Purpose. This article has two aims. First, to clearly distinguish between transgender policies and the person experiencing gender dysphoria (classified by the American Psychiatric Association in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). Like other complex social issues, gender dysphoria calls us to show compassion and mercy—walking alongside the individual with both empathy and honesty. Second, to examine the negative effects of the Biden administration’s efforts to normalize and globalize the transgender issue. By harnessing federal power, the administration not only promoted but glorified transgenderism, embedding it into federal agencies and pressuring corporate America, universities, and state and local governments to follow suit. Through funding initiatives and policy directives, Washington accelerated the spread of gender ideology, contributing to a rise in gender dysphoria and entrenching it across multiple layers of society. As with other social issues, meaningful dialogue begins by separating the person from the policy.
Walking With the Person—in Compassion and Truth
Gender dysphoria is the emotional and psychological distress caused by conflict between a person’s biological sex and internal sense of gender. This is an extremely heavy burden for those experiencing gender confusion, who deserve our compassion, understanding, and love. At the same time, we cannot ignore the truth: there are only two sexes, male and female. This truth is supported by both science and faith.
The Truth of Science
At the most basic level, whether someone is male or female is encoded in DNA. A gene called SRY on the Y chromosome functions as a master switch. If it activates, the baby develops as a boy; if it does not, development follows the female pathway by default. As scientist Robin Lovell-Badge, who helped discover SRY’s role, explained: “The SRY gene is the master switch that triggers male development.” Every cell bears a permanent marker of sex—XY in males, XX in females—that surgery or hormones cannot erase.
The Truth of the Church
Catholic teaching affirms this biological reality as part of God’s design. Sexual difference is not arbitrary but essential to the human person. As St. John Paul II wrote in Theology of the Body: “Sexual difference is not a superficial attribute but part of the very constitution of the human person.” The Catechism proclaims that “God created man in his own image… male and female he created them” (CCC 2331). The body is a gift that reveals both personal dignity and the mystery of God; man and woman, equal in worth yet distinct and complementary, are called to communion and family life (CCC 2331–2335). “The body, and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine,” wrote John Paul II. Pope Francis warns against ideologies that try to sever sex from gender, reminding us that biological sex is inseparable from identity (Amoris Laetitia §56). Science and faith converge: sex is a gift, written into our very being, immutable at the deepest cellular level.
A Third Way: Accompaniment
Our culture often vilifies anyone defending this truth. So, where do we go from here? Catholic author Jason Evert proposes a powerful third way: accompaniment. The Christian response must go beyond rejection or blind affirmation. Accompaniment means walking with the person in compassion and truth. It begins with reverent listening—understanding the person’s story, pain, and longings. Love without truth becomes false compassion; truth without love becomes harsh and alienating. The key is to remain present while holding fast to the reality that God created humanity male and female (see: https://chastity.com/).
“Accompaniment means holding on to these individuals with one hand, and holding on to the truth with the other. If you let go of either one, you’ve failed them.” —Jason Evert
This approach avoids the extremes and invites self-reflection: Why do I feel this way? What deeper wounds or needs are driving this struggle? Accompaniment makes space for healing through patient love, pastoral care, and psychological support, while keeping the person grounded in their true identity as a child of God.
Medical Intervention—Irreversible Damage
There is no substantial evidence from high-quality, controlled studies showing that medical interventions (puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, surgery) produce significant, consistent mental-health improvements for adolescents. Given the weak evidence, many national health bodies have paused or restricted youth gender interventions—especially puberty blockers. These patients already face elevated depression, anxiety, and suicidality; adding physical side effects—infertility, loss of sexual function, and long-term cardiovascular risks—makes these interventions far from benign. Many impacts are irreversible, even if treatment stops.
Puberty Blockers
GnRH agonists halt puberty but carry physical consequences. They can hinder bone accrual (raising lifetime osteoporosis and fracture risk), alter height and skeletal development, impair fertility by disrupting reproductive maturation, and may affect brain development during a critical psychosocial window. Long-term use can compromise future sexual function, even after discontinuation.
