Skip to content Helping Your Child Thrive with Gender Confidence with Dr. Kathy Koch and Dr. Jeff Myers Mar 25 · 47 min ...more
Helping Your Child Thrive with Gender Confidence with Dr. Kathy Koch and Dr. Jeff Myers
March 25, 2026 · 47 min
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Tomboys are Girls: The Surge in Gender Confusion 0:02 And I declared with this firm voice that I have been known for, you know, to say, Tomboys are girls. And the boys erupted in applause. The girls then started to clap as well, and all I said was,0:14 Tomboys are girls. To affirm our boys and girls, to respect their gender, and to respect the other gender will change everything.0:30 Kathy and Jeff, welcome back to Focus on the Family. You've each been here many times separately but never together. So it's0:36 great to0:36 have you both here.0:37 It's great to hear you.0:37 We're excited. Thanks. Let me start here, and this is, again, a tutorial on what's happening, sexual issues, sexual identity in the culture, etcetera. So that's the spirit in which we're trying to hit this. You know,0:48 Doctor. Dobson said this many years ago coming out of USC, and of course he had a PhD in child development. And he he always was concerned about gender dysphoria, homosexuality, and other1:00 things because he said it should be relatively steady in a culture. And I think as they measured some of those things, it stayed steady between 2.5 to 2.8 percent of the1:12 culture around the world, Japan, France, US, that would identify as LGBT. Then you have episodic moments. And he would say those episodic moments are more1:23 behavioral in nature. Discuss that. I think right now with gender dysphoria, it's up 1600 percent. I've seen estimates as high as 4000 percent increase1:35 in transgenderedism and gender dysphoria. So both of you have PhDs. I mean, when you're looking at this, you're studying, you're looking at research. Why do we have this episodic1:47 thing occurring and what does that point to typically?1:50 There are 2 things that come immediately to my mind. 1 of them is social media. That is a phenomenon that wasn't really in the picture. So it's an 15 years ago, it isn't there's a kind of an influence. There was a study2:01 done by Lisa Littmann that found that of young women who's thought of themselves as gender dysphoric 66 percent of them admitted to overusing social media. So they were they they felt there was something2:13 wrong with my body. I feel uncomfortable. There's gotta be a solution to this. Isn't there a pill I can take? And then all of a sudden, they started looking at TikTok. And, oh, there are other people like me. Now I2:25 understand who I am. So So it was the social media influence. I think also the public schools have really grabbed on to this. Now there's an anti bullying impulse. We don't want kids to2:37 go to school and then feel bullied.2:38 Right. Any child.2:39 What we didn't realize is how many people in the educational sphere sort of take that anti bullying impulse and weaponize it for an agenda. And this particular agenda is we're gonna get rid2:51 of all distinctions that would make people even think they could know the truth. And then if nobody thinks they can know the truth, then everyone will be fine.2:59 Yeah. Kathy, any input on that from your study, your research, when it comes to episodic application to this? Why it explodes in Greece3:07 Right.3:07 And Rome, and now the West?3:09 I obviously agree with everything you just said. Let me bring up the mental health crisis. You know, you have done many excellent episodes about that here. We both have studied that. We talk about that every chance we3:18 get. Depression, anxiety, stress, loneliness, confusion, being overwhelmed. And they're thinking, oh, if I could change my gender, then everything would be fine. They actually think that's a simple solution to something3:30 that's rather complex, and that's not true at all. The research would say that they become even more suicidal after they've medically transitioned because it didn't work, and they were sure that this would be the cure.3:41 And what's really sad for us about that is if they choose to medically transition through medication or even surgical decisions, then we don't treat the mental health. Right? Everybody assumes, oh, now they'll be fine.3:53 So now we have somebody who's radically changed their lives, and it won't be good for them in so many ways. And now they're still depressed. They're still anxious. They're still overwhelmed. They're still suicidal. And4:03 we're not treating that because the assumption is, oh, that change that they've made is gonna take care of all of this. So that, I think, is a terrible tragedy for us, something that we really are concerned about. If we4:12 keep our hands off, if we do long waiting, if we listen well and we have a lot in the book about conversations. If we listen well, if we continue to talk about