May 22, 2026 • 33 mins
This episode of the Dan Caplis Show is a powerful and thought-provoking conversation that delves into the complexities of identity, faith, and the journey of one individual who transitioned and then detransitioned. Laurel Herbert shares his story of growing up in a Mormon household, feeling like he was in the wrong body, and the journey that led him to medically transition as a woman. However, after four years of living as a woman, Laurel began to question his identity and eventually detransitioned, returning to living as a man.
Laurel's story is a testament to the complexities of identity and the impact of societal and cultural influences on our understanding of ourselves. His journey is marked by a deep exploration of his faith, his relationships, and his own sense of self. Through his story, Laurel sheds light on the importance of questioning assumptions and seeking truth, even when it's difficult or uncomfortable.
Laurel's wife, Valerie, also shares her perspective on their journey, highlighting the importance of understanding the role of trauma and ideology in shaping our beliefs and behaviors. She emphasizes the need for compassion and empathy in supporting loved ones who are struggling with identity issues, while also acknowledging the importance of holding onto reality and truth.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of identity, faith, and the human experience. Laurel and Valerie's story offers a unique perspective on the importance of questioning assumptions and seeking truth, and the need for compassion and empathy in supporting loved ones who are struggling.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Dan Caplis and welcome to today's online podcast
edition of The Dan Caplis Show. Please be sure to
give us a five star rating if you'd be so kind,
and to subscribe, download and listen to the show every
single day on your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I'm Aaron Lee filling in for Dan today and I
am joined this hour by Laurel Herbert and his lovely
wife Valerie.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
For this next hour, we're.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Going to have a conversation that touches on identity, family, faith, pain, healing.
Laurel medically transitioned as an adult, but later came to
believe that he had made a profound mistake. He detransitioned
and today lives as a man again. His wife, Valerie,
has walked through it, all of it with him. I
had the pleasure of meeting and hearing Laurel at the
(00:44):
let D Transitioners Speak conference in Denver last month, and
I was just blown away, And I asked him to
join me today, and I knew that a phone call
wasn't enough, that a nine minute segment wasn't going to
cover it. So we're going to take the next hour
covering his story. It's one that ever everybody needs to hear.
I encourage you all to follow him and his wife
on Instagram at Laurel Herbert.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
His bio says he's.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
A former trans former Mormon, former New Age, current Christian
who speaks out against unethical trans affirming care. Larel and
Valerie two are such a beautiful couple with a compelling story.
Thank you both so much for joining me today on
the Dan Kaplis Show. So let's start with some background.
I want to just first lay the ground work. Who
(01:27):
is Laurel? Who were you before all of this started?
Speaker 4 (01:30):
So?
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Who were you growing up? What kind of a kid
were you?
Speaker 5 (01:34):
I was a pretty quiet kid. I grew up in
a loving home, in a Mormon religious home, born to
two loving parents. My family goes way back in the
Mormon Church, and that the reason I put that in
my profile is because that's such a huge part of
what made me who I am is because of those
(01:56):
religious perspectives that I grew up with being taught what
I was taught. I was a pretty quiet kid growing up.
Thought I had a normal childhood, but I at a
very young age, had this persistent feeling that I was
in the wrong body, that I was somehow supposed to
have been a girl, and I couldn't make sense of it.
(02:19):
But I also was in an environment where I recognized,
I can't tell anybody about this. This will get me
seen as some mental patient or something if I ever
mentioned this, so I kept it deeply guarded as a
secret in me. The whole time I grew up, I
just lived a normal life. I was homeschooled. I went
(02:40):
to kindergarten in first grade, at public school in part
of second grade, and then my mom took me out
and homeschooled me the rest of my life, which I
actually am very grateful for. In certain ways. There was
a lot of the social aspect that I missed out
on because of that, But I think had I been
in school, perhaps I would have transitioned earlier. But yeah,
(03:04):
I just grew up a pretty normal kid, thinking I
wasn't traumatized in any way. It wasn't until later, when
this whole transidentity took over my life that I realized
there surely was something from my past, and what is that.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
I know you shared at the conference last month about
how you know you kind of were learned to hate
men as a kid, So what were some of the
experience that shaped that belief.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
Yes, I have very clear memories of being a child
and hearing my mom and my grandma speak on the phone.
My mom would talk to her mom pretty much every day,
and I remember a lot of discussion about men and
how they were to be hated. And she denies this,
(03:54):
of course, and I love my mom and I don't
want to hurt her by saying these things. But my
experience as a child was that I was in a
household that men were talking down about all the time,
and even the male genitalia was talked about negatively for
my entire childhood, and I hated my own male genitalia.
(04:15):
I was convinced it was because I was in the
wrong body and I shouldn't have had it. But there
was this definite programming from being in this environment where
I was always hearing how disgusting the male genitalia was
and how men were monsters.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
When did you first begin identifying differently, like what felt
compelling or attractive about this path of living as the
opposite sex.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
No one, it's a good question. When I was about
four years old, was I have this memory of putting
on my mom's nightgown and it felt so amazing, and
I ran outside to show her. Look Mom, and I
just I felt I was drawn to those kind of clothes.
But I have a memory of that suddenly becoming a
(05:05):
dark moment where I think my mom instantly shamed me.
That's not for boys. Boys shouldn't dress like that. And
so then that was one of the things that caused
me to realize, I need to just keep this a secret.
And so then I have another memory of when I
was five years old, climbing underneath the bed and putting
on my sister's white tights or something, putting on more
(05:27):
girls clothes, and I just kept doing it in secret
for my whole life, just feeling like I just I
felt more natural, like it was what I was upposed
to wear, Like I'd see the girls at church wearing
their beautiful dresses. Especially Easter Sunday was a really hard
time for me, because the girls always wore their pretty dresses,
and I just felt like that was supposed to be me.
(05:49):
I was supposed to dress that way as well.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
You can, probably, like me, having a child who went
through this, sympathize with the kids who wrestle yes with
these feelings. But we know you can't change your sex.
When did things move from thoughts and feelings into ACTIONSW.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
I still into my twenties, this is a crazy thing.
For some reason, even though we had the Internet in
my home, I was not exposed to the term transgender.
And I knew that drag queens existed, but I knew
that was not me. I knew that I felt like
I literally was a girl, not that I wanted to
(06:28):
be a girl, and that was an interesting thing for
me to live with. And so in my mid twenties,
I was searching online again like I had done a
thousand times, and never came up with anything. But finally
I searched why do I feel like I'm a girl
in a boy's body? And suddenly this website, Susan's Place
dot org popped up and it was a website for
(06:51):
men who think they're women. And I went down a
rabbit hole on that website, spent hours researching it, and
it was only at that moment that I realized, Oh,
there's hormones and surgeries that a person can have to
correct this birth defect. As I saw it, that I
don't have to live as a man. There is something
I can do about it. But that was in my
(07:13):
mid twenties, and I thought that perhaps the testosterone had
damaged my body. As I saw it, that I had
become too much of a man. There was no chance
of ever going back, and so I continued to live
as a man until in my thirties after I got married.
