“It’s a five-alarm fire.” So begins Identity Crisis, the latest release from the Daily Wire and Turning Point USA, a film documenting the human costs of the rise in “gender-affirming care.” The film takes viewers from the halls of academia to tense school board meetings to paint a sobering, disturbing, but ultimately brutally realistic look at the consequences of America’s response to children who believe themselves to be transgender.
The film’s not easy watching—it includes graphic footage of a double mastectomy, along with explicit discussions of the many other medical procedures that fall under the broad umbrella of “gender-affirming care.” The film strings together truly heartbreaking storylines, from fathers who’ve lost access to their children to de-transitioners reliving in horrific detail the irreversible medical steps taken at an incredibly young age down a path of hormonal disruption and regretted surgeries—from which, often, there is no return.
There’s nothing happy or fun about this film. And yet, if you’re in any way unclear about where you stand on whether activists advancing gender ideology have gone too far, Identity Crisis is a catalyst for profound moral clarity. “You’re being sold a dream,” public intellectual Dr. James Lindsay notes about the vision of gender transition offered to many young people struggling with gender identity. “And there’s a nightmare to be serviced that very well may come to you.”
And nightmare describes the situation quite well. We’re in a moment when a case currently before the Supreme Court, United States v. Skrmetti, will determine the trajectory of many of our political and legal debates surrounding hormone therapy and puberty blockers for children. Perhaps tellingly, one of the biggest nonprofits claiming the mantle of protecting trans rights disingenuously described the case as pertaining to “bans on medical care for transgender youth,” as if the case were about healthcare as a whole instead of the specific surgical and hormone-manipulating procedures more specifically. Notably, that same nonprofit expressly pressures America’s largest corporations into covering puberty blockers in healthcare plans.
But these aspects of the gender ideology debate are big-picture, spanning both the public and private sectors as well as the industries contained within. Inside these broader trends, countless children have been misinformed by social media and misled by authority figures ranging from teachers to medical professionals, their futures horrifically altered by premature medical procedures in the name of gender affirmation. And that’s where the courage of ordinary Christians comes in.
Make no mistake—the struggle to expose the extremes of gender ideology will be dismissed by some as just another “culture war.” But there’s nothing dirty or un-winsome or un-Christian about this crucially important work. On the contrary, there’s nothing more Christian or pro-human than exposing and countering the works of those who would sterilize and mutilate children for ideological or financial gain (the film notes that a double mastectomy can bring in more than $40,000 of profit). As my friend Carl Trueman aptly notes, “Ideas kicked around in graduate seminars bring with them real human costs when put into practice in real human lives.”
There are two ways by which to understand the reality of this struggle. One is Trueman’s intellectual analysis: “The [trans] debate is about the radical abolition of metaphysics and metanarratives and any notion of cultural stability that might rest thereupon.” The other is the lived experience of detransitioner Chloe Cole, explaining how she was treated after regretting her gender transition, including puberty blockers and a double mastectomy: “We can’t even confide in our own doctors to help us. My own doctors who helped me through transition refused to give me any support or guidance,” Cole explains. “They ignored me. They dropped me like I was trash.” It is to our shame if we, as people of faith and community, can’t bring ourselves to action to prevent other innocents repeating Cole’s tragic journey.
Sometimes that action involves stating the obvious. My line of work as a corporate engagement professional offers an example. In one recent discussion, we spoke with a company whose products function off-label as puberty blockers. We pushed them for transparency, and in the process of that discussion we were told that the company doesn’t actively promote such off-label use (i.e., the medication does not have FDA approval for gender dysphoria treatment). When we explained that they hadn’t said whether they actively informed people of the risks associated with using their product to treat gender dysphoria regardless whether it was FDA-approved, we were met with distractions and non-answers. It’s an obvious question, even if Skrmetti and Identity Crisis weren’t bringing to public attention the urgency of such issues.
Do companies that sell products capable of sterilizing children actively inform people of the risks of such use? And if not, then we need to have some serious conversations about exactly why that is. This is as much a moral imperative for Christians as “do no harm” is a professional imperative for medical professionals—it’s a stand we must take now.
In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers, Gondorian captain Faramir explains the philosophy by which he went to war against the forces of darkness that threatened his city and countrymen: “I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” That is to be our approach. Whether that’s standing up at a PTA meeting or donating to organizations that oppose medicalized “transitioning” procedures or pushing companies for transparency on “gender-affirming care,” the movement to end these horrific practices is an essential aspect of our Christian witness.
We must act—not because we love the uncomfortable conversations and confrontations that come along with it but because we love the innocent children that such scrutiny serves to defend. And if we won’t fight for fear of being smeared as “culture warriors,” then we’re abandoning the battlefield because of fear. And that’s the opposite of what Christ has commanded us.