all of who they are and not just the fact that they're male4:24 and female, then they can overcome this confusion. They'll be introduced to abilities and talents and habits that they have that they're gonna go, oh, it's good to be a girl, if we wait. And if we don't wait, like in the4:35 background, but we wait present with them and introduce them to the whole of what life can be.4:40 Yeah, and we had Elizabeth Wanning on my Refocus podcast recently, who was a former lesbian and subsequently found Christ and dedicated her life more4:52 concretely to the Lord, if I could say it that way, and got married to a man, etcetera. She runs a ministry called Changed. And in that discussion, she was talking about the current5:04 Gnosticism. So there's nothing new, but this disconnection from physical identity to just spiritual. Therefore, the body doesn't matter. But God Himself said,5:16 you know, He created us in His image, male and female, and the 2 shall become 1 flesh in the context of marriage. And she was saying this is a direct attack on the Creator, that when you5:28 start discount how God has made us and say, hey, just the spirit matters. It's not what's on the outside. That's inconsequential. But it does5:39 take away from natural law, what Paul wrote about, and it makes that less important to some people that aren't theologically rooted. I mean, this is a deep question, but you are shaking5:51 your head yes emphatically because this is an attempt for the modern day gnostasis to kind of imply that the body is not where it's at, but it is a distinction.6:02 This is where a lot of young adults are today. And at Summit Ministries, we work with about 70000 of them every year in our various programs and curriculum courses. So we have a lot of feedback on this.6:14 Most young people who say I'm transgender or non binary, it's not a sexual decision that they're making. It's an identity decision. They're saying my physical body6:26 has nothing to do with who I am as a person. And that is the Gnosticism. Gnosticism says they're 2 separate realities. There's the spiritual reality and there's the physical reality. The spiritual reality is the real6:38 reality. The physical 1 is just temporary. It's evil, it's distasteful. So the more you can separate yourself from that and embrace the spiritual, the better off you are. It's the same heresy that the gospel writers6:50 dealt with. And it's really significant, I think, for Christians to realize, you know, Jesus came in a body. He was here in a body. He talked about how to glorify God in your7:01 body. All of these things, should enable us to ground a biblical worldview with our children so that this confusion doesn't turn into something where they actually damage themselves.7:13 So looking at culture today, Jeff, I'll direct it to you and you can jump on this, Kathy, as well. When you look at this issue of gender dysphoria and the lack of confidence some young people have,7:25 preteen and teens, in how they're created, what's at the core of that? I mean, again, I'm sure they're not looking at all of the Gnosticism and the science and everything else, but7:37 there's not confidence in their gender. And I think the straightforward question is why are more young people feeling like that than just accepting this is how I've been7:49 created, or this is who I am? Why the distaste7:53 for that gender? The answer to that question is going to depend on the child, whether it's a boy or a girl, and what age. All of those things are different. So sometimes it comes about by bullying. We had a8:04 middle school student very upset say, I was told at school if I haven't kissed a girl then I'm gay. And so now I don't know who I am. We had a young girl who went to an after school art club. It was8:16 not an art club. It was, it was a transgender indoctrination club, and she became so depressed that a year later, she was still struggling to come out of it.8:28 There are young women who feel bullied in school or their bodies are changing and they aren't comfortable in that. And so they aren't sure what to do. And they think, man, if I I would be better off if I were a boy, I8:40 would feel more secure. So there are all different sorts of things that happen, but it often is the influence of peers and of teachers. Even teachers who try to help.8:55 Oppression that you should be transgender or 9 non binary, that would be the normal thing. So we're gonna sort of coax you along in it.9:04 Yeah, I mean, it's, again, it's it's a web of yarn, to try to figure out what's happening in the culture, why we're encouraging it. It's interesting to see the contrast between the US and9:16 Europe when it comes to medical intervention for gender dysphoric children. Europe started even before the US started. They had a hospital in England called Tavistock, very aggressive9:28 with surgeries as well as hormone treatments. Then they ended up with about 1000 lawsuits from