Theology in the Raw - 764: #764 - Gender-Queer and Gospel-Centered: Lesli Hudson-Reynolds

Episode Date: November 4, 2019

Preston’s very good friend and mentor, Lesli Hudson-Reynolds, joins him on the podcast to talk about Trans-related questions, gender dysphoria, LGBTQ people in the church, and how to lead with love even when (or especially when) there’s disagreement. Lesli has been filling a massive void in the church—helping LGBTQ people wrestle with their faith, sexuality, or gender identity with grace and truth. If you are touched by Lesli’s story and are burdened for the people that they’re serving, then please consider supporting Lesli at: https://leadthemhome.givingfuel.com/lesli-hudson Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. If you would like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. That's patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. If you have found the show to be helpful, encouraging, challenging, or beneficial in some way, and you want to sort of just, you know, give back to the theology in the raw community, this is a listener supported show. So I invite you to go to patreon.com forward slash theologyintheraw. My guest today is Leslie Hudson Reynolds. Leslie has been a wonderful friend in my life, a mentor, somebody who has spoken into my life with wisdom, compassion, truth, and zeal.

If you have watched any of the resources from the Center for Face, Sexuality, and Gender, you have probably already met Leslie. Leslie experiences gender dysphoria. They have identified as transgender, as non-binary, genderqueer. Leslie will explain what they mean by that. And so without further ado, I want you to get to know my very good friend, my dear friend from a distance, the one and only Leslie Hudson Reynolds. Okay, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. As you just heard, I am here with my very good friend, Leslie. Leslie, thanks so much for being on Theology in the Raw for the second time.

It's been a couple of years at least, two or three years. Yeah. So most of my, well, probably a good percentage of my audience hasn't heard you ever, or at least not in a while. I will say, just before I throw it to you, I've had so many people respond positively, I mean, just respond in such amazing ways to that series I did on, I think it was called, like, Meet My LGBT Friends or whatever it was, like, you and Greg Coles and Nate and others. And a lot of people started listening to this podcast because of that series and they really appreciate it so there's going to be some people at least that are like oh we get to hear about leslie again so anyway who who is uh who is leslie who is leslie um so i i grew up in the church um you know like was it 83 percent of the lgbtq community um i grew up in the church and um from the like the earliest of my memories i like i always felt like i was a boy my first crush this

is going to date how exactly how old i am but my first crush was linda carter as wonder woman uh you know back in the late 70s early 80s and i was like four or five years old so you know, back in the late seventies, early eighties. And it was like four or five years old. So, you know, long before I knew anything about orientation or identity followed very rapidly by Aaron Gray from Buck Rogers. So well-established attraction towards women at a very, very young age. You know, and it was when I pictured my future as a kid, you know, it's when you're playing as a child, you, you picture, you know, being a mom or, you know, wearing the white wedding dress or whatever I always pictured being a dad I never wanted to be a mom I wanted to have that protection role I wanted to I just assumed I

would grow up and be a man it never dawned on me that that I would grow up and be a woman that just wasn't even in my in my in my thought process I think I was about six or seven when I started realizing, when the whole gender difference thing like really set in and that, no, this wasn't something I was going to change into, that I just completely could not identify with the body that I had. And so, you know, at four,

I was identifying with male gender roles and at six, we're saying, okay, there's something between my head and my body that's wrong. And that was, I didn't know how to express that you know obviously at that age I was eight the first time that I attempted suicide just wanting to I couldn't I was in such a conservative community I didn't know how to even express what I was feeling. And it is still to this day when I'm talking to super conservative people or fundamentalists, it's difficult to try and get through what dysphoria is like and what that incongruence looks like. And so at eight, I was sent to a psychologist and nothing about this came out. I was too scared to talk about it. So it was like

diagnosed with depression at eight. And at that point, my mom had just kind of started talking to me, you know, saying, okay, well, Leslie, I think you're just a tomboy. And it had the word boy in it. And so I liked it. Like, I didn't care what it was. It said it had boy in it. So I was like, okay, this, this, this can work out. And, and so it was, I just kind of settled into the role of tomboy for a while. And it was at that point that I was saved. I remember one Easter that my pastor was talking about how Christ had died on the cross for us and for all of our sins and all of our shortcomings. And I just remember looking out my back window and all of a sudden it hit that, wow, all of this stuff that I have going on, even at that young age, I was like, Christ died for this. Christ can fix this.

