Kids are curious and eager to learn about the world around them. Parents often welcome their queries when the questions are cute, like, “Does chocolate milk come from brown cows?” or “Why is the moon called the moon?” or “Why don’t crabs have eyebrows?” But when the questions are about sex, gender, or sexuality, parents may feel uncomfortable or be tempted to give a non-answer.
I’m hopeful that this series will help parents answer the questions kids ask that parents may be hesitant to answer, either from their own embarrassment or because they don’t want to take away their child’s innocence.
“How was school today?” you ask your first grader as you navigate the minivan away from the school pickup line.
“Great!” he answers. “Aiden got a new name; we’re supposed to call him Ava. My teacher says he’s a girl now. How did Aiden turn into a girl?”
You were certain you wouldn’t be faced with a conversation like this until much later. How am I supposed to address transition1 with a six-year-old? Or even a thirteen-year-old? you think.
You’re not alone. Talking to kids about biological sex2, gender3, and gender incongruence4 can feel pretty tricky, especially when your child announces that a friend is transitioning. You want to show compassion, love, and grace for the friend, but you also want your kid to understand God’s good wisdom for their body.
How does gender incongruence develop?
When God first imagined each kid in your child’s classroom, He created them to be perfect in every way, including their maleness or femaleness (Genesis 2, Psalm 139). But even as they were knit in the womb, they developed imperfectly and were corrupted physically at a genetic level, and then they were born into a world of sin (Psalm 51, Romans 5). Nothing about who they are today is unmarred by the Fall, including their maleness or femaleness. We should not be surprised, then, when we find that some kids’ biological sex is broken at a genetic level and some kids’ gender is broken by contributions from both nature and nurture.
Like many things in life, gender incongruence is a combination of genetic and biological factors (nature) as well as cultural and familial influences (nurture). For most people, it is a combination of multiple factors that are typically experienced from an early age. No study points to one particular reason or source for why gender incongruence happens.
What determines who we are, our body or how we feel on the inside?
If an individual is not intersex and their chromosomes, gonads, sexual anatomy, and secondary sex characteristics all indicate the same biological sex, then we know God’s intentions for the individual’s biological sex. Plus, when we know God’s intentions for an individual’s biological sex, we also know His intentions for their gender, since at creation God intended for individuals to experience congruence between their internal sense of gender and their biological sex. So when a person is not intersex but they experience gender incongruence, we know that their biological sex is as God intended but their gender is broken.
Should I teach my child to use their classmate’s new name and pronouns?
For those who experience gender incongruence, their given name and biological pronouns could be a constant reminder of the pain and tension they feel every day. Some trans people experience meaningful relief from that tension when they adopt different pronouns and/or names. Many people have a wide variety of opinions and beliefs when it comes to using the preferred names/pronouns of a trans person. And your convictions will likely vary person to person depending on the depth of relationship, age of the trans person, whether or not they are a Christian, the reason behind the name/pronoun change (a name/pronoun change could be taken as a step to simply reduce the distress of gender incongruence, it could be a way to reject God’s gift of biological sex, or something in between), etc. There is no blanket answer. With school peers, I suggest practicing language-mirroring as hospitality. Listen to the identifiers, names, and pronouns that the individual uses, and then use those same words as an act of hospitality. Choosing to mirror those words with those meanings is not affirmation that the individual is using the best words and meanings.
Age-appropriate, God-honoring answers
*Note: At creation, God intended for everyone to experience congruence between their biological sex and gender; those words were interchangeable before the Fall. But sin entered the world and broke everything, including how humans feel inside their sexed bodies. The world around our kids now speaks of one’s biological sex and one’s internal sense of gender as totally separate things. To avoid confusing our kids and to ensure our kids have a right understanding of God’s intentions and compassion for those who experience gender incongruence, we speak of sex and gender as separate things while maintaining that the separation exists because of the brokenness in the world.
Up to age 8
“In our family, we believe that God meant for boys to feel like boys on the inside and for girls to feel like girls on the inside. But the world is broken, and sometimes a person has the body of a boy but on the inside they feel like a girl. Sometimes people who feel like that choose to use a new name as a way to be more comfortable with themselves. While God hopes those kids eventually feel comfortable in the body He gave them, we can honor their request to use the new name. That doesn’t mean we agree that Ava is really a girl; it means that we recognize your friend is hurting and this is a small way we can offer comfort. I know God wants us to love Ava no matter what.”
