Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-IL) has voiced his support for a book about raising non-binary children which argues, “Allowing your child to be themselves, whatever that may look like, is not leading them away from the God who created them.”
Sorensen tweeted his support for Raising Kids beyond the Binary: Celebrating God’s Transgender and Gender-Diverse Children by Jamie Bruesehoff – the mother of a transgender teen – on Sunday.
Bruesehoff’s child, who was born a biological male and wrote the afterword, tweeted an image of the book on Sunday and noted, “I am so proud of this book my mom… wrote!”
Sorensen, who represents a purple district in northwest Illinois, responded to the post, calling the book “Excellent work.”
“Let’s keep moving forward! No question what we are able to do when we work together,” he added.
Amazon’s description of Raising Kids beyond the Binary begins by calling on prospective buyers to “Dare to dream of a church and a world transformed by the bold celebration of transgender and gender-diverse children.”
The description also points to “some Christians” as “being the loudest voices against loving and supporting these young people.”
“So, now more than ever, people of faith need to be grounded in God’s call to love and affirm young people in who God created them to be,” it adds.
In the introduction to a copy of the book available on Google Books, Bruesehoff notes that her child “socially transitioned at eight years old” and adds that at that time, “we changed her name and pronouns so she could go out in the world as herself.”
In the first chapter, called “Raising My Rainbow,” Bruesehoff lays out her thesis that “allowing” children “to be themselves…is not leading them away from the God who created them” and her presumption that Jesus Christ would be indifferent “if your little boy’s nails are painted pink, purple or any other color.”
She writes:
“Others will say it means you reject the teachings of the Bible, and you’re leading your child astray. Is that true? While I can’t speak to your own connection to the teachings of the Bible, I can say wholeheartedly that allowing your child to be themselves, whatever that may look like, is not leading them away from the God who created them. We’ll dig deeper into this later, but conflating Jesus’s teachings with the standards and expectations of the dominant culture of our time or of Jesus’s time is not only inaccurate; it’s dangerous. It puts God into a box of our own making, of our own deciding. God is so much bigger than that. It’s also in direct opposition to who Jesus was in his time on Earth. He regularly questioned and rejected the cultural and religious norms of his day. He actively sought to dismantle systems of power and oppression. Jesus broke down boxes and shattered binaries, and I’m going to take a strong guess that he doesn’t care if your little boy’s nails are painted pink, purple or any other color.”
Sorensen, who is gay, argued against banning childhood gender transitions during an appearance on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal in June.
“Why are we allowing them access to hormones and other things that could change their body? Why can’t we just say, you can make that decision when you become an adult?” host John McArdle asked Sorensen.
“Because we have to understand that the understanding of a child as they’re growing into an adult, it doesn’t happen at this arbitrary 18-year mark. It happens — as a youngster, I knew I was growing up different when I was probably eight, nine, or ten years old,” the congressman said.
“There’s no way for these trans kids to change,” he went on to add. “And so, the problem that we have today is if we don’t allow families to make the right decisions for their kids, then we’re going to have too many of these kids that give up on their life.”
He also suggested during the appearance that prohibiting biological boys from participating in girls’ sports is essentially stating some folks “shouldn’t be able to learn what a team is,” “learn what setting goals are,” or that they “shouldn’t be able to learn what it means to be athletic.”