And so there was just like this huge relief and this weight taken off until puberty hit. And then puberty hit and I started becoming a woman physically more. And I started cutting specifically on my chest because that's what I hated so much. I started cutting specifically on my chest because that's what I hated so much. And that's when the sermon series, you know, that you quote so often happened where when I was in high school, where they my pastor was talking about homosexuality and what deviance they were. And just, you know, culturally, to put a time spent on that. That's when the AIDS crisis was rising. And it's before Ryan White and Magic Johnson. And there was any kind of a straight face to to the AIDS crisis was rising and it's before Ryan White and Magic Johnson and there was any kind of a straight face to to the AIDS crisis it was all the LGBT community or the homosexuals or

the gays or whatever at that point um and so there was this this evilness and this plague that was coming about it and and so even beyond just like how how demented the LGBT community was it was look at what God is doing to try and rid us of these people. And so there was just this horrible weight of sitting in the congregation knowing, okay, this is how I identify. This is who I am, even though I didn't have language for that.

But knowing that that's what I was and that there's this plague out there that's meant to white people out like me. And then that quote that you used, just hitting that I was an abomination to this God that I had so fallen in love with. And at that point I already had a heart for ministry. I had, you know, going into high school had planned on, you know, getting a degree in social work or psychology or something like that. And then going to seminary and becoming a counselor or whatever a woman could do. It was, there were certainly limitations back then on what women could do

from seminary. This is in Texas, right? Yeah, this is a Southern Baptist in Texas. So there were definitely shackles on what a woman could do at that point. And, you know, not long after that sermon series, it wasn't immediately after, but I finally got up enough courage to go and talk to the pastor and just kind of shared, you know, look, I don't know what's going on. I don't feel like I'm this gender. I feel like I'm a man. I don't know what words to put to this because there wasn't the language culturally that we have now. So it was incredibly isolating. And, you know,

it said, it said, you know, I've attracted to women. You've preached that this is an abomination. I don't want this. I want to be what God has made me to be. And there were two doors that went into his office and one, you know, you go in through the secretary's office and one leads out to the parking lot. And I was escorted out of the one to the parking lot and asked to never return. And I was, I was a teenager at that point. And I kind of floated to another church in the area, but

that also ended horribly. So I completely walked away from the church for the remainder of my high school time. When I got into college, I don't know why I thought I would go back and why I chose to go back to the Baptist Student Union. I don't know. That probably wasn't the wisest choice that I'd ever made. But so I was doing a summer mission, which is something that everyone in leadership at the Baptist Student Union was supposed to do. And I was a chaplain intern at a federal prison camp, started dating one of the lieutenants who was female. And so I would preach on Sunday morning. I was giving communion. I was counseling out of the chaplain's office and then was going home to a woman. And I just, I couldn't, I felt like such a hypocrite and I just couldn't live with that. So I completely walked away from, from the church. I, I still loved God. I still wanted to serve God, but I just didn't feel like there was any space for me in God's world. space for me in God's world. And so I ended up in theater, met my wife, Sue. We were together for six years. And she died in an unfortunate accident after a long illness. And during that time,

there was a local church where she had been volunteering with a homeless mission. And I called that pastor and I just said, you know, I'm 35. I have no idea how to plan a funeral, but I need someone to officiate. And, you know, this is the quote that you've used so many times, you know, he just said, I would be honored to. And that floored me because that was nothing like anything I'd ever experienced from a Christian before. so it went from me having this horrible destructive experience with Christianity to this like beautiful redemptive phrase that built into an incredible relationship of shepherding and pastoring and friendship and then becoming almost like a big brother to me

at times and just loving me as a human being. And I was able to step back into the church and step back into who Christ intended me to be. Because I was treated as a human being, he realized there was so much more to me than who I was as an LGBT person. And let me explore all those different avenues. And he never stepped up against me or pushed back unless I specifically brought up, what do you think? So unless there was something destructive that I was about to do. And there were destructive things that I did that he stepped in on. or pushed back unless I specifically brought up, what do you think? So unless there was something destructive that I was about to do, and there were destructive things that I did that he stepped in on, but unless there was something destructive about to happen,

