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It's Thursday, June 11, 2026. I'm Albert Mohler and this is the Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Recent headlines are bringing the trans issue back to us, particularly when it comes to trans youth, and in particular, medical interventions, other kinds of huge moral questions. And so we need to take another look. The New York Times ran an article just days ago with a headline, trans Athlete Could Repeat as State Champ. Okay, so this is the kind of thing, let me just remind you that an awful lot of people on the left say, doesn't happen. So you have an awful lot of people say, look, conservatives have invented this entire, say, trans non binary controversy when it comes to locker rooms and bathrooms and sporting teams and all the rest, but we know it's not true. And by the way, here's just, just absolute evidence this isn't running in some conservative website. This is the New York Times and the headline is straightforward. Trans Athlete could repeat as State Champion. Okay, Juliet Maker is the reporter here. Quote, a year after being awarded two gold medals at the California State Track and Field Championships amid protests over her participation as a transgender girl. Notice all the language. A high school athlete will return to the meet to defend her titles and maybe claim a third or more. Okay, this is a young person named A.B. hernandez, identified as a senior at Jurupa Valley high school, about 40 miles east of Los Angeles. And we are told that she is, quote, considered a strong contender to win three events at the event on Friday and Saturday. Okay, this has happened after the event. The LA Times said that indeed this young person won two titles. The first in the high jump, the second in the triple jump, and came in third in the long jump. And so basically, the threat of a repeat was followed by the reality of a repeat. Okay, so the interesting conversation is what went on in the news article before the event took place. So just realize that what was threatened here is a possible reality is actually what happened. And so listen to this quote. Last year, the debate over whether it is fair for trans girls to compete in girls events reached the White House as President Trump threatened to withhold funding from California if it let her compete. Event organizers scrambled to assuage concerns that made a last minute rule change. Athletes who finished in the spot behind a trans athlete would be elevated to share the trans girl's placement. So this is the year before. Listen, quote, so when Hernandez won the high jump and the triple jump last year, under the new rule, she and her fellow competitors squeezed onto the top spot at the podium for the medal ceremonies. She also shared the civil medal and the podium in the long jump, end quote. The next statement was California officials have said they will use the same protocols at this year's meet. And that, according to the press, is exactly what they did. Okay, I just want us to note what's going on here. You know, there's a tell. A tell means it's a revealing aspect that really tells you what's going on here. Okay, so what's going on here? So here you have the state officials who say, we're absolutely convinced that a so called trans girl is a girl, were absolutely convinced that a boy presenting as a girl can compete as a girl and indeed can win all these events, in this case, in the 2026 series, two events, and come in third at another event, which means a biological male has defeated girls, qualified girls in those first two events. But the state isn't so confident in its decision because it then puts the girl who came in second as, as an equal medalist in terms of the awards. Which is to say, it's the same thing. No, it's not the same thing. We mean it's the same thing. No, we don't mean it's the same thing. And so you see here, this is the insanity that is set loose when you have something like the transgender agenda work its way out into high school sports. And of course, again, just notice the fact it's all on one side. You do not have those identified as, quote, transgender boys winning in those categories. That's because there's a real physical difference. Biology matters. And this is where ontology always wins. Being wins, biology wins in this case. And so we are looking at a big issue here. And in moral terms, it tells us a lot that the state of California is so wedded to this ideology that even with the threats coming from the Trump administration about restricted funds for higher education and even high school education, public school education there in California, the California authorities, when they had to choose between, say, transgender ideology and federal funding, well, they decided to go with the transgender ideology and then also, by the way, to demand the federal funding as well. There are huge interesting revelations here. You know, for one thing, you have to ask yourself the question, who would come up with this? In other words, how did we arrive at this point? One of the worldview tests I often think about is whether or not I could talk about an issue with my grandparents and there be any kind of understanding if I talk about what marriage is. Well, my grandparents, who've been with the Lord a matter of decades, we'd be able to have a conversation. We're talking about a thing. We're talking about an objective reality. They know what marriage is. And by the way, on both sides of my family, they honored marriage. They showed the goodness of marriage. Okay, so that's good. But if I go to them and say, I want to talk to you about transgender girls in high school sports, there would be no conversation. Okay. By the way, there's a second level of that test I often think about, which is, well, what if I explained it to them? Would that make it better? Okay, answer your own question. I can just imagine speaking to my grandfathers, either one of them, by the way, and both of them were involved in agriculture in their own way, which meant they have a real clear understanding of male and female in every dimension of life. And so I can just imagine if I explain it to them, they would be absolutely convinced that any society that would adopt any such idea has lost its mind. I just want us to pause for a moment and recognize they would be right. I just want us, as Christians sometimes to pause and see. What the state of California is doing here is breathtaking. It's astounding. They are so committed to this transgender ideology, even when it comes to teenagers, that they will redefine the entire sporting regimen and the award ceremony in order to say, we are not going to fail to acknowledge reality. Thus, there is a girl on the platform, but we're going to insist on the ideological triumph. There's a biological male on the platform in the award ceremony as well. And by the way, it is the biological male who gets the headline news. And let's understand it. When it comes to the records, when it comes to the results, history is going to record a girl's name. And so you have to ask the question, is there going to be an asterisk beside that biological male with a female name? And you'll also notice something else. When it comes to so much of the non binary, the transgender ideology, it's not even a name. It's initials, A.B. hernandez. As if you don't know if that's a boy or a girl, which, when you think about it, kind of makes the point. Okay, there is another part of the article I think you're going to want to hear quote. People who are against trans girls competing in girls events believe that trans athletes hold a physical and physiological edge. They say that trans girls, even ones who began taking testosterone blockers before puberty, retain an advantage of more muscle mass and longer bone length. Testosterone is a hormone known to increase Strength, muscle mass, and endurance. Okay, just stop for a moment. We need to just pause and recognize that what they say in this article that conservatives say is absolutely right. In other words, it's also interesting the way they wrote it. They really don't refute it. In other words, here's just something that conservatives say. Okay, there's another paragraph. Quote, opponents of trans girls participation say that these athletes will prevent girls who were assigned female at birth from having a fair chance to win or from even making their sports teams. End quote. Okay, at this point, a bomb just went off. I think we need to notice it. When a bomb goes off in a sentence, we better recognize it because there's going to be some fallout from the explosion. Let me go back to it again. Opponents of trans girls participation notice, again, the way it's written, as if trans girls make sense, say that those athletes will prevent girls who were assigned female at birth from having a fair chance to win. Okay, so now when we're talking about girls who are actually girls, the only way that the ideological left can describe a girl who's actually a girl is a female assigned at birth, that is a baby assigned female at birth. It's just astounding. Again, you just imagine trying to explain to a previous generation what that kind of language even means. A person assigned female at birth. Well, that's what happens when someone looks at a girl and says, it's a girl. And by contrast, someone right in the delivery room looks at a boy and says, it's a boy. Here's the thing. According to the modern sex and gender ideologues, that's just a hint, that's just a suggestion. But notice what it really takes to say that it's not just that it's turning back on millennia of human wisdom. It's not just that it's turning back on the entire revelation of general revelation of creation order. It's not just that. It is an exercise in cultural common insanity. It's mass insanity. It's saying, you know, we have to use things such as assigned at birth. We have to speak of trans girl. They don't just say girl. In other words, they don't really believe it. But they keep saying these things over and over again. They argue them in the classroom, they argue them in the courtroom, they argue them in the court of public opinion. They inject them into every storyline they can find. They put it into every Hollywood movie. They just push it, push it, push it, push it. But in reality, they themselves don't believe it. Not the way they Even try to defend it when they have to use phrases such as assigned female at birth or when they say trans girl, they're already giving away the store in moral terms. I think they know it. And I think it's one of the reasons why Americans aren't going along with it. It's because Americans who are confused on so many issues at least have some degree of moral clarity when it comes to this issue. Okay, so that was the first I said, of two articles. The second also appeared in the Times, this one just on Sunday. And so we're talking about June 7th. Here's the headline, Trump administration investigating Adolescent Gender Care at Mount Sinai. Okay, so here again, I wanna call out the Trump