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March 18, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — When I gave birth to my first child, the doctor immediately declared, “It’s a girl.” Why? My daughter’s genitalia identified her gender. For thousands of years, gender has been determined by one’s genitalia at birth. Not anymore.

Our culture is infected with what I call gender schizophrenia — a split mind about gender that manifests itself in contradictory or antagonistic qualities or attitudes.

On the one hand, the popularity of gender-reveal parties has grown exponentially since Jenna Karvundidis gathered her family to reveal the gender of her baby in 2008. She says, “We had a knife and we cut into [the cake] all together and we all saw the pink icing at the same time and found out that we were having a girl.” She then shared the idea on her blog, High Gloss and Sauce. Excitement about the gender of her first child prompted the gender-reveal craze.

These days, “gender reveals are a thriving commodity, with parents spending major cash to announce the news via skydiving, at minor league baseball games, or via customized sneakers.” An internet search will yield hundreds of videos posted by parents who want to celebrate what an ultrasound has revealed about their baby’s biological gender.

On the other hand, LGBT activists invest vast amounts of money and energy trying to erase the concept that biological gender exists. For example, our public school system is determined to push the false ideology that gender is fluid. One New York pre-kindergarten teacher said, “Everybody has the right to choose their own gender by listening to their own heart and mind. Everyone gets to choose if they are a boy or girl or both or neither or something else, and no one gets to choose for them.”

Blogger Allison McDonald, a teacher who claims that “early childhood education is my passion,” publishes a list of “books that celebrate pride” on her blog every year. In 2020, she listed 72 titles — from board books to tween chapter books. She shames those who “make these books ‘a sensitive subject’ to only be discussed at home.” She also asserts that if such topics are not promoted at school, we are teaching “our children that these topics are shameful, that these books are taboo, and in turn that the families portrayed in them are.” I wonder if she is equally supportive of traditional families and their values.

Whatever happened to the conviction that parents know what is best for their children and that home is the appropriate place to discuss values and morality?

Our government is equally determined to advance the LGBT agenda. Recently, Senator Rand Paul urged Dr. Levine, the nominee for assistant director of Health and Human Services, to answer a simple question: “Do you believe that minors are capable of making such a life-changing decision as changing one’s sex?” Dr. Levine, a transgender woman, sidestepped the question by saying, “Transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field with robust research and standards of care that have been developed.” She also evaded Rand’s questions about government policies overriding a parent’s refusal to consent to a child receiving puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries related to sex-reassignment.

When did American citizens hand our children’s physical, emotional, and mental well-being over to the government? When did we decide that politicians and activists can override parental authority for minors?

In spite of the fact that the LGBT community represents less than 5 percent of the US population, the tsunami-like force of its ideology has even changed the definition of gender. Merriam-Webster now gives this meaning: “the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex.” Even the medical dictionary has watered down its definition of gender: “either of two divisions, designated female and male, by which most organisms are classified on the basis of their reproductive organs and functions.”

Don’t miss the ambiguity of those definitions: “traits associated with one sex” and “by which most organisms are classified.” In the Merriam-Webster definition, there is no longer any mention of reproductive organs. In the medical dictionary, “most organisms” apparently doesn’t include humans. Why not? What makes humans the exception to biological fact?

This push for embracing the LGBT agenda should concern every adult, especially parents of school-aged children. Nevertheless, no matter what public schools teach, government officials say, politicians legislate, or experts assert, the facts about gender have not changed. With a miniscule number of medical exceptions, genitalia determine whether a baby is a boy or a girl. This truth is proclaimed by the Creator: “So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26).

And what about the woman who started the gender-reveal party craze to celebrate her excitement that she would give birth to a daughter? Thirteen years later, Karvundidis says that “her views on sex and gender have changed, especially when she talks to her daughter,” who likes to wear suits, not dresses. Karvundidis seems proud that her daughter “really goes outside gender norms” and says, “She’s telling me ‘Mom, there are many genders. Mom, there’s many different sexualities and all different types, and I take her lead on that.”

It’s time to stop taking “the lead” from LGBT activists who have fed our children lies. It’s time for parents to take back the authority from educators and politicians. It’s time for adults to lead the next generation away from lies and toward the truth of God’s Word. He knits together each baby in a mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13). He selects gender. We should celebrate what he creates and affirm the God-given identity of every child.