he let the Spirit work in me, and he trusted the Spirit's voice in my life. And between that and the pastor I have now, those two guys have just really gotten me where I am now and am able to now speak into other kids' lives who are experiencing what I experienced. I want to come back to what you're doing now, but I can't leave this alone. I mean, this is something I hear over and over and over from LGBT people who are maybe coming to faith for the first time or have been kicked out of the church or left the church and coming back, when they're given space to work through this on their own, when they're not pressured to have the right theology or whatever, when relationship and love and care is the

priority and the foundation and everything else is within that context, I've just seen, the foundation and everything else is within that context, I've just seen, and not that everybody ends up on a certain theological side, but it just seems like such a healthy environment for people to ask and wrestle with those hard questions. Would you say that that, I mean, that if you had one piece of pastoral wisdom for people working with LGBT people with their faith and sexuality, would that be it? Give them space to work through this? Absolutely. Yeah, that would certainly be a big piece of it.

Yeah, with anything, just going back to Jesus' examples of being built on the sand and the rocks and everything, if you can't figure out what your foundation is on your own if you're doing just because somebody else told you to the second that storm hits it's going to crumble you have to find that faith on your own you can't do it because your pastor said it because your mom said it because your dad said it you have to find that for yourself so that when temptation comes and struggles come you have something strong to stand on and that strength comes from God and your relationship with God, not what you've been, not a prescriptive answer that you've been given.

So yeah. And unfortunately, sometimes that means starting down the wrong path. And it's, but that's where you just have to trust that the spirit is in that person's life. Yeah. And the spirit is so much better at its job than you could ever be that's hard for us as humans because we see something and we want to protect those that are in our flock or those you know that are around us but um but you do you just have to trust the spirit and be there and and know that they're tethered to you in christ but um yeah

it's scary to kind of watch people go down that that path and as a leader, it takes a lot of faith to let them do that. Well, especially as a leader, let's just say who is maybe theological-minded, they know the Bible, and they can, you know, the more you know the Bible, the more you study it, it's like you can see where people are like, ooh, yeah, that's not right, or that's not good, whatever. But again, just like what you said, like, it's still, you can't force. This is a good friend of mine, Luke Thompson. A little shout-out to Luke.

He's an avid listener. You know, he, we often talk about this idea that you can't force, by definition, you can't force. This is a good friend of mine, Luke Thompson. A little shout out to Luke. He's an avid listener. You know, we often talk about this idea that you can't force. By definition, you can't force belief. You can't force somebody's hand to sign the doctoral statement and, okay, they signed it. Oh, good. No, like either they believe something or they don't. You can't make them do that. Genuine belief must come from within the person.

Otherwise, it's not genuine belief. So hands off the wheel, folks. I mean, the spirit has it, and maybe it'll go the route you want to go. Maybe not. Maybe it's going to be a lot messier than you think. Probably it's going to be a lot messier than you think. And can you give us just some real practical, tangible examples of how that pastor and that church cared for you during that time? Like, what tangibly did they do that was like, wow, I haven't experienced this from Christians or the church before? So one of the big things, it's not so prevalent now.

It is a part of the culture, but not as prevalent as it was, was that LGBT people were out to molest kids. And so that was a big part of my mindset is that families were trying to keep their kids away from me. And so simply by having, because being in Christian culture was so new to me, I'd been out for almost 18 years at that point. You know, they were inviting me into their homes and were calling me families and part of their family. And I had like one particular family joked that I was a sister wife, you know, and, um, you know, so it was, um, just including me in the family unit was so huge because as a single person, and this is true for

any single people, not just LGBT single people in your church, um, you know, you're not going to cook a huge meal for yourself or whatever. And so just having, you know, being part of a family, being able to sit down to a family meal was so huge and and just validating who i was as a human being so that was a big part of it um and just just over and over again little practical just little things of of just including me in spaces that that took extra effort. Yeah. Yeah. And not treated, I've heard you say like,

just not, not treated as like some project, but just as a friend, a fellow struggler, broken person, just like anybody else. Maybe your struggles and brokenness might, might be different than somebody else or might overlap, whatever,

but we're all beggars at the foot of the cross, you know? Sure. And it was, there was in the very earliest of conversations um you know it's i i told so the pastor's name steve and i i told him i was like you're just wrong about the whole gay thing i'm sorry how did i respond yeah what did he say my language was not nearly that graceful and so man this guy i put him through the ringer um hats off to him like i look back you know 10