Ages 8-12
“We know that how we feel on the inside doesn’t change our body, but because of the brokenness of the world, some people feel really strongly that they were born as the wrong sex. They feel like a boy on the inside, but they have a vagina and uterus and breasts. Or they feel like a girl on the inside, but they have XY chromosomes. The people who feel that way aren’t bad or gross. They didn’t choose to feel like that. You might hear the words ‘gender incongruence’ or ‘transgender5’ to describe those experiences. And some people who experience gender incongruence may choose to cope with the brokenness by assuming that God put them together wrong. They may decide to reject their body’s biological sex and instead take steps to align their body to the gender they feel like they are inside. That could include changing their name, wearing different clothes, changing their hairstyle, and saying that they’re a boy instead of a girl. We know that Aiden is biologically a girl, and we know that changing clothing styles and using a different name won’t make Aiden a biological girl, but we can choose to use the name Aiden and use the pronouns he and him as an act of hospitality and care. Maybe this isn’t what God hoped for Aiden, but he’s hurting, and this is the way he’s asked us to comfort him.”
Ages 12+
“That seems really tough, right? When someone feels very strongly that they were born with the wrong body, they might assume that God made a mistake, that God gave them the wrong body. But people aren’t a body with a mind and soul or a mind and soul inside a body. Humans are body and mind and soul. In God’s family, we recognize that we are the sex that our biology and body points to, that God didn’t make a mistake, and that sometimes the brokenness of the world means some people experience a mismatch between their body and how they feel on the inside. A person’s body is as God intended, but their mind is broken; they feel that they’re really a different gender than the one their body points to.
“While God never intended for anyone to experience incongruence between their biological sex and their felt gender, God isn’t surprised when people experience brokenness, and He gave us His Spirit, Scripture, and the Church to comfort us and support us. The same is true for our friends who experience gender incongruence. God desires for transgender people to seek His wisdom with the support, love, and care of His people, the Church.
“As Christians, we know that God intends for us to accept the biological sex He gifted us with. That doesn’t mean we must embrace cultural gender stereotypes, but it does mean we don’t reject our biological sex. But experiencing gender incongruence makes accepting one’s biological sex pretty difficult. Transgender people often suffer as gender incongruence persists, sometimes for a lifetime. Fortunately, Jesus is no stranger to suffering. Though He may not take away the suffering that comes with broken gender, He is compassionate toward trans people as they seek ways to alleviate some of the pain suffering causes, even as they know that it’s only in the New Heavens and New Earth that suffering will be completely eliminated for all Christians. But in this lifetime, some trans people will find at least some relief from the pain of gender incongruence by using gender-neutral pronouns, using a nickname, dressing in a different style, or using single-stall bathrooms. And while, as Christians, we believe that breaking one’s sex through cross-sex hormones or surgery to align with one’s broken gender isn’t what God would want for that person, we recognize that not everyone believes the same things we do. We will seek to honor and show love to every transgender person we meet.”
Remember that your goal isn’t to stop your child from supporting her friend. Your goal is to help your child respond in a way that balances truth and grace. Help your child understand what Christian convictions look like around these topics without placing your child or the Christian convictions in opposition to the friend. You could say something like, “Sometimes a person your age has a different experience of gender. They’ll have to figure out what they want to do, how they want to respond to the incongruence they feel. As Christians, we want to place ourselves next to them, to come alongside them.”
Use wisdom
Parents, I give you these examples with caution. Circumstances, mental health, age, and more will vary widely among those in your child’s circles who experience gender incongruence. Plus, you/your child won’t have the same relationship with everyone you know who is trans. In many cases it is wise and hospitable to use a transgender person’s new pronouns and name; in a few cases, you might feel convicted that you shouldn’t or prayerfully feel that you should gently push back against a step of transition a transgender person is considering. I urge you to pray and seek out God’s wisdom as you discern the best guidance to give your children.
Equip’s Parent Course features a deep dive into gender and gender incongruence, including more scripts for conversation with kids and how parents can respond if their child experiences gender incongruence. Check out a free preview here.
- Transition – the process of adopting outward characteristics (style, mannerisms, pronouns, name, bathroom use, hormones, surgeries, etc) that match one’s internal sense of gender when one’s gender and sex do not align ↩︎
- Biological sex – Determined by biology – chromosomes, hormones, genitalia, secondary sex characteristics, skeletal structure, musculature, brain chemistry, etc. When we are born, we are male, female, or, rarely, intersex. ↩︎
- Gender – One’s internal sense of maleness or femaleness ↩︎
- Gender incongruence – An acute sense that one’s gender does not correspond with the experience typically associated with one’s biological sex ↩︎
- Transgender/Trans/Trans – A general term for someone who experiences gender incongruence; use of this term does not communicate anything about theological convictions or the extent of transition. This article uses “transgender” and “trans” to mean only “a person who is navigating gender incongruence.” ↩︎
