Telling the Truth about Gender Identity

Editor’s note: Today on the blog, we’re grateful to welcome Dr. Katie McCoy, friend of Revive Our Hearts and director of women’s ministry at Texas Baptists. She recently had the opportunity to speak on the topic of gender identity from a Christian worldview, and as soon as we saw this video of her clear and powerful teaching (plus Q and A to follow), we knew you would want to see it too. To wet your whistle, we’ve included a hope-filled selection from the transcript in which Katie exhorts us, the people of God, to proclaim the gospel as we stand firm on the truth of God’s good design. To Him be the glory!

Why are so many young people becoming transgender? 

First we need to remember what people are looking for. When you hear people talk about why they became transgender, they describe it in terms of a [desire for] inner congruity or wholeness or peace—a feeling of being whole within themselves. In other words, they're looking for a sense of peace and a sense of wholeness.

Well, that’s our turf, people. We have the answer for that. And, like every deception of the evil one, the message of gender ideology has a grain of truth because people are looking at their lives and saying, “Something is wrong and I need to be a completely new person.” 

And what the message of Jesus says is, yes, something is wrong. And yes, you do need to be a completely new person. But you need something that is so new, no surgeon can reach it. No pill can give it to you. No shock can deliver it. And no transformation of your body can produce it. You need to be made new from the inside out.

You need to be made new by being reconciled to your Creator, and until you are reconciled to your Creator, you will never have a sense of reconciliation within yourself.

What are people with gender dysphoria looking for? They’re looking for everything that human beings have been looking for throughout all of history. Ultimately, we are looking for peace with our Creator. A sense of meaning and significance.

They’re looking for it in hormones, in puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and even surgeries. . . . 

You see, our culture wants us to believe that gender is all about self-understanding and self-fulfillment. But what Scripture tells us, what the Christian worldview tells us, is that God created us, down to the twenty-third chromosome determining whether we were male or female, to reflect Himself and to connect with Himself.

And that, my dear friends, is the world into which we have been sent. It’s the difference, the worldview, that we have been called to proclaim. We don’t get to sit this one out. There’s too much at stake. It’s already taken captive one generation, and there’s another one coming right behind them. . . . 

People are looking for hope. I believe that in ten years, we are going to see so many young people look around and say, who was telling me the truth when I didn’t want to hear it? Who was telling me what I needed to hear when it was culturally unpopular and uncomfortable?

People of God. Let that be us.

For more on the topic of gender identity and gender confusion from a Christian perspective, check out our collection of resources featuring Laura Perry Smalts, a former transgender whose message of transformation through Jesus Christ to restore her feminine identity is relatable to those who struggle with gender confusion, those who have transitioned, parents and loved ones, and those in the church who want to reach them. 

Video and adapted transcript: McCoy, Katie J. “Gender and Discipleship.” What’s Happening Katie McCoy. Presented at First Baptist Church, Garland, TX, August 16, 2023. Used by permission.

About the Author

Katie McCoy

Katie McCoy serves as Director Women's Ministry at Texas Baptists. She holds a PhD in Systematic Theology from Southwestern Seminary (TX), where she served on faculty for five years. Katie's research includes the patterns of justice for women in Old … read more …


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