years later and just can't believe all the stuff he went through for me but um but you know when we when we were talking about it once again this is only when i brought it up this was nothing that he felt the need to sit down and tell me um but he said you know leslie if you slip up it's we're still going to love you it's not going to change if you you, if you slip up, we're still going to love you. It's not going to change if you end up with a moment or if you end up transitioning. We're still going to love you no matter what. And so not feeling like there was something I had to live up to, that I was free to just be me. free to just be me that freedom to to mess up allowed allowed the spirit to get into my life and to really work through the messy stuff because i wasn't being set up for failure

when you when you give somebody whether it's lgbt stuff or not when you give somebody a line that they have to measure up to they're going to fail at some point we're all going to fail at some point and so when you know you when you look at that, wow, there's no way I can do that. That completely binds the spirit's hands because the person is reacting out of fear. And the Side B podcast a few weeks ago, a guy, his name's Luke, and forgive me, I forget his last name. But he said something so incredibly powerful to me is that when you operate out of fear, you test, you don't trust. That's good. And so as an LGBT person coming back into the church, I was incredibly fearful. And so I was testing all the time and it took them just really loving on me and saying, okay, it doesn't matter if you mess

up or not, or, you know, what happens here, we're going to keep loving you for me to be able to begin to trust. And the pastor that I have now, I think I've shared this with you that, that, you know, looking at all the baggage that I have in the church in the past, he said, I understand that you're going to be testing us. And that's, that's a price we're willing to pay because we love you that much. And so there are just these like little key phrases throughout my time in the church that these guys who've been, and it happens to be guys. I, you know, I have no problem with a woman leading, let's be clear about that. But, but that these guys have said that it just,

the spirit is just like laid into me and they just like echo in my head when I, when like the, the doubts start to come in, I start hearing these wonderful phrases of, of how God is loving me through these people. Yeah. So good. I wanted to go back. You made a comment in passing and I've, I've seen this over and over in my life and in many of my friends' lives that we just don't have a,

we just don't have a clue what gender dysphoria feels like. It's just, we don't have a cat. There dysphoria feels like yeah it's just we don't have a cat there's no it's not like a there's no like analogy that i'm like oh yeah it's kind of like this and i kind of can we just don't i don't think i mean can you first of all is there any way you could help us understand that a bit more or and or what are some things people can do to try to understand what it's like more? I don't know that I can make you understand. Okay. It's, if you can imagine, and this is, this is an awkward thing to say, but if like, if you can imagine waking up one morning and having breasts and how bizarre that would

feel to have that on your body and how much you would want that to be gone just to get back to who you feel like you are and who you know yourself to be um that's the closest thing i can i can say to it but it's there's so much more that goes into it with like the whole social aspect of it and you know it's i know that cat talked recently you know about femininity and what that looks like so it's that's part of it um but for me like the dysphoria really comes so much from the physical aspect much more than the social hold on a second uh now you hear it okay all right so we're back now um can you finish up your last few thoughts on yeah dysphoria i first of all um if people are willing to take the time to imagine as a male to wake up with breasts

or as a female to wake up with like a penis or something and like how i can know i right when you started talking about that i was like imagine myself going on public and how I would just feel so like everybody is either staring at me, thinks I'm a freak or what is going on. And I just, that I immediately, I just felt my body almost get really like scared almost. Is that,

I mean, is that the kind of next thing that happens when you go out in public? Like you're just so aware of, or assuming everybody's staring at me, because you feel like yeah totally out of place yeah and it's um i i'm forgive me i'm forgetting a cat touched on this in the podcast or it's just a conversation she and i'd had but um there's also you know just a realization that there will never be a time when you're comfortable in a public bathroom. Yeah.

Ever. You know, if you go into the men's bathroom, you're going to feel uncomfortable. When you're in the women's bathroom, you feel uncomfortable. So it's just, there's just a sense of there's never a time when you're going to be comfortable with who you are in public. Gosh, wow. Wow. Is there, and I've asked, I've asked anybody I know who's trans or experiences gender dysphoria, are there things that reduce the dysphoria? Because I know for most people, it does come in waves, right? Unless it's just you're on the extreme level where it's just always there. Typically it does come in waves. Would that be accurate for you as well? Yeah, it's definitely cyclical for me.

And if so, are there specific things that can trigger it or minimize it? Triggering it would be if people are numb about my pronoun preference and ignore that. Now, if people are trying and make a mistake, that doesn't even faze me. It's more upsetting when people make a big deal about making a mistake. It's that I have to turn around and make them feel good. That's, that's more upsetting. But if there's someone who, who knows that my pronouns and, and refuses to use them, that's, that's triggering.

