It might be wise for pastors and church leaders who are shepherding someone struggling with gender dysphoria to help that person find a “plateau”—that is, a middle ground where people can manage their dysphoria in a way compatible with the church’s teachings, said Dr. Mark Yarhouse in an extended conversation with Dr. Ed Stetzer on the topic of gender identity.
“When you sit down as a pastor with someone, [and see] they’ve already taken some steps to manage this dysphoria,” said Yarhouse, “I call that a ‘plateau.’ They’re managing this when the culture around them says, ‘You should move towards the mountaintop experience of a cross-gender identity, medically confirmed in your life.’”
RELATED: Mark Yarhouse: How Pastors Can Address Gender Identity With Compassion, Civility, and Conviction
In a wide-ranging conversation with Stetzer on “The Stetzer ChurchLeaders Podcast,” author, psychologist and church elder Dr. Mark Yarhouse discussed his book, “Talking to Kids about Gender Identity: A Roadmap for Christian Compassion, Civility, and Conviction.” The two talked about the rise in people identifying by different gender identities, the nature of gender dysphoria, and whether or not Christians should use people’s preferred pronouns.
Yarhouse encouraged pastors to shepherd people in the area of gender identity from a place of both conviction and compassion; church leaders should attempt to stay in relationship with people while not compromising their own beliefs.
Mark Yarhouse: The Plateau, Not the Mountaintop
Mark Yarhouse is the Dr. Arthur P. and Mrs. Jean May Rech Professor of Psychology at Wheaton College, where he also directs the Sexual & Gender Identity Institute. He is the author of several books on gender identity, including “Understanding Gender Dysphoria: Navigating Transgender Issues in a Changing Culture” and “Emerging Gender Identities: Understanding the Diverse Experiences of Today’s Youth,” co-authored with Julia Sadusky.
While many people experience a sense of gender that corresponds with their biological sex, others do not. When people’s sense of gender and sex are incongruent, “they’re discordant,” said Yarhouse. “Sometimes that’s distressing to people, and that’s what we call ‘gender dysphoria.’ And that is a diagnosis that can be given to a child or to an adolescent or an adult.”
Yarhouse emphasized that as he shares his views regarding how pastors should navigate relationships with people who have cross-gender identities, he respects believers who disagree with him and acknowledged that church leaders have different concerns than psychologists. “When I function as an elder, it’s not as open-ended as when I’m publicly functioning as a psychologist,” he said. “It’s a different role that I’m playing with people.”
One point Yarhouse made during the conversation was that it is unhelpful for pastors—and Christians in general—to be culture warriors on the issue of gender identity, but believers should also not capitulate and go along with culture’s views.
“What I see in Christian circles is that many people are either culture warriors or they’re cultural capitulators,” Yarhouse said. “A cultural warrior is somebody who sees any openness to meeting people where they are as a concession. And so you’re always at war.”