patients, the minors, saying you've9:40 torn me apart physically. I mean, all these lawsuits. And then the medical community began to reverse itself in Sweden, in Finland, in France, in the UK, saying, We're doing more9:51 harm than good. That's the typical medical Hippocratic oath, right? They begin now only to do dozens of small test things. The hundreds, the thousands of interventions are not10:03 being done in Europe today. But the US continues. It's almost like it's so political here that even medical professionals can't rip themselves from the politics of10:15 this and look at the pure science.10:18 True. And yet we do write in the book about the fact that it is changing here. We are encouraged that some of the, quote, unquote, scientists have been found out as having been manipulated by the dollars,10:30 if we could put it that way. They are outright lying to family members and to the the young people and the children themselves. And I and we're encouraged by the change that we believe is beginning, that we believe10:42 will continue. They're mad when they fig when they figure out that the problem that they had, they still have. And I and I'll say this, and and Jeff certainly elaborate on that because you're much more into that side of10:54 things than I am. But we define gender dysphoria in our book as a clinical, like, a deep rooted clinical dissatisfaction with one's gender. And most11:06 of our children don't have that. Most of our children have a day here and a day there when they didn't like being a girl or a boy. You know, they it was awkward in the moment for whatever reason. You know, as an example,11:16 so I I'm tall. I'm 6 1, which radio listeners can't see that, of course, but I am 6 1. And when I was just a young girl, first grade, I said to my mom, I don't wanna be tall anymore. Well, to God be the glory, I had a11:27 mom to hear my heart cry. I knew that I could trust her to handle my dissatisfaction with myself. Well, she didn't say, well, get over it. You're gonna be tall. And she also didn't think, oh, how11:39 could we fix it? Like, are we gonna cut 6 inches off between the knee and the ankle? No. My mom told my dad, and they talked with me, and I enrolled in tap dance class by the end of the week. I was the center of the back11:50 row. All of a sudden, being tall was really cool. And now, of course, it's 1 of my great advantages because you can see me when I sit, and I can put my suitcases into the overhead bin with no trouble. So, you know, the12:00 longer that we waited, the greater that my height became. But here's the thing. Back in the day, parents didn't have the thought that they could medically solve a daughter's problem. I simply didn't like my height. My12:12 mom and dad knew to change my attitude. They knew to change my beliefs about being tall. This is a passion we have. This is why we wrote a book about prevention, because we have got to teach our young people12:24 that being uncomfortable with yourself for a moment or for a year doesn't mean you surgically change yourself.12:31 That's called junior high.12:33 Come on.12:34 Everybody's uncomfortable in junior high. But you're so right. But here's the difficulty is the culture, at least part of the culture, wants to take that feeling and that emotion and then trade,12:46 you know, push the wind in that child's basic understanding of what they're feeling toward radical intervention. Right. A case in point would be Chloe Cole, who12:58 we have in our film Truth Rising. At about 13, she felt she wanted to be a boy. So she goes to her parents. They end up with medical attention. And she never13:09 received any kind of negative feedback about what would be entailed. She had double mastectomy. She had hormone intervention. And she said the damage that was done to her body was is13:21 irreparable. And by the time she was 16, 17, she said she no longer had those feelings, but now she's trapped. That's what we're talking about. Jeff, I wanna13:33 mention this or direct this to you because you're doing this every day at Summit, and that's to equip young people with the right pillars in their life to better understand scripture,Biblical Worldview Amid Mental Health Myths 13:45 who they are, their identity in Christ, really vital things that are too thin in the Christian community today. And, in that regard,13:56 you talk about Christians being spiritually ignorant. And I think that's true. When we do research, you have now kind of 2, at least 2, maybe 3 divisions of the Christian experience.14:09 Researchers will refer to born again as a Christian lite. They made a commitment to Christ. They really don't go to church very often. They don't read scripture very often. And then you have another version of14:21 that, but again, Christian lite. And then you have convictional Christian. And it's not a large percentage of the US population. I mean, it's estimated to be about 8 percent. So when