Snippet: Gender Dysphoria, Culture Wars, and Compassion

Snip·pet | ˈsnipit | noun a small piece or brief extract.

Here’s a long snippet from Nick Eicher on The World and Everything In It Podcast on March 18:

“…looking at France, Sweden, the UK, Australia, government medical boards and academies, they are recommending putting the brakes on hormonal and surgical interventions for young people who question their identities.

“For instance, France, where there’s concern about the ‘epidemic-like phenomenon’ among adolescents seeking drugs, hormones, and surgeries. The National Academy of Medicine in France says it could be tied to social-media usage and social contagion.

“Looking at Sweden, the Board of Health and Welfare has no explanation for a 1500-percent rise in gender dysphoria diagnoses—that’s a 15-x increase in just 10 years from 2008 to 2018—this explosion of gender dysphoria among teenage girls in Sweden. And the medical establishment is saying, whoa, slow down. Let’s not jump into drugs and surgery, it’s recommending psychological and psychiatric treatment and clinical assessment and diagnosis.”

I don’t know where I heard or read a comparison between this kind of “social contagion” among teens and the outbreak and increase of eating disorders from several years back.

The response back then was compassionate treatment for those suffering with eating disorders. But now on this issue, in the United States, the response has been entire medical institutions and industries built around giving kids dangerous, life-altering drugs and surgeries that accommodate what the rest of the world is calling possible psychological disorders. And a lot of educational institutions are in lockstep with them.

Again, I can’t remember who said or wrote this, but they predicted future generations are going to call the present medical establishment’s response “child abuse.”

Lots of kids are suffering with gender dysphoria and lots of parents are in despair watching their kids suffer.

I don’t offer this snippet to point out how “stupid” “the other side” is on this issue or how. being so “stupid,” they need to be destroyed, canceled, exiled, shouted down, eliminated, etc. Going at this as primarily a “culture war” issue that must be won at all costs is not helpful, and lots of kids and families get caught in the crossfire from all sides.

In my opinion, culture warring is not a good long-term strategy for societal influence and positive change. There are ways to approach this and other issues that are strong and powerful responses without returning fire and participating in the scorched earth approaches we see from all sides on issues like this.

I offer this snippet to say, to families who are struggling with this, there are other ways to see this and respond than what they are often being told by some (if not most) media, educational institutions, and medical sources. We recommend resources from Preston Sprinkle and The Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender as a good starting point for families.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash.