Transgender Medicine in Crisis: What You Need to Know | Alycia Wood

In this critical episode of The Michael C. Sherrard Podcast, we dive deep into two explosive developments shaking the foundations of transgender medicine. Recent leaks from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) reveal what many have long suspected: the organization's standards of care are not grounded in rigorous science or ethical medical practice. Instead, they appear to be driven by a political and ideological agenda, promoting harmful and irreversible medical interventions on vulnerable children.

We also unpack the Cass Report, a pivotal review commissioned by NHS England, which raises serious concerns about the skyrocketing number of young people being referred for gender identity services. The report highlights the lack of a reliable evidence base for these interventions and calls for a holistic approach to care. As more countries revisit their medical practices for transgender care, it's crucial for people to become aware of these alarming findings and to take action to halt what can only be described as medical malpractice. Join us as we shed light on the truth behind the headlines and advocate for a return to ethical, evidence-based healthcare.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Well, hello, everyone. Today, I get to talk again to my friend and co-worker, Alicia Wood.
Alicia and I just did a podcast not too long ago, but we felt we needed to do
another one to talk about some important reports and leaked files that have
come out since this spring.
The WPATH files, which is kind of a data dump, exposing the practices amongst

(00:25):
those giving transgendered care and the CAST report,
which was commissioned by the NHS in England to better understand how to care
for minors that are suffering from gender dysphoria.
Well, what these leaked files show and what the CAST report presents is shocking.
It exposes a level of malpractice that is horrifying.

(00:48):
And what is being done to children in the name of an ideology should make all
people angry, category regardless of even if you are pro-trans or whatnot.
Something has to be done. And we talk about that today.
We bring it out into the light, try to get an understanding of what is going

(01:10):
on in the medical community. Is it really that bad?
And how do we love those that are
going through or suffering from gender dysphoria, some kind of distress?
How do we think about this biblically? How do we love our neighbors relationally?
And what does it mean for us politically?
A lot that could get me and Alicia in trouble. Hopefully we avoided the landmines

(01:34):
and provided some clarity on this topic.
Well, hello, my friend. We've been trying to do this episode for months now, haven't we?
For months. Yeah. It's been a scheduling challenge, but we're here.
It's a nice way of saying that you've canceled on me and bailed on me. Oh, correction.

(01:54):
That's the Mike translation. Alicia did cancel the first time.
However, the last eight haven't made you Mike Schroer.
That's true. I don't know if eight's literally true, but yeah,
it's been I've been the problem for the rest.
Well, and I say we've been wanting to do this for some time.
It's not that we want to talk about this.

(02:17):
We feel compelled to talk about this.
And in late spring, there were some files that were leaked, the WPATH files that were leaked.
The CAST report was published. and it's drawing a lot of attention to what many,
and I would include myself,

(02:37):
are calling barbaric medical practices when it relates to caring for those children
that are suffering from gender dysphoria.
So I want us to get into that, and I think it's important to shine a lot of
light on what these files show and what the CAST report found.
But before we get into that, you speak on this a good bit. You know,

(03:00):
one of our speakers here at Apologetics Inc., one of the most requested topics,
I think, that you get and get asked to speak on is transgenderism.
What's your experience been like speaking on this and why do you do it in the first place?
Yeah. Why is a good question, right? I mean, as an apologist,
you never think that this is something that you're going to be speaking on.

(03:21):
You know, whenever you go to school to study any of these kind of things, theology and.
Bible credibility and big philosophical questions, you're not really dealing with transgenderism.
But what happens is as the culture goes, kind of so do I, meaning,
you know, as I, as I see the people around me that are confused or just don't

(03:42):
know what to do or concerned, and they don't know, they just don't know how
to respond to some of these things.
You've got parents who say, I don't know what to do with my child who is coming
out as trans, or you've got And other young people are saying,
my friends are trans, maybe I'm trans, and you see all the confusion.
And I think part of what I see my role is, or my job is, as a Christian apologist,

(04:03):
is to help bring some clarity through all of the confusion, right?
Some light in the darkness. And so often I'm able to do that with,
you know, through obviously the various teachings and truths that we find in the Bible.
But I think with this one, it was so, it was so, I think, not you don't get

(04:23):
caught off guard, but you just didn't see this one coming to the degree that it did.
Probably because it was a questioning of something that was so fundamentally
clear, I think people thought, like, are you male or female?
It was something that really wasn't a question. It wasn't really an ambiguous
or kind of muddy kind of topic. It was something that seemed so clear.

(04:44):
And then to have this rise in confusion over something that seemed so clear just became.
Like such an eye opener, I think, for me and many other people as to the influence
of culture, social media, mental health, a variety of different factors and how much that can really,
impact somebody's life in a negative way, really.
And so I think for me, it's been a combination of, you know,

(05:09):
just looking for yet how I can still help connect this Bible story,
which for many people seems, you know, so outdated or maybe so old.
But yet when I see what's going on now, I think I see the relevance of it still
today and the significance to bring clarity, which I'm sure we'll get to at some point here.

(05:29):
And so I think for me, that's really where it comes from. Um,
and then I think as I began to dig deeper into it all, I began to read stories
of people like Chloe Cole, um,
who started transitioning in early teens, double mastectomy,
I think by 15 and D transitioned by 17, um, and all of the grats.
And I started getting on YouTube and, and looking at videos of people who, um, who were,

(05:54):
just were crying because they were 24 and they're sterile.
And they didn't realize what they were doing when they were 12 and 13,
making these decisions.
And just when you see their, their tears and you hear their story,
it just breaks your heart. Like this.
And I, and so I think for me, it, it really became very personal because I don't

(06:16):
know how you can watch somebody's regret like that and, you know,
and not feel a massive sense of empathy for them.
So I recently ran across a story just actually yesterday or a couple of days ago about a young girl.
I know her by Griffin. I don't know. I'm assuming that's her male name, female to male.

(06:39):
She was a transitioner, female to male, and started transitioning somewhere
around 15 teen and shares a lot of her story on TikTok,
which I don't have access to, but people shared it on Twitter and her story was really gripping.
And I guess maybe if I share this, this will kind of help people understand

(07:00):
why I spent so much of my time trying to gather more about this particular topic.
And it's interesting to me with the story because it's almost very routine.
It's very, As I read her story, I'm like, this is pretty much what we see with a lot of cases.
She started out having suicide attempts before ever taking testosterone to become

(07:24):
a boy and before ever having surgery. She was already suicidal.
So she's suicidal. She most likely had depression and anxiety as well.
But then she went on to get a double mastectomy and went on to get a hysterectomy,
so completely sterilized now.
And she talks about even how, when I was reading through her story,

(07:45):
how even with the double mastectomy, how she still didn't like her body.
She still struggled to go shirtless even after the double mastectomy.
So she would wear shirts that were two times too big to cover up.
I mean, even there's no chest there. She still didn't want even anything tight on her.
And she said she only went shirtless in public one time in five years as a boy.

(08:07):
One time in five years because she was so...
She said that her body dysmorphia just didn't really change.
She still had this distorted image of her body even post-surgery.
But then she goes on to get genitalia surgery.
And here's where things start to go really, really bad. You know,
it's supposed to be a surgery. You get a couple surgeries and you're done.

(08:27):
Well, she had 10 or so surgeries from what I've been able to gather.
And this point we're looking at probably somewhere around 2021,
2020 when these surgeries started.
And they use skin from her forearm, which is pretty common is they take skin
from your forearm to create male genitalia.

(08:47):
She also had skin taken from her thighs, two patches from her thighs.
So she had these big red marks on her thighs.
Her skin, her wrist was really skinny where the skin had been taken away.
And they even use skin from the the inside of her mouth to create this male genitalia.

(09:08):
Afterward surgery, she had to have a catheter to urinate and walk in a cane
post-surgery and these kind of things.
Ended up developing deep vein thrombosis, which is based in her leg,
which caused damage to her right kneecap and she nearly lost her leg.
She was still depressed post-surgery, still suicidal post-surgery, right?
So once again, this is still actually kind of what we already know has happened.

(09:32):
That the surgery doesn't really fix things.
Constant pain, constant infections, and then things start to continue to really go down.
So let me list you to go downhill. Let me read you some of the things that Griffin has gone through.
Respiratory failure, renal failure, kidney infections, bladder infections,
staph infections, fungal infections, lung issues, blood infection,

(09:53):
and in 2023, a heart attack.
Heart attack at 22, 23 years old, somewhere around there, 24 years old.
But Griffin is still not happy with the body that Griffin now has,
even though it's post-surgery because she complains about her shape and her
weight and her curves and her dog ear chest shape and the stretch marks and the acne.

(10:16):
So I want to read you what Griffin actually said. And this is a quote,
except for one word I'm changing, I'm editing.
But Griffin says, I'm trying to convince myself to think, forget what your mind
or everyone around you thinks.
Your body is fine the way that it is.
Let's consider this step one. And you see this beginning to try to fight to accept who I am.

(10:39):
Now, keep in mind, who Griffin is today is very different than who Griffin was
before because of all the surgeries and everything.
And even though the mental health is a mess still. But let me fast forward now to 2023.
And in 2023, Griffin spends over two and a half months in the hospital,
dozens of infections, lupus, has five blood transfusions, four more surgeries, kidney failures.

(11:01):
Oh, and of course, another catheter. Because repeated surgeries to try and create
male genitalia is not working and is causing complication after complication after complication.
So not only is Griffin in pain, having trouble walking, all of these things.
This is still not giving Griffin the body that Griffin was thought that Griffin would have.

(11:22):
So July 2023, now Griffin's on dialysis. Kidneys have failed.
And for those of you who don't know what dialysis is, you go several times a
week to be able to essentially have a machine clean your blood because your
kidneys are no longer able to help with the filtering. Suffers from internal bleeding.
Hair on Griffin's head has now stopped growing and is falling out in clumps.

(11:42):
And organs are failing, undiagnosed autoimmune disorder.
And then in May of 2024, Griffin puts out this TikTok message.
Prayers slash God aren't my thing, but good thoughts or tasteful memes would be appreciated.

(12:05):
A few weeks ago, Griffin died. We don't know exactly the causes,
but died in the hospital as a result of all of these things.
Kidneys stopped producing urine altogether.
And at 24 years old now, Griffin not only never got the body that she wanted,

(12:26):
she never even got a life that she wanted.
And I think when you see these stories, Griffin is not unusual to have these
conditions, mental health conditions
before surgery or before even transitioning and after is normal.
And I think as I read these stories over and over again, I think you just sit
here and you say, how could I, you know, not help in some way or say something in some way.

(12:52):
And it seems that many, excuse me, are awakening to this horrifying reality.
Maybe it was a year or so ago that I heard Chloe Cole speak in person and she
told the same story that you're telling here.
And part of her story is of the deep regret that she now has and the body that

(13:17):
is forever scarred and the children she will not be able to have.
And if you watch her before Congress,
she has this desperate plea for help, for somebody to open their eyes and put
an end to these practices that children are...

(13:42):
That are available to them, because many people in the West are driven blindly
by an ideology and are afraid to speak up.
But people are starting to speak up.
And that goes to, you know, what I'd mentioned earlier with the WPATH files and the CAST report.
So it, it, my hope here is that people are awakening to what's really going

(14:05):
on and they're being able to see past soundbites,
you know, it's easy one hand to live in the ideological world of just follow
your heart, be true to yourself.
You know, you can be, there's limitless genders, be whatever you want.
I mean, it's fine to live in that soundbite world, but when you pull back the
curtain And you see what is happening to these children in the medical and psychological

(14:28):
fields. It's really horrifying.
And that's, you know, we'll get into some of these with the WPATH files.
And WPATH stands for the World Professional Association of Transgender Health.
And for many years, they presented themselves on the authority for medical practices,
guidelines, think tank. Here's how you perform.

(14:51):
Here's how you engage in gender care for those that are suffering from gender dysphoria.
But back in March, there were a number of files that were leaked,
internal discussions, graphic images.
Images and what became very clear was the world's leading expert in medical
practice and guidelines for transgender care is they didn't know what the heck

(15:14):
they were doing. It was experimentation.
There was no guiding, not much less of a guiding ethic, but no even guiding
principles that it was politically and ideologically driven.
And when you read these files, and it's not an analysis, It's just a data dump
of internal conversations and practices.

(15:36):
It's obvious to anybody looking at this that what's being done is experimentation
on children in the name of an ideology. Exactly.
Exactly. So I don't know what you came across when you looked at them or what
you've seen or heard people talking about when it comes to the WPATH files.
And I do want to talk about the CAST report because that's not a data dump.
That is just an analysis. but what was your reaction when you saw the WPATH files?

(16:02):
Yeah, one quick thing. As far as we know, Chloe did have a double mastectomy,
so she can't nurse her children, but we're hoping she can still have children.
But that's kind of the uncertain thing right now, because once again,
we don't know the long-term effects of puberty blockers and testosterone.

(16:23):
So the jury's kind of still out on that.
Yeah. My reaction when I read the WPath files, I think was probably slightly
different than some other people just because I had been in this world for so long by that point.
And I remember, you know, kind of saying, well, what, what, what's this latest
thing? And looking at that and just seeing how everybody was so upset and all
the podcasts that were being said.

(16:43):
And as I began to read WPath files, I was like, we, we've known this stuff though.
Like this is stuff that people have been saying, Abigail Schreier's been saying this stuff.
I've been talking about this stuff. Jordan Peterson was talking about this stuff.
The people who have been speaking on this particular issue have been saying
these things for several years, that this is not founded on any science.

(17:07):
It's not founded on solid data.
But really what it is, is it's exactly what you said. It's ideology.
And I believe she's still the current president, And Marcy Bowers, who is a trans woman,
so Marcy was Mark Bowers and transitioned to being a man, was a OBGYN doctor,

(17:33):
married to a woman with three kids, and then transitioned, I think somewhere
around 2007, somewhere like that, to being a woman.
And Marcy Bowers went from OBGYN to being one who performs these kind of surgeries.
So if any of you heard of Jazz Jennings, TLC's I'm Just Jazz,
that's Marcy Bowers is Jazz's doctor, did the surgeries on Jazz Jennings.
So Marcy Bowers is very well known in the trans community.

(17:58):
And at least last I checked was serving as the head of WPATH, right? Right.
So what you what you're seeing is exactly what you just mentioned.
I mean, this is what WPATH exposed, I guess, in their own words.
I think probably part of the probably part of the struggle was that it's one
thing of Alicia says something about it, but I'm not in WPATH.

(18:19):
It's nothing when you actually see what they are saying themselves.
And I think that's what really what people up to realizing the doctors are admitting,
that they don't have good, solid evidence.
One of the big things or good self-advance if somebody's better.
Post-puberty blockers and hormones than they were before. But the other thing

(18:39):
I think that really shook people too was this idea of informed consent.
And there was this whole dialogue, right, about informed consent.
So maybe we can turn on that because this idea that, you know,
that these young people, first of all, let me explain what informed consent
to you is, because sometimes people just think, well, you have gotten some,
you know, really big, in-depth kind of thing.
Really what you are is when the provider gives you the risks and the the benefits,

(19:03):
and the alternatives of a given procedure intervention, right?
So you need to give up-to-date info regarding the nature of the condition.
You need to give the proposed treatment with alternatives.
And then you make sure the patient actually understood what you said.
They were able to make informed medical decision based on what you said.

(19:25):
And then you get signatures confirming that they got informed consent.
But the reality is, and this is what you hear with the DE transitioners over
and over again, is they're like, I didn't know what I was doing at 12.
And that's what the doctors you see in the video. Right.
So not only did they not know, and you think of the common sense about,
you know, why there are certain laws that don't allow minors to do any number of things.

(19:49):
And yet we think minors have the cognitive ability to make a decision like this,
but not even from an informed consent, not even taking the child into consideration,
the The practitioners don't know the risks and rewards because there's no evidence for this yet.
So there's this, there's literally no way to have informed consent here because

(20:13):
the practitioners don't know fully the risks.
Yes. They don't know even the rewards.
And this is some of the stuff the cast report shows.
And you're dealing with a minor who can't really make sense of it all.
Anyways, it is malpractice.
At its worst, what's taking place here. No, you're absolutely right.

(20:34):
And I think that's what was so shocking for people was to hear the actual doctor
say, I really don't think this kid really understood really what I was kind
of getting at because they're so young and, you know, have they even taken biology
class and any of these kinds of things?
And you're like, that's exactly what we're saying, why you shouldn't be doing
this to children. They don't know.
And yeah, and so that's exactly what's happening. And to hear it from their

(20:56):
mouths, I think was pretty shocking for a lot of people.
Because I think at the end of the day, people still had some hope and trust
that WPath was working with integrity.
And the doctors that were using WPath's research were either saying,
well, we're going to trust the WPath scholars or people that know this best

(21:18):
or feeling pressured because there's a lot of that that came out in the cast
report as a pressure or the cast review view that the pressure that doctors
in the UK felt when they felt like there were some issues in the silence that they were kind of like,
or maybe even being let go or pressured to leave, whatever,
right? So doctors were under a lot of pressure.
And so it's like you can't, there was no checks and balances here to really

(21:39):
say, okay, where's the long-term study?
Well, there isn't one because we've never given puberty blockers and testosterone,
estrogen to children and this level before to be able to really know what's
going to happen physically long-term.
We know from one of of the Dutch studies, that the effects don't necessarily
cause drastic improvement, but.

(22:01):
Long-term in terms of their mental health. But we definitely don't even know,
haven't even considered what the physical implications are. So yeah,
I think this is what's really shocking for people.
And that's what is behind the CAST report.
Whereas WPATH is just these leaked files, data dump, showing internally what's
been going on in WPATH, the world-leading health organization giving guidance on this issue.

(22:25):
But then many countries now starting to awaken to this, England being one of
them, the CAST review was commissioned by NHS,
England National Health Services, to make recommendations on how to improve
gender identity services and ensure that children and young people who are questioning
their identity have a standard of care that's in line and appropriate with other

(22:50):
standards of care in other medical contexts.
And this is one – I want to go through some of the key findings here because
this is really important.
This was a three-year extensive review.
This isn't religiously driven. This isn't partisan-driven kind of thing.
You think you're Republican, Democrat kind of thing or whatever.

(23:11):
This is just what do we know so that we can give the best medical care to children.
That's why this report I think is pretty important. And one of the things that
they found is that exploration of identity, and this isn't new to them.
A lot of this is what is out there. So some of this stuff isn't like shockingly new.

(23:32):
It's just they're reporting what others have reported.
But the exploration of identity is natural, normal, common in young children.
Many people go through an exploration of things like this.
But rarely does it ever require clinical treatment.

(23:53):
However, what they found in the past five to 10 years,
there has been of an epidemic proportion of young children coming forward saying
that they're having gender identity issues, particularly amongst young women,
which is what Abigail Schreier pointed out years ago.
Ago and an overview of their key findings

(24:16):
here is that they say there's no simple explanation
for the increase of numbers of predominantly young
people and young adults but there is a broad agreement that it is the result
of a complex interplay between biological physiological and sociological factors
this balance of factors will be different in each individual so they're stating

(24:36):
right out of the gate. It's very complex.
Yes. Yes. And must there be treated with proper, well, because of that,
it's not a simple treatment plan for any given patient that it's very, very complex.
They go on to say there are conflicting views about the clinical approach.

(24:59):
So there's not any agreement about the best way to do this.
They found that there is no single
guideline that could be applied in its entirety to the NHS in England.
So they still lack any kind of guiding principle, guidelines, ethics.
There's nothing to guide them on this.
They pointed out that while a considerable amount of research has been published in this field,

(25:23):
systematic evidence reviews demonstrated the poor quality of the published studies,
meaning there is not a reliable evidence base
upon which to make clinical decisions or
for children and their families to make informed choices so they found like
what we've been saying what other people's found there's no good evidence to

(25:47):
guide clinical decisions or for parents and children to make their choices.
It's hope, it's faith, and it's hope and faith in an ideology.
It goes on. There's a couple more things here. No, go ahead.
It says the rationale for early puberty suppression remains unclear with weak evidence.

(26:14):
Evidence, the use of masculinizing and feminizing hormones in those under the
age of 18 also presents many unknowns, despite their long-standing use in the
adult transgender population.
The lack of long-term follow-up data on those commencing treatments at an earlier
age means we have inadequate information about the range of outcomes for this group.

(26:39):
So again, we have no idea what this will do to them.
They go on to say clinicians are unable to determine with any certainty which
children and young people will go on to have an enduring trans identity.
I mean, this is where this just gets insane, right?
They're pointing out that exploration of sexuality and gender is a normal experience

(27:04):
for many young men and women.
Most of them will not require any kind of clinical treatment.
Those that do, the clinicians have no ability to know if this will be an enduring
struggle of theirs or how long it will persist.
They don't know the positive outcome of radical treatments.

(27:27):
And you take all this together, why is anybody letting them go forward with radical procedures?
Puberty blockers, hormone therapy, surgeries. When everybody knows,
we don't know if this is going to work.
We don't know if their gender dysphoria will persist.
We know a number of them almost grow out of this in the sense,

(27:50):
hell, let's just see what happens.
It's absolutely ridiculous. It's the experimentation on our children for the sake of an ideology.
We have to reshape the world in our image and And damn it, if we have to sacrifice
some kids along the way, who the hell cares? That's what's happening right now.

(28:11):
And people are starting to see this.
And becoming angry about it. And anger by itself does no good.
Anger needs to motivate us to action. And that's what's happening.
So going back to the WPATH files, is it Schellenberger?
Yeah, Michael Schellenberger.
I can never get that last name right. He's one of the guys, main guys behind
the publishing of those leaked documents.

(28:33):
And he said for years, he was in the camp of, it really can't be that bad.
Right, yeah, he said that.
As you're starting to hear some of these stories, like the Chloe Cole story
and the horror of it. And he's like, surely it can't be that bad.
And he said, because if it was really that bad, he believed somebody would be
doing something about it.
Like it really, this can't be happening in the medical community because somebody would stop it.

(28:55):
And he kind of lived in this cognitive dissonance for years until he saw what
was happening for himself.
And then he was like, yeah, nobody's doing it. It's worse than what I thought.
Nobody's doing anything about it. And that's why he's decided to speak up and
act and more people are doing it. And it's why, you know, we've been talking
about it for years, but that's also why we're doing this again right now.

(29:16):
This practice has to end, regardless of what you even think about transgenderism,
which we'll get into how you look at that biblically.
Regardless of your view on that, I think it's clear to any sane person that
this medical practice has to end.
It is barbaric on a level we've not seen in the United States in quite some time.

(29:39):
So I think I think this is why I think it's what happens in the way people usually
I think the method of methodology of fighting and getting in winning an argument
in our culture today is to do it ideologically versus off of facts or reason
or science or anything like that.
And so as a result, what often happens is this topic is phrased as it's the

(30:01):
people who are religious or it's the conservatives or it's the right or it's
Republicans versus who hate the trans people.
They hate the they hate, you know, they want them to, you know, to not have equality.
They want them to live miserably. Right. And that's and what I think these WPATH
files and the cast review are demonstrating is actually that's not at all what's happening.

(30:24):
And I think what people need to stop doing is trying to amplify their argument.
They're not going to stop, but amplify their argument by just saying it's these
evil people who are the ones who are pushing back.
Because when you read the Cass report and you listen to what Hillary Cass,
when you listen to her interview, some of that, she is actually,
she's a former pediatrician or pediatrician training.

(30:46):
And I don't know if she still practices or not, but pediatrician.
But she's actually not against transitioning for minors. Right.
This is not a woman who says that minors should never be transitioned.
She just says that she would bet that it's a very small number that would benefit from transition.

(31:07):
And those that do decide to transition in this small number need to do it under
a controlled study where they can be closely monitored and get the appropriate
services that they need.
She also says that she doesn't even think therapy should try and change somebody
from feeling like they're trans or experiencing gender dysphoria.

(31:27):
So the reason why I say this, and I want people to understand that this is not a biased review.
The cash report is not a biased review. The WPATH, obviously,
those are the file dump of emails and things like that and videos and that kind of stuff.
But these are not people who are trying to quiet the trans community,
who don't support young children and things that they're going through.

(31:48):
These are people that are actually just saying, look, our approach doesn't seem to be working.
It was never based on evidence. We need to pull back.
We need to reevaluate how we do this.
And that way we can put a proper approach going forward. word.
And this is why the NHS has shut down Tavistock in terms of being,

(32:08):
which was their big gender clinic. That was the gender clinic in England.
They shut it down in terms of it being functioning at the same level that it
was, basically where kids could come and get all this gender affirming care
and puberty blockers, that kind of thing.
What they're now moving to is a more regional method, smaller method type offices
that are centrally, that there will be there will be communication between them all.

(32:30):
They're not independent, but there is some sort of governance over them all
and collaboration between them.
And they're going to focus much more on mental health.
They're going to focus much more on mental health than doing purity blockers and all of this.
Yeah. Well, and that's where this
seems like this is a massive undertaking to, if you were to step back.
How long this would take is something, but going back to one of these earlier

(32:55):
points, how complicated this is, because you have this, the medical community
trying to address a psychological issue.
That right there is pretty novel almost in itself,
where you're trying to take a psychological

(33:15):
issue and correct it, improve it,
relieve some of the stress in someone's life, lead to flourishing happiness
through a physical route of, you know, certain, you know, physical surgeries,
medication and whatnot.
That's just really challenging, especially with so many of these,
um, like the detransitioners coming out or not even the detransitioners,

(33:37):
what the, what the study is showing that these patients have a number of other
psychological issues that they're dealing with.
It's a very, very messy and complex situation.
And the amount of time, who knows, but the amount of time it would take to bring
this in line, even if someone like Cass was like, yeah, small percentage, this is fine.

(34:00):
The amount of time it's going to take to bring this into a proper clinical setting.
I don't even want to guess how many years that would be, but I can't imagine
it could be any time soon.
So, yeah. So it's interesting. So Dr. David Bell, who was a psychiatrist at
Tavistock for 30 years, he actually became a whistleblower for Tavistock.

(34:21):
And he is just in agreement with what you're saying.
He says that it's actually inappropriate to engage medically with kids with
gender dysphoria. And the reason is, is because he's recognizing it,
that it has to do with psychology and it has to do with their mental health
and these kind of things.
And so he became one of the whistleblowers
as a psychiatrist that was at Tavistock for all these years.

(34:43):
And I think this is what not just the UK, but Finland and Sweden and Denmark
and I think I've heard Germany and France as well.
Europe is beginning to actually say we are going to take a step back and follow
the evidence and realize that medically we are not helping them.
And, um, there's a, when I speak on transgenderism, there's a particular study

(35:04):
that I show that came out from the American Urological Association.
And they look at, this was just earlier this year, I believe in 24.
Um, but they look at people's, uh, suicide attempts after surgery and before surgery.
And they found that with men, so male to female, that they were suicidal before

(35:27):
surgery, actually were more likely to be suicidal after surgery is what they found.
So what we're seeing now is that the data is showing that the medical way to
deal with gender dysphoria is no longer the way we should be going.
And it is not doing what we think it is. And the societal doesn't accept it
piece is like society just doesn't accept them. and that's why the suicide rate is so high.

(35:50):
That argument is beginning to fall on deaf ears because one,
society is very accepting, generally speaking, but moreover,
we're hearing the story after story.
Of those that go through these radical surgeries, talking about they themselves
do not like how they look, not that society is rejecting them,

(36:14):
that they aren't happy with the way that they now look.
And not even just considering how bad the surgeries are,
but they themselves are saying, I'm still not happy or satisfied with the way
I look and the way that I feel, not because people are rejecting me and aren't affirming me.

(36:36):
Exactly. And so think back to the story that I said in the beginning about Griffin,
even after double mastectomy, still did not like how she looked and would not
go around shirtless, even as she was a boy.
Would not go around shirtless, was struggling with acne, was struggling with
stretch marks, was struggling with all of these things, was still not happy post-surgery.
Same thing here with Kira Bell, who's, if you ever watch any of her videos, will break your heart.

(37:00):
She's, I think, in her probably mid-20s or so, detransitioned out of the UK.
She's one of the big ones that was raising a lot of stink about her experience
under NHS and how do people let this happen.
And she just talks about how like she can't believe her body.
Like she's got this deep male voice now and just these changes and what she's done is just amazing.

(37:24):
Beyond which it's just it's just broken breaking
her to tears and you watch these videos and you're like oh my goodness like
you do you see all of that happening so yeah they're
not happy it's not because of culture culture is very supporting it's because
they it's because we actually cannot make girls be boys and we actually cannot
make boys be girls and the reason is is because it isn't just even about genital

(37:46):
number one we don't know how to do the surgeries okay we do not know know how
to do this genitalia surgeries.
And it just can't be done unless they're trying implants now and they're trying
all kinds of things to try and give uteruses to guys so they can carry babies,
all these things, right?
Keep in mind, men's hips and women's hips are different, right?
Testosterone and estrogen will not affect the shape of your hips.

(38:09):
It's why men can run faster because they have a different pelvis structure than a woman does.
A woman's pelvis is shaped for running, or excuse me, shaped for birth, for childbirth.
And so men are better able to run because of the shape of their pelvis.
And so when you give somebody estrogen or testosterone, it does not shift their bone structure.

(38:31):
So you can try and implant a uterus in a guy whose pelvis is not shaped for childbirth,
and that guy still would not, even if the baby can somehow grow still would
not be able to have natural birth because the pelvis doesn't allow for that.
The opening isn't big enough in the pelvis.
So you'd have to do a cesarean. So you can't even, like we're living in a delusional

(38:55):
world here that we think that this can actually be,
that we can change the facial hair and body hair and voice and genitalia and
that that somehow makes you the opposite sex.
Wrong. It doesn't because your skeletal structure is still male male or female,
and your brain function is still male or female because if you're born a boy,

(39:16):
seven, eight weeks in utero, testosterone at seven,
eight weeks in utero begins to masculinize your brain.
The way the neurons process is differently, the size of a man's brain and a
woman's brain is differently.
All of these things, there's more to your body than just your genitalia that
makes you male or female.
And so let alone the gametes and all of that kind of stuff. The point is, it's not possible.