So it wasn't until after I was married that I
(07:33):
did something about it and actually made a change.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Right, So you got married to Valerie. You have this
beautiful daughter. What actually prompted medicalization? And I know, Valerie,
you had something to do with it in that moment.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Yeah. Yeah. We were sitting there watching a TV show
called Gender Revolution, and it was about people living with
a transgender identity. And they happened to show on the
show a couple that lived supposedly happy in transition, where
the husband and transition to live as a woman, and
(08:08):
the wife was supportive. And I guess my wife, already
knowing that I was kind of leaning towards the feminine side,
she paused the show and turned and asked, me, so
is this what you want? Do you want to actually
take hormones and transition and live as a woman? And
my heart started beating one thousand miles a second, because
(08:32):
I was all of a sudden faced with this realization,
of this awareness that there might be an option to
actually do something about this. Now my wife might recognize
that this is what I want, I can pursue this.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Were you receiving a lot of like you know, obviously, culture,
online messages, friends, family?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
What were the people around you like? What were they
speaking to this idea that you wanted to transition?
Speaker 5 (08:56):
Yet at that point I hadn't let anybody but my
wife know. She was the only one that knew. But
as soon as I decided to transition and started putting
the message out there, I made a post on Facebook
announcing this is the real me, And of course my
family started sending me messages and begging me not to
do this. Please don't, don't transition. This is not natural
(09:21):
because my family's all Christian Mormon Mormon Christian, and they
didn't want me to do that. They tried to stop me.
Nobody was supportive other so I had to seek support
from places I knew we're going to be supportive.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
And did you feel total certainty in this decision at
the moment?
Speaker 5 (09:41):
Absolutely, there was no question in my mind that this
was who I really was, and I had to pursue
transition or I couldn't live anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Well, y'all, we are talking to Laurel Herbert and his
wife Valerie. We're gonna head to break, but when we
come back, we were going to talk about the D
transition process. Laurel realized that this was a mistake and
backtracked on living the transgenderal lifestyle.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
So you're listening to the Dan Kapla Show. This is
Aaron Lee. We'll be right.
Speaker 6 (10:09):
Back and now back to the Dan Kapla Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
As I'm joined in studio by Laurel Herbert and his
wife Valerie.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Laurel is a.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
D transitioner from Colorado Springs and we're just diving into
his story of full medical transition. Now, let's talk about
the D transition process.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Loureau.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
You know, we talked about what led you to decide
to fully medically transition, what prompted you to go the
other direction?
Speaker 5 (10:43):
So I've always been fascinated in psychology, but I never
had a desire to go to school to learn about psychology.
So I just researched and read books and my own
and my amazing wife, she did go to school to
be a therapist, and she would share with me things
she learned, and one of the things she shared with
(11:03):
me was The Body Keeps the Score by doctor Besil Vanderkulk.
And then we also became exposed to doctor Richard Schwartz's
work in parts therapy Internal Family Systems, and my interest
in learning who a person was and why they were,
(11:23):
why they thought they were who they were, and me
having this belief that I was born in the wrong
body my entire life, I wanted to learn more about
why a person might feel this way because I became
aware through things I was exposed to that perhaps being
trans is a belief system that is formed in a person.
(11:47):
And so when I became exposed to these books The
Body Keeps the Score and Internal Family Systems, the gears
really started turning in my head. Here I was absolutely
convinced my entire life that I was in the wrong
body and that perhaps God made a mistake and put
me in a boy body. But when I read The
(12:08):
Body Keeps the Score, and then I myself was interested
in perhaps pursuing being a parts therapist. So I took
a training in doctor Richard Schwartz's parts therapy training, and
during the training, one of the other students asked the
woman giving the instruction, well, what about a trans identity?
(12:30):
Do you think that's a part? And as soon as
she said that, it piqued my interest extremely and I
sat there, what is she going to say about this,
because here I am living as a woman. What if
I'm living as a woman just based on this belief
system it came about? And she said, I personally believe
that trans is real, but doctor Richard Schwartz, the creator IFS,
(12:56):
does believe it to be a part. And I said,
wait a minute. If that's true, then all.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Of this is a lie.
Speaker 5 (13:04):
And so that really got me thinking and so then I,
in very short order, my whole gender identity just dissolved.
It took work, It took work to resolve the feelings
that were beneath it. But when I became aware that
(13:25):
it was programming from a belief system from early childhood programming,
that's when I just completely shifted my perspective on the
whole thing.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Was it what you thought it would be living as
a woman?
Speaker 5 (13:40):
Everyone always asks me, so what does that mean to
feel like you're a woman if you've never been a woman.
How could you possibly know what.
Speaker 6 (13:48):
That feels like?
Speaker 3 (13:49):
And I don't know.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
All I knew was I was drawn to it. I
thought that was how I wanted to live because I
thought it would feel a way that I had taken
on this belief it would feel. And so no, it
wasn't what I thought it would be. There was a
time when I was perfectly happy for four years after
I had surgery to change my genitalia to match how
(14:13):
my insides felt. For four years, I was happy with it.
And it wasn't until that moment in twenty twenty three
where it all just fell apart.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
And started to think, I assume I made a mistake,
and how hard is that to admit that you made
a mistake.
Speaker 5 (14:31):
That was really hard because a mistake of that magnitude
was such permanent, irreversible consequences. It brought on a lot
of shame in me. I could have just gone into hiding,
like I think a lot of detransitioners probably do, because
they don't want to admit to making that kind of mistake.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
It's hard to.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Backtrack, I know going through this with my daughter. Once
you announce it to everyone, it becomes that much harder
to say, oh, nope, just kid, I'm going to go
back to being my biological sex now.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
Yeah, that was where I had to do a lot
of self work to be able to put myself out
in front of people as a man after that, because
I moved to Colorado Springs in twenty fifteen and most
everybody I knew knew me and in my man or
female form, and so trying to go back around all
these people now as a man was so uncomfortable for me.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Right, And I know you everyone can't see you because
we're on radio, but I do encourage you to go
follow Laurel on TikTok and on Instagram. He's not You
have this like stereotype of what you think a D
transitioner looks like.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
You don't. You wouldn't know looking at you.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Just you look like a regular man with your cowboy
boots and you're tall.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
And just looking at you, you wouldn't know.