Cross-Sex Hormones
Testosterone for females and estrogen for males produce permanent changes but pose serious risks. Estrogen in males raises risks of blood clots, stroke, and heart disease; testosterone in females can elevate blood pressure, alter lipids, and strain the heart. Both can cause infertility (often irreversible), sexual dysfunction, weight gain, insulin resistance, and increased risk of type 2 diabetes. Cancer risks are also a concern (e.g., breast cancer with estrogen in males; ovarian/uterine issues with testosterone in females).
Surgical Reassignment
Mastectomies, hysterectomies, orchiectomies, and genital reconstruction are invasive, irreversible, and carry high complication rates: infection, chronic pain, scarring, loss of sexual sensation, and lifelong dysfunction due to nerve/tissue removal or damage. Genital surgeries often require multiple revisions and ongoing care; fertility is permanently lost when reproductive organs are removed; urinary complications are common. The psychological weight of irreversible surgery—especially in cases of regret—can deepen distress.
Bottom line: For minors, blockers, hormones, and surgeries pose significant risks with minimal evidence of durable mental-health benefit. Protecting children requires resisting experimental ideology and offering care that affirms their dignity, stabilizes mental health, and safeguards their bodies.
Biden, the Left, and a Cultural Conflict
As with other emotionally charged issues, we must separate personal response from public policy. The Biden administration has promoted and glorified transgender ideology both in the U.S. and abroad, routing large sums of federal funding through DEI frameworks. These efforts to normalize gender modification have harmed children and further undermined traditional Christian values.
From day one, executive orders embedded equity, DEI, and gender ideology into federal policy. EO 13985 required agencies to promote “equity,” shaping funding and regulation. EO 13988 expanded sex-discrimination definitions to include gender identity and sexual orientation, making transgender ideology a protected category across federal programs. EO 14035 mandated DEIA initiatives across the federal workforce. EO 14020 created the White House Gender Policy Council to coordinate gender policy. Collectively, these actions set principles, facilitated funding, pressured compliance, and normalized radical gender policies across American life.
The surge in transgender self-identification cannot be explained by biology alone; it reflects social influence. Saturated media promotion, political packaging as a civil-rights cause, and instantaneous peer validation drive adoption—while the breakdown of traditional anchors (faith, family, community) leaves many adrift. These cultural drivers and identity-politics incentives normalize and celebrate gender confusion, accelerating a trend that is socially constructed rather than medically grounded.
Social contagion refers to the spread of attitudes, behaviors, or identities through peer influence, social validation, media exposure, and cultural reinforcement. With even a basic review, one can see how policy, media, and activism have functioned as cultural catalysts—speeding awareness and adoption; how identity-politics effects encourage adoption through signaling; and how sociogenic factors (narratives, movements, peer dynamics) overshadow biological realities. As traditional anchors erode, alienation deepens.
One visible indicator is the financial unraveling of Pride events: in 2025, support dropped sharply compared to 2024 (e.g., reported shortfalls in New York City, San Francisco, and the Twin Cities), despite previous heavy corporate backing. Federal cultural signaling helped accelerate an already divisive issue.
As part of a broader effort to normalize transgender ideology, President Biden reversed the Trump-era restrictions and allowed transgender individuals to serve openly in the U.S. military, and appointed several high-profile transgender-identifying officials:
- Rachel Levine, Assistant Secretary for Health (HHS)—the first openly transgender person confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
- Sam Brinton, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Spent Fuel & Waste Disposition (DOE) (served for a period; gender-fluid/nonbinary).
- Shawn Skelly, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness (DoD), a retired Navy officer.
Together, these moves signal a deliberate effort to promote transgender normalization at senior levels of government and the military—despite long-standing medical recognition of gender dysphoria as a psychological disorder.
Easter Overshadowed: Keeping Transgender Issues Front and Center
On March 31, 2024, Transgender Day of Visibility coincided with Easter Sunday. The White House declined to reschedule—despite the ease of adjusting the date—sending a clear cultural message. The date of March 31 had originally been chosen to avoid overlap with Transgender Day of Remembrance (November) and Pride Month (June). Across recent administrations, a drumbeat of observances—November, March, and June—has ensured these issues remain in the cultural foreground. To many people of faith, this appears less like inclusion and more like a calculated effort to sideline Christianity while pushing gender ideology into the national spotlight.
