A Major Church’s Vote On Transgender Mutilation Of Kids Is Dividing Christians

The Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) voted last week to support access to “all medically necessary, evidence-based gender-affirming healthcare” for all individuals, including minors.

Presented by the Cherokee Presbytery during the 227th General Assembly, the overture builds on the PCUSA’s existing non-discrimination policy regarding gender identity and sexual orientation by declaring support for access to “gender-affirming healthcare.” The organization views the 27 states banning or limiting youth’s access to life-altering gender procedures as banning “healthcare for minors.” 

The Cherokee Presbytery presented the overture: “Declare that the PCUSA supports all individuals, including minors, to have access to all medically necessary, evidence-based gender-affirming healthcare.”

Rev. Olivia Lane, moderator of the 227th General Assembly’s Gender and Sexuality Justice Committee, explained that the committee removed the phrase “including minors” from the final text due to concerns that it would be “weaponized to cause further harm to the very children it named.”

Lane clarified that “all individuals means exactly that. All, without exception, without qualification, and without age limit.”

The “rationale” behind Cherokee Presbytery’s overture states that there are roughly 1.6 million transgender individuals aged 13 and older in the United States. 

“As of April 2024, 38%, or 113,900 trans youth aged 13-17 are living in the 24 states that have passed bans on gender-affirming care,” the rationale said. 

The rationale asserted that these statistics do not include the “thousands of pre-teen youths who could benefit from hormone blockers to prevent these individuals from going through the ‘wrong’ puberty” — a statement that contradicts multiple passages in the Bible.

“Gender-affirming care is age-appropriate care that is medically necessary and evidence based for the well-being of many transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive people who experience symptoms of gender dysphoria or distress that result from having one’s gender identity not match their sex assigned at birth,” according to the rationale.

However, the argument that transgender surgeries are medically necessary or help patients has been proven false for some time. One study found that “sex-reassigned persons,” in comparison to those maintaining their biological sex, had higher rates of suicide, higher suicide attempts, and increased need for psychiatric inpatient care.