An Unscientific Federal Study

According to various reports, the National Institutes of Health is using federal tax dollars to launch a study “proving” it’s OK to perform sex-change operations on children.

Researchers intend to show transgender affirmation therapy is safe and effective for children who disagree with their biological sex. John Stonestreet at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview writes,

Let’s be clear about what “affirmation therapy” really means: Children are given high doses of puberty-suppressing drugs. Doctors then flood their systems with testosterone or estrogen to induce the formation of opposite-sex characteristics like breasts in males and facial hair in females. Some patients, partway through this process, will undergo “sex-reassignment surgery” in which their internal and even external genitals are removed or remodeled.

This so-called “treatment” will render them infertile for life and can create a host of side-effects, like cancer, infections, gallbladder diseases, and spikes in blood pressure. There is also no long-term research on how these high doses of hormones affect bodies in the long run—bodies that weren’t designed to handle them in the first place.

There is, however, abundant data on the psychological damage of medically “transitioning.” One study from Great Britain found that 20 percent of patients who’d undergone this procedure regretted it. Walt Heyer, a man who formerly lived as a transgender woman and now identifies with his biological sex once again, thinks that’s a serious underestimation.

Advocates for children have said time and time again that encouraging kids to disagree with their biological sex is dangerous.

The American College of Pediatricians writes, “puberty is not a disease and puberty-blocking hormones can be dangerous. Reversible or not, puberty- blocking hormones induce a state of disease — the absence of puberty — and inhibit growth and fertility in a previously biologically healthy child.”

Read John Stonestreet’s entire column here.

Photo Credit: By Rafael Alcarde Palomares (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

You Have to See This Video

A viral video with more than 2.2 million views has been making the rounds on the Internet. It tells the testimony of Emily Thomes — a young woman who left her lesbian lifestyle after coming to Christ.

You can watch this powerful video below.

Love Is Love

"It's not gay to straight. It's lost to saved."

Posted by Anchored North on Wednesday, December 27, 2017

 

Thomes boldly outlines her conversion experience. She also very succinctly captures the gospel and what it means to repent from sin and accept Christ.

Needless to say, her testimony has met with criticism. The Huffington Post, Teen Vogue, The Independent, and others all have penned columns decrying the video. But as Eric Metaxas at Breakpoint recently pointed out, columns like these are based on a lie,

The central lie of the LGBT movement and the sexual revolution is that our sin and our desire for it are our identity — even something in which to take pride. But the good news of Christianity is that in Jesus, we can have a new identity. We need no longer [have to] be enslaved to our fallen passions. We were made for something better.

Target Stores Continue to Suffer Amid Boycott

You may recall in April of last year Target announced on its website that customers and employees at its stores would be able to use the changing areas and restrooms of their choice rather than their biological sex.

Many people expressed public safety concerns about Target’s decision to let men enter women’s restrooms and changing areas.

As a result, more than a million people signed agreements to boycott Target.

Target has suffered financially since, with its stock prices falling nearly 23% — from $82.76 per share to $64 per share — since April of last year.

Some argue that stores like Target are simply having a tough time in this economy. However, Target’s competitor Walmart has seen its stock value rise from $69 per share to nearly $98 since April of 2016.

Last month Target announced it will close 12 of its larger stores next year. According to CNBC, the stores are located in Minnesota, Kansas, Michigan, Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, Illinois, and Texas.

Even Target’s management has acknowledged that letting men enter the women’s restrooms and changing areas at its stores has been bad for business. Last spring Target’s CEO admitted, “Target didn’t adequately assess the risk [about publicizing the policy], and the ensuing backlash was self-inflicted.” However, he stopped short of saying the policy itself was bad.

Target has not changed its policy as of today, and over 1.5 million Americans are still boycotting the retail chain as a result, but at least the company admits the boycott is affecting its bottom line.

You can sign the pledge to boycott Target here.