Studies have shown that childhood gender dysphoria does not inevitably continue into adulthood. An overwhelming 77 to 94 percent of gender dysphoric children do not become adults with gender dysphoria. Given this, it’s social, medical, and psychological malpractice to push young children to lop off or sew on body parts and take highly charged cross-sex hormones that can further destabilize their prepubescent bodies and minds, especially when they are highly likely to regret what grown adults pushed them into before they were able to sort through such life-altering decisions.

The National Geographic staff chose a cover story of nine-year-old-boy who says he’s a girl for the January 2017 special issue, entitled “Gender Revolution.” Transgenderism is today’s popular social delusion which, contrary to the publicity surrounding it, affects a miniscule portion of the population.

Young Avery Jackson, whether deliberately or not, is an LGBTQ activist whose image is being used to promote transgender politics and raise money for a transgender house in Kansas. Now National Geographic is participating in the activism by spreading the progressive ideology of fluid genders and providing an easy rallying point for future LGBTQ fundraising campaigns.

The activists’ theory of gender fluidity, or gender spectrum, suggests that God-designated genders of male and female indicated by biology is too limiting. Their theory separates gender from sex and says that gender is determined by how people feel or think, not by the objective evidence of body parts, chromosomes, and other distinct biological markers.

Why is the boy’s picture so disturbing to me? Because, like Avery Jackson, I was a cross-dressing boy at the age of nine. I can tell you that crossdressing a young boy is emotional and psychological child abuse and should be stopped, not celebrated on the cover of magazines. I started wearing female clothing at the age of four. My grandma encouraged me by providing clothing and affirmation over a prolonged period. I was sure I wanted to become a female.

Eventually, I did become a female transgender. I was approved and underwent the full range of hormone therapy and surgeries and legally changed my identity. I lived life as a female, Laura Jensen, for eight years. All too late I realized transgenderism was all “B.S.”—a surgical masquerade to superficially project a change of gender. Like others who elect to live the transgender life, I painfully discovered it was only a temporary fix to deeper pain.

Sexing Up Lies that Lead Children Astray

A cover photo is visually exciting and can persuade young people that male and female gender models are not fixed, when they are. Photos like the one on the cover of National Geographic can encourage a child to question his or her gender and sex and act out accordingly.

Not all boys who cross-dress will develop gender confusion, but disturbing to me is how easily gender distress can become an unwanted reality for unsuspecting children when changing gender is encouraged, nurtured, and celebrated seemingly everywhere. Encouraging boys to cross-dress can encourage various disturbing behaviors and anxieties, such as sexual fetishes and gender confusion.

Young people are told transgender feelings are permanent, immutable, physically deep-seated in the brain, and can never change. That’s simply not true. Anyone past age 25 knows that even very strong feelings can change.

During my time of gender distress, I consulted with the leading gender experts to find relief. I was told that the only way I would ever find peace was to change my gender. Yet me and many other former transgenders have discovered the truth: the peace that comes from changing genders is temporary. Feelings change. At some point, which may take years, reality penetrates the fog and living as a superficial female no longer “feels” right. I hear from transgender people who write, “I feel duped. How can I undo this and return to living in my birth gender?”

Real Journalism and Science Investigates Dissent

If National Geographic truly wanted to explore the complexities of gender change, they would have included stories of people who discovered that living the transgender life was an empty promise. A case in point is that of Alexis (born Robert) Arquette, a transgender pioneer and actor who died last September at the age of 47. Arquette’s decision to stop living as a woman was done silently. A posthumous Hollywood Reporter article tells of Arquette’s struggles:

In 2013, amid increasing health complications, Alexis began presenting herself as a man again, telling Ibrahim [a close friend] that ‘gender is bullshit.’ That ‘putting on a dress doesn’t biologically change anything. Nor does a sex-change.’ She said that ‘sex-reassignment is physically impossible. All you can do is adopt these superficial characteristics but the biology will never change.’