In the aftermath of a school shooting at a Minnesota Catholic school by a shooter professing gender ideology and the murder of Christian advocate and activist Charlie Kirk by a man with possible links to transgender ideology, the focus on the growing gender identity crisis within the youth seems timelier than ever. One podcast, “Generation Indoctrination,” with the Christian Post’s Brandon Showalter seeks to find answers. The show currently has 35 episodes and describes its premise as “a documentary-style podcast series aimed at exploring the roots and impact of the transgender debate.” “The transgender craze is growing and metastasizing in America and worldwide. Confusion is abounding. And while Western cultures celebrate and elevate gender chaos, the societal and cultural costs are quickly mounting,” the show description notes.

In one episode, Showalter reflected some of the early signs of gender ideology’s takeover and shared stories of families shattered by the advice of medical professionals. Showalter recalled a panel he attended for the Heritage Foundation in 2017, during his early days as a journalist. The panel, called “Biology is Not Bigotry,” featured such speakers as Miriam Ben-Shalom, a Jewish lesbian activist, who quickly came under fire for questioning transgender-promoting policies online. “I didn’t know, but I sure got educated really quickly. I really don’t give a darn what people think of me, if my legacy depends on having to affirm a mental illness,” she said of her decision to speak out. The panel also featured parents who struggled to gain medical decision-making power over their children who had expressed gender confusion.

In another episode, Showalter’s guest, Canadian journalist Jonathon Van Maren, traced the beginnings of gender ideology to the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s. “The sexual revolution was a revolution. It was the tearing down of all boundaries surrounding what is sex, what is procreation, what is family. It was, to a degree, inevitable that eventually they would begin to redefine the very concept of self,” said Van Maren. Nathanael Blake, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said that while the Sexual Revolution billed itself as a time of increasing freedom, it really only brought on more bondage. “The Sexual Revolution promised that if we pursued pleasure and disregarded commitments and obligations, we would be freer, more authentic and happy. But instead, if you say there’s no meaning to sex other than what you feel about it, that necessarily means male and female don’t matter,” he said.

The episode also featured former members of the LGBTQ+ community, who described the relationship between young people and the LGBTQ+ community as “trauma bonding,” a term which describes “the attachment an abused person feels for their abuser.” Blake warned that the slide into gender ideology could lead into some previously unthinkable sexual orientations being accepted. “We could certainly see a push towards pedophilia,” he warned. “I hope we’ve reached a point where this evil of transgenderism will recede … but we need to be faithful, and then we need to trust and hope that God will deliver us from evil.”