(39:40):
It's just not possible. And that's why when people are on these transitions,
not only are they unhappy with how they look now, but it turns out that gender
dysphoria was not the source of their pain at all.
And that's why when you do all these attempts to fix their
bodies they're still not happy they still
don't like it even though they're girls looking more masculine she's still
not happy because there was underlying conditions that

(40:02):
were there before the gender dysphoria ever came into be and so we're taking
these young people on a journey that they'll never reach chloe ko could never
be a boy i could never be a man that's just the truth and we don't want to tell
people the truth because we don't want to hurt their feelings but look what
we're doing we're destroying their Their bodies and they're hurt on the back end.
And to quote Chloe, she said, I didn't need to be lied to. There you go. I needed compassion.

(40:30):
Yeah. Which is very sad when you hear her tell it, but it's also quite profound, right?
Where she recognizes truth telling and compassion go together.
And we live in a world that wants to say they're fundamentally opposed.
That well i want

(40:50):
to move into what can we do instead of just
be angry by this
because i'm a guy that's what guys do right we want to solve problems
it's amazing i waited 40 minutes to get until how do we fix this right it's
kind of like what guys just charge ahead into but i do think one thing we can
do is just to know the facts and this is just a a true principle in life life,

(41:15):
you always have to ask ourselves,
have our beliefs met the facts of our opinions met the facts when it comes to
something like this, that we all have strong beliefs on,
how those beliefs met the facts. It's important.
So read the WPath files. We'll put links in the descriptions here, uh, for the WPath files.

(41:36):
Um, I know what you're getting into those WPath files. They got some images
that you can't unsee once you see it.
Read the cast report, become knowledgeable, just share the basic facts with
other people too can be very helpful.
But maybe transitioning into what to do and how to think, I do want to talk

(41:58):
about how do we think about this from a biblical worldview?
How do we think of transgenderism? How do we think of male and female?
How do you, or do you, to what extent do you address this biblical worldview
component in the talks you give on transgenderism?
And how do you go about it? Yeah.
Well, I think probably the key thing is, you know, I think whenever,

(42:25):
like, just what you say about Chloe, right?
I didn't need to be lied to. I wanted, I need to know the truth.
Like I wanted the truth. That's what I needed. I needed the truth.
And I think what I try and do is I say, look, whenever I speak to my audiences,
I tell them, look, when I watched the Chloe Ko video and she says things like,

(42:46):
I didn't know, I didn't know. And you watch other detransitioners,
they say they didn't know.
I tell my audience, I want to make sure that you walk away from here and you
can never say you didn't know.
And so after talking looking at them about all of the different effects that
pewter blockers and testosterone estrogen will have on them,
I want them to know the truth.
And I find what's so helpful in the infinite wisdom of God is he knew in 2024,

(43:11):
in 2023, in 2022, and years prior that we would struggle with knowing something different.
Which may have seemed basic or clear to other people, but we would struggle
to know whether or not we were male or female.
And so I find it extremely helpful that in the very, very first chapter of the

(43:34):
very first book, Genesis, that we are told that we are created male or female.
And that created is referring to the idea of shaping or forming.
In other words, you were shaped male or you were formed female.
In other words, this is a very physical description. There's a physicality to

(43:58):
your male or femaleness.
In other words, you weren't feelinged into being a male or you weren't emotioned into being a female.
You were physically shaped or formed into being one or the other.
And so when you have confusion about who you are, The best thing to do is to

(44:18):
ask the being that created you, what is it that you intended for me?
What do you intend for me? Who am I? How do I know who I am?
It's so confusing and it's so difficult.
How do I know? Bring me clarity and tell me. And I just see a mercy,
I feel like, in that God did make it clear.

(44:40):
You and I can go on about this and we get riled up about this because we're
frustrated. We're frustrated as to what is being done to innocent children.
And that compassion is what fuels us.
And I also think it's compassion that puts something so powerful in the beginning
of Genesis to let us know you're male and female.

(45:02):
It's not about your feelings or your emotions or your thoughts or what clothes
you wear, your length of your hair or your nails or high heels,
whatever it might be, makeup. makeup, your male or female is in your physicalness.
So whether or not you like cars, if you're a boy, and whether or not you like
Barbie dolls, if you're a girl, is irrelevant.
It doesn't change whether or not you're male or female.

(45:28):
The Bible, there's a lot of misunderstanding about it, of course.
But it's so important. And for those that are trying to think about this issue
from a biblical worldview, and And there are a number of people that are Christians
that don't know what to think on this.
They struggle with it. They know someone who's transgender and they want to
love. They want to affirm.

(45:49):
They don't want to fight with them. And they have a hard time thinking about this biblically.
I think Genesis is really important because it raises some important questions for us.
Why did God design it that way? And is God's design arbitrary and whimsical or something else?
Is there something really sacred and special in our maleness and our femaleness?

(46:12):
Or is it just random and whatever? It's like, you want to go as far as saying
God was not needed to make us as sexed beings? Was it superfluous?
Or is there something special in this? And I think there is something special.
And that's really getting washed away in our society where we're trying to make
men and women know there's nothing different about us.
And you're right. There's a lot of the cultural expressions of being a man or

(46:34):
a woman that some of those can come and go.
Some of them may not be so arbitrary because I think there are certain cultural
practices and expectations that do allow a man and a young boy to work out what
does it mean to be a man amongst other people.
So there can be certain cultural practices that are good or bad,
I guess is what I want to say, but they're not immutable.

(46:57):
Like you can't ever change them or question them. They're not, they are fallible.
But gendered roles or cultural expressions of maleness and femaleness to varying degrees,
I think can be helpful if they are helping you learn how to live out what does
it mean to be a man or be a woman, but those can be, those can be changed.

(47:18):
But again, going back to, going back to Genesis, one of the things that's very
clear from the biblical standpoint is that men and women are both created in
the image of God, which means that men and women have equal dignity and value.
And it is intrinsic to us that our value, though we'll get to being male or
woman is important. It is not value determining.

(47:42):
Our value is prior to that. It's what we are being made in the image of God.
Men and women share that equally. Men and women share equal value and dignity.
When it goes on in Genesis 2 to talk about the creation of Eve,
the Hebrew words that are used here, etzar and konegdo.
And if you read the NIV, It's translated as like suitable helper,

(48:04):
which is somewhat unfortunate for us today because the word help,
you know, there's a lot of cultural baggage from slavery and racism,
you know, and segregation and the help.
Well, the help, you know, there's even a movie made on that.
Suitable helper kind of conveys that women from a biblical standpoint are just

(48:25):
there to kind of pick up the bags for men. And, you know, they're just a suitable, suitable helper.
But that's a translation challenge, not a biblical challenge.
I mean, not the point. What am I trying to say?
The message that's being communicated in the original language is pretty clear.

(48:46):
And that it's women are like a worthy counterpart to men.
Men and women given the task to have dominion over the entire earth.
They're to do this in cooperation with one another. One of the fundamental ways
you do it is through the family.
And God saw that man could not do this alone.

(49:08):
He needed a worthy counterpart, someone equal to him in dignity and value and
meaningfully different.
That's what those two words convey. And so the biblical take is that men and
women, again, equal in dignity and value, also equal in the calling that they've
been given to have dominion over the earth.

(49:28):
Yet there is something meaningfully different about men and women that when
men and women work together in love and with an aim to honor and glorify God,
it's something beautiful and it is something needed to honor God well and to
have dominion over this earth.

