My wife and I are the parents of four daughters. We had no sons. Had we a son, he’d never have worn a dress like his sisters—even if he wanted to. Would we have been considered bad parents? At the time we were raising our daughters, the answer would have been a clear and resounding NO!

That would not be the case today.

On August 8, the New York Times ran a long, convoluted piece in its magazine titled, “What’s So Bad About a Boy Who Wants to Wear a Dress?” The article is full of politically correct, homosexual-influenced philosophy offered to support parents who are totally confused as to what to do with their sons who want to wear dresses.

The article opens with discussion about a preschooler named Alex. Before he attended his first day in preschool, his parents felt obligated to e-mail the parents of the other preschoolers that Alex would be coming to school in a purple, pink and yellow striped dress. Alex’s parents explained that their son “has been gender-fluid for as long as we can remember, and at the moment he is equally passionate about and identified with soccer players and princesses, super heroes and ballerinas (not to mention lava and unicorns, dinosaurs and glitter rainbows).”

They further explained in their e-mail that Alex had become “inconsolable” when they forbid him to wear dresses beyond “dress-up time.” What were the parents to do? Recognizing their need for help, they consulted a pediatrician, a psychologist and, as the New York Times author states, “parents of other gender-nonconforming children.”

What did Alex’s parents conclude after the advice they were given? They decided that “the important thing was to teach him not to be ashamed of who he feels he is.” So, Alex’s parents decided to let him wear a dress to school. To help the other parents cope with such a decision, they pointed them to websites with information on “gender variant” children.

Let’s look at this situation honestly. Intellectuals can try to pretty-up this child-rearing problem by giving this odd behavior politically correct names like gender-fluid, gender-nonconforming or gender-variant. However, let’s name Alex’s behavior what it is: cross-dressing!

The article explains, “When Alex was 4, he pronounced himself ‘a boy and a girl,’ but in the two years since, he has been fairly clear that he is simply a boy who sometimes likes to dress and play in conventionally feminine ways.” So on some days Alex puts on a dress, paints his fingernails and plays with dolls. On other days, he roughhouses and pretends to be Spider-Man.

In an effort to justify Alex’s parents’ approval of his behavior, the author makes statements such as, “[H]ad Alex been a girl who sometimes dressed or played in boyish ways, no e-mail to parents would have been necessary.” In other words, if a girl wants to throw a football or dress in a Spider-Man T-shirt—no problem. Then the logic continues, So, what’s so bad about a boy who wants to wear a dress?

The answer is—everything!

Before this generation, pediatricians and psychologists would have recommended corrective therapy for gender-confused children. There would have been an effort made to prevent children from becoming transsexual or homosexual. Our generation has chosen to go in a different direction.

With a good measure of arrogance, the article states: “Many parents and clinicians now reject corrective therapy, making this the first generation to allow boys to openly play and dress (to varying degrees) in ways previously restricted to girls—to exist in what one psychologist called ‘that middle space’ between traditional boyhood and traditional girlhood.” Parents of gender-confused boys like the term “middle space,” believing that gender is a “spectrum rather than two opposing categories.” The parents of gender-troubled boys have come to accept that “middle space” applies to men and women as well.

The article points out that the greatest support for this kind of thinking has come from the homosexual rights movement. No surprise there. Transsexual activists are hard at work to change the psychiatric establishment, which still considers children’s confusion over gender identity a mental illness. The American Psychiatric Association is reviewing the diagnosis of “gender identity disorder in children” for the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Yet transgender activists are upset that Dr. Kenneth Zucker, the head of a well-known gender-identity clinic in Toronto, was chosen to lead the inquiry. He is a traditionalist who believes in corrective therapy for children suffering from gender-identity confusion. As the article points out, Dr. Zucker counsels parents to provide a gender-confused child “gender-typical toys, clothes, playmates and advises them to prohibit behaviors associated with the other sex.”

Transgender advocates and sympathetic clinicians disagree with corrective therapy. They believe that telling children to abandon their cross-gender interests makes them more distressed—not less. They look at cross-dressing like left-handedness—some kids are lefties, and it’s not right to pick on the lefties. In other words, to tell a child not to cross-dress would damage his or her self-esteem. The author of the article even states, “I would argue it’s not even ethical to say to a child, ‘This is the gender you must be.’”

It is time for parents to get back to sane parenthood. In order to do that, people need to stop listening to our 21st-century social engineers and start listening to God.

At man’s creation, God made humans male and female (Genesis 1:26-28). God created human sex for a specific and high purpose. God made no mistakes. Adam was created as a sperm-producing male; Eve an egg-producing female. Had there been a “middle space,” “gender fluidity” or “gender nonconformity,” the Earth would have been a beautiful planet without men, women and children on it.

Human sexuality is not meaningless. Why did God make Adam male and Eve female? So they could build a family. In building the human family, God’s ultimate goal is to build His own eternal Family of possibly billions of God beings. Each role—the male and the female—is critically important to build healthy, vibrant families. The primary role of the male and female is to be a teacher.

The male must teach his sons how to be men and his daughters how to be women. He sets the primary example for his sons. The female must teach her sons how to be men and her daughters how to be women. She sets the primary example for her daughters. Sexual identity is the core component of such teaching.

God teaches how to teach sexual identity. He states simply, with astounding clarity, “The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God” (Deuteronomy 22:5). The God who designed human beings to be male or female commands that sexual identity be taught within very specific boundaries. In principle, much more than clothing is included in this command. Certainly guiding and directing the mental, physical and emotional development of a child is covered under its umbrella.

A child’s sexual identity is formed by the way in which a child is looked upon and treated by his or her parents. Children need to be taught how to be masculine or feminine, and then positively embrace being a boy or a girl.

Children are great mimics. Parents and other adults are models children imitate. If parents are confused about their own gender, it only follows that the child will also be confused about his or her own.

The New York Times article is eight pages long. The author gives details about other children and parents wrestling with gender confusion. It attempts to make boys wearing dresses appear to be a good thing. The article fails to discuss the shadowy and seedy side to the transgender lifestyle.

Any sane parent who has a child that is gender confused should pull out all stops to help that child embrace what God designed him or her to be. There could be nothing worse than a boy wanting to wear a dress.

Transgender philosophy and all its associated trappings are an abomination to God. Why? Because of the life-wrecking damage they do to human beings.

Be sure to read the article “Is Sex Meaningless?” here at theTrumpet.com. Also, be sure to request or download a copy of The Missing Dimension in Sex.