Below is an excerpt from Raising Gender-Confident Kids: Helping Kids Embrace Their God-Given Design, written by Dr. Jeff Myers, Summit Ministries president, and Dr. Kathy Koch, president of Celebrate Kids, Inc. This is a free resource from Summit Ministries, so be sure to check it out!
Before we delve deeper, we want you to understand how we define five key terms we use:
Gender. This book uses the term gender, rather than sex, to refer to male and female. This is for two reasons. First, while a person’s identity includes both physiological and psychological traits, the term gender properly refers to male/female physiological traits. Gender is a design feature that is essential to what it means to be human, not just what it means to reproduce. Congruence between physiological and psychological traits is a central goal of gender confidence. We’ve included a little more detail about our reasoning in the endnote if you’re curious.1
Second, we avoid the term sex to keep the focus on identity rather than sexual activity. Unfortunately, when people use the term sex, they don’t mean sexual phenotype. They mean having sex. What we’re talking about comes way before any such sexual choices are made. In our experience, for nearly all children, gender confusion is a question of “Who am I?” rather than “Who do I want to be intimate with?” We don’t want anything to distract from this book’s key question: How can we help boys and girls be confident in how God designed them as male or female?
Male/Female. Can you believe we have to define these? We’ll use the terms male and female both theologically and physiologically. Theologically, male and female are the two kinds, the two genera of humanity, created to be distinctively different in a way that would harmonize for the good of the world. From a physiological perspective, there are 6,500 catalogued differences between male and female humans.2 The most basic identifying feature of a male is that his gametes feature testes to produce sperm. A female’s gametes feature ova to produce eggs. Despite the intentionally confusing rhetoric you’ve heard, it is physiologically impossible for a male to ever become a female, or vice versa.
Gender dysphoria. Fueled by activists and social media, many children are confused about their gender. The term gender dysphoria refers to “clinically significant distress” in someone who does not identify with their birth gender. If a person merely dislikes their gender without marked distress, or experiences normal adolescent discomfort with their body, that’s not clinical dysphoria. True gender dysphoria is extraordinarily rare, but gender confusion is common. We’ll address each of these with honesty and compassion.
Transgender. Transgender describes boys or men identifying and expressing themselves as girls or women and vice versa. This shift can appear in small steps, like changing clothing or hairstyles, or go as far as hormone therapies and surgeries.
Non-binary. Non-binary refers to people who reject male/female distinctions as relevant to their lives, or who believe that males and females are interchangeable.
You Are Not Alone
We believe in you. We believe that God has called and equipped you to raise kids who are strong, wise, and confident in who he made them to be. And we believe that when you lean into this journey with compassion, hope, truth, and confidence, your children will thrive.
So, take a deep breath. Open your heart. Set aside any “woulda, shoulda, coulda.” Be ready to speak the truth in love.
Let’s raise gender-confident kids—together.
Raising Gender-Confident Kids by Dr. Jeff Myers and Dr. Kathy Koch is a practical, biblically grounded guide to help parents navigate today’s gender confusion. With truth, compassion, and clarity, it equips families to anchor children in their God-given identity. Ideal for parents and mentors who want to raise kids confident in who they are—rooted in Scripture, not shifting culture. Navigate gender confusion with truth, hope, and biblical wisdom.
Also, be sure to check out Summit’s latest podcast, Upside-Down Parenting, where we explore what it looks like to raise your kids according to Jesus’ transformative, upside-down, countercultural way of life.