Mike Ensley is in his mid-twenties, and is listed as the assistant for the Exodus International’s Exodus Youth department. Ensley, like many working for Exodus International, has a habit of writing or talking about things which are outside of his expertise and not providing any references. His latest piece for Exodus Youth Voice, entitled Gender & Sexuality: Fluid Or Solid, follows in this vein. The piece is full of some people say‘s and they say‘s, as well as analogies without any provided basis in fact. Here’s an excerpt:

A lot of people say it’s dangerous to pursue counseling to help bring your sexual identity in line with your faith and the life you want, because they say we’re “born that way.” But, in the next breath they will say it’s safe and okay for some kids to take hormone-altering drugs and even go under the knife to change the way they were born, just because they’re confused.

Which do you think is more likely: that God accidentally puts the souls of men in female bodies (and vice versa), or that our understanding of our gender is just one of the many paths human beings can get lost on?

Maybe you feel like you fit in more with people of the opposite sex than the same. Perhaps you’ve considered that you are someone of the opposite sex, or that you should have been. You might be unsure exactly where you fit in.

You don’t need a new body, and you don’t need to invent a new gender for yourself because God really doesn’t make mistakes. There is great diversity within the male and female genders, but the truth is that you don’t need to go outside them to find you.

I’ll just pick two of Ensley’s points in this article to demonstrate how under-referenced and under-researched this article is. These will be used to show that Ensley doesn’t seem knowledgeable enough about transgender issues to speak as a subject matter expert — I’m basically pointing out that he’s arguing from a position as a false authority on gender and transgender issues.


Point 1.The Harry Benjamin Standards Of Care has the intervention guidelines for transsexual adolescents. In the article Ensley wrote “…in the next breath they will say it’s safe and okay for some kids to take hormone-altering drugs and even go under the knife to change the way they were born, just because they’re confused.” What the gatekeeping “they” actually say in the Harry Benjamin Standards Of Care is:

Physical Interventions. Before any physical intervention is considered, extensive exploration of psychological, family and social issues should be undertaken. Physical interventions should be addressed in the context of adolescent development. Adolescents’ gender identity development can rapidly and unexpectedly evolve. An adolescent shift toward gender conformity can occur primarily to please the family, and may not persist or reflect a permanent change in gender identity. Identity beliefs in adolescents may become firmly held and strongly expressed, giving a false impression of irreversibility; more fluidity may return at a later stage. For these reasons, irreversible physical interventions should be delayed as long as is clinically appropriate. Pressure for physical interventions because of an adolescent’s level of distress can be great and in such circumstances a referral to a child and adolescent multi-disciplinary specialty service should be considered, in locations where these exist.

Physical interventions fall into three categories or stages:

1. Fully reversible interventions. These involve the use of LHRH agonists or medroxyprogesterone to suppress estrogen or testosterone production, and consequently to delay the physical changes of puberty.
2. Partially reversible interventions. These include hormonal interventions that masculinize or feminize the body, such as administration of testosterone to biologic females and estrogen to biologic males. Reversal may involve surgical intervention.
3. Irreversible interventions. These are surgical procedures.

A staged process is recommended to keep options open through the first two stages. Moving from one state to another should not occur until there has been adequate time for the young person and his/her family to assimilate fully the effects of earlier interventions.

Fully Reversible Interventions. Adolescents may be eligible for puberty-delaying hormones as soon as pubertal changes have begun. In order for the adolescent and his or her parents to make an informed decision about pubertal delay, it is recommended that the adolescent experience the onset of puberty in his or her biologic sex, at least to Tanner Stage Two. If for clinical reasons it is thought to be in the patient’s interest to intervene earlier, this must be managed with pediatric endocrinological advice and more than one psychiatric opinion.

Two goals justify this intervention: a) to gain time to further explore the gender identity and other developmental issues in psychotherapy; and b) to make passing easier if the adolescent continues to pursue sex and gender change. In order to provide puberty delaying hormones to an adolescent, the following criteria must be met:

1. throughout childhood the adolescent has demonstrated an intense pattern of cross-sex and cross-gender identity and aversion to expected gender role behaviors;
2. sex and gender discomfort has significantly increased with the onset of puberty;
3. the family consents and participates in the therapy.

Partially Reversible Interventions. Adolescents may be eligible to begin masculinizing or feminizing hormone therapy as early as age 16, preferably with parental consent. In many countries 16-year olds are legal adults for medical decision making, and do not require parental consent.

Mental health professional involvement is an eligibility requirement for triadic therapy during adolescence. For the implementation of the real-life experience or hormone therapy, the mental health professional should be involved with the patient and family for a minimum of six months.