(49:49):
Earth why do you think that biblical message the full dignity of men and women and their uh.
Their their but meaningful differences why is this now cast in a negative light
or why isn't this scene well why isn't this scene as gift why is this scene
as something oppressive maybe,
well i think it's and you know you kind of alluded to it a bit in the sense

(50:12):
of when you talked about how help is looked at as lower because of some of the
slavery and the racism and things like that that, right?
In other words, when situations are abused, then it takes a lot of work to recover,
something that is actually good and beautiful, which is the differences between men and women.
So, you know, when women have been mistreated or women is kind of like,

(50:35):
well, they're not smart enough to do this, or they're not strong enough to do that.
I mean, I'm sitting here wearing one of my hockey shirts, you know,
the girl hockey player with a ponytail,
you know, you go back, I don't know, probably 50 years or so in history,
you're not going to see ponytails out on the ice like that unless you're just
playing backyard hockey with your brothers growing up in Canada or Russia or Europe,

(50:56):
Eastern Europe or somewhere like that. But.
You know, like, so this idea that women couldn't do, and then you hear the word
help, and then you think of all the connotations come with that.
Like, yeah, that seems like there's like this bellowing thing.
It's like she's somehow below.
And I think this is why there's so many misunderstandings and things out there

(51:16):
that are said about the Bible.
But God is such an equalizer when it comes to, like, the idea is like, he actually needs help.
Like, the man actually wasn't like, hey, you know what, let me just give him
somebody to make jokes to and laugh at his jokes.
He was like, actually, he is in need of somebody to do this with him.

(51:36):
There is this idea that she is more than just a sidekick.
And so I think we just have to reclaim these things that I think the cultural
stereotypes and the negative aspects of culture have just taken away from something like this.
And so I think that's why people struggle with any of these understandings of

(51:57):
what the Bible says about women.
It's why Jesus was so radical because even you saw it even by the time that
Jesus was walking and on earth and, and the Pharisees and the attitude towards women.
And then Jesus would, you know, be, allow like a woman to let her hair down
in front of him, which was like crazy that a woman never did that in front of a man.
And people talked about, look at this guy, he's blah, blah, blah,

(52:18):
blah, you know, or having sympathy on the woman connected with adultery or talking
to the woman at the well, like he did all these things. to kind of say the God
of the universe sees you.
And the God of the universe is sticking up for you and he's valuing,
valuing you as all the other people around want to point fingers at you and point fingers at me.
Like the God of the universe is making sure that people see how much I respect

(52:43):
and value you and love you.
And I think that those are important things that we forget because we let the
culture translate the Bible for us.
So I think it's beyond the scope of this, this conversation to get into what
then are these meaningful differences between men and women?
It's, you know, one thing to hear you and I say, created equal indignity,

(53:05):
share the same calling to have dominion, yet there are meaningful differences.
Okay, well, what are those differences?
That's probably too much to get into at this point because you can talk about,
I mean, it's just too much to get into. So many, yeah.
I think the point I want to make though is that this kind of conversation should
be had in local settings without the fear of being called judgmental, oppressive,

(53:33):
patriarchal, and outdated.
That to talk about meaningful differences isn't oppressive.
Rather, it's an inquiry into God's design. And as we apprehend and understand
God's design and live it out well, Well,
I think the hope that we have is that it will lead to flourishing because unless

(53:55):
we think God's design is bad and he did not know what he was doing,
I think it's right for us to have an expectation of in understanding his design
and living accordingly,
it goes well for us and we find joy and we find flourishing.
So I think this conversation just needs to be had despite its baggage,

(54:15):
despite the fear that people have.
And we need to, we need to be open about having these conversations and inquire
what, what are these differences? What does it mean to live as a man?
It's crazy, right? We're like the first people in the history of the world that
don't really have any sense of what does it mean to live as a man?

(54:35):
And then for me to like, feel like I'm doing something immoral.
If I try to answer that question to my son, Conrad.
Yeah. Isn't it good though, that we can have clear answers to what does it mean
to live as a man and pass these things on so that we can use our distinctiveness
and our gifts to love other people well and to love women well.
So we just have to have, we just, I don't know, the point I think I want to

(54:58):
make instead of getting into a list of these things is just to make the point
that we have to be be talking about this in our churches, in our homes.
And from a societal standpoint, we have to be able to engage in this kind of
conversation about the fear of being shut down as being a misogynist or whatever.
Yeah. And I find that when I speak on this topic and I actually do go through
some physical differences between men and women, most times actually the audience

(55:22):
finds it humorous because they're like, oh, we totally see this.
So even something silly like, you know, that men have a better tolerance of cold than women do.
And all the women are like, yep, that's so true because I'm always cold and he's always hot.
Like they just find, like as we begin to list these things, like women can thrive
better sleep deprived than men can.

(55:43):
There's another example, like, and people are like, oh, wow,
this is so funny. This makes sense.
You know, it's all of these things that we actually, when we actually start
listing out some of the biological differences, you know, how women have a better
taste of, a better sense of smell, but men have more taste buds and these kind of things.
Like people actually find them funny and they're like, this is cool.
Like we're different. Like, this is really neat. Like they actually embrace

(56:04):
the differences that we can get ourselves past.
Like if there's no difference between a man and a woman that like,
then we can't like the only way to have people equals if we are exactly the
same as if differences can't still be equal.
And we want until we can get past that. Indicative of an immature person.
It has to be sane for it to be equal in dignity and worth.

(56:27):
I think that's like an immature, a grown-up can understand differences don't lead to inequality.
Right. Exactly. Exactly. And that's the key thing.
Yeah. So I've been, I'm encouraged to see some breakthroughs in what I'm talking about here.
For years, the neurological community, scientific community researchers,

(56:48):
they were shut down for fear of if they
were to find any difference in a male and female brain that
it would just further uh an inequality kind
of outlook on men and women a lot of political pressure for neurologists to
not research like sexual dimorphism in the human brain well finally enough neurologists
said to hell with that this is bad for women because if we continue to do research

(57:15):
and develop treatment plans,
both medically and psychologically on the assumption that there is no difference
in male and female brains.
You know, who's harmed is women because most of the experimentation pertaining
from lab, you know, lab rats to whatever it's, it's, it's always done on, on the male brain.
So they, they broke free of that and began to find in the last 20 years,

(57:37):
some really interesting differences, things in the ways that men and women process
memory, the way the difference that men and women process stress,
and just a number of meaningful differences in the male and the female brain.
And in understanding this, we can cherish the differences, thrive in these differences,
have compassion for the struggles that come with the differences for one another.

(58:01):
And we just need to start living in this space with the freedom to explore God's
design here so that it may go well for us.
Yeah. So I don't have it in front of me, but I know that there was,
and if any doctors are listening, we'll know this for sure.
But there is a difference biologically, we're talking about the medical,

(58:22):
like that they have to be honest with this difference between men and women,
because even the way women respond to aspirin is different than the way men respond to aspirin.
So even something like that is a fundamental, even when it comes to medical here.
So we don't want to shy away from these things in lieu of, yeah,
trying to be politically correct or trying not be offensive.

(58:44):
It's okay. I can look at my neighbor and say, yeah, they're different than me
in 45 different ways, but they're definitely no less valuable than me.
Why would we say that about the men and women relationship then?
The differences somehow mean our description of value. That doesn't make any sense.
So I wouldn't say that about another human being. And we shouldn't do that from
the male and female thing.
And that's one of the reasons I think that has led to some of the transitioning

(59:07):
as well, especially among young girls, is they're scared.
It's not so much that they want to be boys. It's that they just don't want to be girls.
They're scared to be girls or scared to be women because they're told women
go through childbirth and it's horrible.
And they're told women get paid less than men when they get a job. And so they're scared.
It doesn't seem like it's going to be good. And they're more likely to be abused
or to be like, they just, they're just like, okay, well, let's be a boy.