Speaker 5 (15:45):
That's the beautiful thing. I can go back to living life,
even though I'm missing certain body parts. Nobody knows. I
can live a normal life now, thankfully.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
And you've spoken really openly about your faith. What role
did Jesus play in your story?
Speaker 5 (16:00):
A lot of people accuse me of following religion and
that the only reason you de transitioned is because religion
made you change. But that's the fascinating thing. I de
transitioned when I was still an atheist, when I was
into New Age spirituality and did not believe in God.
(16:20):
It was not until after I de transitioned that I
that whole process humbled me enough to where I was
able to open my heart to the possibility that Jesus existed.
And then I prayed to him one afternoon one evening
and asked him after watching my wife go through this
(16:42):
amazing experience where she came to Jesus and I still
couldn't accept it. I was, Okay, that's great for you,
but I just still can't get on board with that.
But then after watching her have such an incredible, profound experience,
I finally decided to pray to Jesus. Jesus, police show
me your love for me, and I felt his undeniable presence,
(17:06):
undeniable that he came to me and he showed me
a vision that showed my whole life and how he
was always there for me, guiding me along the way.
That he guided me out of my trans identity without
my awareness.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Wow, oh what We're getting to the happy ending part everyone,
So don't go anywhere this Aaron Lee on the Dan
Kapla Show on six thirty k HOW.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Joined in studio by Laurel and Valerie.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
We'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
You're listening to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Filling in for Dan today here on six thirty k HOW.
I am joined in studio now if you're just joining
us by Laurel Herbert and his wife Valerie, just recounting
his story of full medical transition and now de transition.
And I'm excited now to shift over to Valerie, who,
like I'm keenly aware of how transition affects everyone in
(18:10):
the family. And we don't often hear from parents and
siblings and especially spouses, but these experiences matter immensely and
I'm just so honored that you're willing to share, Valerie
things for joining us. Can you just take us back
to when you first learned this was happening?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
What went through your mind?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Were there moments where you thought your marriage might not
survive this?
Speaker 4 (18:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (18:32):
I think that. Yeah, kind of picking.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Up where Laurel left off, and as we were talking
kind of in between the show. There's like this really
interesting thing culturally that started to happen around twenty fifteen,
where the trans identity and like gender identity documentaries and
podcasts and social movements were kind of like cropping up
(18:57):
like pretty big. And I think one thing that's really
important to know is when you politically align yourself with
certain concepts like liberal or like I was, you're really
kind of swept into this cultural virtue signaling and ideology
based in liberalism and being a good person and believing
(19:19):
people and believing their truths, and like there's this concept
sold that like the religious conservatives are you know, in
little boxes and you know, parceling people out, and you know,
I was really into like holistic like heart mind body
connection and you know, knowing the body holds certain truths
(19:41):
or that God created the body to heal even though
I wasn't really connected to Christian God since I so yeah,
like during this time, I I mean I was really
in shock and horror to some degree and capacity, while
also RECOGNI and believing that this was a real occurrence
(20:04):
that could take place, that somebody could be born in
the wrong body that you know, There's there's concepts like
your your baby in the in utero gets the wrong
androgen bath, like the wrong androgen bath, as though like
that would like you know, their brain was developing one
way and then you know the body made a mistake.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
You know.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
It's just it's so interesting, and I think like the
deeper you go into the ideology and the more fear
and expert like coercion, which is like a big part
of like my story of like buying into this, you know,
like trusting the experts and trusting like specialized.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
People in the field.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
Yeah, you just further go down this rabbit hole and
then you're seeking to confirm those beliefs and you're not
really looking outside of that construct because it would make
you like a terrible, horrible person to do.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
So.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Yeah, I was talking earlier doctor Travis Merrell in the
first hour, who's been fighting to protect kids from this,
And I call it toxic empathy. Yeah, where it's like
our we're compassionate by nature, we're empathetic by nature, and
we're misplacing it in this belief that you can be
born wrong and that you should affirm. People are going
through this as we're talking through the break. It's clear
that Laurel, it was helpful to have a wife who's
(21:19):
a therapist to help you get through this for sure.
What I guess what help what kept you staying? And
I can imagine it felt really isolating and confusing. Did
you feel really alone through this process? Oh?
Speaker 4 (21:32):
Yeah, Yeah, this is a really interesting question and I've
answered it before, and there's like a lot of different
aspects to it. There's like the aspect of like my
own lived experience and like what I brought into our dynamic,
and like the fact that I had like a really angry,
abusive father and you know, became very like liberal and
(21:54):
was in this kind of like you know, classic like
liberal sexual freedom and freedom in all of these ways,
which is ironically like imprisonment like looking back, Yeah, but
I think that like, yeah, so like my own experience
(22:15):
and my own traumas, and then like the ideologies I
brought in was like a really big factor. And then
like watching Laurel leave Mormonism, like at the very beginning
of our relationship, like when I met Laurel, he like
loved God and I like actually really valued like this
kind of traditionalism that he brought and as he like
(22:36):
left and lost that he actually like went into a
lot of like addictive tendencies, like a lot of overdrinking
and over indulging. And so here I am at the
beginning of studying my studies, and you know, I'd been
to therapy myself and other things, and I'm you know,
learning and just trying to figure out how to like
fix this situation. So a lot of like codependency and
(22:56):
enmeshment like really goes into this as well of like
my already poor view of men, like liberal ideology, my
own developmental trauma, addiction happening in our marriage, and then
really underneath that too, like genuinely like a really deep love,
like we really loved each other. You know, we were
best friends and that's clear. Yeah, just a lot of
(23:18):
passion and connection to one another. Like so I think
that there was like all of that in play. And
then you know, once I started going to people around me, actually,
shockingly enough, the people that I went to were like, yeah,
like he's that, then you need to do that, Like
you need to allow him to do that. And then
sitting in a therapist's office and you know, really deep
(23:41):
down on a core level, I just I knew that
there was something off right. But when you have you know,
medical professionals or the therapists we see in front of
telling me like your husband is going to kill himself,
like he's going to die. And you know, I had
lost people that I loved, like really sleep before. And
so again I think there's all of these like traumas
(24:04):
in my own background that like I brought into this
circumstance that is really unique, like it's my own unique
story in his own unique story, and you know, and
that's why I stayed. There was so much to it.
And so I had also really bought into like the
fact that sexuality was really more fluid, you know, and
(24:25):
that you could really like love a person and yeah,
like attraction could change and shift and everything's on a scale,
and there was really no like praxis or reality for
like truth or like right or wrong in the framework
that I was living in already. And I think that
really brought a big edge that led me into a
(24:46):
lot of like self betrayal and like really like enabling
this process to take place.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
You touched on a topic that I talk about a lot,
this this gas lighting tactic of transition or die where
we feel like it's the only option.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
If we don't do this, they will die.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
We have to go along with it, and we now
both know that's not true that you can live as
your biological sex. What do you want people listening to
understand about loving someone through this confusion and pain and change.
I mean, people are going through this. It's very real
mental health distress. It is, and it's imperative that the
people in their life help them through it.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
What do you want people to know?
Speaker 4 (25:23):
Yeah, we were just talking about this on the way
up here. I work with families that are going through
this now, and I think that like one thing to
talk about is every family in every person in the
family system holds a different role. And so like you know,
you were holding the mom role, I was holding the
(25:43):
wife role, And I think it's important to know like
the role that you're holding and the way that you
show up for this person. But I think it is
really important to understand that this really is real distress
that somebody is going through, but it is more like
the distress of somebody that is highly traumatized and seeking
for something to fill or like solve that issue, very
(26:06):
similarly to addiction or like you know, an eating disorder
or something. I like the way that Mia Hughes likens
it to anarexia because I have also as well before
I heard that, because the constellation of behaviors, addictions, obsessions,
compulsions and like delusional behavior all like linksin with those things,
and that we see people like my husband that are
(26:26):
very like more high functioning and more like rational, and
you're like, okay, this, yeah he really knows, you know. Yeah,
And I think that's what's really dangerous about the cultural
changing of like terms and ideas and switching things from
being diagnosis treatable diagnosis to a medicalized pathway without like
(26:47):
digging into somebody's like traumas or backgrounds or other you know,
disorders or yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, you guys are amazing. Thank you so much for
being here and sharing your story. We're going to go
to break, but we have one more segment, joined by
Laurel Herbert his wife Valerie. You're listening to the Dan
Kaplis Show. This is Aaron Lee filling in.
Speaker 6 (27:10):
And now back to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Filling in for Dan today for just joining us. I
am joined in studio by Laurel Herbert and his lovely
wife Valerie Lorell has told his story a full medical
transition and now de transition.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
We've gotten to the happy ending part.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
And I'm curious, Lorel and Valerie, if someone listening today
feels confused or scared or stuck, or is a parent
or a pastor or someone trying to help people through
this wrong sex confusion, what do you want them to
understand today?
Speaker 5 (27:44):
So I would want people to understand that, for one,
this to the person, to the individual that is experiencing this,
this feels very real. It feels like they're absolute reality.
So if you you yourself, are experiencing gender identity confusion
or feel like you're in the wrong body, I feel
(28:04):
for you. I have absolute love and compassion for you,
and I have love and compassion for anyone experiencing this,
because it is not a fun thing to deal with,
to be living in a world where you literally feel
like you're in the wrong body. But there was something
that happened in your life, something that happened in the
individual's life to make them feel like they had to
(28:25):
be something different. It could have been trauma, but I
think that word gets used too much because people say
I wasn't traumatized. I did the same thing. I thought
I did not experience any trauma in my childhood. I
thought my childhood was great, but it wasn't. Actually, there
was a lot that I was exposed to that cause
this identity to form in me. And so when you're
(28:47):
the parent of a trans child too, you have to
remember that to that child, they fall under this belief
system that they truly believe it to be their reality.
So if you try to tell them it's not, they're
just kind of pull a from you and fight you
on it, and then they're going to go to their
friends who tell them it is real, and then they'll
go to therapists that tell them, yeah, it is real.
(29:08):
You need to cut your parents out of your life.
And it's a real tragic world we're in right now
where this happens so much, and they go to school
and their schools transition them without their parents' awareness, and
it's all made possible by perpetuating this idea that it
is possible to be born in the wrong body, and
(29:28):
to the person, it really feels like that is what happened.
I honestly thought I was born in the wrong body.
But yeah, I just want everyone listening to know that
it feels so real to the person, so real that
they will do drastic alterations to their body as a
result of this belief system they've taken on. But that
(29:49):
that is.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
What it is.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
It is a belief it is not possible to be
born in the wrong body, and we need to stop
perpetuating this idea through our medical and mental health system
that it is.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
And just to confirm this, this is not reversible, right,
You can't reverse what you've done, right.
Speaker 5 (30:07):
It is absolutely a one way train. There is no
reversing these surgeries.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
What you're concerned with children making these permanent decisions? Are
you made this decision as an adult. Now we've got
this ballot measure that's on the ballot to protect kids
from going through this. What are your concerns about kids
making these permanent medical decisions?
Speaker 5 (30:26):
So we don't let kids do a lot of other
things that we've deemed them not to be old enough
to do. Yet we're telling them that they can make
the choice for themselves because they know themselves so well
that they can cut off perfectly healthy body parts and
take these hormones which are which cause absolutely irreversible damage themselves.
(30:50):
Puberty blockers a child of human body is designed to
go through puberty. That is a natural part of a
human being forming as a human and you must go
through puberty.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Not to mention all of the systems in your body
that links into you know, like liver and thyroid and
so many systems in your body that you know, I
call our hormones or chemical messenger systems. And so it's yeah,
it's a parent's job to hold that basis of reality
for our kids to be able to have those boundaries
in that safety. And I think we've only gotten here
(31:23):
culturally because we've allowed, like, you know, our kids' feelings
and realities to take precedent over the parents being that calm,
gentle but authority, the authority you know. Part of this
is an authority complex as well.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
Yeah, I think most people would agree that often a
child's life is like being a balloon on the end
of a string in a gust the wind, and they're
they're blowing around like crazy. But as long as you,
as the parent are holding onto that string, they have
this foundation, yes, this foundation of reality that they're going
to explore their feelings and emotions and things as a
(31:59):
child like normal child children do. But once they sever
that rope, that string that's holding the balloon from floating
off into the distance. That's transition. To me, when you
give a child transition or or affirm their identity, that's
like cutting that string to reality. Where now, once they
(32:19):
learn that they can become someone different, nothing feels safe
in the rest of their life. When not even their
own identity is safe anymore, they can change that all
of a sudden, everything else becomes dangerous and unsafe from
the world, and they're likely to go down many terrible
addictions and seeking some sort of feeling of safety once
(32:42):
they lose that.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
Yeah, and you know, we see this especially, it's so
different in this conversation for children and for adults like
talking about this, but in connection to the conversation around children,
we see children really go off and start trying to
find gender therapists and help inside of school. Around this
time between I mean like ten and fourteen years old,
which is actually developmentally the time that we're seeking to
(33:05):
individuate from our family systems. And that's God's design, that's
God's good design, right, And that's the time that you know,
we let them go out a little bit while they're
under our roof, you know, knowing and holding the end
of the balloon like LAURELSA. That's such a good analogy,
such a good analogy.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
I'm going to steal that. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
And then we we we stand there and we as parents,
we don't collapse, we don't conform, We hold that knowing
and we say, yeah, so good.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
I always say, teach your kids to find their identity
in Christ or they're going to keep searching the world.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
Amen.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, We'll let that be the last note. I'm Aaron
Lee filling in for Dan Caplis today. Be sure to
turn in on Tuesday when I'll be back.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
James Lindsay is joining me.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Thirteen year old no Well from Jeffco will be here
to read her beautiful pro life poem. You're listening to
the Dan Caplis Show. Have a great weekend everyone,
This is Dan Caplis and welcome to today's online podcast
edition of The Dan Caplis Show. Please be sure to
give us a five star rating if you'd be so kind,
and to subscribe, download and listen to the show every
single day on your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I'm Aaron Lee filling in for Dan today and I
am joined this hour by Laurel Herbert and his lovely
wife Valerie.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
For this next hour, we're.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Going to have a conversation that touches on identity, family, faith, pain, healing.
Laurel medically transitioned as an adult, but later came to
believe that he had made a profound mistake. He detransitioned
and today lives as a man again. His wife, Valerie,
has walked through it, all of it with him. I
had the pleasure of meeting and hearing Laurel at the
(00:44):
let D Transitioners Speak conference in Denver last month, and
I was just blown away, And I asked him to
join me today, and I knew that a phone call
wasn't enough, that a nine minute segment wasn't going to
cover it. So we're going to take the next hour
covering his story. It's one that ever everybody needs to hear.
I encourage you all to follow him and his wife
on Instagram at Laurel Herbert.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
His bio says he's.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
A former trans former Mormon, former New Age, current Christian
who speaks out against unethical trans affirming care. Larel and
Valerie two are such a beautiful couple with a compelling story.
Thank you both so much for joining me today on
the Dan Kaplis Show. So let's start with some background.
I want to just first lay the ground work. Who
(01:27):
is Laurel? Who were you before all of this started?
Speaker 4 (01:30):
So?
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Who were you growing up? What kind of a kid
were you?
Speaker 5 (01:34):
I was a pretty quiet kid. I grew up in
a loving home, in a Mormon religious home, born to
two loving parents. My family goes way back in the
Mormon Church, and that the reason I put that in
my profile is because that's such a huge part of
what made me who I am is because of those
(01:56):
religious perspectives that I grew up with being taught what
I was taught. I was a pretty quiet kid growing up.
Thought I had a normal childhood, but I at a
very young age, had this persistent feeling that I was
in the wrong body, that I was somehow supposed to
have been a girl, and I couldn't make sense of it.
(02:19):
But I also was in an environment where I recognized,
I can't tell anybody about this. This will get me
seen as some mental patient or something if I ever
mentioned this, so I kept it deeply guarded as a
secret in me. The whole time I grew up, I
just lived a normal life. I was homeschooled. I went
(02:40):
to kindergarten in first grade, at public school in part
of second grade, and then my mom took me out
and homeschooled me the rest of my life, which I
actually am very grateful for. In certain ways. There was
a lot of the social aspect that I missed out
on because of that, But I think had I been
in school, perhaps I would have transitioned earlier. But yeah,
(03:04):
I just grew up a pretty normal kid, thinking I
wasn't traumatized in any way. It wasn't until later, when
this whole transidentity took over my life that I realized
there surely was something from my past, and what is that.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
I know you shared at the conference last month about
how you know you kind of were learned to hate
men as a kid, So what were some of the
experience that shaped that belief.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
Yes, I have very clear memories of being a child
and hearing my mom and my grandma speak on the phone.
My mom would talk to her mom pretty much every day,
and I remember a lot of discussion about men and
how they were to be hated. And she denies this,
(03:54):
of course, and I love my mom and I don't
want to hurt her by saying these things. But my
experience as a child was that I was in a
household that men were talking down about all the time,
and even the male genitalia was talked about negatively for
my entire childhood, and I hated my own male genitalia.
(04:15):
I was convinced it was because I was in the
wrong body and I shouldn't have had it. But there
was this definite programming from being in this environment where
I was always hearing how disgusting the male genitalia was
and how men were monsters.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
When did you first begin identifying differently, like what felt
compelling or attractive about this path of living as the
opposite sex.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
No one, it's a good question. When I was about
four years old, was I have this memory of putting
on my mom's nightgown and it felt so amazing, and
I ran outside to show her. Look Mom, and I
just I felt I was drawn to those kind of clothes.
But I have a memory of that suddenly becoming a
(05:05):
dark moment where I think my mom instantly shamed me.
That's not for boys. Boys shouldn't dress like that. And
so then that was one of the things that caused
me to realize, I need to just keep this a secret.
And so then I have another memory of when I
was five years old, climbing underneath the bed and putting
on my sister's white tights or something, putting on more
(05:27):
girls clothes, and I just kept doing it in secret
for my whole life, just feeling like I just I
felt more natural, like it was what I was upposed
to wear, Like I'd see the girls at church wearing
their beautiful dresses. Especially Easter Sunday was a really hard
time for me, because the girls always wore their pretty dresses,
and I just felt like that was supposed to be me.
(05:49):
I was supposed to dress that way as well.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
You can, probably, like me, having a child who went
through this, sympathize with the kids who wrestle yes with
these feelings. But we know you can't change your sex.
When did things move from thoughts and feelings into ACTIONSW.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
I still into my twenties, this is a crazy thing.
For some reason, even though we had the Internet in
my home, I was not exposed to the term transgender.
And I knew that drag queens existed, but I knew
that was not me. I knew that I felt like
I literally was a girl, not that I wanted to
(06:28):
be a girl, and that was an interesting thing for
me to live with. And so in my mid twenties,
I was searching online again like I had done a
thousand times, and never came up with anything. But finally
I searched why do I feel like I'm a girl
in a boy's body? And suddenly this website, Susan's Place
dot org popped up and it was a website for
(06:51):
men who think they're women. And I went down a
rabbit hole on that website, spent hours researching it, and
it was only at that moment that I realized, Oh,
there's hormones and surgeries that a person can have to
correct this birth defect. As I saw it, that I
don't have to live as a man. There is something
I can do about it. But that was in my
(07:13):
mid twenties, and I thought that perhaps the testosterone had
damaged my body. As I saw it, that I had
become too much of a man. There was no chance
of ever going back, and so I continued to live
as a man until in my thirties after I got married.
