“Transgender” political conditioning has crept deep into the conservative tent. My hope is that conservatives will not only recognize this noxious trend but also push back against any supposedly “conservative” pundits and politicians who are unwittingly advancing this cultural rot.

A couple of weeks ago, “Caitlyn“ Jenner announced his intention to run for governor in California. Various establishment “news” outlets happily reported this development but, of course, intentionally used the wrong pronouns to identify Mr. Jenner in their stories. When Fox News, the supposedly “conservative” news channel of choice, started to use female pronouns in their broadcasts, I could take it no longer, so I found the online webform for feedback and sent the following message:

Please STOP lying to us about Caitlyn Jenner and his run for governor in California.

We know that he is a biological male, so why are you using deceitful language to affirm his gender dysphoria?

I hope you will respect your conservative audience enough to tell the truth and not capitulate to left-wing ideologues who demand politically correct pronoun use.

I CANNOT watch and listen to reports that repeatedly and intentionally lie to us.

Then on Wednesday, May 5th, Sean Hannity aired an exclusive interview with Jenner, who won an Olympic gold medal in the men’s decathlon in 1976, during which Hannity failed his conservative viewers by repeatedly referring to Jenner by female pronouns.

As the FNC segment opens, Hannity asks, “So just how will Caitlyn Jenner restore that California dream? And can she actually beat the state’s very powerful Democratic machine?” Hannity intentionally used the wrong pronoun for Jenner multiple times during this interview.

Ironically, last week when he was asked about transgenders participating in women’s sports, Jenner said “it was unfair,” and that he supports banning the practice. But when Hannity asked him about this commonsense position about biological boys not playing girls’ sports, Jenner started to backpedal and then suddenly switched topics.

Conditioning

The Left is working overtime to condition our thinking and speech. While the correct use of pronouns may seem a trivial  matter that many conservatives are willing to overlook, the fact that change agents are demanding compliance should tell us something. In fact, it should alarm us.

These seemingly small lies are being promoted through covert “narratives” such as Hannity’s interview, as well as overtly as in the case of the Shawnee State University professor, who was punished for using the correct pronoun when addressing a gender-confused student.

Cultural Marxists and their allies are working diligently to condition the American people to accept science-denying absurdities as truths one seemingly insignificant step at a time, just as they do with every other issue. If they desensitize us to accept lies on the small things, then it will be easier for them to get us to tolerate their moderate-to-large false narratives, also known as propaganda. The goal is to grow our already too big, centralized government, which will then wield more power and control over individual lives. Free and critical thinkers threaten this power structure.

It is sad to see Hannity and other “conservatives” capitulate to leftist demands. We must refuse to be conditioned by lies, no matter how small and innocuous they may seem. In fact, the book of wisdom exhorts us to “Buy the truth and do not sell it.” (Proverb 23:23).

Thou Shall Not Bear False Witness

Truth is vitally important, especially to serious Christians. In John 18:37, Jesus tells Pilate, “For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” In the Ten Commandments, God makes it very clear: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Exodus 20:16).

What these cultural Marxists are doing is antithetical to what we are taught in Holy Scripture. The author of Psalm 119 states, “Therefore all Your precepts concerning all things I consider to be right; I hate every false way” (Psalm 119:128). And Solomon tells us that “If a ruler pays attention to lies, all his servants become wicked” (Proverbs 29:12-13). Lies are an egregious offense to a Holy God, and liars are destined to spend eternity in the lake of fire (Revelation 21:8).

The Christian website Got Questions explains it this way:

False witness, or spreading a false report, is associated with being allied with the wicked (Exodus 23:1), willing to do violence to others (Psalm 27:12), and sowing discord among brothers (Proverbs 6:19). The Bible calls bearing false witness lying (Proverbs 14:5) and compares a man who bears false witness against his neighbor to a violent weapon (Proverbs 25:18). Lies harm people.

When we recall that Jesus clearly identifies Satan as “the father of lies,” we should quickly dust ourselves off and resolve not to put up with being lied to, whether by Sean Hannity, Fox News, or by a political candidate. Instead, we must expose lies and boldly declare the truth at every opportunity.

A trustworthy witness will not lie,
But a false witness declares lies.
~Proverbs 14:5

Take ACTION: Click HERE to access the Fox News Channel webform. Click the box and pick “Sound Off: Share your thoughts/opinions with us!” Ask them to stop lying to us by using incorrect pronouns. Do this at every opportunity you have to push back against the “woke” useful idiots who publicly use incorrect pronouns.