(59:29):
It's safer, you know? And so I think sometimes we don't really think of long-term
implications of what we're saying here when we say some of these things.
I've been a woman for a long time. I like being a woman. I think it's pretty cool.
And we used to make such jokes when the book like Men Are From Mars and Women
Are From Venus came out and we'd be like, oh yeah.
Like we used to think that stuff was great because we appreciated the differences

(59:52):
between men and women and we thought it was funny, you know,
and it was like it made sense.
So I just hope we can get back to that kind of position at some point.
All right. How do we, bit of a change here.
How do we care for somebody that's going through gender dysphoria,
thinking about transitioning?
And, you know, for those that are in the church, almost everybody knows somebody

(01:00:16):
like this now in that category. This is not a,
that fringe issue. It's very common.
I know you get asked that question when you speak on this topic.
How do you answer it when a young kid asks you, hey, I know so-and-so is going
through this. They think they're transgender.
How do I love them? How do I help them? Because they're told love means affirm only.

(01:00:38):
They don't have a conception of love that is beyond affirmation because of the society that we live in.
A Christian view of love is seeking the good of another, even if it comes at great cost to oneself.
So how do you answer that question for young adults in particular,
how they can help a friend who's going through something like this?
Well, you know, it's interesting because I think my answer is slightly changing

(01:01:00):
in the sense of more and more stuff's coming out.
There was recently a Doctors Protecting Children Declaration,
which came out in America, which is a big deal because everything that we've,
like WPATH is a global organization, cash reviews in the UK,
but to have the American Medical Association's,
sorry, let me not say that because it's not the actual association,

(01:01:21):
to have American doctors be willing to come forward and say that there are issues with gender care,
I think should be, it's important for people to realize whenever you're dealing
with somebody who says that they are struggling with gender dysphoria,
it's going to be helpful for you to know that now it seems like the American
medical community is slowly going to be more supportive to helping your friend

(01:01:47):
or your child in a better way than they had before.
Now, it may not be something that's not going to happen overnight because it's
going to take some time for things to kick off here.
But so I would say, you know, whenever you meet someone who is struggling with
this, I always encourage people to do several things.
Pay attention to their social media usage. Pay attention to any mental health

(01:02:11):
conditions that they have going on.
They're most likely depressed, anxious, autistic, or have ADHD.
So pay attention to those pre-existing conditions.
Pay attention to who is influencing them. Who are their influencers?
And that is really important as well because we are heavily,

(01:02:31):
I mean, it's what social media is. It's an influencing platform.
So we are heavily influenced by those around us. So who are the friends and how are they impacting?
And so I've even heard stories of parents who have children struggling with
gender dysphoria and they pull their child out of school and homeschool them.
Now the child doesn't have gender dysphoria anymore, separated from the friends

(01:02:55):
from that environment. So I would really encourage anybody to...
Not do any kind of treatments and anything like that, but to first just pay
attention to what is actually going on in their lives, social media,
friends, mental health conditions, et cetera.
And second, after that clump, I would strongly encourage people to not take

(01:03:16):
any sort of medication, not puberty blockers, not testosterone,
not estrogen, to give yourself time.
And so the American, the Doctors Protecting Children Declaration,
which is a combination of American doctors from various fields, says this.
They say that most children and adolescents whose thoughts and feelings do not

(01:03:39):
align with their biological sex will resolve those mental incongruencies after
experiencing the normal developmental process of puberty.
They go on to say that in the largest sample to date of boys clinic referred
for gender dysphoria, So they're
boys to girls, boys that are clinically referred for gender dysphoria.
There was a desistance. So basically they moved away from being transgender.

(01:04:01):
Desistance rate of 87.8 percent.
That is high.
So the idea is if you can leave somebody alone and this agrees with the cast,
cast review, this agrees, this agrees with even WPATH and things that we're saying.
If you leave people alone, let them experience, you know, go through the challenges

(01:04:25):
of puberty or go through the challenges of whatever they're doing in their life,
help them process through those challenges.
And because ultimately, I think what so much of this is, is we are trying to
find a way to escape from the pain of life.
So life hurts and we are trying to find a way to escape from it.
So if we can deal with the things that hurt in life, we may not feel the need to escape.

(01:04:46):
And if we kind of focus in on those things, I think that'd be helpful.
So leave them alone. I get what you're saying in the medical sense, but.
When a young person would ask me, for example, what do I do with this person?
It's obviously don't not leave them alone or in a relational sense.

(01:05:07):
No, right, right, right.
And if it is true what studies have shown that gender dysphoria does not persist
in a number of them and it goes away over time,
they need someone to love them through that.

(01:05:27):
In a gospel kind of love.
You know, this is what, you know, going back to Chloe Cole, the story she found,
she found that online community and their love was affirmation oriented.
And in fact, she found that when she detransitioned, that love went away.
So it was incredibly conditional.

(01:05:49):
Yes, it was. A conditional acceptance that she found.
So for a young man or woman who's a follower of Jesus, who knows someone in
their class that's going through this, you don't have to treat them like a leopard leopard.
Someone has leprosy, not a leopard, like, like they have leprosy.
You can even befriend them. Yes. Ask them their story.

(01:06:12):
Yes. Uh, ask them what kind of help are you getting? Who's helping you with this?
Um, ask them what kind of, do they feel like they're getting good information?
Are they getting the facts? Are they getting help?
And if someone has that kind of support, which is the support Chloe was desperate

(01:06:34):
for, not the affirm, go this way, affirm, go this, go this way,
go this way, go this way, go this way, go this way.
But somebody that says, well, tell me what's going on.
Do you have the information? Are you getting help? Have you considered the consequences?
Are people telling you these things?
That's the kind of friend many of them need, especially, again,

(01:06:56):
if it's true that this does not persist.
So it's a good opportunity for Christians to love in that sense of the word
love, not just show affection, but to seek someone's good.
This is an opportunity for the light of the gospel to shine really brightly.
And I know you came across a quote here recently, didn't you?

(01:07:17):
Where someone says, I want to, you can't believe it out, right?
Do you remember that quote you were sharing with me?
Oh, so this was a quote from a female to male detransitioner.
And I don't remember exactly, but here's the paraphrase. She basically said,
it was on Twitter, that she really wants to hate Christians.

(01:07:40):
And then she put, you know, Christians send me messages.
Always praying for you, always caring, you know, love you. And then she's like,
basically like, I just can't hate them. Like she wants to hate them.
She wants to be mad, but she can't
be mad at them because all they do is shower her in love and prayers.
And man, I just wish I could, if it didn't have expletives in it,
I would like post it everywhere.

(01:08:02):
Because I think it's so powerful. I think they need to, I think this is what
people need to understand that what,
What helps people to actually find this whole Christian message beautiful is
their interactions with how they watch us,
how they engage with us, how we love them in spite of their mess.

(01:08:22):
And here is the thing that Christians need to understand.
They're loving you as your friend in spite of whatever you're going through.
Like gender disorder may be their thing, but you're probably going through your
own stuff and they're loving you through it too.
Like this is what we do as friends. And so the –.
It's a cheap love that only affirms. And there will come a day when someone

(01:08:43):
looks back at you and says, no, I needed you to love me a different way.
And that's what Chloe is saying. And this is an opportunity for the true love
of Jesus Christ to be known in this world.
And so we've got to be willing to speak on this, not just through Twitter and

(01:09:04):
soundbites, but in our relationships.
And this is one of the ways I think that we can, we can do that and great opportunity
for the church here. And we don't, we don't need to squander it.
Hey, one last question for you. I know this is your favorite arena.
So I think there's a relational pathway for all of us, which involves growing

(01:09:26):
in knowledge ourselves.
If we know someone that's suffering from this, that kind of our posture towards
them needs to be just wait.
Do you understand? Are you getting help? Do you have all the facts? Are you aware of?
So there's a relational pathway that isn't easy, but seems rather straightforward

(01:09:47):
to me for how Christians are to respond to this. What do we do politically, though?
What do we do civically? I mean, if part of this problem is these practices
in the medical community and psychological community, it's not really a relational
pathway there. It's a political one.
Are Christians to touch this topic? Are we to stay out of it?