So it wasn't until after I was married that I
(07:33):
did something about it and actually made a change.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Right, So you got married to Valerie. You have this
beautiful daughter. What actually prompted medicalization? And I know, Valerie,
you had something to do with it in that moment.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Yeah. Yeah. We were sitting there watching a TV show
called Gender Revolution, and it was about people living with
a transgender identity. And they happened to show on the
show a couple that lived supposedly happy in transition, where
the husband and transition to live as a woman, and
(08:08):
the wife was supportive. And I guess my wife, already
knowing that I was kind of leaning towards the feminine side,
she paused the show and turned and asked, me, so
is this what you want? Do you want to actually
take hormones and transition and live as a woman? And
my heart started beating one thousand miles a second, because
(08:32):
I was all of a sudden faced with this realization,
of this awareness that there might be an option to
actually do something about this. Now my wife might recognize
that this is what I want, I can pursue this.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Were you receiving a lot of like you know, obviously, culture,
online messages, friends, family?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
What were the people around you like? What were they
speaking to this idea that you wanted to transition?
Speaker 5 (08:56):
Yet at that point I hadn't let anybody but my
wife know. She was the only one that knew. But
as soon as I decided to transition and started putting
the message out there, I made a post on Facebook
announcing this is the real me, And of course my
family started sending me messages and begging me not to
do this. Please don't, don't transition. This is not natural
(09:21):
because my family's all Christian Mormon Mormon Christian, and they
didn't want me to do that. They tried to stop me.
Nobody was supportive other so I had to seek support
from places I knew we're going to be supportive.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
And did you feel total certainty in this decision at
the moment?
Speaker 5 (09:41):
Absolutely, there was no question in my mind that this
was who I really was, and I had to pursue
transition or I couldn't live anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Well, y'all, we are talking to Laurel Herbert and his
wife Valerie. We're gonna head to break, but when we
come back, we were going to talk about the D
transition process. Laurel realized that this was a mistake and
backtracked on living the transgenderal lifestyle.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
So you're listening to the Dan Kapla Show. This is
Aaron Lee. We'll be right.
Speaker 6 (10:09):
Back and now back to the Dan Kapla Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
As I'm joined in studio by Laurel Herbert and his
wife Valerie.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Laurel is a.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
D transitioner from Colorado Springs and we're just diving into
his story of full medical transition. Now, let's talk about
the D transition process.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Loureau.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
You know, we talked about what led you to decide
to fully medically transition, what prompted you to go the
other direction?
Speaker 5 (10:43):
So I've always been fascinated in psychology, but I never
had a desire to go to school to learn about psychology.
So I just researched and read books and my own
and my amazing wife, she did go to school to
be a therapist, and she would share with me things
she learned, and one of the things she shared with
(11:03):
me was The Body Keeps the Score by doctor Besil Vanderkulk.
And then we also became exposed to doctor Richard Schwartz's
work in parts therapy Internal Family Systems, and my interest
in learning who a person was and why they were,
(11:23):
why they thought they were who they were, and me
having this belief that I was born in the wrong
body my entire life, I wanted to learn more about
why a person might feel this way because I became
aware through things I was exposed to that perhaps being
trans is a belief system that is formed in a person.
(11:47):
And so when I became exposed to these books The
Body Keeps the Score and Internal Family Systems, the gears
really started turning in my head. Here I was absolutely
convinced my entire life that I was in the wrong
body and that perhaps God made a mistake and put
me in a boy body. But when I read The
(12:08):
Body Keeps the Score, and then I myself was interested
in perhaps pursuing being a parts therapist. So I took
a training in doctor Richard Schwartz's parts therapy training, and
during the training, one of the other students asked the
woman giving the instruction, well, what about a trans identity?
(12:30):
Do you think that's a part? And as soon as
she said that, it piqued my interest extremely and I
sat there, what is she going to say about this,
because here I am living as a woman. What if
I'm living as a woman just based on this belief
system it came about? And she said, I personally believe
that trans is real, but doctor Richard Schwartz, the creator IFS,
(12:56):
does believe it to be a part. And I said,
wait a minute. If that's true, then all.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Of this is a lie.
Speaker 5 (13:04):
And so that really got me thinking and so then I,
in very short order, my whole gender identity just dissolved.
It took work, It took work to resolve the feelings
that were beneath it. But when I became aware that
(13:25):
it was programming from a belief system from early childhood programming,
that's when I just completely shifted my perspective on the
whole thing.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Was it what you thought it would be living as
a woman?
Speaker 5 (13:40):
Everyone always asks me, so what does that mean to
feel like you're a woman if you've never been a woman.
How could you possibly know what.
Speaker 6 (13:48):
That feels like?
Speaker 3 (13:49):
And I don't know.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
All I knew was I was drawn to it. I
thought that was how I wanted to live because I
thought it would feel a way that I had taken
on this belief it would feel. And so no, it
wasn't what I thought it would be. There was a
time when I was perfectly happy for four years after
I had surgery to change my genitalia to match how
(14:13):
my insides felt. For four years, I was happy with it.
And it wasn't until that moment in twenty twenty three
where it all just fell apart.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
And started to think, I assume I made a mistake,
and how hard is that to admit that you made
a mistake.
Speaker 5 (14:31):
That was really hard because a mistake of that magnitude
was such permanent, irreversible consequences. It brought on a lot
of shame in me. I could have just gone into hiding,
like I think a lot of detransitioners probably do, because
they don't want to admit to making that kind of mistake.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
It's hard to.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Backtrack, I know going through this with my daughter. Once
you announce it to everyone, it becomes that much harder
to say, oh, nope, just kid, I'm going to go
back to being my biological sex now.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
Yeah, that was where I had to do a lot
of self work to be able to put myself out
in front of people as a man after that, because
I moved to Colorado Springs in twenty fifteen and most
everybody I knew knew me and in my man or
female form, and so trying to go back around all
these people now as a man was so uncomfortable for me.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Right, And I know you everyone can't see you because
we're on radio, but I do encourage you to go
follow Laurel on TikTok and on Instagram. He's not You
have this like stereotype of what you think a D
transitioner looks like.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
You don't. You wouldn't know looking at you.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Just you look like a regular man with your cowboy
boots and you're tall.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
And just looking at you, you wouldn't know.
Speaker 5 (15:45):
That's the beautiful thing. I can go back to living life,
even though I'm missing certain body parts. Nobody knows. I
can live a normal life now, thankfully.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
And you've spoken really openly about your faith. What role
did Jesus play in your story?
Speaker 5 (16:00):
A lot of people accuse me of following religion and
that the only reason you de transitioned is because religion
made you change. But that's the fascinating thing. I de
transitioned when I was still an atheist, when I was
into New Age spirituality and did not believe in God.
(16:20):
It was not until after I de transitioned that I
that whole process humbled me enough to where I was
able to open my heart to the possibility that Jesus existed.