Prayer Request

Please pray for “Caitlyn” Jenner. Near the end of the interview, Jenner admits that he has been dealing with gender dysphoria for decades but then talks about a conversation he had with his pastor and expresses his desire to hear his creator God affirm his life, saying on the verge of tears, “I just hope He says, ‘hey, come on in.'”

We should pray that Jenner is honestly seeking the approval of God. If that is the case, we know that God has promised repeatedly in His Word that those who seek Him with all their heart, will find Him. More important, we know that sinners of every kind can be redeemed by God through the atoning sacrifice (1 John 2:2). A great example of this miraculous transformation is our friend Walt Heyer, who was a keynote speaker at our 2019 Worldview Conference. (You can watch his presentation HERE).

In 1 Corinthians 6:9-1, the Apostle Paul provides a list of those who were sinners but who have been washed, sanctified and then justified “in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” So please pray that Jenner would submit to God’s truth and accept His offer of salvation (John 3:16-21). What a wonderful testimony he would have if he were truly transformed by the Holy Spirit.

To God be the glory!

Learn more:

[VIDEO] Preferred Pronouns or Prison (Abigail Shrier)

[VIDEO] Mr. Rogers on Biology and Kids (The Tonight Show)

Questions for Sex-Eradicationists, Lawmakers, and School Leaders (Laurie Higgins)

Leftists See Orwell’s Novel 1984 As a Blueprint for Progress (Laurie Higgins)

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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As the social media giants continue to crack down on those who violate their trans-activist talking points (see here and here), another perspective has been raised from an unexpected source. I’m talking about a powerful, deeply moving article posted in Newsweek and titled, “We Need Balance When It Comes To Gender Dysphoric Kids. I Would Know.”

The author of the op-ed is Scott Newgent, self-described as “a 48-year-old transgender man.” What Newgent has written is courageous, deeply revealing, poignant, and accurate.

Perhaps others will now heed these urgent warnings, since those of us on the conservative Christian side who have been presenting similar cases have been largely ignored to this day.

Six years ago, Newgent was told by the medical community that she could turn from a woman into a man. But, Newgent adds, “all the negatives were glossed over.”

As a result, “I have suffered tremendously, including seven surgeries, a pulmonary embolism, an induced stress heart attack, sepsis, a 17-month recurring infection, 16 rounds of antibiotics, three weeks of daily IV antibiotics, arm reconstructive surgery, lung, heart and bladder damage, insomnia, hallucinations, PTSD, $1 million in medical expenses, and loss of home, car, career and marriage. All this, and yet I cannot sue the surgeon responsible—in part because there is no structured, tested or widely accepted baseline for transgender health care.”

Most of us cannot imagine this kind of trauma, let alone imagine telling a story like this to the whole world.

Yet, because it comes from the mouth of a biological female who now identifies as a male, the author can hardly be called transphobic. Plus, this op-ed was published in Newsweek rather than in a Focus on the Family magazine.

Unfortunately, when Christian conservatives have stated these same facts, we have been branded hateful and bigoted and transphobic. Not only so, but when former transgenders like Walt Heyer or Laura Perry tell their own, agonizing (yet redemptive) stories, they too are branded hateful and bigoted. (To see their stories for yourself, watch this free documentary. You won’t regret taking the time. You can also visit the SexChangeRegret website for more.)

But it is love and truth that caused Newgent to write, not hate. As Newgent states, “It is not transphobic or discriminatory to discuss this—we as a society need to fully understand what we are encouraging our children to do to their bodies.”

That’s why Abigail Shrier wrote her important book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, named a book of the year by The Economist and one of the best books of 2021 by The Times and The Sunday Times.

The alarm must be sounded. The warning must be issued. Not only are adults destroying their bodies and their lives, but our children are doing so as well. Doesn’t love compel us to speak?

Consequently, when Amazon refused to allow Shrier’s publisher to advertise the book on their site (sell it, yes, but advertise it, no), wasn’t it Amazon, not the publisher, that displayed dangerous bias?

Newgent, who previously identified as a lesbian, experienced many doubts about the transitioning process. But rather than the professionals slowing down the transition process, they all encouraged her to keep going. This is just what you need!

To the contrary, the surgeries and drugs took a terrible toll on Newgent, who found no real help in the medical world that was so quick to recommend her transition.

