Normalizing gender confusion

As part of its celebration of LGBT Pride Month, Target is launching a new clothing line. The retailer’s offerings don’t merely include rainbows on clothes or onesies and baby bibs with “My First Pride” emblazoned on the front (although it does include those), it also features gear to help women look more like men and swimsuits for those who identify as nonbinary. These items include “chest binders” and underwear produced for Target by a collaborator named TomboyX.

Most of us can remember back to 2016 when Target announced it would open its women’s restrooms to men who identified as women and vice versa, so this clothing line might not surprise us, given the retailer’s trajectory. For those unfamiliar with chest binders and “packing underwear,” the former are used by women to make their chests appear flat to resemble a man, while the latter is used by women so that they can appear anatomically male. We should not overlook that both these items are for use by women who want to appear as men. The rate of teenage girls who have developed what’s known as rapid-onset gender dysphoria has skyrocketed in the last several years, evidence of a deadly social contagion that is promulgated primarily online and in schools.

As Christians, we need to do more than merely shrug our shoulders as our society slips farther away from reality, picking up speed as it careens down the rabbit hole of sexual insanity. First, we must resist the confusion Target is now normalizing for its millions of customers. Women cannot be men. Men cannot be women. Special underwear won’t change that. Onesies and bibs that market transgenderism as a laudable life choice can’t change the truth. We must resist the regular flood of baldfaced lies that wash over us in our daily lives by renewing our minds through the reading of God’s Word and refreshing our grip on reality by regularly gathering with God’s people.

Christians need to see that what is promoted by Target as “affirming” and “inclusive” is a harmful, child-endangering form of God-hating, self-hating mass delusion. Through this clothing line, the retailer affirms the rejection of natural, God-given male and female bodies. This is no different than if Target aided bulimic people by selling a tool to help them vomit out their food. Their campaign is inclusive only because it wants to include everyone in the madness and confusion. It is affirming only in that it calls what is evil, good.

As we approach the month of June—so-called “Pride Month”—we need to remember that holidays are not handed to us by the people who run Google calendars. Holidays, or, more appropriately, holy days, should be celebrations that are honoring our holy God. Perhaps this June, Christians can remember that being made male and female is, in God’s words, “very good.” If God made you a man, celebrate His goodness in that. If God made you a woman, celebrate His goodness in that. If God has given you a son, celebrate the gift of a son. If God has given you a daughter, celebrate the gift of a daughter. Make sure that your children know that to be made male or female is a wonderful, meaningful, unquestionably good gift from God.

Furthermore, remember that June 5 marks the seventh Sunday after Easter, Pentecost on the church calendar, when some Christians celebrate God’s gift of the Holy Spirit. Let’s not exchange our holy days for pride-filled days of untruth. Let’s not exchange our celebratory remembrances of God’s grace and goodness for debauched profiteering that celebrates the sin and confusion of a nation. We have something real to celebrate, Christians, and we must not let the world out-celebrate us. Those of the world have nothing but anti-holidays to cheer for, while we know the Holy Triune God: gracious Father, saving Son, and empowering Holy Spirit. Let’s pray for that same Holy Spirit that came down to the Christians at Pentecost to come down to Target stores near and far. May He douse the high-handed pride on parade by replacing hard hearts with soft ones and making new creations who can receive their natural bodies with joy to the praise of His glory.