And then I prayed to him one afternoon one evening
and asked him after watching my wife go through this
(16:42):
amazing experience where she came to Jesus and I still
couldn't accept it. I was, Okay, that's great for you,
but I just still can't get on board with that.
But then after watching her have such an incredible, profound experience,
I finally decided to pray to Jesus. Jesus, police show
me your love for me, and I felt his undeniable presence,
(17:06):
undeniable that he came to me and he showed me
a vision that showed my whole life and how he
was always there for me, guiding me along the way.
That he guided me out of my trans identity without
my awareness.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Wow, oh what We're getting to the happy ending part everyone,
So don't go anywhere this Aaron Lee on the Dan
Kapla Show on six thirty k HOW.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Joined in studio by Laurel and Valerie.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
We'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
You're listening to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Filling in for Dan today here on six thirty k HOW.
I am joined in studio now if you're just joining
us by Laurel Herbert and his wife Valerie, just recounting
his story of full medical transition and now de transition.
And I'm excited now to shift over to Valerie, who,
like I'm keenly aware of how transition affects everyone in
(18:10):
the family. And we don't often hear from parents and
siblings and especially spouses, but these experiences matter immensely and
I'm just so honored that you're willing to share, Valerie
things for joining us. Can you just take us back
to when you first learned this was happening?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
What went through your mind?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Were there moments where you thought your marriage might not
survive this?
Speaker 4 (18:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (18:32):
I think that. Yeah, kind of picking.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Up where Laurel left off, and as we were talking
kind of in between the show. There's like this really
interesting thing culturally that started to happen around twenty fifteen,
where the trans identity and like gender identity documentaries and
podcasts and social movements were kind of like cropping up
(18:57):
like pretty big. And I think one thing that's really
important to know is when you politically align yourself with
certain concepts like liberal or like I was, you're really
kind of swept into this cultural virtue signaling and ideology
based in liberalism and being a good person and believing
(19:19):
people and believing their truths, and like there's this concept
sold that like the religious conservatives are you know, in
little boxes and you know, parceling people out, and you know,
I was really into like holistic like heart mind body
connection and you know, knowing the body holds certain truths
(19:41):
or that God created the body to heal even though
I wasn't really connected to Christian God since I so yeah,
like during this time, I I mean I was really
in shock and horror to some degree and capacity, while
also RECOGNI and believing that this was a real occurrence
(20:04):
that could take place, that somebody could be born in
the wrong body that you know, There's there's concepts like
your your baby in the in utero gets the wrong
androgen bath, like the wrong androgen bath, as though like
that would like you know, their brain was developing one
way and then you know the body made a mistake.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
You know.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
It's just it's so interesting, and I think like the
deeper you go into the ideology and the more fear
and expert like coercion, which is like a big part
of like my story of like buying into this, you know,
like trusting the experts and trusting like specialized.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
People in the field.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
Yeah, you just further go down this rabbit hole and
then you're seeking to confirm those beliefs and you're not
really looking outside of that construct because it would make
you like a terrible, horrible person to do.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
So.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Yeah, I was talking earlier doctor Travis Merrell in the
first hour, who's been fighting to protect kids from this,
And I call it toxic empathy. Yeah, where it's like
our we're compassionate by nature, we're empathetic by nature, and
we're misplacing it in this belief that you can be
born wrong and that you should affirm. People are going
through this as we're talking through the break. It's clear
that Laurel, it was helpful to have a wife who's
(21:19):
a therapist to help you get through this for sure.
What I guess what help what kept you staying? And
I can imagine it felt really isolating and confusing. Did
you feel really alone through this process? Oh?
Speaker 4 (21:32):
Yeah, Yeah, this is a really interesting question and I've
answered it before, and there's like a lot of different
aspects to it. There's like the aspect of like my
own lived experience and like what I brought into our dynamic,
and like the fact that I had like a really angry,
abusive father and you know, became very like liberal and
(21:54):
was in this kind of like you know, classic like
liberal sexual freedom and freedom in all of these ways,
which is ironically like imprisonment like looking back, Yeah, but
I think that like, yeah, so like my own experience
(22:15):
and my own traumas, and then like the ideologies I
brought in was like a really big factor. And then
like watching Laurel leave Mormonism, like at the very beginning
of our relationship, like when I met Laurel, he like
loved God and I like actually really valued like this
kind of traditionalism that he brought and as he like
(22:36):
left and lost that he actually like went into a
lot of like addictive tendencies, like a lot of overdrinking
and over indulging. And so here I am at the
beginning of studying my studies, and you know, I'd been
to therapy myself and other things, and I'm you know,
learning and just trying to figure out how to like
fix this situation. So a lot of like codependency and
(22:56):
enmeshment like really goes into this as well of like
my already poor view of men, like liberal ideology, my
own developmental trauma, addiction happening in our marriage, and then
really underneath that too, like genuinely like a really deep love,
like we really loved each other. You know, we were
best friends and that's clear. Yeah, just a lot of
(23:18):
passion and connection to one another. Like so I think
that there was like all of that in play. And
then you know, once I started going to people around me, actually,
shockingly enough, the people that I went to were like, yeah,
like he's that, then you need to do that, Like
you need to allow him to do that. And then
sitting in a therapist's office and you know, really deep
(23:41):
down on a core level, I just I knew that
there was something off right. But when you have you know,
medical professionals or the therapists we see in front of
telling me like your husband is going to kill himself,
like he's going to die. And you know, I had
lost people that I loved, like really sleep before. And
so again I think there's all of these like traumas
(24:04):
in my own background that like I brought into this
circumstance that is really unique, like it's my own unique
story in his own unique story, and you know, and
that's why I stayed. There was so much to it.
And so I had also really bought into like the
fact that sexuality was really more fluid, you know, and
(24:25):
that you could really like love a person and yeah,
like attraction could change and shift and everything's on a scale,
and there was really no like praxis or reality for
like truth or like right or wrong in the framework
that I was living in already. And I think that
really brought a big edge that led me into a
(24:46):
lot of like self betrayal and like really like enabling
this process to take place.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
You touched on a topic that I talk about a lot,
this this gas lighting tactic of transition or die where
we feel like it's the only option.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
If we don't do this, they will die.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
We have to go along with it, and we now
both know that's not true that you can live as
your biological sex. What do you want people listening to
understand about loving someone through this confusion and pain and change.
I mean, people are going through this. It's very real
mental health distress. It is, and it's imperative that the
people in their life help them through it.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
What do you want people to know?
