Unmasking ruthless spiritual warfare of transgenderism

By Brandon Showalter, Opinion writer and social commentator Thursday, October 17, 2024

Two events in recent days have crystallized for me the ruthless spiritual warfare surrounding the push to confuse children about their sex, particularly with the furtherance of transgenderism in the past decade. But even so, great hope abounds. 

On Sunday, October 6th, The Christian Post hosted its second public event on gender ideology that I was honored to moderate at Burke Community Church in Burke, Virginia, outside of Washington, DC, with approximately 450 people in attendance. 

Days later, on Saturday, Oct 12th, hundreds of thousands of people, most of them women, came to the National Mall for 10 hours of prayer, intercession, and fasting. A major theme of this gathering, which coincided with Yom Kippur (Jewish Day of Atonement), was “Don’t Mess with Our Kids,” with focused prayer for children being ideologically targeted and sexualized.

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Both events were especially moving in light of the piercing, first-hand testimonies I witnessed.

At our event, Bill Mahoney, who was profiled in the 2022 indie documentary “Dead Name,” choked back tears describing how his young adult son, Sean, was steered down the transgender path and the medical institutions readily affirmed a discordant self-conception of his male body even as he battled cancer. When Mahoney sought help from his Congressional representative, she reportedly told him that his son being trans was no different than her child getting a tattoo. Tragically, Sean died and Mahoney has compelling (though not ultimately conclusive) evidence that his troubled son was able to obtain cross-sex hormones which, he believes, exacerbated his cancer and contributed to his premature death. 

Speaking from the stage on the National Mall on Saturday, attorney Vernadette Broyles of the Child and Parental Rights Campaign recounted several horrifying stories of parents whose custody was removed as their children were gender-transitioned against their wishes. A few heartbroken parents also shared their agony as they were forced to watch the disintegration of their kids as state agencies subverted their authority at every turn. Those moms have had to watch, helplessly, as their families were ripped apart while feeling like they were all alone on islands of despair. 

As flags reading #dontmesswithourkids flapped in the air Saturday, fervent prayer ensued around these tough issues, and you could feel the earnest passion that arose from the massive throng of intercessors contending for their families and the nation.

The timing around all of this seemed fortuitous given how medical watchdog group Do No Harm released last week a jaw-dropping report revealing that nearly 14,000 minors underwent so-called sex change operations from 2019 to 2023 in the U.S., and 5,747 under-18 youth underwent transgender breast, facial, and genital surgeries during that same span of time. These lowball figures do not include those who underwent these procedures through Kaiser (a closed system) or those who paid privately. Hospitals that carried out these grotesque procedures billed around $120 million, the Do No Harm report said. 

The appalling data also don’t include the tens of thousands of young adults who have also undergone these procedures. When I step back and think about it for a moment and consider its breadth and scope, it’s unfathomable to me that this would have been allowed even a decade ago. Whenever I hear the anguish of detransitioiners and shattered moms and dads, many of whom are not Christians but still read CP and listen to our “Generation Indoctrination” docu-podcast because they are desperate for someone to report these uncomfortable truths, it takes my breath away. What is extremely frustrating is that although awareness has notably increased, the sinister evil of these medical atrocities and the underlying ideology that enables them remains relatively hidden.

The evil is still relatively hidden because purportedly mainstream outlets parrot the euphemisms and shamelessly advance the lies of the gender industry, with the disgraceful sanction of the AP’s style guide. Even when indisputable proof emerges that, yes, children are having their physically healthy breasts and sex organs removed and are being rendered permanently sterile, journalists and others who raise the alarm are met with outright denials (“That’s not happening”) or minimizing claims (“It’s only a tiny number of minors”), or insufferably pugnacious retorts (“Why do you care? Are you obsessed with kids' genitals or something?”).

The elite chattering class, which sadly includes much of the Christian intelligentsia in academia, seems to either ignore these issues or dismiss them as unimportant and it has left me and countless families I know stunned and bewildered. I asked a friend who has been in these dark and disturbing trenches for about as long as I have: “Does it get worse than near-total silence around this from people and institutions with the kind of heft that can bring about change while doctors chemically sterilize and surgically mutilate children and young adults by the tens of thousands?” She replied: “No, I don’t think it does.” 

It’s at times like these where I’m reminded of the words of the Apostle Paul who said that “everything exposed by the light becomes visible — and everything that is illuminated becomes a light,” (Ephesians 5:13). Thus, we keep going. 

And that brings me back to the Saturday prayer assembly on the Mall. Another major theme of that gathering was that it was an Esther-style fast, resembling what Queen Esther did at the behest of Mordecai, who told her that she was strategically positioned “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14). Before risking her life to stand in the courts and make her appeal to King Xerxes, Scripture records that she called for prayer and fasting, saying “if I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16). Because of her courage, she ultimately exposed Haman’s plot to wipe out all the Jews in Persia. 

In a miraculous turn of events, her bravery turned the tables. The very scheme that Haman had set in motion came back on his own head and he and his 10 sons were hanged on the gallows he had ordered to be built for Mordecai. King Xerxes subsequently issued another decree empowering the Jews to fight back against those who had been charged in a previous edict to eradicate them. 

Such biblical stories of sudden, dramatic reversals are what keep me going and have fueled our faith here at The Christian Post. In light of the widespread institutional capture, it’s easy to think that the menacing forces of gender ideology and the frustratingly hidden yet monstrous wickedness it has unleashed will continue to rampage unabated. Yet in response to the heart cries of his remnant people, the Lord of Hosts intervenes in a way that only He can and the course of history pivots toward rescue, renewal, and restoration. 

But God! 

Personally, I am more convinced than ever that He is truly our only hope.