(01:10:10):
If we're to engage it politically, what are some ground rules maybe in your mind on how to do that?
Oh yeah you were hoping we were running out of time weren't you,
like christians engaging in politics oh this always goes well um yeah so you know,

(01:10:33):
i if you're going to engage with politically i think you would need to do it
very carefully i would probably say there's probably a few a small number of
people who should be public about it from the Christian perspective,
just because it will only feed
the stereotype that it's about Christianity versus the trans community.
And that won't help with progress.

(01:10:53):
That will just make people say, oh, I hate Christians. So therefore,
because all we do is idealize. We just pick a side and we don't let,
I hate that side. So I'm just going to join with this group.
And so it's like, oh, we hate the Christians. So whatever they say, I'm going to be against.
So I think there's only a very small number of people that if you know it and
and you've studied the material, and you can do it in a way that is loving and kind.

(01:11:14):
Because remember, these are people's bodies that are being destroyed.
I recognize the frustration and anger with that topic and what doctors are doing.
Absolutely. And therapists are doing. Absolutely. But at the end of the day,
these are people whose bodies are being destroyed, and it should break your heart.
And so anything you do is going to have to be done through that posture.

(01:11:34):
But I think too, I think we need to, as people, just not get caught up in.
Not allowing like an ideology to, I don't know, to make us pick a side or to,
maybe that's not really the right approach. I guess I just think that.

(01:11:57):
This is an issue that we have truth to. So look around and like we just talked about this last topic.
You've got people in your circles that may very well be struggling with it.
What can you do in your immediate circles?
What can you do with the people that are around you? What can you do with your neighbor?
You know, I have a friend who's a teacher and, you know, what about her students
if they come out as struggling with gender dysphoria, right?

(01:12:20):
So you have all of these circles that you have around you that are separate
from the larger scale political realm.
But don't blind yourself to the impact of the political realm,
too, because you have to understand that politicians do have power and they
can enable parents to not know.
Look what's happening in California, where Newsom basically is taking away parents'

(01:12:45):
rights to even really, I think it's, was it to know what's going on at school?
School that kids school yeah okay schools can transition kids
not even parent um parents knowing like
so these politicians do have power and you need
to keep that in mind as well like don't get sucked up and saying well i hate
this person so i'm just gonna vote for this person because what like just look

(01:13:06):
at what they hold and look at the implications of voting for this person and
likewise both ways like we have to recognize that politicians have a bunch of
different issues that we like and don't like, but they have power.
And how are you going to land on that? So I think it's a difficult place.
It's difficult. And if I'm hearing you and tracking with you,
it's something that must be approached with caution and wisdom,

(01:13:30):
but it must be dealt with.
Christians cannot stay out of the political arena.
We're going to talk more about this on another Ask the Apologist,
another thing we do with our cohorts here.
But God does hold sovereigns responsible in Scripture. Yeah.

(01:13:53):
And the question is, what does that mean for countries that are built on democracy?
You know, we're not a true democracy. We don't vote on everything.
We're a representative democracy. So what does that mean for us?
It's a good question. We'll need to dive into that more at another time.
But I think it means at least we bear some responsibility that God holds us,

(01:14:14):
will hold us accountable for.
Moreover, we can view politics as a means of loving our neighbor and ensuring
that there is good law and good legislation that leads to human flourishing.
And it's silly to reduce this as forcing your religion on people.
People we're not forcing you to become a baptist

(01:14:35):
or believe in calvinism versus
something else or infant baptism or
how often to take the lord's supper and stuff like
you know what we're not we're talking about basic human flourishing
it's silly when there's legislation relating to murder
people aren't looking at christians say hey don't hurry to
force your religion i need a bible to say do not murder don't

(01:14:56):
force your let's just a childish way to look
at this there are good laws and there
are bad laws good laws lead to human
flourishing uh with the conception of human flourishing that matches reality
so at that christians we just what do we turn the government over to atheists

(01:15:18):
or something or pagans i mean what that's just a silly christians we ought to
to be involved in politics,
which means we need to think rightly about politics, which means to some degree
churches need to teach their people how to think about politics,
which of course isn't the same thing as saying, vote this way,
vote that way, vote for this person, vote for that person. How do we even begin
to think about politics?

(01:15:39):
Unless we think that the Christian worldview just ends at the capital steps, which I think is a...
Pretty dumb idea. And it's a pretty bad biblical. I don't know where you're
getting that out of the Bible. The Christian worldview covers everything.
And so we need to be aware of things like you've talked about.
Again, we focus so much on national, but what about local? What's going on in our own home turf?

(01:16:03):
There's a lot of amendments right now on another topic, like surrounding abortion.
People need to know about these amendments. There's one in Florida right now
that our ministry is helping to just educate people on what is the pro-life
position and what does this amendment deal with.
And the amendment for being proposed in Florida, among other things,
rips parental consent right out of this.

(01:16:23):
So if it passes, that would mean minors can get abortions without their parents even knowing it.
That right there is a bad law, regardless of what you think about abortion.
That right there is a terrible law that will be written into the state constitution
if If people don't go vote no on this in the Florida or in the November election
down there in Florida. It's crazy.

(01:16:45):
So anyway, Christians, being politically minded isn't the same thing as worshiping
Trump or something like that.
Being politically minded means we want to love our neighbor by seeking their
well-being, ensuring that there are good laws and good lawmakers in place.
And so growing in knowledge is important and it doesn't need to be something
that Christians don't touch.

(01:17:07):
I think that's really good. And I think we remember that politicians ultimately want to get elected.
They don't always care about truth. So you know the truth.
And that should matter to you. And when you hear them say certain things that
you know aren't true, then that should let you know.
That's what they're willing to say to your face, lie to your face about certain things.

(01:17:28):
So what are they doing behind your back that you don't know?
So I think we need to remember that I think the big thing that's being advocated
for by Michael Schellenberger, who released WPATH files, by the Cassie Porte,
by Doctors Protecting Children, by all of these groups.
Is ultimately let's follow the evidence and the science. Let's think about this
reasonably and rationally and not as an ideology.

(01:17:52):
And I think our politicians follow ideologies oftentimes, not all of them,
of course, but just keep that in mind. Are they someone who's looking at reason and facts?
Or is it somebody that just wants to get elected? And so they want to make as
many people like them as possible.
So that's, I think, important. So grow in knowledge yourself.
We'll put the documents in the description that you can become more educated

(01:18:13):
on. equip yourself, equip your neighbors, pester your politicians, write them letters.
This should direct how you vote. It absolutely should.
So be careful about what candidate you are endorsing and where do they stand on an issue like this.
This matters and that growing knowledge on these issues so you can love your neighbor well.

(01:18:38):
Well, also, if you're interested, by the way, about what we mentioned there,
this Florida initiative that Apologetics Inc., the ministry that we work for
as a part of, you can check it out at apologetics.org forward slash pro-life.
And if you want to get involved, you'll see how to there on that page.
I think that's it. That's all I know, Alicia. You got any other brilliant things

(01:19:00):
to say before we get out? Or maybe we should just get out before we get in trouble.
Yeah, because we end on politics. That's great. That'll do us well.
Yeah well hey thanks for your time thank you well i'll see you soon.
Music.