John Stonestreet – Page 8

The Crumbling Sham of Trans Medicine

Apr 29, 2026John StonestreetTransgenderTransgender

Trans activists loudly claim that medicalizing gender confused youth is “settled science” and saves lives. This is meant to shut down any doubt or debate on this critically important topic.

Thankfully, a few undeterred scholars are asking important questions and demonstrating just how false trans activists’ claims really are.

An impressive new Finnish study, published in the Swedish academic journal Acta Paediatrica, is extending the damning conclusions of the UK’s 2024 Cass Review. The report was unequivocal in concluding that the so-called “settled science” of trans medicine “is an area of remarkably weak evidence” and the “reality is that we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.”

The new Finnish study provides the “good evidence.” Its findings on long-term outcomes, based on extremely strong data sets, don’t bode well for trans activists’ overconfident claims. Finland’s government-run medical system has an extremely rigorous tracking system containing detailed medical and psychiatric records on all citizens dating back to 1994. Drawing from this, the study conducted an analysis of every patient under 23 who attended Finnish gender identity clinics from 1996 to 2019 and compared them with a matched control group.

This means their study population is uniquely comprehensive—it analyzed the entire gender treatment patient population in the country for years and years. Other studies have only included those who chose to take part, seriously undermining the validity of their claims. The Finnish school system also regularly screens students for mental health disorders. It consists of two timeframes: 1996 to 2010, and 2011 to 2019, the time when those “trans identity” numbers started exploding in many countries, likely from social contagion.

So, what did this comprehensive Finnish study find? It’s a pretty direct conclusion: The whole basis of transgender ideology and practice is wrong. As the study revealed, “Gender-referred adolescents showed significantly higher psychiatric morbidity than controls,” and severe psychiatric morbidity increased substantially in two-plus year clinical follow-ups. Those who sought gender services in the second, larger cohort “had greater psychiatric needs than earlier cohorts.”

In fact, these medical researchers state,

Among adolescents who underwent medical gender reassignment, psychiatric morbidity increased markedly during follow-up—rising from 9.8% to 60.7% in feminizing gender reassignment and from 21.6% to 54.5% in masculinizing gender reassignment.

They add,

After adjusting for prior psychiatric treatment, all gender-referred adolescents had similarly elevated risks of psychiatric morbidity, with hazard ratios approximately three times higher than female controls and five times higher than male controls.

These findings directly challenge the assumption that gender transition is a natural, harmless occurrence and that taking sex-rejecting hormones and cutting off healthy body parts benefits patients. In fact, the researchers bluntly confess, “This does not support the suggested improvement in mental health after medical GR [gender reassignment].”

Thus, this research supports previous conclusions that those struggling with gender confusion suffer from other serious parallel psychological comorbidities. A group of Austrian scholars explained in the Archives of Sexual Behavior in 2025 that “gender dysphoric adolescents presenting to specialized gender identity services experience varying degrees of co-occurring mental health problems.”

They note that 71% of such patients suffer from moderate- to high-distress psychopathology (48% and 23% respectively) while only 29% suffer at low-distress levels. Most of these patients (77%) enjoyed high levels of social support in the midst of their struggles, belying another tired line of gay/trans rhetoric.

This Finnish study confirms that gender confused patients aren’t otherwise healthy people simply born in the wrong body, and if we just give them what they say they need, all will be well. Doing so actually appears to make things worse.
The Finnish research team, working from the same stellar population sample, also reported two years ago in the British Medical Journal that the “Main predictor of mortality in this population is psychiatric morbidity, and medical gender reassignment does not have an impact on suicide risk.” The Cass Review came to the same conclusion: “Tragically deaths by suicide in trans people of all ages continue to be above the national average, but there is no evidence that gender-affirmative treatments reduce this.”

The manipulative claims of trans activists continue to crumble, thanks to carefully done science by honest researchers.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Glenn Stanton.

The Bible Does Not Support Abortion: Guest Column

Apr 3, 2026John StonestreetAbortionAbortion, Church Ambassador Network, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life

In February, James Talarico, a U.S. Senate candidate from Texas, claimed that the biblical story of the Annunciation from the Gospel of Luke supports his proabortion position. On the Joe Rogan podcast, Talarico asserted that because the angel sought Mary’s consent, a woman has a right to choose her own procreative destiny.

The most obvious flaw with this assertion is that the angel did not ask Mary’s permission. In fact, the angel of the Lord said, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.” Mary submits to accept God’s will, but the only person with questions in that conversation was Mary. The angel declared what was going to happen. Mary was humbled and accepted it as the calling on her life.

The deeper flaw in this and most other proabortion arguments is the assumption that whatever is in the womb is not a human life worth protecting. The inherent value of life in the womb—as evident throughout Scripture from Psalms to Jeremiah to Isaiah to Job to Joshua–is something Christians have insisted upon since the earliest days of the Church. To deny that theological reality, as Talarico did, is also to commit a Christological heresy. In the same chapter in Luke, Elizabeth declared that her baby, who was John the Baptist, leapt in her womb when he heard the voice of “the mother of her Lord.” In other words, both John in the womb and Elizabeth out of the womb sensed that the Lord was present though still in His mother’s womb.

Other passages of Scripture that are wrongly used to argue for abortion include Exodus 21. In the middle of several laws covering violent crimes, the text reads, “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined.” If there is harm, the passage continues, then there is a harsh penalty.