While the number of sessions during this six-month period rests upon the clinician’s judgment…

Irreversible Interventions. Any surgical intervention should not be carried out prior to adulthood, or prior to a real-life experience of at least two years in the gender role of the sex with which the adolescent identifies. The threshold of 18 should be seen as an eligibility criterion and not an indication in itself for active intervention.

My pardons for how long and detailed that excerpt is. But here is the point of that long, detailed excerpt: The gatekeeping “they” are definitely not saying “…in the next breath they will say it’s safe and okay for some kids to take hormone-altering drugs and even go under the knife to change the way they were born, just because they’re confused.” On the contrary, “they” urge “…irreversible physical interventions should be delayed as long as is clinically appropriate” because ” [i]dentity beliefs in adolescents may become firmly held and strongly expressed, giving a false impression of irreversibility; more fluidity may return at a later stage.” “They” are actually stating the opposite of what Ensley indicates “they” believe.

Point 2. Ensley poses the question “Which do you think is more likely: that God accidentally puts the souls of men in female bodies (and vice versa), or that our understanding of our gender is just one of the many paths human beings can get lost on?” He later answers his rhetorical question by stating “You don’t need a new body, and you don’t need to invent a new gender for yourself because God really doesn’t make mistakes. There is great diversity within the male and female genders, but the truth is that you don’t need to go outside them to find you.” The problem with this rhetorical question and answer is that Christ specifically mentions that some need to modify their bodies for the kingdom of heaven’s sake, and the prophet Isaiah said of those whose genitalia weren’t perfect enough to enter the temple that “…their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.”

John Boswell, in the book Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality offers us an understanding of how ancient people in Rome, Greece, Europe and the Jewish states viewed sexuality. Homosexuality, intersexuality, and transsexuality were, to the ancient mind inter-related and merely degrees of a spectrum. Ancient people would view an effeminate personality to be the “nature” of an individual in the same way as they would view the “nature” of a mixed genital (intersex) body. The language regarding intersex, transgender and homosexual people is frequently interchangeable in ancient cultures; all such people fall under the common Biblical terms for eunuch. These days, we tend to think eunuchs are men whose testicles have been removed, but that is a very incomplete interpretation of the term. (Online reference: here.)

But even if Ensley doesn’t quite agree with Boswell, what we do know is what Christ said about eunuchs in Matthew 19:12:

For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

As used by Christ, at a minimum the term eunuch covered castrated males and those with intersex genitalia. Ensley’s statement of…

You don’t need a new body, and you don’t need to invent a new gender for yourself because God really doesn’t make mistakes. There is great diversity within the male and female genders, but the truth is that you don’t need to go outside them to find you.

…doesn’t allow for those who need to become eunuchs — If it were only about their non-mistake bodies, why would some make themselves eunuchs “for the kingdom of heaven’s sake?”

Exodus Youth’s Welcome page states:

Exodus Youth believes there are real answers to these questions found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. God wants to show us His plan for our lives. He loves us and wants to walk with us as we pursue healing and freedom in Him.

Ensley didn’t phrase his rhetorical question and answer in a manner that indicated there are scriptures that talk about eunuchs, and that eunuchs — however one may define them — don’t quite fit into Ensley’s allusions that a cross-gender identity is sinful:

Many are considering that perhaps the binary (two-part) concept of male and female is too rigid. After all, there are so many people who grow up never feeling like they fit into either of the stereotypical gender roles presented to them by society. Some believe that this is evidence that there are other sexes besides male and female, and society should recognize and promote them

But is this concept of fluid gender and sexuality for real? The thoughts, emotions and urges we experience are certainly real, but are we coming to the right conclusions about them? One thing that we can all agree on is that gender and sexuality are a beautiful and very important part of who we are.

Whenever an idea gets revolutionized in our culture, I think there’s always something good behind it; some wrong that needs to be made right. However, people have a bad habit of swinging the pendulum too far in the opposite direction, and ending up with a mistake that’s as bad as or worse than what they were trying to change in the first place.

I think there’s something to this “fluidity” thing. We should all carefully consider what’s true and beneficial—and what’s going too far.

Summing up, apparently Ensley doesn’t know what the The World Professional Association For Transgender Health stated about the treatment of transgender youth in the Harry Benjamin Standards Of Care because he misstated what “they” say, and apparently Ensley doesn’t know what Christ was quoted in the Bible as saying about modifying genitalia in Matthew 19:12 because he didn’t consider gender may have something to do with why some might need to make themselves eunuchs “for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.” By these two key points alone it’s clear to me that Exodus International again has placed their reliance on an employee, this time Mike Ensley, who does not know enough about transgender issues to function as an authority on the subject.


David Roberts and Timothy Kincaid contributed to this article.

Categorized in: