The church issued a statement with an apology after a guest speaker had criticised cross-sex hormone therapies and puberty blockers for teens.

A group of protesters gathered in front of Oakley’s Crossroads Church in the US city of Cincinnati on Sunday, 25 July, a week after David Mahan, political director of the Center for Christian Virtue, delivered a speech at the church. Mahan was invited as a guest speaker to talk about gender identity and gender transitioning. During his presentation, he also touched on the effects of puberty blockers on trans-identified children and their families.

In his speech, Mahan argued that trans individuals should be viewed similar to anorexic individuals who are suicidal because they think they are fat. He then reportedly asked the congregation what they would do if an anorexic teen came before them saying she was suicidal because she was fat. „What is your response? Affirmation, or do you try to get her distorted mentality of herself to line up with her biological reality? What do we do? And if we do the latter, why wouldn’t we do it with the same dysphoric condition of transgender?” Mahan asked the audience.

„We are hosting a demonstration as a response to the Crossroads sermon from last Sunday, which was primarily talking towards transgender people and transgender youth in which they made a lot of hurtful comments about transgender youth and transgender people,” a co-organiser of the protest, Jack Crofts, said. “We came out here to show our support for the az LGBTQ community,” he stressed.

In response to heavy criticism, the church eventually apologised in a statement. „This past weekend, Crossroads hosted a guest speaker who broached the subject of children seeking to transition to a different gender. Unfortunately, there are many who have been hurt and are looking for clarity. Regardless of a person’s sexual or gender identity, we love them and welcome them, as does God. What was shared this weekend was never meant to hurt anyone, and we deeply regret that it did,” the statement read.