I’ll never forget the first time I heard of warlords such as Uganda’s Joseph Kony turning little boys into killer soldiers and little girls into sex slaves. My heart ached at the thought. It still does. It seemed like a horrible war movie, but it was real, with real children as casualties.

War is always horrible, but in some sad cases it is necessary. But to the greatest degree possible, children should be shielded from violent conflicts. They should never be forced to kill or do violence. Innocent, impressionable children are malleable. They can be molded into persons of deep character, guided by transcendent principles. Or they can be turned into weapons, as Kony and many other evil men have done.

Apart from movies, we’re unlikely to find anyone in America turning young boys into bullet-firing, lethal fighters. But we don’t have to look too far to find adults using children as pawns—as weapons—in the culture war.

Manipulated for Propaganda Tools

At first, the LGBTQ craze focused on adults, but adherents have increasingly sought not only to include and recruit kids in their movement, but now to use them as their frontline combatants. For example, eight-year-old Nemis Golden, born a boy, routinely performs on stage before packed, cheering audiences as the mini drag queen Lactatia. Nemis’s mother not only encourages his performances, she even helps him dress and apply his wig and makeup. The crowds not only cheer at his performances, they also laud him as a brave young role model.

But it isn’t just practitioners of the LGBTQ lifestyle who portray as heroes little ones who claim to be transgender. We see in ever-increasing number of stories like the following:

Those stories generally paint a rosy view of happy, well-adjusted transgender children. But those pictures are typically snapshots, not full-length movies. “Yes, I’m happy,” the little one answers as he or she is aided in and rewarded for indulging in transgender fantasies. Those rosy answers are pretty common in act one of the movie, but I usually hear from transgenders in act two, when they’re no longer so happy, but often at their wit’s end. The fantasy that appeared so appealing early on has trapped them in a very real cycle of emotional despair and poor physical health.

One study found the following: “Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population.” Another study, cited in The Lancet, said, “Cancer care for transgender people is a growing concern and health-care services that are both respectful of this population’s diﬀerences, and also relevant to and inclusive of them are needed.” That study did not come to a firm conclusion, but for an issue as serious as cancer, isn’t it best to err on the side of caution?

More studies pointing to real and potential health and psychological risks related to transgenderism and sex-reassignment surgeries are abundantly available. But for now, it’s important to remind ourselves and our culture that children are not adults. Duh, right? Well, when adults allow—and worse, encourage—children to embrace and indulge fantasies that can dramatically alter the remainder of their lives, that’s giving children more responsibility than they are capable of exercising properly.

Children Tend to Act Before They Think

Another study found that “children tend to make riskier choices than adults, and they do so because it’s enjoyable. When faced with different hypothetical choices in the study, adults tended to pick the safe choice, while children often picked the riskier one. The kids knew they were making the risky choice, WHO IS Bunge said.”

That’s just one of many studies confirming that children are not ready to make life-altering decisions. Sure, they may be consulted, but they must not be allowed—and certainly not encouraged—to make crucial decisions unaided by responsible parents or guardians.

I’ll never forget when I was just nine years old and my father told me of his desire to become a woman. I had to choose whether to keep his secret, as he asked of me, or to tell my mother, as I wanted to do. At that age, I was not ready to deal with such a request. Having that knowledge—and keeping it confidential for years—harmed me profoundly, and required years to overcome.

Even so, adults like my father are often willing to use children to further their agendas—their fantasies. It isn’t enough that they play out their fantasies, they also want others to approve of those fantasies, and even to join them. So they’re willing to use children as pawns—as weapons—to get their way. And this is not Joseph Kony’s empire, nor is it a movie; it’s a very real culture war, right here in America.