you think of the US as a Christian14:32 oriented nation, it shows you there's a big gap between just saying I'm a Christian and living Christianly. So speak to this issue of the church14:44 widely, not just preteens and teens, but the church widely not understanding a biblical context for human sexuality.14:54 Most people I've met in this country and around the world say they believe in God. That belief in God is it's a 90 percent issue. It's but it's not that well formed of a belief15:05 system. At some ministries, we're teaching students that who you are depends on whose you are. If you belong to God, then that affects everything else in your life. What you believe15:17 about God will determine what you think is actually real. What you think is real will determine what you think is right or wrong. What you think is right or wrong will determine everything else. What you think makes a15:27 psychologically healthy person, what makes a good society, what makes a good economic structure, political structure, legal structure, and everything else. So we're trying to help people understand this commitment. Yes.15:38 There is a God, has to be extended. Yes. And I know God personally through Jesus Christ. And when I do that, then reality itself opens up John 8 32. Jesus said,15:50 you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. And the truth we're trying to get across to young adults who who deal with gender struggles is is not that, oh, well, you're gonna be gender dysphoric and you16:00 gotta go through all of therapy and so forth. Most families are not dealing with that. And Kathy alluded to this earlier. There most families are dealing with, I have a child who is uncomfortable in their body. How do16:12 I help them learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable in those teenage years? 1 of the students I worked with, she had been very frustrated because she had a friend who was very cute and cheerleader and she just felt16:23 she didn't feel like she matched up. But her mentor very wisely said to her, you know, someday you're gonna figure out what to do with your frizzy hair. Someday you're gonna get contacts. Someday your the braces are16:34 going to come off. But what will endure is what you're working on right now, which is your character. Yeah. It is a disservice to young people to sexualize them at such an early age that they miss16:46 that character development Amen. That I believe God wants them to have.16:50 That's so good. If I could elaborate as well. Like, we totally agree. We see this all the time at celebrate kids. And 1 of the things we've been talking about more and more is helping young people love God so much that17:00 they don't wanna break his heart. Like, I don't not sin because I know the law. I work to not sin and live a righteous life because I value the sacrifice of Christ, and I don't want it to go to waste.17:12 And I don't wanna grieve God's heart. And I don't think in the church, when I look at Sunday school curriculum, when17:20 I look at VBS, when I even17:20 look at family devotionals, I just don't see enough effort put or enough emphasis on this idea that we love God through our choices. And so we can do that. And it's not easy every day, but my goodness,17:32 it's worth it.17:33 Absolutely. Kathy, this issue of what particularly this generation is facing. Of course, we had COVID. I know with my youngest, I mean, his junior, senior year were the17:45 COVID years. They didn't do prom. They had, like, a lot of intervention things going on to make sure things were safe in the school environment, etcetera. It really was disruptive. And I think17:57 researchers are now seeing, you know, in the area of depression, anxiety, a lot of children that were in that moment, it was very unsettling.18:09 Mhmm.18:09 And so when you add that to gender issues as well, there's just this confluence of confusion occurring. And I wanted to ask you about this idea of depression, anxiety,18:21 all kind of fomenting at the same time here. I think the CDC said between ages of 15 and 25, there's been, like, a 50 percent increase or 50 percent of the children18:33 and young adults in that age group have some form of depression or anxiety. That's half the population in that group.18:42 Yeah. If we can believe that.18:43 Yeah.18:44 Okay? There's a lot of people who are anxious, but they don't have anxiety. There's a lot of people who can have a depressing week, but they're not depressed. And this is very important language because we believe, and18:55 you've heard me say this many times on the broadcast, that identity controls behavior. So we can't allow our children to talk about I'm so depressed. Are you really?19:03 That's good.19:03 And and people who say, oh, it's such a bad day. Very few people have bad days. Now you can have a bad day. Let me let make sure my audience is hearing this. You can have a bad day. Someone dies, there's diagnosed