More slouching towards Gomorrah: Oprah and ‘transgendered’ children

In many ways, eleven-year-old Kayla is a typical pre-teen. But Kayla is atypical regarding what she wants to be when she grows up. Kayla–who prefers to be called by the more masculine name “Kaden”–wants to be a man.

In many ways, eleven-year-old Kayla is a typical pre-teen.

She likes skateboarding and Playstation. She studies hard to get good grades and wears those trendy, baggy, hip-hop shorts.

But Kayla is atypical regarding what she wants to be when she grows up. Kayla–who prefers to be called by the more masculine name "Kaden"–wants to be a man.

Five-year-old Dylan is in the selfsame dilemma but desires the opposite anatomical transformation. Dylan is convinced that he is a girl trapped inside a boy’s body.

And then there is the sadly convoluted world of nine-year-old Halle, who, at age six began to experience a similar crisis of gender identity. She now wants to be a boy and insists that her parents call her "Hal," a request to which they have equivocated, promising to support Halle–or Hal–"whichever way he chooses to go."

Confusing?

Viewers who tuned in to the Aug. 24 telecast of the Oprah Winfrey Show were treated to this incredulous scenario under the topic line "Transgender Children: The 11-year-old Who Wants a Sex Change."

Predictably, Winfrey-America’s leading postmodern theologian to the soccer mom set-argued that so-called "transgendered children" must be allowed to choose their own gender.

Kayla, Dylan and Halle–to use their birth-certificate names–appeared on the show alongside their parents, each child asserting his or her right to determine their own gender.

Angelina, Kayla’s mother, after initial struggles, also capitulated to her daughter’s wishes and now refers to her as "Kaden." Throughout the show, both Angelina and Winfrey used the masculine pronoun and also called Kayla by the gender-updated name.

R. Albert Mohler Jr., a council member for The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, on the Aug. 26 broadcast of his daily radio show, called the very notion of "transgender children" the "moral meltdown of civilization."

Mohler devoted the entire hour of his show, "The Albert Mohler Program," to analyzing the latest manifestation of Oprah’s ongoing effort toward moral reconstruction.

"I like to think it is hard to shock me, but I was shocked," Mohler told listeners.

"I think Oprah has just lost her mind, morally speaking. This is insanity. It is hard to imagine that she (Oprah) has the following that she has when you catch wind of the agenda she is bringing onto that program."

Winfrey was aggressive in her defense of gender-definition, chiding Dylan’s father Derek, when he appeared miles beyond disturbed at the thought of his son converting to a female.

"(Derek) this will be your holiest hour as a parent, being able to allow your son to be himself and to love him as he is … Whatever he turns out to be," Winfrey said.

Rising to a level of absurdity similar to the topic itself, a self-professed "transgender therapist" appeared on the show in attempt to demonstrate the reasonableness of allowing children to define their own gender.

The therapist, Jana Ekdahl, citing "research," said that in the womb, during the first trimester of pregnancy, "something happens" in which "the brain develops in one direction and the body develops in another." Ekdahl said "transgendered children" might eventually benefit from a sex-change operation and urged parents to "let them explore."

"…For Dylan, it might be that his body was developing (in the womb) as a boy, whereas his brain was developing as a girl," Ekdahl said. "Then he comes out and he looks like a boy. So it’s much easier to change the body. We can’t change the brain."

Mohler said the existence of a so-called "transgender therapist" is itself an outrageous notion, but one that is in lock-step with the modern-day therapeutic culture that bids persons to look, not to God, but inside themselves for ultimate truth and definition.

"How do you hang a shingle out that says ‘transgender therapist’ in the first place?" Mohler said.

"That’s a frightening thing right there. But of course this is all a part of the therapeutic revolution that is at the very core in opposition to the Christian worldview. We’re talking about something that is so far from a biblical reality there is no way to build an easy bridge to it."

Further, Mohler said Ekdahl’s "research" is nothing more than phony science akin to the voodoo seen in more superstitious cultures.

Said Mohler, "What in the world is the so-called ‘scientific background’ of all of this? You notice she said, ‘Oh yes, it happens in the womb, in the first trimester in the first several weeks.’

"That is what would be called in other cultures ‘voodoo.’ That is voodoo in the genetics. It is made-up science. If these people are going to find some kind of theoretical framework onto which to hang their sexual identity and their sexual philosophies, then there it is."

Karen, the mother of Halle, spoke of hormone treatments and drugs that her daughter may be able to take to produce male characteristics that will assist the process of gender transformation.

Mohler called the smiling affirmation of these efforts by Oprah, Ekdahl and the children’s parents a form of "psychologized child abuse."

"In the name of broad-mindedness and compassion toward these children, we are seeing a form of psychologized child abuse here," he said. "What is going to happen to these children in the future? Are they going to be allowed to mutilate their bodies?"

Mohler called on evangelical Christians to hold the line of biblical teaching on gender issues in the face of such aggressive attacks on God’s design.

"We’re looking over a vast chasm of worldview distinction here until you can understand this (question): ‘Where does gender come from?’" he said.

"The secular world thinks it is some kind of evolutionary, physiological, anatomical kind of accident that happened. It is not just an anatomical matter. It is God’s design. In other words, it is not some kind of accident happening, going with one plumbing or another, [but it is] God in His glory, in His sovereignty, makes us male and female.

"In this postmodern age of confusion, a lot of people are going to think that the message of this therapist is the message of compassion. But you need to understand as intelligent, believing, faithful Christians, we have no choice but to believe that this is God’s decision, not ours. We are not given the gift of autonomy to decide whether we want to be a man or a woman."

Wayne Grudem, a member of CBMW’s board of directors and professor of Theology at Phoenix Seminary, said such gender confusion is the outcome that radical feminism has wrought. Gender confusion abounds not only in Oprah’s world, but also in the church, he said.

"This is the predictable outcome of feminist whittling away at distinctions in men's and women's roles for years, and it's happening inside the church as well as in the culture," Grudem said.

To hear the entire broadcast of the Aug. 26 edition of "The Albert Mohler Program," which includes audio excerpts from the Oprah Winfrey Show, please see: http://albertmohler.com/radio.html.