Axis, How to Talk With Gen Z About Gender and Sexuality

This short course aims to equip parents and carers to have good, ongoing conversations with Gen Z (teens and early 20s) about sexuality and gender. While parents and carers are clearly the target audience, youth leaders or other caring adults would still get a lot from it – it's a resource that enables you to have open dialogue about the world in which Gen Z are growing up.

You could get through the main course material in less than an hour, but you wouldn’t want to. There’s a lot packed into this small resource, and it’s the kind of material that needs room to breathe. There are frequent opportunities to reflect, which users could do alone or as they work through the material in a group. For those who would like to dig deeper into certain areas, resources are signposted throughout.

There’s a lot packed into this small resource, and it’s the kind of material that needs room to breathe.

The course is divided into five ‘movements’. Each of these comprises a 1-2 minute summary video and then some text that goes into more detail. Each movement is written by a different person, but they fit well together and feel like a cohesive whole.

‘Movement I: The Art of Conversation’ explains some key terms relating to gender and sexuality. It also highlights the importance of asking good questions and listening well.

‘Movement II: Uncovering Our Own Expectations’ helps to make us more aware of what we are bringing into these conversations.

‘If we are going to have conversations with our children about sexuality and gender, it’s important to understand the emotions that stem from our own expectations of our children. Knowing ourselves and our own expectations before we enter into difficult conversations will set us up to interact more productively.’

I found this section both thoughtful and wise – it is one to linger over. A key point for me comes in the form of a piercing question – ‘Are you more concerned with your child’s sexuality or salvation?’

‘Movement III: This Is Challenging, But God's Got You’ is a much-needed encouragement. It includes reminders that God is with you, that he is not fazed by our cultural trends, and that he is not uncertain about how to act in your child’s specific circumstances.

‘Movement IV: A Theology of Sex’ is sadly the weakest area of this resource.

It begins well, by giving better questions with which to start these conversations. Instead of ‘Who can I have sex with?’ or ‘When can I have sex?’, let’s seek to explore questions like ‘Why did God create sex?’ and ‘Who gets to define what is good?’.

Three purposes of sex are then given – procreation, oneness, and intimacy. Only a few sentences are spent unpacking each, which is not enough to sufficiently explain some important and profound truths. And it misses the answer I find most helpful in my own life – that God created sexuality to help us comprehend more of him and how he loves us.

I found the brief section on intimacy particularly troublesome. Of course, intimacy can (and should!) be a part of a marital sexual relationship. But the way this section is laid out strongly implies that the way to intimacy is a sexual relationship. Intimacy is given as a reason that God made us sexual – in other words, our sexualities are the way that we experience intimacy.

But the truth is that intimacy is not only cultivated through sex, or found within a marital relationship. To suggest that it is – even accidentally – is unhelpful and even harmful.

Essentially, the reasoning in this section is incomplete. Instead of stating that the intimacy and oneness of sex are a metaphor for the intimacy and oneness that God wants to have with us, we are told simply that ‘the goal of sex is to cultivate intimacy and oneness’. Instead of pointing us beyond sex to God for true intimacy, this section points us to sex.

To explore a theology of sex, I would instead recommend Ed Shaw’s Purposeful Sexuality or Preston Sprinkle’s Living in a Gray World. We’ve collated more resources on the page of one of our explore questions: What Does God Really Say?

The final trouble with Movement IV is that it doesn’t even mention a biblical view of gender, or Gen Z’s differing definitions of gender. Since this is a course on ‘How to Talk With Gen Z About Gender and Sexuality’, this seems a serious oversight. Our podcast episode on transgender would give you a good start in this area, and Preston Sprinkle’s Embodied is another excellent resource.

‘Movement V: Having the Conversation’ recaps some of the content from Movement I, but provides more practical tips, including some suggested conversation starters. It also acknowledges that even with all this preparation and the best will in the world, these conversations might not go how you expect – and it provides some advice on navigating that.

A good addition to this movement might have been more for parents whose children are identifying as gay or transgender. How should they counsel their children and respond to the more pastoral questions that will naturally arise? The Living Out resource library has plenty to say here.

This resource from Axis is a great starter on having these conversations well.

The course finishes with a short ‘Epilogue’, which includes three 30-minute conversations with young people and parents produced in partnership with the Jude 3 Project. These could be good to watch with your young people, providing fuel for conversations as you ask them what they think of what was said. I would advise watching these with care, however. There are a range of responses, some more helpful or biblically accurate than others – a useful insight into various perspectives but perhaps not the best material to teach on these subjects. It’s also worth noting the differing cultural focus – American rather than British, and particularly the African American focus of the Jude 3 Project. These differing cultural perspectives could in themselves be helpful in clarifying your own assumptions or cultural views.

This resource from Axis is a great starter on having these conversations well. It would pair well with their short booklet A Parent’s Guide to LGBTQ+ and Your Teen (available for free on their website!). But for help in understanding or talking through the biblical perspective, look elsewhere.