as19:14 cancer, that's a bad day. A lot of children have a bad first period, but that's such a horrible day. No. You didn't have a bad day. You were cut out for not studying for a quiz on period 1. No. You didn't have a bad day.19:24 We've gotta tell the truth to our kids. We have to hold them accountable to telling the truth. And we and we also we need to understand that a lot of our parents today and, you know, COVID was real. However, the data19:35 about depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideology all started before COVID. Loneliness started way before COVID. COVID amplified what was currently going on. Busy parents who are addicted to their phone19:47 and aren't as available to their kids as they maybe could be, and keep listening to us. Like, I have the highest respect for you as parents because this isn't easy. But here's the thing, Jim. I think a lot of parents and19:57 grandparents today who see kids who are depressed and anxious are overprotecting them. They don't ever want them to have another COVID valley. And I understand that. Of course, you don't ever want them to go through20:07 something so tragic, so you end up overpreventing, overparenting, protecting them from all harm and all disturbing thoughts, which is why, oh, we'll just let you change your gender. If you think that that's what's gonna20:18 fix you, we'll go along with that. And this is where we have to say no if we and this is why we wrote the book. We wanna empower parents to have compassion and hope and truth and confidence that you can say no to these20:29 things that aren't sensible because they're not true in the scripture.20:33 Yeah. And you say yes. You say yes to the yes thing. You say yes to the yes thing. So, yes, you are designed in the image of God. We are going to affirm you, but not in the way a school or the culture might20:45 affirm you. We are going to affirm God's design in you. That's the conflict. I mean, those that believe there is20:52 a God and believe the God of the Bible and those that don't. And this is really spewing into the public school arena. Right? That's why parents are upset. There's a lot of conflict. You know, we saw the21:04 Virginia issues with, the bathroom situation, etcetera. So when we're when we're looking at this, how do we have compassion and recognize that some21:16 students actually do have issues, serious issues? And our heart goes out to them, particularly as Christians. We need to own that and know that they're struggling. But to21:27 take down other children who are just dealing with I'm not comfortable in my body and try to convert them into more serious, to your 0.1 moment ago, Kathy, the sky is falling. I21:39 don't know if I'm a boy or girl or something else. And you amplify that insecurity rather than soothe that insecurity and find a way. I mean, can we not as a21:51 culture agree on shouldn't we try to find that solution?21:55 We're fairly agreed. 80 percent of parents do not want schools teaching this. Right. 2 thirds of teachers, according to a teachers union survey, said they do not like teaching this. Only 4 percent said they think22:07 it's a helpful addition to the curriculum to have gender ideology as part of what they22:10 Well, that kind of gets back to the breakdown of the culture.22:13 That's right.22:13 That 4 percent would be very positive about those things.22:16 When when you're approaching an issue like this with with young adults, tackling it head on can be very threatening to them. You kind of make it adjacent. You just sort of walk alongside, not even necessarily looking22:27 them in the eye, just walking alongside and saying it's going to be okay. You're not crazy. You're not alone. You do not have to believe what people at school say to you. They do22:39 not love you. They do not know you. God loves you and God knows you. That relaxes somebody so they can think, okay. I just need a little bit better perspective.22:51 How do we effectively communicate and live those things out in our home so that our kids actually catch it?23:00 Every time something confusing happens in the culture, my instinct is to draw back, try to escape, get around it, not have to think about it.23:09 Oh, you must be human.23:13 But in my better moments, I realized that every confusion presents an opportunity. And in this case, the fact that people are confused about their gender is an opportunity for moms and dads to help their children23:24 understand you were made just the way God wanted you to be. Your gender is not something you have to become. It is something that God gave to you. And our goal is to help you as a boy become a23:36 godly man or you as a girl to become a godly woman. That's the journey we're going to take and walk alongside 1 another. But you're right. A lot of young people, they're a little bit embarrassed to talk with their23:46 parents about things that are happening in the culture because They think