In 1962, the famous saying, “what comes around goes around,” first appeared in the book Burn, killer, burn. The book is a semi-autobiographical novel about a death row inmate sentenced to 199 years in prison. Later, after being paroled, the former inmate would find himself back in prison having harassed a family member.
Everything we experience is subject to cycles. Creation is ordered around the earth’s four seasons. Life itself is full of a range of joys and sorrows with each passing year. As each new year passes, and with a renewed commitment to losing weight, the time clock begins all over again.
There’s another cycle for those paying attention, and grievance culture’s primary means of promoting this cycle is through the use of media narrative. While it’s challenging to prove nefarious intent, the practice of this emerging cycle is notable.
In less than a decade since the Obergefell decision, the goalpost of cultural acceptance has moved from gay marriage to the use of appropriate pronouns as a social norm.
On the one end, you have the battle to “end racism,” as if that’s possible. This battle grabs headline attention for a season, as every story is about race. This cycle is directly attached to a two-to-four-year election cycle. In a broader sense, however, you can go back to riots of the 90s and those seeking justice for Rodney King. Thirty years later, we have the BLM riots for the justice of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and George Floyd.
On the other end, you have the battle for acceptance for a myriad of LGBTQ rights. In the 90s, you had the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policies in the military and the battles for acceptance of same-sex unions. Twenty-five years later, we had the Obergefell decision and same-sex marriage.
What goes around indeed seems to be coming around.
The New Intersection—Transgender Way
As these two groups, Blacks and gays, engage in a battle for the culture’s attention, a new player within the intersectional LGBTQ coalition has emerged—the transgender.
With the entrance of the “T” of the LGBTQ agenda, things have become more confusing. With this new group, previously supported arguments have fallen apart. For example, most gay and lesbian rights advocates promoted being “born that way.” In other words, gay sexuality was not a choice but rather something they were born with. Some went so far as to say, “God made me this way.”
Public libraries have become queer, gender-fluid, transgender training centers for children as young as three years old.
Now, transgender advocates reject the “we are born that way” argument. This new position denies being born a certain way, rejecting any social gender norm. Instead, they favor a purposely ambiguous and arbitrary non-standard existence—whatever that means.
We’ve gone from “gay being the new Black” in the early 2000s to transgender identity removing every clearly defined boundary regarding gender in 2022. Furthermore, anyone daring to address issues of gender in this current cultural milieu will quickly be Mirandized into silence.
In less than a decade since the Obergefell decision, the goalpost of cultural acceptance has moved from gay marriage to the use of appropriate pronouns as a social norm. The overreach of the LGBTQIA+ agenda has been felt from Obergefell to Olympic sporting events, from collegiate academics to high school athletics, and it’s just getting warmed up.
As gender confusion plays out in the public sphere, the most significant price is paid by children and youth.
From bathrooms to women’s sports, spaces where women once found safety and solidarity are increasingly dominated by biological men.
The Impact on Women
With the passing of each 24-hour news cycle, the impact of this new movement becomes apparent. In the past two years, men who self-identify as women have dominated women’s sports. This practice in sports has become the new normal around the country as “transgender” women (biological men) smash long-held women’s sporting records. From high school track and field to collegiate swimming, the impact has practical implications for women. The current practice of biological men competing in women’s sports shrinks scholarship opportunities while simultaneously destroying previous accomplishments.
As a response, Texas has become one of the first states to place a law on the books restricting sports participation to the gender on one’s birth certificate. While other states plan to follow, the battles are beginning.
The Impact on Children
The confusion produced in children by programs like Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) is challenging to quantify. Public libraries have unashamedly become queer, gender-fluid, transgender training centers for children as young as three years old.
School systems unable to participate in the storytime experiences insert Queer Theory into the school curriculum. Queer pedagogy is often hidden or renamed gender acceptance, masked for greater acceptance.
Teachers are trained to encourage children to make their own gender choices as they monitor gender policing—marking specific play activities as boy or girl activities.
How Should Parents Respond?
For the past year, it’s become evident that school systems have little tolerance for concerned parents showing up at school board meetings. What’s clear during these meetings is that decision to move in the direction of gender confusion has been made. The question then becomes, what is a parent to do?
One of the most important decisions you can make, as a parent, is to get your children out of the public school system. The long-held idea that children still in the ideological development stage should be “Christian Missionaries” and therefore light in a dark place is foolish. What Scripture teaches is that you, their parents, have a responsibility to teach your children when they lie down, when they rise, when they go on their way (Deuteronomy 6:9). You, the parent, have the responsibility to train them up in the way they should go so that they will not depart when they are old (Proverbs 22:6). It is your responsibility to teach them the way of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). If you abdicate your responsibility, trusting the government to do what God has called you to do, the outcome shouldn’t be a surprise. Our friend, Voddie Baucham, said it well, “When you give your child to Caesar, you shouldn’t be surprised that they return as Romans.”
The second responsibility is to get your family into a Bible-believing church that unapologetically stands on Scripture. That means no more, Ted-talk pastors delivering messages on five keys to winning in business or six keys to having a bigger bank account. If the church is afraid to proclaim Biblical moral sexuality, leave immediately. While they may call themselves a church, they are a den of Satan taking others to hell with them.
Third, surround yourself with believers who hold the same standard that you do on these issues. While these kinds of fellowship are primarily found in the church, homeschool organizations who believe as you do are everywhere. Link up with them and lock arms of support.
The primary means of transforming culture is through the family. Families focused on the three things suggested here will be strong, and our civilization will reflect this standard. We didn’t get to this point in time overnight, and we won’t get out of it overnight. It will take time. In the meantime, the most important thing we can do is be faithful to Biblical truth. This battle, however, is not new. What goes around, far too often, comes around again. Therefore, maintain your stand and witness.
