Southern Baptists hold fast to God’s good design for gender and sexuality as fundamental to human and societal flourishing. The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 affirms that God “created [mankind] male and female as the crowning work of His creation. The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God’s creation.”
In recent years, we have seen alarming increases in the number of individuals, many of whom are minors, undergo physically damaging “gender transition” surgeries and procedures. In addition to going against God’s good design for sex and gender, these surgeries and procedures flaunt sound medical practice and do lasting harm to their victims. Though many states have taken action to ban these procedures, it remains legal and widely available in much of the country.
Southern Baptists are firmly opposed to such “gender transitions” and the pervasive gender ideology that promotes it. In the resolution “On Opposing Gender Transitions,” Southern Baptists resolved to condemn corporate medical providers that exploit minors through “gender transitions” and called on legislators to reverse and otherwise prevent “gender transitions” from being enabled or permitted to take place. Additionally, Southern Baptists affirmed a desire to defend “the free speech and conscience rights of religious believers from governmental efforts to coerce them into endorsing gender ideology.”
On his first day in office, former President Biden issued an executive order directing all federal agencies to “revise, suspend, or rescind . . . or promulgate new agency actions” to redefine sex-based discrimination to include sexual orientation and gender identity. This executive order laid the foundation for the disastrous federal rulemaking on issues ranging from the Title IX rewrite that allowed people of the opposite sex to utilize sex-segregated spaces such as locker rooms and bathrooms and requiring foster parents to affirm a child’s chosen identity in order to be deemed “safe and appropriate” caregivers.
In a letter addressed to President Trump’s transition team, the ERLC asked that his administration repeal this harmful executive order and undo any of the federal rules that were promulgated from it. By undoing this harmful executive order, President Trump will reassure millions of Americans that they will not be targeted by the federal government simply for believing in biological realities or holding to their religious convictions.
