Steven Stayner was seven years old in 1972 when he was kidnapped and held for seven years before escaping with another victim.
The kidnapper had convinced Steven that his parents couldn’t afford to keep him. They didn’t want him anymore. Nobody would be looking for him, the man told the child.
Steven’s kidnapper sexually abused him over the years he held him captive–until Steven entered puberty and became too old to be attractive to the abuser who then sought out and snatched a new child, Timothy White, to fulfill his lusts.
Finally, after years of abuse and the arrival of his presumed replacement, Steven took off with Timothy to save him from the horrors Steven had endured.
The two boys could then be physically safe, but left to deal with the trauma they’d suffered.
How many Stevens and Timothys are out there now?
The National Center for Victims of Crime reports that 20 percent of girls (one out of five) and five percent of boys (one out of 20) are sexually abused in the US. And, like Steven and Timothy, children are most vulnerable between the ages of seven and 14.
So when we consider what happened to those two boys, that there are others suffering today as they did then, and that Steven essentially “aged out” of the abuse he suffered when puberty began, we should pause before we as a country decide to allow medical personnel to prescribe puberty-blocking drugs to children who are confused about their gender. We should more than pause. We should stop fast.
There are children with gender confusion. And there are children who may be convinced into confusion. That these are children should be enough for us to say no to puberty-blockers before adulthood. Young people will not truly know their own minds for some time. And puberty-blocking drugs eventually destroy fertility.
A decision that may be temporary at a younger age produces irreversible effects.
Many children endure Steven’s situation today. Abusers and exploiters can groom, indoctrinate, and intimidate these children into delaying or preventing their own growth and development. We cannot discern between children whose confusion begins within themselves and those whose abusers foist confusion upon them.
Steven’s kidnapper may not have stolen another child if he could have gotten the drugs for Steven that would have kept him physically in childhood–perhaps forever.
If you think that couldn’t happen, that wouldn’t happen, that doesn’t happen, you need to entertain the idea that it IS happening–and right within our own communities.
Mary Szoch from the Family Research Council writes:
“The [recently released] Planned Parenthood annual report also showed that in 2019, there were over 200 Planned Parenthood facilities in 31 states providing services for patients who identify as transgender. As it turns out, Planned Parenthood is the second largest provider of cross-sex hormones. In an interview with Abigail Shrier, a former Planned Parenthood employee described Planned Parenthood prescribing hormones to young clients with almost no examination of their underlying problems and practically no medical oversight.
“Planned Parenthood’s foray into providing cross-sex hormones is not shocking. For years, this organization has rejected basic truths about human beings, putting profits over people daily. During the 100 years of their existence, Planned Parenthood has denied the humanity and the right to life of the unborn child. Now, Planned Parenthood is denying the reality that XX chromosomes make a person a girl and XY chromosomes make a person a boy.”
This is the same Planned Parenthood that has been accused of not reporting child sex abuse and statutory rape–of ignoring the truth about abuse and exploitation–with a great deal of regularity.
Planned Parenthood meets people every day who suffer brokenness. But the huge corporate entity that PP has become is content to sweep the pieces of brokenness under a carpet of pretense. They pretend they are helping. But they enable abuse and exploitation. They help horror continue.
Steven Stayner was a broken young man when he escaped the clutches of his abuser. But before dying in an accident as a young adult, he married and had two children.
Steven Stayner tried to put broken pieces back together.
The Steven Stayners of today will lose a large chunk of their lives–and stay physically broken forever if we don’t stop fast about puberty-blocking hormones for children.
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed.” Proverbs 31:8, NLT
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