Back to the States
By 2025, the country is deeply divided over gender-related medical treatments for minors. Roughly twenty states—primarily on the West Coast, in the Northeast, and across the Upper Midwest—permit access to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and, in some cases, reassignment surgeries. These include California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Hawaii, Alaska, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Virginia. Several have enacted “shield laws” to protect providers and families from out-of-state investigations or lawsuits (e.g., CA, CO, IL, MA, MN, NM, NY, OR, WA).
With little regard for scientific uncertainty and serious risks, these states have chosen a path that exploits children in the name of ideology. Many of these same states also allow abortion with no gestational limit—meaning abortion can be obtained at any stage of pregnancy, even late term. Meanwhile, at least 27 states—primarily in the South and Midwest—have enacted sweeping bans on blockers, hormones, and surgeries for minors under 18. Only a subset explicitly prohibit any gender-transition surgery for those under 18 (e.g., Arizona, Texas, Tennessee, Missouri, South Dakota, Indiana, Idaho, Alabama). In U.S. v. Skrmetti (2025), the Supreme Court reinforced state authority in this area, ensuring bans will stand unless overturned by legislation.
Conclusion: Hold Fast to Compassion and Truth
This is not merely a policy dispute—it is a battle for truth and human dignity. The administration’s support for transgender ideology has used federal power against science, faith, and family, embedding confusion into law and culture while putting children at risk. Even as we oppose destructive policies, we must never forget the individual. Those suffering from gender dysphoria deserve compassion, mercy, and love—but compassion without truth is empty, and truth without love is cruel. Our calling is both: stand firm in the truth that God made us male and female, while walking patiently with those who struggle, guiding them toward hope, healing, and renewal in Christ.
Looking ahead, American Christians will again be called to defend religious freedom. That requires maturity and courage—the discipline to prioritize policy over personality in a nation easily swayed by charisma. We should support leaders who defend the sanctity of life, the centrality of the family, and the reality of two sexes, while safeguarding foundational freedoms: speech, religion, and the right to bear arms. Above all, leadership must remain rooted in the Judeo-Christian principles that formed the bedrock of what George Washington called “the great experiment in self-government,” entrusted to us as the United States of America.
References
- Cass, H. (2024). Independent review of gender identity services for children and young people: Final report. London: NHS England.
- COHERE Finland. (2020). Recommendation of medical treatment methods for dysphoria related to gender identity among minors. Helsinki: Council for Choices in Health Care in Finland.
- National Health Service England. (2024, March). Clinical policy: Puberty-suppressing hormones for children and young people with gender dysphoria. London: NHS England.
- National Health Service England. (2024, December). Ban on puberty blockers for under-18s to be made indefinite on experts’ advice. London: NHS England.
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). (2020). Evidence review: Gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues for children and adolescents with gender dysphoria. London: NICE.
- National Board of Health and Welfare [Socialstyrelsen]. (2022). Knowledge support: Care of children and adolescents with gender dysphoria. Stockholm: Socialstyrelsen.
- Reuters. (2024, April). UK review finds weak evidence for puberty blockers and hormones in youth. London: Thomson Reuters.
- Socialstyrelsen. (2023). Updated national guidance on youth gender dysphoria. Stockholm: National Board of Health and Welfare.
- Swedish National Registry Study. (2019; correction 2020). Long-term follow-up of individuals undergoing gender reassignment surgery: Psychiatric morbidity and healthcare use. American Journal of Psychiatry. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2018.18060634
- Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. (2021). Early Intervention Outcomes Study: Puberty Blockers in 12–to 15–Year–Olds. London: NHS.
- European Academy of Paediatrics. (2024). Position statement on gender-affirming care for minors. Brussels: EAP
- European Psychiatry Review. (2024). Systematic review of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in minors with gender dysphoria. European Psychiatry, 67(4), 211–223. doi:10.1192/j.eurpsy.2024.115
- SEGM (Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine). (2023). Denmark Restricts Youth Gender Transitions: Policy Summary. Retrieved from https://segm.org
- PMC (various authors). (2019–2025). Reviews and cohort studies on fertility, cardiovascular risks, and post-operative complications in gender medicine. PubMed Central.
- KFF. Policy Tracker: Youth Access to Gender Affirming Care and State Policy Restrictions. KFF. Retrieved from https://www.kff.org/lgbtq/gender-affirming-care-policy-tracker/
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