administration. It's doing a very good job at this. And so the New York Times explains it. Joseph Goldstein is the reporter here. Quote, the Mount Sinai health system has received a grand jury subpoena demanding information about adolescent patients who've received gender related care. A spokesman for the hospital confirmed on Friday. We're then told, quote, that makes Mount Sinai the second Manhattan hospital system to publicly say its gender transition treatments for minors are under federal investigation. The Trump administration has sought to put an end to gender transition treatments for adolescents, claiming they harm impressionable and vulnerable children. Okay, so you follow this. You also know that there's a background to all of this, and yet I want to point to something deeper than the background, and that's the foreground. I want to suggest to you that we need to watch something that's going on that the mainstream media is not admitting. Okay? So you have these major medical centers, and when you're talking about big names in medical institutions, Mount Sinai Medical center in New York is one of the biggest names, okay? They're now under an official federal investigation basically for mishandling children and teenagers in the gender clinic. And I'll say it's good news, very good news, that the Trump administration has started this investigation and is pressing this cause I want to make a prediction. I'm going to make a prediction that Mount Sinai, like so many other medical centers, is likely to come back and say, we were involved in those things. We will now agree not to be involved in those things. And in the background, they're going to say, you know, the big issue here is the mean the bad Trump administration. But there's something else going on here, and that is that there is clearly a reconsideration of these treatments on the part of medical professionals. You see this first of all in Europe and in particular in the United Kingdom and Britain and you see there, the medical authorities have had to reverse themselves. It's basically a U turn. They were all for these gender treatments and the ideological applications, and now they're against them, at least for children and teenagers. And they came back, of course, the cast report, as it was known in the uk, came back and said there is more demonstrated harm than help in these treatments. And I think that should be obvious. You also have young people showing up. We've talked on the briefing about the fact you have young women in their teens and twenties who've talked about the horrible pain that came into their lives because they were treated as transgender when they were just confused. You also have biological males. You're talking about boys who actually, in some cases, had surgical procedures done. And let's just remind ourselves those are irreversible. And many of the people who have undergone those treatments, they regret them enormously. And I think we can understand why. I think for part of it, it comes down to a Christian understanding. We often don't talk about, and here's a good opportunity for a basic Christian worldview principle that we often don't talk about. When we talk about revelation, we as Christians talk about two major, say, categories of revelation, general revelation and special revelation. General revelation is the revelation that God has implanted in creation and implanted in the human conscience. And this is general revelation. That means it's general, given to all human beings, and it's generally accessible. Now, given the reality of sin, human beings can often act in rejection of general revelation. But the fact is, it's there. It's there, as Paul says in Romans 1, there is a knowledge they suppress in unrighteousness, and that knowledge is given to them by the Creator. And of course, as Christians, we sometimes refer to this by what the secular world even calls conscience, this conscience, the inner witness. And this is why, by the way, a toddler who does something wrong hides himself. It is because even without being told that was wrong, he already knows his conscience, or her conscience is already doing that convicting work. Well, okay, Special revelation is that which God gives specifically in space and time and history. So when God spoke orally, such as he did, for instance, to the man Moses standing there at the burning bush, that was special revelation. It's God speaking specific words. Similarly, through Moses, you had the giving of the Ten Commandments, you have the giving of the law. But you also have, of course, the entire inspiration of Holy Scripture in which the Holy Spirit moved such that the human writers of Scripture wrote exactly what the Father wanted in such a way that there is no error. It's truth without any mixture of error in terms of scriptural revelation, well, when you look at that, you all of a sudden realize that when you look at the entire revelation of God, the heterosexual nature of God's creation, particularly of human beings, is just absolutely clear. It's so clear that you don't need special revelation. You actually don't need the Bible to see it and to understand it. But the Bible does come along with a theological argument that makes the stakes very, very clear. Now, when you look at the moral confusion around us, indeed the moral confusion in a world of sexual rebellion, the fact is that there are still, at least by God's grace, some limits to that confusion that at least show up even in this kind of an account, this kind of story. And you