be able to – but this doesn’t negate the fact that the body of womankind is designed specifically for this unique function. Women’s bodies bring forth life. The function of our bodies – as a sex – is life.

Men are also designed to produce and protect life. This doesn’t mean all men must or should or can father and raise their own offspring (although this is most desirable for any healthy society) but a man’s choices or circumstances can’t change his body’s biological function. Men’s bodies are designed to bring forth life. The function of their bodies – as a sex – is life.

And so if the function of the human body – male and female – is to bring forth, keep, and tend to life, what would we call those who would aid and abet the next generation in becoming increasingly impotent?

Who is it that would use their adult authority to encourage adolescent children, still forming in every way, to permanently cut off their function and their future?

Who would like nothing more than to see the vitality and promise of male and female human beings shrivel up and become no more?

One needn’t be an activist or parent to guard against the foot-soldiers of Death. One needs only to stand firm as a male or female member of mankind whose purpose is to advance and establish Life.

Will we model what it means to be men and women to the next generation? Not through trope stereotypes, fear-filled pearl-clutching, or even the way that seems good and right to us?

But by standing with our Creator, aligned with his purposes, in accord with his will, that the functional design of humankind – male and female – is truly for our good, our children’s good, and the good of the world.

Shalom to you and yours as you establish light and life, with God’s help, in our world.

Kim