it's going to shock them. Or last time I talked about what they did at school, she freaked out. And so I don't, you know, I don't want to say23:55 anything now. Learning to, ask a few key questions. And my core 1 is this, please help me understand. Help me understand. And then if there's any kind of24:07 indication at all, then to follow it with, okay, tell me more about that. I don't quite get it. Help me. What's going on here? What, you know, just those sorts of questions.24:19 As a dad, my best moments were when I just wasn't afraid to play dumb.24:24 Yeah. That's not a bad place to be. Because actually, we probably don't know. Right? We are dumb in that way. Kathy, let me ask you, again, this issue has just erupted since like 20 18,24:36 20 19 with transgenderism and gender dysphoria. It just wasn't on the landscape that much. What is going on in the culture that causes young people to be24:48 so questioning their gender? I mean, just you go back 15 years ago, it just wasn't happening at the rate it is today. So that would indicate, scientifically, that would indicate there's25:00 some pressure occurring, some change agent occurring, that more young people are disturbed with their gender.25:08 So I would say we have a security crisis, and that's why we have an identity crisis. Okay?25:14 Explain that.25:14 In the model that we teach at Celebrate Kids, which is in the book, and I'm grateful Jeff wanted it in the book, is children are desperate to know who they are. That's because God makes us who we are on purpose,25:25 intentionally, with a purpose. He counts how many hairs we have on our head. He knows us intimately. So we're drawn to people who know us intimately because of the way that we've been created. And when we don't have25:35 that, like, if a mom and dad are distant, if there's been a divorce and there's an overwhelmed single mom, if the grandparents have stepped in, it it can be a really, really hard time when we honor that. The, gay and25:47 lesbian lobby, the transgender ideology people who endorse that, they're loud and they're present and they're manipulative and they're good at what they do. Wouldn't you say that, Jeff? They know how to tickle the25:58 ivories and they know how to get a kid to go, woah. You know me better than my mom knows me. Like, when the trans person says, oh, I know what it feels like to not like your body. Let's talk about that. And that person26:09 could talk about it with what appears to be great integrity and great authority, and that continues to, you know, discourage the child to believe a mom and dad. So when moms and dads are security, when moms and dads26:21 tell the truth, when moms and dads have the guts to say, I don't know, but let's find out together, when a mom and dad will say, woah. I've never dealt with that before. Could I have some time to pray? And then let's26:31 come back and let's go for a walk. Like, I'm so proud of everybody listening who's present to their kids and not afraid. Because we can't just go, oh, Genesis 1 27 says, you're created male and female in God's image. Now26:42 go to bed. You know? Now that's that's a true statement. Right? But, Jeff, it doesn't sound simple to the confused kid, does it?26:50 It seems strange that we need to be talking about this. But a very high percentage of young young adults today identify as transgender or non binary, either because they've believed that gender is irrelevant27:02 to who they are or because they believe there's a gender spectrum where you've got GI Joe on 1 side and you've got Barbie on the other. And since neither 1 of us are really either, then we're all actually transgender.27:15 This is what a social movement does is it tries to put itself in a place where everybody fits into its grouping. That's how it gains power. So it you it releases power when a parent27:27 can say, let's talk about this. Let's talk about you. I know these people who are talking to you. They they seem caring. They do not love you. They do not know you. God loves you. God knows27:39 you. So let's have a discussion on that basis. And when you do, when you begin to sort of break that ice to talk about these issues, if you do it in a way that shows27:50 caring, that shows understanding, that that shows that you have a vision for your child's life. I just picture you being this someday. I picture you being the kind of person who helps other people. I picture you being28:02 the kind of person who isn't afraid to take risks and to explore28:14 gender terms. When you're a father raising sons, Jeff, Speak to some of the goals in that relationship. What are you trying to say and to do as a dad transmittingShow more In this video 0:00 Tomboys are Girls: The Surge in Gender Confusion13:36 Biblical Worldview Amid Mental Health Myths28:16 Core Needs and Conversations for Confident Kids39:42 Harmony of Genders, Resilience, and Hope
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