“During my post-operation 17 months of sheer survival,” Newgent writes, “I discovered that transgender health care is experimental and that large swaths of the medical industry encourage minors to transition due, at least in part, to fat profit margins.”

Yet those of us who seek to raise a cautionary flag, those of us who say, “Slow down! Let’s see if you can be helped from the inside out,” are branded the haters and the transphobes. How can this be?

I urge everyone reading this article to take the time to read every word of Newgent’s op-ed. A summary cannot begin to do justice to her journey, from the physical pain to the emotional agony to the devastating losses to the list of negative consequences.

In fact, everyone considering “transitioning” should memorize this list of 13 potential consequences. It begins with “decreased life expectancy” and includes “no improved mental health outcomes.” To call it sobering would be a gross understatement. Remarkably, after citing examples from other countries which are rethinking their approach to sex-change surgery and treatments, Newgent writes,

“We now have the obligation to work together to slow trans medicalization of minors until they are adults and have the capacity to truly understand the lifelong consequences of transitioning. As a former lesbian and current trans man, I maintain this is not transphobic. It is actually sensitive and caring to recognize that not just one treatment or pathway is right for all kids.”

But of course. It is love that has motivated many of us to call for this very slow down – in particular, love for the children. (You can see for yourself how my call for this on Tyra Banks was received over 10 years ago.)

Newgent closes with this:

“So, endocrinologists and pediatricians, moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans, radical feminists and evangelicals, lawyers and psychologists, parents and teachers: My hand is out. I will grab yours and turn down no one. Together, we can build a circle around our most precious resource: our children. Help me fulfill the promise I made on the night I almost gave up, to be here for my children—and now yours. Who’s with me?”

As a conservative evangelical, I say to Scott Newgent: for this cause, I am with you. Let’s do something to stop the madness. Let’s put the children first. And if I can be of help to you in any personal level as you work through your own journey, count me in.

This article was originally published at AskDrBrown.org.

The 2019 Illinois Family Institute Worldview Conference on “Trans” Ideology concluded with a Q&A session moderated by IFI’s cultural affairs writer, Laurie Higgins. During this final session, speakers Dr. Michelle Cretella, Denise Shick, Walt Heyer, and Pastor Doug Wilson field questions from conference attendees.

Higgins begins by addressing the endgame of LGBTQ activists regarding transgenderism, the effect of the transgender agenda on privacy and culture, and the smoke and mirror tactics of the American Academy of Pediatrics in regard to transgender protocols. Topics and questions covered by our speakers include gender confusion and regret; transitioning/detransitioning; calls to lower the age of consent; Planned Parenthood’s evolving business model; an effective Christian approach to government schools; the biology of sex determination; and loving, biblical responses to transgender family members and friends.

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Since the time he was a young boy and his grandmother sewed him a purple dress and told him how beautiful he looked, Walt Heyer had struggled with transgenderism. Through elementary school and high school, where he was a successful student and athlete with a beautiful girlfriend, he hid his secret identity as a woman, and continued to do so through college and prestigious careers at both NASA and Honda, until he went through destructive therapy sessions and became an alcoholic, losing his job and nearly all of his respect. But then something changed–while sitting with a friend who was praying for him, he saw Christ, who promised Walt that “you are now safe with Me forever.”

Walt’s story is a story of brokenness and redemption through Christ Jesus, and a witness to the hope we can find through God alone.

Walt shared his story at the 2019 Worldview Conference earlier this year:

IFI Fall Banquet with Franklin Graham!
We are excited to announce that at this year’s IFI banquet, our keynote speaker will be none other than Rev. Franklin Graham, President & CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Christian evangelist & missionary. This year’s event will be at the Tinley Park Convention Center on Nov. 1st.

Learn more HERE.

Join the Illinois Family Institute for our annual Worldview Conference, featuring an illustrious group speakers who will expound on the “trans” ideology that is sweeping throughout the world. It is sad to see how this science-denying and incoherent ideology has captured the hearts and minds of many Americans and is doing grievous harm, especially to children. Far too many Christians are ill-informed or misinformed on all aspects of the issue, including the threat it poses not only to the hearts, minds, and bodies of those who suffer from gender dysphoria but also to speech rights, religious liberty, physical privacy, and public decency laws.

Join us to be better informed about this pernicious cultural trend, and how we should respond.

Saturday, March 16, 2019 at Stone Church
10737 Orland Pkwy, Orland Park, IL
$20 per person / $50 per family / Lunch is not included.

Morning Sessions: 10:00 AM —12:00 PM

Session 1: Walter Heyer: “Transgenderism: The Consequences”
Session 2: Dr. Michele Cretella, “Child Abuse, Female Erasure & the Death of ALL Human Rights”

Afternoon Sessions: 1:00 PM — 3:00 PM

Session 3: Denise Shick: “Her story; The Impact on Family”
Session 4: Pastor Doug Wilson: “Sanity as Insurrection”

Q & A Panel with Laurie Higgins and our guests: 3:00 PM

Click HERE for more information about our speakers and a printable flyer.

This warning delivered by the prophet Hosea is true not only regarding knowledge of God’s existence, nature, and redemptive purposes but also regarding knowledge of the world in which we live and move and have our being. Right now, the bodies of children are being destroyed by lack of knowledge about human sexuality, and Christians who should know better largely say and do nothing. The foundation for right action is knowledge, which far too many Christians lack regarding the stunning “trans” revolution—a revolution the likes of which the modern world has never seen and too few understand.

The Illinois Family Institute hopes to play a small role in remedying the serious problem of lack of knowledge through our upcoming Worldview Conference on the “trans” ideology.

We are rapidly moving to a cultural place in which all public recognition of the reality and meaning of sexual differentiation will not be merely eradicated but outlawed. If any of the following surprises or troubles you, you need to attend the Worldview Conference:

• Countless children will be chemically sterilized and surgically mutilated.

• Many more children will fall victim to the phenomenon of “social contagion.” Emotionally, psychologically, socially, intellectually, morally, and spiritually vulnerable and malleable children will be provided a distorted lens through which they will misinterpret confusing, uncomfortable, and/or distressing thoughts and feelings.

• All previously sex-segregated spaces or activities will become by law sexually integrated. No more single-sex restrooms, locker rooms, showers, shelters, jails or prisons, semi-private hospital rooms, nursing home rooms, dorm rooms, athletics, clubs, or travel tours. If state and federal laws prohibit discrimination based on sex and on “gender identity,” there remains no legal way to maintain sex-segregated spaces. If men who identify as “trans” are permitted in women’s spaces, then “cisgender” men must be allowed in as well because discrimination based on “gender identity” is impermissible.

• The safety of girls and women will be jeopardized by the presence of men who claim to “identify’’ as women in women’s private spaces.

• First Amendment speech, association, and religious exercise protections will erode.

• Language rules will be instituted that will prohibit the use of some words and mandate the use of others. Failure to submit will result in fines or jail time.

• Public schools, where many parents due to financial stresses resulting from death, divorce, desertion, or disabilities must place their children, will teach explicitly through curricula and implicitly through bathroom, locker room, and athletic policies and practices, that in order to be compassionate and inclusive, children must share private spaces with opposite-sex peers. This in turn teaches that biological sex has no meaning relative to feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy when engaged in intimate activities.

• Public decency laws will be repealed. For example, society will be forced to treat women who pretend to be men and have obtained falsified birth certificates and driver’s licenses that identify them as men but choose not to have mastectomies as if they are men. Since men are permitted to be topless at public beaches, pools, and parks, so too will women who pretend to be men.

• Social media monopolies, rapidly becoming the primary means of conducting business and communicating information and ideas, will ban anyone who uses language or expresses ideas that “trans” ideologues oppose.

• Biological, adoptive, and foster parents who reject the science-denying “trans” ideology and, as a result, refuse to allow their confused children to socially, chemically, or surgically “transition” will face loss of custody or the inability to adopt or foster.

• People—including children—will be taught that those who care about the biological sex/anatomy of their romantic partners are “transphobic.” Dissenters will be bullied.

Big Brother will continue to be enjoined to oppress dissenters, and resistance will be futile.

What Christians urgently need is knowledge and a willingness to suffer—also known as courage. In the fervent hope of serving both needs, the Worldview Conference in just a few weeks will host four leaders on the national stage who have both knowledge of the “trans” ideology and the willingness to say and do what far too many Christians shamefully refuse to say and do.

The conference will include two Q & A sessions following presentations by the following speakers:

• Michelle Cretella: Pediatrician and Executive Director of the American College of Pediatricians

• Walt Heyer: Former “transgender,” author, and contributor to Public Discourse

• Denise Shick: Daughter of cross-sex-identified man, and Founder & Director of Help 4 Families

• Doug Wilson: Senior Fellow of Theology at New St. Andrews College, pastor, author, and homeschooling father

Please come, learn, and be challenged to do more to protect the hearts, minds, bodies, and rights of our children and grandchildren. If we are willing to endure minor persecution now, perhaps our grandchildren won’t be forced to endure worse in the years to come.

“Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.  But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” (2 Tim. 3:12-15)

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Worldview-Recording-3.mp3

The Transgender Ideology:
What Is It? Where Will It Lead? What is the Church’s Role?
Click here for more information.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has awarded the Trump Administration a victory by staying a lower court decision which blocked the administration’s attempts to restrict the military service of “trans”-identifying people who suffer from gender dysphoria. The court found that Trump’s new policy, which was based on the findings of former Secretary of State Jim Mattis, was in fact a more nuanced version of the original policy and should not have been summarily blocked by District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. The Trump Administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on its attempts to place restrictions on “trans”-identifying persons serving in the military.

Hanging in the balance are the last vestiges of Christian culture, and the marginalization of those who hold to the words of Jesus: “At the beginning of creation God made them male and female.”  We see this already in Canada, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government is requiring employers to attest that they respect transgender “rights” in order to receive summer job grants. In the United Kingdom, the Labour Party LGBT+ adviser has argued for the right of children as young as 8 years old to choose their “gender” and begin “transitioning” to embrace their “true selves.” And in America, Christian parents in Hamilton County, Ohio, have lost custody of their 17-year-old daughter after they refused to support her “transition” to male.

LGBTQ groups, celebrities and politicians have expressed outrage over the administration’s proposal to define gender as biological and fixed. This self-evident understanding, unquestioned for millennia, was overturned by former President Barack Obama, who enshrined subjective feeling rather than biological sex as determining one’s “gender.” Thus, a man may decide that his “true gender” is female, and a woman may decide she is male. Further complicating this absurd notion–a notion that would have left our forefathers aghast–are those who refuse to consider themselves either male or female, instead inhabiting the bizarre realm of “gender fluidity.”

The field of battle for the determination of the meaning of “gender” is none other than the several branches of the U.S. military, which of necessity have strict standards for those charged with the vital role of defending the nation. In his memorandum to the president regarding transgenders in the military, former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis concluded: “Based on the work of the Panel and the Department’s best military judgement, the Department of Defense concludes that there are substantial risks associated with allowing the accession and retention of individuals with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria and require, or have already undertaken, a course of treatment to change their gender.”

That this studied judgment angers those who reject the immutable reality and meaning of biological sex defies comprehension, for it should come as no surprise that the military, which turns away diabetics, should decline those who may require major surgery and continual hormone replacement therapy—both of which carry serious health risks. This is recognized by the service members themselves, only 39 percent of which approve of “trans”-identifying troops.  Sergeant First Class Jamie Shupe, who identifies as “trans,” has had second thoughts and now feels he has “a duty to speak about the problems with transgender military service,” which “can seriously affect their duty performance. While they’re obsessing about their gender identity, they don’t have their head in the game.”

The military is all about maximum combat effectiveness. Soldiers do not serve in isolation, but work, eat, shower and sleep together.  No female unit should be required to sleep next to or bare themselves in front of an objectively male peer who insists that he is a woman.  As one commentator notes: “We can’t even agree on which bathrooms trans people can use, but somehow we’re safer if we’re all in the shower together? No distraction there.”

Author Walt Heyer lived as a woman for nearly a decade and suffered medical surgeries and treatments before “detransitioning” back to his true male gender. His book Trans Life Survivors tells the stories of 30 people gleaned from many hundreds of cases who “shared their lonely, surreal experiences falling down the trans rabbit hole, hoping to escape as he did.”  Sadly, our society will suffer dire consequences if it rejects the inborn nature of male and female, as designed by our Creator, which will result in a frightful descent into the “rabbit hole” of sexual anarchy.

Save the Date!

On Saturday, March 16, 2019, the Illinois Family Institute will be hosting our annual Worldview Conference. This coming year, we will focus on the “transgender” revolution. We already have commitments from Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians; Walt Heyer, former “transgender” and contributor to Public Discourse; Denise Schick, Founder and Director of Help 4 Families, and daughter of a man who “identified” as a woman; and Doug Wilson, who is a Senior Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho .

The Transgender Ideology:
What Is It? Where Will It Lead? What is the Church’s Role?
Click here for more information.