Pro-abortionists argue in this passage that only harm to the woman matters and the child is not as valuable. However, the more reasonable interpretation is if,because of a fight, a woman goes into premature labor and the baby lives, then “there is no harm.” Thus, there’s a financial penalty. If the baby dies or is injured—“if there is harm”—the attacker should face punishment up to death.

Another example is Numbers 5. In a list of rules, Moses provided a test for a husband’s claim of his wife’s unfaithfulness. The accused woman was to take an oath of innocence and drink a mix of water and dirt from the tabernacle floor. If innocent, nothing would happen. If guilty, then, among other things, she would become infertile.

It is a strange passage, and theologians differ on how best to understand it. Some suggest it is a psycho-somatic test to root out a woman’s guilty conscience. Others think it a sneaky way for a defenseless woman to escape her husband’s jealousy. Pro-abortionists assert that it is an example of an abortion ordered by God’s law. For that to be the case, however, the punishment would involve the death of a baby. However, the curse reference here is not the ending of a current pregnancy but the prevention of future ones.

These etymological gymnastics attempts aside, the Bible is consistent. Human life is sacred. In the womb, babies are valued, purposed, and yes, human. Throughout the biblical text, including war and sacrifice as in Leviticus, 2 Kings, or Jeremiah, the worst crimes and horrors someone can commit are to murder children. In no way does God’s Word dismiss, much less justify, the slaughter of the innocent.

Contrary to Talarico’s claim, the message of Annunciation Day is not that life and death is left to our choice. Rather, it is in God’s hands. Even in the womb of His mother, Jesus Christ was the Messiah, fully God and fully human. Even in the womb of our mothers, we are fully human, in God’s image.

Guest Column: Why Gen Z “Nones” Are Reconsidering Religion

Mar 25, 2026John StonestreetChristianity, ChurchChristianity, Church Ambassador Network

Gen Z is the least religious cohort in American history. 43% of this generation born roughly between 1996 and 2012 identify as religious “nones.” While there have been many reports since Charlie Kirk’s assassination indicating increased interest in religion and increased church attendance, according to statistician Ryan Burge, there is not yet statistical evidence of religious revival among young people.

There is, however, ample evidence that these Zoomers are looking for meaning and willing to reconsider religion. Specifically, though these trends may not be large enough to be captured in statistics, there seems to be a growing interest in more rigorous forms of faith.

In a recent article in Tablet magazine, Ani Wilcenski, a Zoomer herself, examined this phenomenon. While acknowledging that Gen Z is less religious than previous generations, Wilcenski, researched those bucking that trend, including converts to Islam, Jews who are becoming more observant, Latin Mass Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and others who are joining stricter, more traditional religious groups.

According to Wilcenski, Gen Z has been raised with the “illusion of infinite horizons,” and grew up “without sturdy institutions or fulfilling rites of passage.” As a result, for this generation, “[e]verything—career, identity, relationships—unfolds as a series of self-directed experiments,” something that has been labeled “liquid modernity.” Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman coined that phrase to describe the experience of life as unstable and non-permanent, without fixed distinctions, and no foundation for cultivating identity.

The experience of “liquid modernity” is why, according to Wilcenski, the ideological capture of Gen Z has been so comprehensive. For example, nearly one-quarter of the generation identify as LGBTQ, up nearly 20 points from previous generations. Ideology gives the illusion of a solid cause and offers a purpose for life where otherwise there is none.

Of course, that is the role religion traditionally played in Western culture. As Wilcenski noted, the draw of religion is that it provides a firm source of virtue and belonging, focus, and a sense of permanence. That’s what the Zoomers who are exploring more demanding forms of faith are most likely seeking.

As Wilcenski put it,

These faiths don’t adapt to the age—they expect the age to conform to them. Their rituals inconvenience, their authorities override preference, their truths don’t negotiate. And in a society allergic to absolutes, that refusal to dilute themselves holds a powerful magnetism.

As an example, Wilcenski quoted a 23-year-old woman who explained her decision to join a Carmelite monastery in Plough magazine: “I figured if I was going to do something crazy for our Lord I might as well go all in.” Like Wilcenski, the Plough article noted that young women who join strict religious orders are committing to something stable and permanent.

According to Wilcenski, when the Gen Zers turning to religion offer reasons why, they

sound more like escapes from modern chaos than declarations of faith…. [T]heir newfound religiosity is less about belief than about orienting life around something ultimate—something greater than the self.

That, of course, also leaves them vulnerable to religious falsehoods. Remember, Wilcenski not only researched conversions to Christianity but also to conservative forms of Judaism and Islam. The desire to escape “liquid modernity” says nothing about the genuineness of any faith that follows. The same motivation can explain the growing number of young men who are embracing political extremism, from Antifa to white nationalism.

It has long been the case that laxer forms of religion have declined while more demanding forms have grown or at least declined more slowly. The divide within this segment of Gen Z seems to be even more pronounced. This group will not be interested in churches that accommodate themselves to American culture. The seeker-sensitive model will not work. It probably never has.

The Church must be countercultural, unapologetic about even the weird things we believe, and unafraid to ask for serious commitment from people. It needs to explore the depths of the Gospel; it must explain life and its meaning, including hard truths about the human condition, rather than offer only shallow therapeutic or pragmatic applications. A church that does this will not only be able to counter destructive ideologies vying for all generations but will also be able to offer meaning and stability to a generation that is looking for both.