“A lot of kids would never have had a same-sex attraction if they had not been called ‘gay’ or ‘fag,’” he says.

Nevertheless, Throckmorton insists that the issue is not a simple one, no matter how you look at it.

“In the Christian community, it’s been easy to buy the idea that we have the research.  We don’t.  Our research is no better than the genetic research.”

That genetic research remains a point of contention in the medical community.

Like Leach, Throckmorton has seen hundreds of people walk free from homosexual and transgender issues. But, from a clinical point of view, the debate still rages, even as the studies continue.

“I have no problem believing that our genders are hardwired by God,” Throckmorton says, referring to a recent study that found gender differences in the mouse brain prior to the hormonal developmental stage – a finding that was widely trumpeted by the media, the homosexual community and the transgendered community.

“Differences appear to occur much earlier than previously thought,” he says. “I tend to agree with that God would hardwire our genes genetic – not for sexual orientation or attraction, but by the fact that He had it in mind from the beginning. Tainted by sin, is it possible that someone gets hardwired with a female brain but gets a testosterone bath?  I don’t know. I don’t want to go beyond the research, [but] mice are not humans. Gender is probably impacted by how we are raised but we may also be able to override that.  We have no way of knowing, as humans, how that process might operate.  However, we certainly don’t have any research that would support the kind of dogmatism that says people are born that way – and certainly not to tell someone on Oprah that.”

He adds, “The reasons why people do the things they do is as individual as they are, and that’s the problem with being dogmatic. Environment and our ability to think and reason, our will, sin and everything that makes us human makes any animal model of gender or sexuality insufficient.”

Throckmorton points to the mantra of the 60s, “If it feels good, do it,” as a significant source of the problem with transgender, which continues to increase in the feeling-based, individualistic culture we live in.

“Kids are being told that if they feel same sex feelings, that’s who they are.  The consequences are a great many mistakes,” he says. “People are chronically confused because their feelings change.  Feelings change based on our environment, on situational changes of our brain chemistry, on relationship changes.  I can’t tell you [how often I’ve] treated depressed college students whose depression suddenly lifted after they meet someone. They were depressed because they were lonely, and when they weren’t lonely anymore, their mood changed.  Basing your reality on feelings is to invite a constantly-changing reality.”