Speaker 4 (25:23):
Yeah, we were just talking about this on the way
up here. I work with families that are going through
this now, and I think that like one thing to
talk about is every family in every person in the
family system holds a different role. And so like you know,
you were holding the mom role, I was holding the
(25:43):
wife role, And I think it's important to know like
the role that you're holding and the way that you
show up for this person. But I think it is
really important to understand that this really is real distress
that somebody is going through, but it is more like
the distress of somebody that is highly traumatized and seeking
for something to fill or like solve that issue, very
(26:06):
similarly to addiction or like you know, an eating disorder
or something. I like the way that Mia Hughes likens
it to anarexia because I have also as well before
I heard that, because the constellation of behaviors, addictions, obsessions,
compulsions and like delusional behavior all like linksin with those things,
and that we see people like my husband that are
(26:26):
very like more high functioning and more like rational, and
you're like, okay, this, yeah he really knows, you know. Yeah,
And I think that's what's really dangerous about the cultural
changing of like terms and ideas and switching things from
being diagnosis treatable diagnosis to a medicalized pathway without like
(26:47):
digging into somebody's like traumas or backgrounds or other you know,
disorders or yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, you guys are amazing. Thank you so much for
being here and sharing your story. We're going to go
to break, but we have one more segment, joined by
Laurel Herbert his wife Valerie. You're listening to the Dan
Kaplis Show. This is Aaron Lee filling in.
Speaker 6 (27:10):
And now back to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Filling in for Dan today for just joining us. I
am joined in studio by Laurel Herbert and his lovely
wife Valerie Lorell has told his story a full medical
transition and now de transition.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
We've gotten to the happy ending part.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
And I'm curious, Lorel and Valerie, if someone listening today
feels confused or scared or stuck, or is a parent
or a pastor or someone trying to help people through
this wrong sex confusion, what do you want them to
understand today?
Speaker 5 (27:44):
So I would want people to understand that, for one,
this to the person, to the individual that is experiencing this,
this feels very real. It feels like they're absolute reality.
So if you you yourself, are experiencing gender identity confusion
or feel like you're in the wrong body, I feel
(28:04):
for you. I have absolute love and compassion for you,
and I have love and compassion for anyone experiencing this,
because it is not a fun thing to deal with,
to be living in a world where you literally feel
like you're in the wrong body. But there was something
that happened in your life, something that happened in the
individual's life to make them feel like they had to
(28:25):
be something different. It could have been trauma, but I
think that word gets used too much because people say
I wasn't traumatized. I did the same thing. I thought
I did not experience any trauma in my childhood. I
thought my childhood was great, but it wasn't. Actually, there
was a lot that I was exposed to that cause
this identity to form in me. And so when you're
(28:47):
the parent of a trans child too, you have to
remember that to that child, they fall under this belief
system that they truly believe it to be their reality.
So if you try to tell them it's not, they're
just kind of pull a from you and fight you
on it, and then they're going to go to their
friends who tell them it is real, and then they'll
go to therapists that tell them, yeah, it is real.
(29:08):
You need to cut your parents out of your life.
And it's a real tragic world we're in right now
where this happens so much, and they go to school
and their schools transition them without their parents' awareness, and
it's all made possible by perpetuating this idea that it
is possible to be born in the wrong body, and
(29:28):
to the person, it really feels like that is what happened.
I honestly thought I was born in the wrong body.
But yeah, I just want everyone listening to know that
it feels so real to the person, so real that
they will do drastic alterations to their body as a
result of this belief system they've taken on. But that
(29:49):
that is.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
What it is.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
It is a belief it is not possible to be
born in the wrong body, and we need to stop
perpetuating this idea through our medical and mental health system
that it is.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
And just to confirm this, this is not reversible, right,
You can't reverse what you've done, right.
Speaker 5 (30:07):
It is absolutely a one way train. There is no
reversing these surgeries.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
What you're concerned with children making these permanent decisions? Are
you made this decision as an adult. Now we've got
this ballot measure that's on the ballot to protect kids
from going through this. What are your concerns about kids
making these permanent medical decisions?
Speaker 5 (30:26):
So we don't let kids do a lot of other
things that we've deemed them not to be old enough
to do. Yet we're telling them that they can make
the choice for themselves because they know themselves so well
that they can cut off perfectly healthy body parts and
take these hormones which are which cause absolutely irreversible damage themselves.
(30:50):
Puberty blockers a child of human body is designed to
go through puberty. That is a natural part of a
human being forming as a human and you must go
through puberty.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Not to mention all of the systems in your body
that links into you know, like liver and thyroid and
so many systems in your body that you know, I
call our hormones or chemical messenger systems. And so it's yeah,
it's a parent's job to hold that basis of reality
for our kids to be able to have those boundaries
in that safety. And I think we've only gotten here
(31:23):
culturally because we've allowed, like, you know, our kids' feelings
and realities to take precedent over the parents being that calm,
gentle but authority, the authority you know. Part of this
is an authority complex as well.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
Yeah, I think most people would agree that often a
child's life is like being a balloon on the end
of a string in a gust the wind, and they're
they're blowing around like crazy. But as long as you,
as the parent are holding onto that string, they have
this foundation, yes, this foundation of reality that they're going
to explore their feelings and emotions and things as a
(31:59):
child like normal child children do. But once they sever
that rope, that string that's holding the balloon from floating
off into the distance. That's transition. To me, when you
give a child transition or or affirm their identity, that's
like cutting that string to reality. Where now, once they
(32:19):
learn that they can become someone different, nothing feels safe
in the rest of their life. When not even their
own identity is safe anymore, they can change that all
of a sudden, everything else becomes dangerous and unsafe from
the world, and they're likely to go down many terrible
addictions and seeking some sort of feeling of safety once
(32:42):
they lose that.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
Yeah, and you know, we see this especially, it's so
different in this conversation for children and for adults like
talking about this, but in connection to the conversation around children,
we see children really go off and start trying to
find gender therapists and help inside of school. Around this
time between I mean like ten and fourteen years old,
which is actually developmentally the time that we're seeking to
(33:05):
individuate from our family systems. And that's God's design, that's
God's good design, right, And that's the time that you know,
we let them go out a little bit while they're
under our roof, you know, knowing and holding the end
of the balloon like LAURELSA. That's such a good analogy,
such a good analogy.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
I'm going to steal that. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
And then we we we stand there and we as parents,
we don't collapse, we don't conform, We hold that knowing
and we say, yeah, so good.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
I always say, teach your kids to find their identity
in Christ or they're going to keep searching the world.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
Amen.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, We'll let that be the last note. I'm Aaron
Lee filling in for Dan Caplis today. Be sure to
turn in on Tuesday when I'll be back.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
James Lindsay is joining me.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Thirteen year old no Well from Jeffco will be here
to read her beautiful pro life poem. You're listening to
the Dan Caplis Show. Have a great weekend everyone,
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