The Daily Signal - Why Kathy Grace Duncan Detransitioned After Living as a Man for 11 Years

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

As a little girl, Kathy Grace Duncan watched her father abuse her mother and vowed she would never be victimized like her mom.  "I didn't have the tools to realize that my dad was abusive, my mom's a victim," Duncan says, "so, my takeaway from that was that women were weak, women were vulnerable, and women were hated." Duncan realized she would grow up to be a woman and did not want to be "weak," so she says she "made a vow at a very early age, 'I'm going to be the man my dad is not.'" "I was running from pain," Duncan says. When she was 19, Duncan began to live as a man and did so for the next 11 years. When Duncan came to know Jesus as her savior, she got involved in a local church while she was still living as a man.  Over the course of several years, Duncan journeyed with her church community and eventually made the decision to detransition.  For Duncan, it was a five year journey to go through the "de-transitioning process, and that was undoing the thinking that being a woman is bad, that I'm not safe, that I'll be hated, that I'm vulnerable," she says. Duncan, director of gender advocacy for the CHANGED Movement, joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to share her story and discuss what children struggling with gender dysphoria need most. Elizabeth Woning, co-founder of CHANGED Movement, also joins the show to explain the fight to preserve counseling and therapy that affirms and celebrates an individual's biological sex amid a struggle with their gender identity.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, September 25th. I'm Virginia Allen. On today's show, Kathy Grace Duncan joins us to share her powerful story. Kathy Grace lived as a man for more than a decade, and then she decided to detransition and return to living as a woman after having a powerful encounter with God. She has now lived as her biological sex as a woman for 30 years, and is sharing her story and helping others to choose to live as their biological sex through her work with the changed movement. And both Kathy Grace and Change Movement co-founder Elizabeth Wanning, join us on the show today

to share about the advocacy and the work that they're doing both on Capitol Hill and across the nation to help combat some of the really harmful narratives around gender identity and gender dysphoria. Stay tuned for my conversation with Elizabeth Wanning and Kathy Grace Dunkey. after this. He was evading police. We were told that he was recruited on TikTok by the cartel. He was on Facebook live, and he was going over 105 miles an hour. He came straight off that exit, and he ran that red light, and he crashed into her and killed

them. He mutilated them. What you just heard are the first few seconds of a brand-new-documented. from the Daily Signal on the real cost of the Biden administration's border crisis. We spoke with Elisa Tambunga, a mother who has experienced unfathomable tragedy and loss at the hands of a human smuggler. You can find the full documentary telling Alisa Tambunga's story on the Daily Signal's YouTube page or across our social media platforms. I am so pleased to have with me in studio today two amazing women from the changed movement, Kathy Grace Duncan.

And back with us is Elizabeth Wanning. Thank you both so much for being here today. It's a privilege to be here. Absolutely. Well, Elizabeth, you are, of course, the co-founder of the changed movement. And Kathy Grace, you serve as the director of gender advocacy for changed movement. Now, we have had Elizabeth on the show multiple times. I want to say this is maybe the fourth time you've been joining us in studio.

So it's a real treat to have you back. I want to take a moment just to talk a little bit about what change movement is. For those that haven't heard our previous conversations that aren't familiar with the amazing work you all do, just give us in a nutshell your heart what your mission is. Well, change came together in 2018 out of some bad legislation. California that would have limited resources for people who are questioning their sexuality. And so the other co-founder, Ken Williams and I, we were doing ministry. We're both pastors in Northern California. We thought, this is a bad idea since both of us have come out of

LGBT ourselves to limit the kind of resources that are available for people who, particularly if they're leaving LGBT culture and want to follow Christ. And so we started speaking up. And out of that then this strange new organic grassroots movement started to form. We met hundreds at that point of people who had left LGBT just like we had. So Ken and I both are married to opposite sex spouses. We no longer identify as gay. We've experienced really dramatic transformation in our lives. Ken has four kids. He and his wife Tiffany have four kids. And so with that, we see that, I would say, justice for the LGBT community, in our opinion, is restoration. True justice is restoration.

And so we do what we can now. So out of that legislation, this movement formed that we called changed because as we were in committee hearings and sharing how the Lord had changed and impact our lives, you know, as you can imagine, the legislators in California kind of looked at as like we had three heads. And so, you know, we thought, what can we do? And at one point, we're driving back to Northern California out of Sacramento, and Ken said, we need a book. And so we formed this book of testimonies. This would have been the kind of resource banned by this legislation.

And so we provocatively called it changed because we really wanted to bring the point forward that people leave LGBT all the time. And you just never hear about those people. because when you've questioned your sexuality and you've pursued wholeness and restoration, you just become a person. You don't become another letter in the alphabet, you know, or you don't become part of a people group. You've just now arrived at belonging among all the rest of the people. And so we created this book, and that kind of became a sensation, and it formed this movement that we now call changed. And so we have a ministry side that helps equip pastors and leaders to better address the needs of those who are following Christ away from LGBT culture, but then also continue in the advocacy space. Because increasingly avenues away from LGBT culture are closing.

And even, I mean, I could go so far as to say it's becoming illegal to get help, to get support, even to hear the gospel, if you identify. identify as LGBT. And so we want to be in that advocacy space protecting free speech and First Amendment rights, freedoms of conscience, freedom to pursue professional therapy even. And so that's who we are at change. That's what we're doing. Yeah. Well, it's a powerful space to be and to be a support for people who are walking through that, but then also to have this advocacy arm where you are going to the hill and talking to people and sharing your personal stories. So Kathy Grace, I want to ask you, you have such a profound story that has impacted so many lives, both through changed and just through sharing your story on so many platforms and in so many ways. I want to go back, though, to, like, let's go all the way back to the beginning.

And you just kind of walk through your story. What exactly was your childhood like? And when did you kind of begin to start that process of questioning your own sexuality and questioning your own identity? Sure. So it was like before I went to kindergarten. So like ages three and four, I already felt that I was born into the wrong body, that I should have been born a boy. So that was kind of my start in life, if you will. My childhood, the house I grew up in, it was pretty dysfunctional.

My dad was emotionally and verbally abusive to my mom, and my mom was the victim. Now at that age, I didn't have the tools to realize that that my dad was, abusive, my mom's a victim. So my takeaway from that was that women were weak, women were vulnerable, and women were hated. And realizing I'm a girl, I'm going to grow up to be a woman, I don't want to do that. But yet, I don't want to be that man my dad is. So I made a vow at a very early age, I'm going to be the man my dad is not. So that's how I saw life through that. If I grow up, I'm going to be this. So I'd rather be a man instead. And I didn't become a man because I wanted to date women or anything like that. I was running from pain. I didn't, you know, I didn't want to be

hated, vulnerable, or weak from those lies. How old were you when you started telling people, I'm a man, and living essentially as a man, dressing like a man? When I was 19, I became desperate. Throughout my whole childhood, I never, that was my secret. I didn't tell anybody. And then at the age of 19, I was desperate. And so I moved out of the house, changed my name, started hormones, and started living as a man. What was the response of people around you? Because also set the context of what around what year was this? Sure.

So it was early 80s. Okay. So it was definitely frowned upon and very unknown. Yeah. You were basically looked at as being really weird. And my whole goal was to have a normal life. And to me, that was normal. And when I, I didn't tell anybody when I changed.

So I moved in with a single parent woman. and I didn't tell her anything. I presented already as a man on hormones. And then I told them that the hormones was to help me because I had a pituitary issue. So I told a lot of white lives to cover up, you know, what I was doing. But, again, it was out of desperation. Yeah, yeah.

And how long did you live as a man? I lived as a man for 11 years. Okay. Wow, wow. When did you start thinking, okay, this is not, This isn't, quote, quote, fixing it. Or when did you kind of begin to feel just like, wait a second? I'm not sure that this was what I wanted or that this is the answer.

Right. I actually didn't ever question. And I think that's because my mind was so set at a very early age. I thought this was it. This was the goal. Yeah. But it was probably about four years before I came out of the lifestyle. I started opening my heart and my life everywhere to the Lord.

He had called to me and said, will you now? And I said yes, because there wasn't any reason why I couldn't. And so I started following him and looking for him, and I was going to be everywhere where he was. And at the end of that, for a year period, I'm still serving in the church as a man. And your community sees you completely as a man. Correct. And at the end of that, I was confronted by the church. And they said, hey, we're hearing some murmurs about you.

We just want to know, who are you? Who are you really? And it was at that point I confessed, I'm a woman living as a man, which I didn't believe that before. So it was the four years of the Lord working in my heart where I came to that place. And when I confessed that, I encountered the Lord. He blew into me. And I realized then I have to go back to being the woman he created me to be. Wow.

I mean, that's a huge yes. After 11 years, the Lord takes you on this four-year journey. what was that process then like of detransitioning and saying again, I'm a woman and I'm going to live and present as a woman? Sure. So there was five years that I went through the detransitioning process and that was undoing the thinking that being a woman is bad, that I'm not safe, that I'll be hated, that I'm vulnerable. So it's undoing those things and embracing being a woman is good. and I was created on purpose for a purpose. And we have an intentional God.

