Gender Security Begins at Home
A word from our founder, Deanne “Dee” Barnes.
Gender Security Begins in Early Years at Home: Affirmation, Validation, and Belonging
Culture today is filled with talk about gender identity, gender-affirming care, and being “born this way.” What if there is a different way to look at the needs of everyone who struggles with LGBTQ attractions? Each one of us is created for intimate relationships, love, family, belonging, and the deep need for affirmation, validation, and belonging.
A Psychosocial Issue
What if struggles with gender identity are, at their core, a psychosocial issue that can be identified and healed? Psychological factors combined with social encounters and life experiences can leave a child without a secure connection to their own gender. When a child doesn’t receive the affirmation and validation they need, questions about who they are can take root and grow. When a child experiences sexual, verbal, or physical abuse, this can create a deeper critical void that can lead to profound gender insecurity.
Where Gender Security Comes From
Gender security comes through proper affirmation and validation of who we are as a boy or a girl. A child doesn’t simply decide this for themselves in isolation, and neither are children born with this security. It’s something we receive, especially in our earliest years, through the people who love us and the relationships that shape us. For example, as a young girl experiences her father honoring her mom and treating her mom with love and respect, this little girl internalizes that it’s good to be a wife and mom and, at the same time, internalizes that it is “good” to be a girl. Conversely, if her dad is abusive to her mom, the girl can internalize the message that being female is not safe, and she can internalize a rejection of her own gender. This is one of many examples. We will share in our next blog on these possible “root issues”. Gender security and confidence in being a boy or a girl also come from peer acceptance in our early years. If a child experiences rejection at school, it can have a very wounding impact on gender security.
Yes, We Need Gender-Affirming Care
We absolutely believe in gender-affirming care; by this, we mean care that affirms a person’s biological sex. In the beginning, God created every human being male or female. The most affirming and secure home is one where, in words and actions, a young child experiences that being a boy or being a girl is good. That kind of affirmation, offered consistently and lovingly, builds a foundation of security that impacts a lifetime of gender confidence and wholeness.
Born with Same-Sex Attraction? In a Sense, Yes!
Here is a statement that may surprise you: I believe we are born with same-sex attraction, though not in the way the phrase is usually used. We are created to bond with the same sex from birth.
A little girl is created to bond emotionally and securely with her mom and with the other women in her life. She receives affirmation from those women, and she also needs her father to bless her femininity. When her father blesses her relationship with her mother and with other women, she learns that it is good to be a girl and good to belong among women. If a young girl experiences her father verbally dishonoring her mother, or worse, physically abusing her mother, she may subconsciously reject her own gender and internalize that being a mother is neither good nor safe.
A little boy is created to bond emotionally with his dad and with the other men in his life. He needs to see his mother honoring his father and his father honoring his mother. Through observing and experiencing this, he learns that it is good and honorable to be a man, and he, in turn, feels good about being a boy and someday a man. He needs his father to bless his boyhood through his time, his attention, his actions, and his words.
This early same-sex bonding is healthy and God-given. It’s how children come to know who they are. Stay tuned to our next blog for more examples.
The Family: Where Security Is Built
Healthy emotional interactions within the family are where we first receive affirmation, validation, and security as a little girl or a little boy. When those connections are strong, children grow into adults who feel at home in themselves. When those connections are broken, missing, or wounded, children may spend years searching for what they didn’t receive.
That’s why this conversation isn’t ultimately about politics or labels. It’s about relationships. It’s about moms and dads, mentors and friends, and the words of blessing every child needs to hear.
If you’re a parent, you have extraordinary influence. Your presence, your words, and the way you honor your spouse and your child’s gender can build a security in them that the world can’t easily shake. Don’t underestimate the powerful, positive impact of a father disciplining his children when they disrespect their mother. Through that one simple act, a daughter will internalize that being a girl is good, and a son will internalize the value of girls.
In today’s culture, it’s the “going thing” for some parents not to give their kids gender roles (not wearing gender specific clothing, girls playing with dolls, playing house, helping mom with the laundry, or boys helping dad with labor intensive chores, being more boisterous and getting dirty) because they don’t want to influence their children or sway them in any way from who they were created to be. The scripture is very clear on biology. God created us male and female (Genesis 1:27). How can a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife (Genesis 2:24), if he doesn’t know what it means to be male or female?
This errant cultural belief that we should not influence a child’s identification as male or female in congruence with their biological gender is a tragic abdication of our God given parental responsibility as parents to bless and affirm the biological gender of our children.
Blessing our children in their biological gender and helping them become healthy, secure adults takes intentionality with our presence, love, time, affirmation, and validation.
Children who consistently receive these will become gender secure and will not grow up with deep same gender longings as teens and adults. They will be secure in their gender, which leads to a longing for the opposite gender through puberty and beyond.
