Thinking Out Loud with Alan Shlemon - Andy Stanley’s Problematic Approach to Transgenderism

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

A video was leaked showing leadership at Andy Stanley’s church explaining how they minister to children who identify as transgender or experience gender dysphoria. Alan explains three concerns with their approach.

A video was leaked online of a leader at Andy Stanley's church talking about how they minister to children who identify as transgender or experience gender dysphoria. Now, their approach is deeply disturbing and I want to unpack three concerns I have with it in this episode of my podcast, Thinking Out Loud with Alan Shleeman. After attending Andy Stanley's unconditional conference back in October of 2023, I realized that his church, North Point pro gay and pro trans theology. Now I amongst many other people called out their unbiblical teaching and many of us of course, prayed that they would repent. Well, unfortunately, it appears that Andy Stanley's church has doubled down on accepting and indeed promoting transgender ideology. In fact, there was a leaked video

from North Point that surfaced showing Brit Kitchen, who is apparently their middle school ministries director, and he was explaining how this church ministers to a child who identifies as transgender or experiences gender dysphoria. Now, if this video was of a non-Christian explaining how to treat a child who identifies as transgender, well, that alone would be troubling. But the fact that this is from a professing Christian who ministers to children at a mega-church with like a weekly attendance of around 40,000 people. This is deeply disturbing. In fact, Kitchin's advice is unbiblical, unscientific, and violates sound medical advice. In fact, I would say his, his counsel is indistinguishable from how secular

doctors and therapists who are steeped in transgender ideology would treat a child who experiences gender dysphoria. Now, just to clarify here, gender dysphoria is simply defined as the emotional distress that is caused by a mismatch of a person's perceived gender identity and their biology. So if their biology, if they're biologically male but they perceive themselves to be a woman or female, well then that's a mismatch. And if they experienced distress from that mismatch, this is what's defined as gender dysphoria.

Now, based on the video that was leaked, it appears there's at least three problems with North Point's approach to treating children who identify as transgender or who experienced gender dysphoria. Here's the first problem. with North Pointe's approach to treating children who identifies transgender or who experienced gender dysphoria. Here's the first problem. North Pointe Church legitimizes the concept of gender identity. In other words, the Church is aligning with transgender ideology advocates who believe this

unproven idea that a person can have a gender identity, which is a, you know, a psychological sense of who they are, that is incongruent with their body. Now, I'm not denying that a person can have a self-perception that is different from their biology. Of course, that definitely can happen. But the difference with North Pointe's position is that they believe that gender identity is the person's true self and that the body is the problem. And that's why, of course, they're willing to support changing a child's body to

make it align with a child's perceived sense of self. That's my first concern. All right, second concern is that North Point affirms a dangerous approach to treating children with gender dysphoria. Now, whether they're doing this intentionally or not, they are following the guidelines of an organization called the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. The acronym is WPATH.

Now, I mean, I would say that this organization's name is a misnomer because WPATH does not advocate for transgender health. It advocates for transgender ideology. And in fact, if you were to get their most recent standards of care, which is version eight that was published back in 2022, this that standard of care advocates for a three stage transition plan for children with with gender dysphoria. So the first stage is social transition. And in this stage, according to Dolby path, a child supposed to

choose a different name, select different pronouns. They might also dress and cut their hair a certain way to kind of approximate the look of the opposite sex. Now, the second stage is hormonal transition. And this entails giving cross sex hormones. Right. And this entails giving cross sex hormones, right? So in other words, a girl would be given testosterone or a boy would be given estrogen. Now, if the child is pre-pubescent,

in other words, they have not gone through puberty yet, often these children will be given puberty blockers, which are drugs that are intended to kind of pause puberty. One such drug is called Lupron. And by the way, these drugs are the same drugs that are given to chemically castrate sex offenders. And then the third stage is surgical transition. And this is, I can euphemistically called gender confirmation surgery. But in reality, it's simply the amputation

of perfectly healthy sex organs. And or the plastic surgery for the purpose of creating tissue that is supposed to try to resemble opposite sex organs. Now this third stage is tantamount to bodily mutilation. Now, in North Point's video, this guy, Britt Kitchen, he affirms all three stages of WPATH's recommendations of WPATH's transition plan. Right? For example, he describes

how a five year old child who actually came to their church. This five-year-old child was first given a new name, new pronouns, different clothing. Then later the child was given puberty blocking drugs. And kitchen even approvingly refers to upper and bottom surgery, which is again, another euphemism for amputating breasts or genitals. Right? I mean, it's crazy. By the way, this also, you know, this, this upper and bottom surgery, not only is amputation, remember, it's also trying to create new organs, right? Or trying to, I should say, trying to approximate the look of new organs by harvesting body tissue from other parts of your body in order to create these new parts.

This collaboration with a child's confusion to mutilate their body is, is horrific and it's abusive. Anyways, the third problem with North Point's approach is that really it turns out North Point can't be trusted with children who experienced gender dysphoria. And in fact, in this training video, Kitchin sort of laments that unlike North Point, many churches don't help children feel comfortable with their struggle. And, uh, you know, he's kind of like saying, Oh, like, you know, you know, we at our church help people feel, feel comfortable. Now I agree there is a place to make people feel comfortable in some context,

but it should never be at the expense of truth or at the expense of the safety of a child. In fact, a gender dysphoric child who finds comfort at North Point is likely to be encouraged to socially, hormonally, and surgically transition. Right? Church leadership at North Point then would be collaborating in a process that can lead to genital mutilation. And the body of Christ should absolutely never participate in such kind of abuse.

What's crazy is that not only do Christians recognize the harm of W paths prescriptions, but even non Christians, atheists and evolutionists, and even people who identify as gay and lesbian are recognizing this is not good, not a good approach. In fact, listen to what academic lesbian academic and feminist Camille Paglia says, she warns that quote, anyone who collaborates in an In fact, listen to what academic lesbian academic and feminist Camille Paglia says. She warns that quote, anyone who collaborates in an intrusion into a developing child's

body and mind is guilty of child abuse, a crime against humanity, end quote. And she she joins this chorus really of atheists, evolutionists, and self-identified gays and lesbians who also oppose transgender ideology because they know it is not health care. It is not an appropriate way to help children who are struggling with gender dysphoria. And in fact, this is just this massive growing alliance of non-Christians who recognize this ideology is pseudoscience. In other words, it purports to be scientific, but it's not. And so these non-Christians are recognizing this is pseudoscience and that they violate

basic principles of medicine. It's about time that North Point recognized this as well. Well that's all I have for you today. If you've enjoyed this episode, I encourage you to share it with a friend. Also, don't forget to subscribe to my podcast so you don't miss any future episodes. And again, thank you for listening.

I look forward to thinking out loud with you next time. Thank you.