And so, again, just embracing those things, figuring out that I'm safe, I'm okay, you know, and figuring out how do I embrace being a woman, you know, and how do I cast off being a man? It's like taking off the old, putting on the new. And it was like, I have to say, the first time I ever wore a dress, I was paralyzed. I felt like I was supposed to. but I went into the women's bathroom and I couldn't come back out. I'm like, they're going to think I'm weird. They're going to, I was a fundraiser, right,

for this ministry I was a part of. And the executive director's wife come in and she's like, so what are you doing here? Because I'm just sitting there. She's like, what are you doing in here? And I'm like, I'm terrified. I can't go out there. She goes, come on, and I'll go with you.

And then it was after that, I was like, okay, this isn't quite as bad as what I first feared. So when you think back to yourself as a young child, that three, that four-year-old who was in that place of struggle, you were watching what was happening to your mom and thinking, I don't want to, I don't want to be victimized. What were the resources that now as an adult you can think back and say, this is what I needed. This is what little Kathy Grace needed. And for any child who's experiencing gender dysphoria, this is what they need. need. Yeah. Well, I think, first of all, to have intentional parents to look at, we've got this little girl who's struggling. And even though I may not have been showing it, I still needed to be

loved. I still had needs that were going unmet. My mom wasn't very nurturing. And so it's looking for my parents to go, you love me and to nurture me up as a little girl, you know, for my dad to say, you're my beautiful little girl, you know. So for parents to begin to, to begin to, you know, to instill that in their kids at a very early age because they're making up their mind about who they are even at three and four. And other resources than that, I just, you know, maybe teachers, teachers looking at that going, you know, this little girl, she's quite a tomboy and I'm just going to kind of watch her, you know.

But as far as other resources like that, I didn't have any. Wow. What are, and for both of you, please have her to jump in on this. What are the psychological resources that today are available, specifically for young people who are struggling with their gender identity? What is out there that they can access and what are the major holes that you all still see in this realm? There's so many. There's so many. You know, one of the things that is true today is so Kathy Grace has reflected for years on her childhood.

how did this happen? But even so, even what she knows about her childhood, and even what that can tell us about children today who are experiencing dysphoria, the phenomenon that we're seeing today is new of young children, especially young girls, believing that they're boys and moving in the trajectory of transitioning into what they perceive to be masculinity or manhood in droves. seeking mastectomies and hysterectomies to transition. This is a new phenomenon that has never happened before. Now, the tomboy phenomenon has been around, I think, probably forever, not just because girls might have some kind of emotional distress, but because of developmental factors in their bodies. Actually, young girls who might be five, six, seven, have a lot of testosterone in

their bodies at that time. And so their developing body can influence that. But so the phenomenon we're seeing today is so new, it's very poorly studied. There's very little expertise speaking to gender dysphoria generally. Like if you look across the LGBTQ world, the transgender population is very small in percentage comparison to the population of the LGBT population. right? It is very small. It's kind of a very unique population, maybe even much more marginalized than the LGBT population historically. And so there's just not as much known about that experience.

So then fast forward to today where we've got conversion therapy bans, therapy bands that basically say no one can change that your sexuality is determinative. Based on those perspectives, the belief that the dysphoria, like for example, you could be born a female with a male brain, those kinds of perspectives which are completely untrue are being considered as possible. And so we're in this interesting time where something new is happening. The psychological world, particularly the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association, largely only affirms LGBT identity. They don't favor moving backwards,

and there are a lot of reasons for that, in part because the experience is itself so distressing, but then on top of that because of activism. So young children today, the resources available are very limited. I can say that there is a very, very great need for American culture to step back and say, what are the ethics of affirming LGBT identity in a prepubescent child?

And then understanding that sexual behavior for a prepubescent child, whether you perceive it to be same-sex sexuality, like a gay behavior, or whether it's cross-gender behaviors, is signaling something that's going wrong. It's signaling a misperception about yourself, or a response, a trauma response to some pressure that's happening. And instead of resolving the trauma, we're medicalizing the trauma for what we perceive to be a trans-identifying child

and never treating the psychological distress. And so like Kathy Gray said, coming into this meeting, what we're facing isn't the development of a transgender movement as much as it is a mental health crisis that we're witness. witnessing and we're completely ill-equipped to address because of our affinity for LGBT activism, just with the psychological world, our agreements in that realm, lack of understanding of the whole LGBT experience, and then lack of understanding of childhood development. Yeah. Yeah. So critical. And I would just add to that by saying, coming out of that when I was detransitioning, I didn't look at, you know, that I lived as a man or now that I need to live as a woman.

It's why I lived as a man that helped me to deconstruct that, if you will, and move forward into living as a woman. And realizing that it's not a sexual issue, it's a relational issues. All the things that I worked back through was rejection, abandonment, and abuse, which are all relational issues, you know, broken relationships. and there was unmet needs that I was trying to get met by living as a man as well. And as you worked through that, the care that you were receiving, the counseling, would some of that now be illegal today in certain states like California? Yeah, it would be. Wow.

What do you all think, and I mean you all are on the forefront of creating change? and being a voice for things like counseling in this space. What are you seeing right now? What is kind of the fly that you all have stuck in the ground, that you all are trying to move forward as you're educating lawmakers, as you're speaking to the public? What are the areas where you're just seeing such lack

and you're really calling for, okay, we need to shift and we need to move the needle here? Well, one of the major ones is, for example, in California, where there is such a strong trans-affirming culture developed and where the LGBT caucus, for example, is dominating in the capital, there is no space, there's very little space to question your sexuality or your gender without being pushed into an LGBT category. And so, you know, on the most basic level, not jumping to conclusions when you see cross-examined, sex behavior in a very young child.

Or when you see what seems to be sexual behavior in a very young child, not jumping to conclusions that those are LGBT categories. But on the deepest level, if you, let's say, and I have friends who have had this experience, you're a parent, your son or daughter has expressed confusion about their identity. they have begun envisioning that maybe they're another sex. Like I'm a girl biologically, but maybe I'm a boy. At the first mention of that, it gets affirmed. Now we can imagine children play, role play all the time.

Anything. Yeah. Could be a unicorn. Or it could be being, I'm a male doctor today. I'm a cowboy. Or I'm a beauty. or a salon person, if I'm a, you know, it could be a million things. A child envisions that for their lives and plays through it to learn.

We are jumping to conclusions. So if you have a scenario like that where your child has now is being affirmed as a boy, but is biologically a girl, likely she doesn't understand the whole implications of that. there is no recourse at all in California to get help. If you go to many counselors, they are constrained to affirming LGBT identity because of, not only because of their worldview, perhaps, but also because of the ethics within the APA, the standards. And so, for example, I know of cases where people have had to find psychics,

to find psychiatric care outside of the state, which is illegal, or to leave the state. I know of a parent who were told to start affirming their kind of middle school age child, which they did. But as they were affirming that child, the more, the deeper that child went into transition, their mental health wasn't improving. And so then they pulled back from that care and were charged, were beginning to be charged with child abuse. Like their authorities in their school district were beginning to question their parental rights. Wow. Thankfully, then COVID hit.

And so during COVID, when their child was nothing but at home, their child desisted. Wow. But they were on the trajectory of being accused of child abuse, of perhaps facing foster care for their child or further medicalization of their child. And so in California, it's quite a, it's quite a, hectic place to raise children. It's a battle. And so meanwhile, the care that that child needed involved intimate connection

with her parents, with both parents. And, you know, we don't live in an area where that's really common, honestly. You know, for financial reasons and others, both parents have to be away all the time. And so cultivating that early time of connection is vital. And then there just isn't enough child psychology to go around that is adequately addressing those needs yet. Kathy Grace, when it's been about 25 years, right, since you transitioned? 30. 30.

Okay. Wow. So as you work with detransitioners and folks who are wanting to come out of that lifestyle, What are some of the most common reasons that you hear from people as to why they're making that choice? Now I want to live according to my biological sex. Well, there's a few. So I work with a lot of Christians, and they come out because they've encountered the Lord. They've asked the Lord, or they've began to question, and so they take it to the Lord.

I'm not sure this is right, and the Lord affirms that. I even had one detransitioner tell me she was talking to the Lord saying I'm not sure do you want me to go back to being a woman should I still live as a man and the Lord said to her well what name do you want me to call you and I was like oh that's kind of powerful

and convicting you know and then there's been those who I've talked to who do not know the Lord and they've come out because they have gone off of social media they've stopped you know TikTok Reddit, Facebook, and they've stopped listening to the narrative. Wow.

And once they've cleared their mind, they're like, no, I want to be a woman. I want to go back. You know, they've... That's powerful. Yeah. I was amazed by that. And the thing that's amazing to me, too, is when they get away from that narrative, they go back to how God designed them to be, whether they know it or not.

Wow. That's so significant. For those who are listening, just practically, you know, we're living in a lot of a time when probably most people know at least one person, for sure, in the LGBTQ community and likely who knows someone who's struggling with their gender identity. What is the best advice you can just give to friends, family members who are trying to journey with someone in the midst of this and love them really well? Well, it's tricky.

You know, it's a very fine line as far as what you do and what you don't. do. A lot of questions that I get is, what do I do about the name? What do I do about the pronouns? If they're a loved one, you shouldn't affirm the preferred name or the preferred pronouns, because what you're doing is you're affirming that lie, you know, and to a degree, even beyond that, you are affirming the trauma of what makes them believe that they're a man or a woman or that they need to change their sex. For parents, it's, you know, figuring out how to navigate that and making boundaries and realizing you're still the parent. You still have authority. And your kid, you know, may try to manipulate you emotionally and saying, well, I, would you rather

have a live son or a dead daughter, you know, the whole suicide card? And at the same time, it's hard not to want to save your kid. You know, I get that, but it's also drawing boundaries, which tells the child actually that you're loved and I care about you. I want you to thrive. in this. And I've had parents say, well, I'm just going to give in and I'm going to affirm the pronouns. And what I've realized is that that's not a guarantee that they're still going to have relationship. You know, as a kid, you know, going through this, my parents were the enemy. You know, I didn't want my parents to know because I didn't want them making those boundaries. I didn't want them to know because I didn't want to hear them. You can't do this. You don't,

you know, blah, blah, blah. I had all my offenses against them. So if a parent really wants to help their child, sit down with them and have a conversation. Help me understand. What got you here? Why do you think that you should, you would be better as a boy or you would be better as a girl? What got you? What is your thinking beyond that? And then if you really want to risk, ask your child, so what offenses do you hold against me? What are those things I could do better? Or what are those things I could do differently? Because there's a certain amount of repair that has to come that relationship. And you have to understand.

And I've had parents tell me too, I love my child. I've loved them. And I've done this and I've done that. And I said, okay, but that's your perception as far as how you have approached your child. What is your child's perception on that? Because they have a whole different temperament, you know, and they have a different temperament than their brothers or sisters, you know. And so, again, it's going back to trying to relate to that child and, you know, listen

rather than tell them what you think they should be doing. you know, asking questions, kind of reacquaining yourself with your child, you know, but yet making firm boundaries, you know, making, find out where they are on the internet, are they on TikTok, and how much are they on there? What are they watching? Who are their friends? You know, and it's not, I'm not saying it's okay to be a hovering parent, but you really should be aware of what your child is doing and how can you navigate them out of that. Yeah, critical. I agree. I think also, you know, the word says, before you take the speck out of your brother's eye, take the log out of your own.

And some of the most powerful reconciliation stories I've heard so far have been from parents who chose to reflect on what role, what part of their relationship or their lives impacted the development of LGBT in their children. And I'm not saying that to lay blame on parents, but to suggest that some introspection is helpful. And that if you're seeing behaviors that are irregular or seem to be discordant with the truth of their biology, to step back and seek professional counseling,

whether from a pastor or a psychologist for your whole family, not just for your child, but for the parents. And to bring in kind of a party that can facilitate intimate connection among you all. I would suggest that really we're watching a crisis in the family system itself by the emergence of so many children coming out and joining the LGBT movement. I mean, over the last 10 years, there's been upwards of a 60% increase in identification as LGBT among Gen Z, according to Gallup. And so I think it's time to restore the family and to focus on family relationships and create a new vision for what it looks like to be in our children's lives and

for our children to be in our lives. And this is an opportunity for that. Yeah, it is. I want to encourage all of our listeners to visit your website, which is changedmovement.com. You can find the book there. So many powerful stories of lies that have been transformed and learn more about the advocacy work that you all are doing. So again, the website is changedmovement.com. But Kathy Grace, Elizabeth, Thank you both so much for our time today. Thank you very much. And with that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for joining us here on the Daily Signal podcast.

Again, if you're interested in learning more about the work that Elizabeth wanting and Kathy Grace Duncan are doing, you can find it all at changed movement.com. But in the meantime, if you haven't had the chance already, make sure that you check out our evening show right here in this podcast feed where we bring you the top news of the day. And also make sure that you take a moment to subscribe to the daily signal podcast. We are across all podcast platforms. But with that, thanks again for being with us today. Have a great Monday.

We'll see you right back here around 5 p.m. for our top news edition. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Luey and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheras. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com. Thank you.