have to hope that that sanity can spread. And here's where Christian witness comes into it as well. There's biological witness, there's ontological witness, but there's also gospel witness that is at the heart of this. You ask the question, how can human beings get so confused about anything, something as basic as biological reality, male and female? And here's where we have to say that this is inexplicable. Apart from sin, it's inexplicable. Apart from the rebellion that began in the garden, it's inexplicable without what the Apostle Paul says is the attempt to worship the creature rather than the Creator who's blessed forever. Amen. This is something we as Christians understand. So when you look at headlines such as this in the New York Times about the Trump administration investigating Mount Sinai Medical center over youth and adolescent gender care. Yeah, this is a really big story. There's a lot at stake. The future of medicine is at stake. The understanding of what it means to be human, what it means to be male and female is at stake. The future of healthcare for adolescents and young people is at stake. But we understand creation order itself is at stake, at least in terms of the rebellion against it. It's something we at the very least need to note. All right, we're shifting to a different story, and this has to do with the former first lady of the United States, Jill Biden. And Jill Biden is back in the headlines because she has written a book. The book is entitled View from the East Wing. And as the Washington Post says, in the book, quote, biden recounts her time in the White House and defends the decisions her husband, Joe Biden, made during his reelection bid. End quote. Okay, so the story goes back to their wedding. It goes back to their political experience together. It goes back to when Joe Biden was in the Senate. He was a senator when he married the woman now known as Jill Biden after the death of his first wife. And there are parts of the story that tell us a great deal about the Biden family and about how they came to work through all these issues. She also makes at least glancing reference to Joe Biden's two previous runs for the White House, which quite frankly, were catastrophic. And then she points to 2020, when Joe Biden ran against other Democratic candidates, eventually won the Democratic nomination, and then won the election in 2020. And of course, it was Donald Trump who was elected in 2016 and then again in 2024. And it looks like 2024 was going to be a rematch of Donald Trump. The Republican versus Joe Biden. The Democrat only didn't turn out that way. And we all know why it didn't turn out that way because of Joe Biden's disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump when it became glaringly apparent to the entire nation that there was a massive problem here, that it was inconceivable that Joe Biden could be reelected to a second term. And quite frankly, it was nearly inconceivable that he should be serving in the office as president. Now, the title of the book by Jill Biden is A View from the East Wing. And of course, there's irony there. Historically, first ladies have had an office in the East Wing. She had an office in the East Wing. She likes telling about her office in the East Wing. But the East Wing no longer exists. It was torn down and by President Trump on the way to building a ballroom and other facilities there. And so you'll just see all kinds of bitterness in this book. As a matter of fact, at times, Jill Biden doesn't even really refer to President Trump by name, but rather, he's described. There's a reference. And you'll understand this is all deeply personal. And I guess all of us recognize that people involved in this kind of thing are likely to be involved in. There's going to be a real personal dimension to it. But in order for Jill Biden to write about these issues, she has to take us into their private lives, or at least what she presents as their private lives. When it came to, for instance, the diagnosis that came to Joe Biden after he was in office about his cancer, prostate cancer, stage four cancer, she said that they basically had a marriage in which they didn't ask each other physical questions. Okay, I may Just tell you, I do not understand that kind of marriage. But, you know, you just take it at face value, I guess. Okay, so that's the way it was. What's really interesting, however, is the extent to which Jill Biden tries to argue that she did not see anything like what happened at the debate, she says, before that event or after. And that's where an interesting controversy has now emerged. And by the way, you say, well, most controversies like this, in a political context, you're gonna have Democrats versus Republicans, conservative versus Liberals. That is not what's on here. No, all the dynamic here is on the Democratic side. And here's where you need to understand that Democrats in 2026 are not at all pleased to hear anything from a Biden, period. They are certainly not pleased to have contentious events that embarrass the party from 2024 in the election brought back to public attention. They certainly don't appreciate Jill Biden saying that Joe Biden was just conspired against and forced to resign and withdraw from the race in 2024, which she clearly thinks was done wrong. But she does admit how disastrous the debate was. And when Joe Biden comes off and I can't use the language that is reported in the book, and he says he knows he messed up, she said, yes, you did. But then right later, before a public audience, she says, you did great. You answered all the questions. It was a patronizing, condescending kind of statement that frankly, just should have added to the humiliation of the former president. But the point is, she said that she had never seen anything like that before or after. And here's what's interesting. Americans had seen a lot of those things before and after. And I do mean really before. And then you had prominent Democrats, you had Democratic celebrities and fundraisers, such as actor George Clooney, who very publicly said, I have seen this. I saw it at a fundraiser that I was helping to host. No one can deny this. It turns out that at one Democratic fundraiser, the president basically was a complete bomb, more or less, just like in the debate. That's one of the reasons why you understand how politics works. And in this case, it's all on the part of the Democratic Party. And that's just to say, this is the way it works. And so the Democratic Party was entirely behind Joe Biden. The incumbent president of a party has enormous authority over the party until all of a sudden, he doesn't. And that's exactly what happened in 2024. And thus, by the way, there are some other things. And so The Democratic ticket lost in 2024. Kamala Harris, Joe Biden's vice president, gained the nomination. Without a primary system basically designated by Joe Biden, she lost. And, you know, there's another major fight now within the Democratic Party, at least behind the scenes. Who lost the election, Joe Biden or Kamala Harris? Well, the Kamala Harris people want to say Joe Biden lost the election because he stayed in the race when that was untenable. And now the Biden team wants to say no. Kamala Harris lost the election because she was handed the nomination on a silver platter and she managed to blow it. The bottom line is, all this is interesting to watch, but, you know, there are some basic issues here. One is the issue of aging. I mean, this is something that affects not only Joe Biden, but other people, other men his age, or just say men and women his age. And in particular, we're looking at the fact that Donald Trump is observing his 80th birthday. And the fact is that Donald Trump is 20 years older than he was when he was 60. He was then 20 years older than when he was 40. This does come with consequences. We also understand that aging isn't level individual by individual. It's not even level in an individual's life. There are times in which aging speeds up and other times in which it appears to slow down. But here's the thing. We are created as human beings, and given the effects of sin, given God's judgment upon Adam and Eve, aging and death are a part of the human process. One of the things we'll talk about in the briefing is the movement towards human longevity where there are people in Silicon Valley saying they're going to resist or stop aging and they're going to avoid death. Well, a part of me just wants to say, good luck with that. That just doesn't work. And by the way, another major lesson here is that dishonesty doesn't work. You can say, I think he's just as good as ever. And yet you look at the video, you look at the record, and you recognize, okay, that just can't be true. Furthermore, I think both parties are going to be, in the future, a bit more age selective. And I think that's because one of the things they're going to look at is the fact that, that if you're going to be giving the nomination to people who are this old in a party, you're going to be taking a risk. I think Joe Biden's example is a flashing red light to both parties in terms of the risk undertaken. But this is a context laden question. And so Republicans in 2024 is no doubt they were going to nominate Donald Trump. And Donald Trump is indeed far more vigorous than many other men his age. And I think very few people are making the charge that he's not conscious of the issues of which he is speaking and how he is leading. But it's just a reminder that there is a difference between 20 and 40, 40 and 60, 60 and 80. This is something that a fallen human being might fight. It is not a fight that over a long term a human being can win. A little teaser for something that's going to come. It turns out a major study has revealed that a lot of the claims made in Europe about human longevity were actually errors in record keeping. In other words, some of the people they said were Alive at age 111, 113had died actually in many cases decades ago. It is a matter of the records. But you know, one of the things we're going to look at in episodes to come on the briefing is how many people now operating out of a secular worldview are driven to invest billions of dollars in an attempt to fight aging and achieve some kind of human longevity. Because by the way, if the secular worldview is all you got, then this life is all you've got. As Christians, we need at least to speak to one another in terms of the gospel and say all things are clarified and life is made for far infinitely more meaningful. Because this is not all we've got. As a matter of fact, as Christians believe, the best is yet to come. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website@albertmuller.com you can follow me on X or Twitter by going to x.comalbertmohler for information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. for information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com hello, I'm speaking to you from Daytona Beach, Florida and I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.