Over the decades, Time magazine’s cover has featured great men and women such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and even Jesus Christ. Now, transgender Laverne Cox—a star in the Netflix drama Orange is the New Black—is sharing in this honor as he marks what the magazine is calling “the transgender tipping point.”
Yes, Time has put a transgender male on its June 9 cover. Cox, then, becomes the first transgender to win Time cover honors, but you might be surprised, as I was, to learn that Time is not the first major publication to celebrate transgenders on its cover. New York Magazine beat Time to the punch by featuring androgynous model Andrej Pejic on the cover of its Fall Fashion issue in 2011. Elle‘s Brazil edition gave cover space to transgender model Lea T in December 2011. But, again, Time is boldly declaring that Cox marks the “transgender tipping point.”
Time‘s agenda to push transgenders into the mainstream crystal clear in the subtitle of its article: “Nearly a year after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, another social movement is poised to challenge deeply held cultural beliefs.” That movement, of course, is transgenderism. To emphasize the point, Time placed its feature story about Cox in its civil rights section.
“There’s not just one trans story,” Cox tells Time‘s Katy Steimetz. “We are in a place now where more and more trans people want to come forward and say ‘This is who I am.’ And more trans people are willing to tell their stories. More of us are living visibly and pursuing our dreams visibly, so people can say, ‘Oh yeah, I know someone who is trans.’ “
Now, remember, Time is calling Cox’s cover story the “tipping point.” In his transparent interview, Cox echoes that mantra on a global media platform. I’m sure many transgenders are celebrating the article as long-anticipated vindication. Cox is now a leader in this new “civil rights” movement.
“I realize this is way bigger than me and about a tipping point in our nation’s history,” Cox wrote on Facebook, “where it is no [longer] acceptable for trans lives to be stigmatized, ridiculed, criminalized and disregarded.”
Best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell made the term “tipping point” popular with a book carrying that title in 2000. Fourteen years later, the term has emerged as part of the transgender agenda to convince all those who may oppose this form of perversion that there’s nothing we can do about it. We should just accept it because nothing is going to stop the momentum now.
Gladwell defines the tipping point this way: “The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate.”
Or make transgenderism vogue. Doubtless, that’s what Time, Cox and the transgender community are hoping.
Some would vilify Cox, but he is not our enemy. This really isn’t about Cox, it’s about a demonic agenda to call evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20). It’s about seducing people into a lifestyle of perversion that ultimately separates them from God. It’s about mainstreaming a way of life that leaves people in bondage. And, ultimately, it’s about demonizing anyone who won’t tip toward the transgender point and embrace this new “civil rights” issue.
Church, we can’t put the Jesus stamp of approval on transgenderism. Deuteronomy 22:5 makes it clear that, “A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the Lord your God.” Yes, that would apply to men dressing as women as well.
No, we can’t put a Jesus stamp of approval on this. Yet we should not rush toward Cox and those like him with stones, either. Up until third grade, Cox says, he thought he was a girl and didn’t know there was a difference between girls and boys. Rather than trying to help the young lad, a teacher shared condemning words with his mother, suggesting he would end up in New Orleans wearing a dress.
“Going to a therapist and the fear of God being placed in me about ending up in New Orleans wearing a dress, that was a profoundly shaming moment for me,” Cox told Time. “I associated it with being some sort of degenerate, with not being successful.”
Cox is just the opposite. He is not a degenerate and he is successful. But he seems to have lost the fear of the God who loves him somewhere along the way. These kinds of stories break my heart because if we embrace his lifestyle—if we put the Jesus stamp of approval on transgenderism—then we dilute the gospel that could ultimately set him free. Cox is officially the new poster child—the cover model—for the rising transgender movement.
You’ve heard me say this before and I’ll probably say it again, but can we sincerely pray for Cox and others like him who have fallen into the enemy’s snare to find deliverance? Cox wouldn’t be the first to emerge from this lifestyle. Can we walk in love without accepting the perversion? Can we show Christ to Cox without embracing what God calls an abomination? We can and we should because eternal lives depend on it.
Jennifer LeClaire is news editor at Charisma. She is also the author of several books, including The Making of a Prophet. You can email Jennifer at jennifer.leclaire@
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