Apparently, those among us who called it a social contagion were right.

That said, some will meet this moment with anger because the numbers undermine their narrative. Others will read them with sorrow, because it’s too late for people they know. And still others will exhale with relief, sensing that perhaps the edge of this storm has finally been sighted, and calmer seas are on the horizon.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then you’ve missed some very important news. A recent study showed that the number of students identifying as transgender or nonbinary has dropped from nearly 7 % in 2022/2023 to around 3.6 % in 2025. Regardless of how the media might spin the data, that’s not a statistical wobble. That’s pointing to a collapse.

Go figure. Truth, after all, is patient, and fads have a way of burning themselves out.

That said, we should be careful not to take a victory lap just yet. Too many lives have already been scarred, if not completely ruined, this side of eternity. Too many parents have lost children to this mess. Too many were shamed into silence by doctors, family members, and friends. And yes, too many pastors chose the comfort of quietism, deciding that inaction was courageous and engagement was heterodoxy. They hid behind pious phrases like “Just preach the Word and God will handle the rest,” as though the Word they preach never calls for the courage to act, let alone to speak plainly about or against the wolves devouring the flock.

I should stop right there. There’s no need to go further. The task now is not to point fingers, but to lock arms and bear witness. Our job is to bind up wounds. Just know that for some, that means to stand where they refused to stand before and speak truth into the ruins.

Admittedly, we do this remembering that when entire societies exchange truth for a lie, God sometimes gives up and gives them over to the “due penalty for their error” (Romans 1:18-32). I think that’s precisely what we’ve lived through—a due penalty. We landed here because, in part, a generation was catechized not by faithful pastors and teachers, but by algorithms. They were allowed to believe the body is moldable and that feelings are sovereign. The result was pain on a scale we will not fully grasp for a very long time.

But again, lies are brittle things. They can’t bear the weight of actual reality. And that’s what the entire LGBTQ, Inc.’s world is facing right now with this study. But when the fantasy does finally collapse for some, the Church needs to be ready, because they’ll find themselves wounded and wandering.

While eating dinner with Chloe Cole in our home a few weeks ago, everyone at the table learned intimately that for every young person who detransitions, there is a story of profound regret. However, Chloe herself exemplifies hope in the mess—or better said, faith rediscovered. Admittedly, the truth may seem a little slower than lies when reasserting itself, but eventually, it does.

If we are indeed witnessing the beginning of the end of this cultural mania, the Church should be careful not to respond with cynicism or self-congratulation. Honestly, I don’t think she will. It’s not what her Lord desires to accomplish through her. I think she’ll respond with compassion. But it can’t be as before. It must be compassion built on faithful conviction—the kind that is never afraid to say to anyone in any context what’s actually true. We can never be scared to say out loud and in public that male and female are not arbitrary categories. They are divine gifts. “From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female” (Mark 10:6). That truth is not subject to revision.

From this conviction, genuine compassion is born, the kind that understands that many of the children and families caught up in this wave were not villains but victims. They were misled by an age that despises God’s boundaries, preferring instead to worship the self. As I said before, many needed shepherds, but didn’t have them. Now more than ever, they need shepherds who will not flinch from the devilries this world imposes on humanity. But they also need shepherds who will not sneer at the fallen.

I’ll be honest with you. I was starting to think God was giving up. As I mentioned before, He does do that in certain circumstances. Well, I was beginning to think we were experiencing it firsthand—that we were venturing into a forsaken landscape that Luther warned about so long ago:

“Let us remember our former misery, and the darkness in which we dwelt. Germany, I am sure, has never before heard so much of God’s word as it is hearing today; certainly, we read nothing of it in history. If we let it just slip by without thanks and honor, I fear we shall suffer a still more dreadful darkness and plague. O my beloved Germans, buy while the market is at your door; gather in the harvest while there is sunshine and fair weather; make use of God’s grace and word while it is there! For you should know that God’s word and grace is like a passing shower of rain which does not return where it has once been” (LW 45:352).

Perhaps this study is proof that God has not yet abandoned this generation. The same Christ who stilled the storm is still speaking His Gospel to the winds and the waves of this culture, saying, “Peace, be still.” (Mark 4:39) It sure seems the chaos that claimed so many sons and daughters is not being given the last word.

In one essential sense, the study is not just data. It’s a mirror. It reflects a society that appears tired of pretending. Divine truth is interrupting a worldwide delusion—an ideology built on lies that delivered only despair and loneliness. And now, as the illusion collapses, as is almost always the case, a vacuum will form. Rest assured, the human soul cannot abide in emptiness for long. If the Church does not step in to fill the void with truth, another dreadfulness will rush in to fill it.

Rest assured, this moment will test us. Will God’s people seize the opportunity to engage with compassionate conviction? Will we speak mercy to the misled while refusing to avoid or soften what’s true? The time for polite silence has passed. In fact, I’d say it was never an option. Indeed, more than ever before, bold catechesis leading to an even bolder confession must fill the space left unattended.

The turbulence may be passing, but God’s mandate through Saint Paul remains. Even when the waters are still, he insists, “Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:58). Through our continued labors, many in the world may yet come to see something better—that the cure for confusion was never self-creation through mutilation. The solution to every bit of the sin-nature’s confusion is to become a new creation through faith in the mutilating crucifixion of Jesus—His death for our redemption.