Denise Shick – Leads Ministry to Families of ‘Transgenders’ – to Speak at AFTAH Teach-in Oct. 20-21

Denise Shick’s father told her he wanted to become a “woman” when she was just nine years old. Now she runs the Help 4 Families Ministry, which reaches out to families dealing with “transgender” issues. Shick will be speaking on a panel at the AFTAH Teach-in Sat., Oct. 21, following our dinner-banquet with ex-“gay” Stephen Black Oct. 20. Black also will give three presentations on Saturday.

Folks, I’m excited to announce that Denise Shick, founder and executive director of Help 4 Families Ministry, will be speaking at the AFTAH Teach-in Oct. 21, which follows our banquet with former homosexual Stephen Black Oct. 20.  Help 4 Families describes itself as “a Christian ministry that compassionately reaches out to family members and brings understanding of the emotional and spiritual issues that families face when a loved one is gender confused.”

As you can read in the essay by Denise below, Shick’s father revealed to her when she was just nine years old that he wanted to become a “woman,” then asked her not to tell her own mother. Her ministry today was birthed by her many years of dealing with the pain and trauma of such emotional abuse at the hands of her own gender-confused dad; read more about her harrowing personal story HERE.

Denise is author of three books dealing with “transgender” issues (see below). She will be on our Q-and-A panel Saturday afternoon, following three  presentations on homosexuality by Stephen Black, who has lived 35 years free of the “gay” lifestyle that he once thought defined him. Black also speaks Friday evening, Oct. 20, with a casual dinner served. Tickets are just $25 for both days of outstanding teaching. My friend and pro-family leader Diane Gramley of American Family Association of Pennsylvania will also appear on the final Saturday panel.

Banquet & Teach-in sign up: More information HERE; sign up with your safe payment online HERE. — Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth

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The ‘Transgender’ Lobby Is Weaponizing Children as Pawns in the Culture War

By Denise Shick, Oct. 1, 2017

I’ll never forget the first time I heard of warlords such as Uganda’s Joseph Kony turning little boys into killer soldiers and little girls into sex slaves. My heart ached at the thought. It still does. It seemed like a horrible war movie—but it was real, with real children as casualties.

War is always horrible, but in some sad cases it is necessary. But children should be—to the greatest degree possible—shielded from violent conflicts. They should never be forced to kill or do violence. Innocent, impressionable children are malleable. They can be sculpted into persons of deep character, guided by transcendent principles. Or they can be turned into weapons, as Joseph Kony and many other evil men have done.

Apart from movies, we’re unlikely to find anyone in America turning young boys into bullet-firing, lethal fighters. But we don’t have to look too far to find adults using children as pawns—as weapons—in the culture war.

Propaganda Tools

At first, the LGBTQ craze focused on adults, but advocates have increasingly sought not only to include and recruit kids in their movement, but now to use them as their frontline warriors. For example, 8-year-old Nemis Golden, born a boy, routinely performs on stage, before packed, cheering audiences as the mini drag queen Lactatia. According to an article in The Improper.com, “When he’s dressing in drag, Nemis says it makes he [sic] ‘feel very happy, like I am accepted.’”

As LifeSiteNews reported in June, “Thanks to ‘gay’ media, the cross-dressing boy [Nemis as “Lactatia”] … is becoming a social media star.” In one drag show in Montreal in May, adult drag queen “Bianca Del Rio” appeared with Nemis on stage and told the boy — wearing red eye-liner, lipstick, painted nails, a curly, blond wig and dressed in a black woman’s gown with sequins — that he is “[expletive] adorable.” The adult crowd roared with approval.

Nemis’ mother not only encourages his performances, she even helps him dress and apply his wig and makeup. And, of course, the crowds not only cheer at his performances, they also laud him as a brave, young role model.

But it isn’t just practitioners of the LGBTQ lifestyle who portray as heroes little ones who claim to be transgender. We see in ever-increasing number of stories like the following:

• 9 Inspirational Stories of Transgender Kids & Their Supportive Parents
• Transgender teens become happy, healthy young adults
• Transgender kids: Painful quest to be who they are
• A happy family with 2 transgender children

Looking Beyond Act One

Those stories generally paint an idealistic view of happy, well-adjusted transgender children. But those pictures are typically snapshots, not full-length movies. “Yes, I’m happy,” the little one (such as Nemis) answers as he or she is aided in and rewarded for indulging in transgender fantasies. Those rosy answers are pretty common in act one of the movie, but in my ministry to struggling transgenders, I usually see them in act two, when they’re no longer so happy—when they are often at their wit’s end. The fantasy that appeared so appealing early on has trapped them in a very real cycle of emotional despondency and poor physical health.

One study found the following: “This study found substantially higher rates of overall mortality, death from cardiovascular disease and suicide, suicide attempts, and psychiatric hospitalisations in sex-reassigned transsexual individuals compared to a healthy control population. This highlights that post-surgical transsexuals are a risk group that need long-term psychiatric and somatic follow-up. Even though surgery and hormonal therapy alleviates gender dysphoria, it is apparently not sufficient to remedy the high rates of morbidity and mortality found among transsexual persons. Improved care for the transsexual group after the sex reassignment should therefore be considered.”

Another study, cited in The Lancet, said, “Cancer care for transgender people is a growing concern and health-care services that are both respectful of this population’s di?erences, and also relevant to and inclusive of them are needed.” That study did not come to a firm conclusion, but when it comes to an issue as serious as cancer isn’t it best to err on the side of caution?

More studies pointing to real and potential health and psychological risks related to transgenderism and sex-reassignment surgeries are abundantly available. But for now, it’s important to remind ourselves and our culture that children are not adults. Duh, right? Well, when adults allow—and worse yet, encourage—children to embrace and indulge fantasies that can dramatically alter the remainder of their lives, that’s giving children more responsibility than they are capable of exercising appropriately.

Children Tend to Act Before They Think

Still another study found that “… children tend to make riskier choices than adults, and they do so because it’s enjoyable. When faced with different hypothetical choices in the study, adults tended to pick the safe choice, while children often picked the riskier one. The kids knew they were making the risky choice, Bunge said.”

And that’s just one of many studies confirming that children are not ready to make life-altering decisions. Sure, they may be consulted, but they must not be allowed—and certainly not encouraged—to make crucial decisions unaided by responsible parents or guardians.

When I was just 9 years old, my father told me of his desire to become a woman. I had to choose whether to keep his secret, as he asked of me, or to tell my mother, as I wanted to do. At that age, I was not ready to deal with such a request. Having that knowledge—and keeping it confidential for years—harmed me deeply, and required years of prayer and counseling to overcome.

Even so, adults, like my father, are often willing to use children to further their agendas—their fantasies. It isn’t enough that they play out their fantasies, they also want others to approve of those fantasies, and even to join them (see the New Testament Book of Romans 1:32). So they’re willing to use children as pawns—as weapons—to get their way. And this is not Joseph Kony’s empire in Uganda, nor is it a movie; it’s a very real culture war, right here in America.

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Denise Shick is the founder and executive director of Help 4 Families Ministry, based in Ashland, KY. She is the author of “My Daddy’s Secret,” “When Hope Seems Lost,” and “Understanding Gender Confusion—A Faith Based Perspective.” She is an ordained minister and has holds an AS degree in psychology and a BS in Community and Human Services. Denise can be reached at denise@help4families.com or by calling (814) 598-4952.