Oddly, like when I'm, when I pass as a guy, like not that I'm trying to pass as a guy ever but like when somebody says yes sir or something like that to me that feels really good but then it triggers the dysphoria of wow i don't have what i want i'm not who i want to be and i i don't guess i've really said this i am genderqueer which means and i know that genderqueer non-binary are terms that are confusing for a lot of people. So what that means is that I don't necessarily identify as male or female. That really thinking about myself as either one is incredibly uncomfortable.

Okay. Now, can I dig into that a little bit? So, because, I mean, male and female are strict biological categories. Male, female, and then I guess there's intersex. But then you have the whole gender thing that is super complex and multilayered and multifaceted. Would you say that... So when I use the categories, I use like male and female just in the strict biological sense. If I want to include aspects of gender, I use man, woman. Or even if I only want to refer to kind of like societal expectations, I use masculine, feminine.

So those are kind of the three. Would you say, assuming the categories I typically use, would you say you don't identify as man or woman or masculine or feminine? Or does that – so that there's more gender categories, not biological sex categories. So under the biosex category, I would say that I don't identify as either. That it's – whereas I am biologically female, that is something that even saying it brings a great amount of discomfort to me. Okay. But I also recognize I'm not biologically male, so I don't feel like I can say that. With masculine and feminine, I would say I'm transmasculine. I believe I come across more

masculine than I do feminine, but that's my self-perception. I don't know. You know me pretty well. You can speak into that as well as I could, I think, but my perception is that I feel more masculine than feminine, but there are also aspects of me like my, you know, we're talking about societal stuff you know i'm incredibly empathetic and i know that and yeah um you know i have like a mama bear side to me so there's you know where i'm fiercely protective not in a not in a male way but in a more female mama bear kind of way of people i care about so i can't really land in either camp there. So it's just, I feel like I live in this nebulous in-between world. Yeah.

Yeah, I would, for my, I was going to say the exact same thing. If you take the kind of stereotype masculine-feminine, you know, empathy is stereotypically a more feminine trait, which I don't even know if I, I think that's the stereotype, but I think it's way overplayed i mean it it might be 60 40 or something like that but anyway but but that is the stereotype so i would say with you if you're gonna if you're gonna say uh let's just say gender refers to those kind of the spectrum of masculinity femininity then i would put you like yeah gender queer gender fluid something

like that or non-binary somewhere it's like you don't fit into either box in an airtight way um but i don't i don't those yeah can you can you dig a little bit more into the stereotypes because i've talked to um well a few people cat was one of them but another another friend, Kyla, who says when she's around and she does. She's OK. I think she prefers the female pronoun now. I'll just use her name when Kyla. Can you hear that? I'm so sorry, folks. When Kyla is around other females who are stereotypically feminine, or even men who are stereotypically masculine, when she's around social environments where these airtight boxes

kind of being reinforced, that can trigger the dysphoria. Like if she knew she was going to go to a women's retreat and they're going to do like arts and crafts and wear dresses, she would, her dysphoria would be through the roof, you know? Would you say, was that the same for you when you're around? Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. So like we have a staff retreat coming up for Lead Them Home this Monday and Tuesday of this next week.

And I was, I can't tell you the amount of anxiety I had over like how rooming was going to be done. Was I going to be put in a bunk room with like the two other women on staff? Like my dysphoria was off the charts, just even thinking about that. Now it's, everything's been worked out and like, I've been loved and, you know, I'm going to be exactly where I want to be. But it was just, just even having to think about that or like if i'm at a part you know just like a simple social gathering you know and the guys are outside by the grill talking you know football or you know what you know whatever just like very stereotypical things that happen um i remember one time uh being in a party and like all the women were inside talking about like

how they were the wallpaper they were going to put up in this woman's house and i was thinking dear baby jesus this is the most boring thing i've ever heard in my life like I have I don't care wallpaper's ugly paint it so so you know I just wanted to be outside with the guys talking football and you know figuring out what dry rub we were going to use you know like it just that's where that's where my mind goes and it's um and it's something that that i have to be very well aware of um when i and it has kind of come back to bite me that um there are times that then women get kind of um territorial around their guys because i'm there and so if i have to work extra hard to make sure they understand my my gender identity to understand that i'm not approaching their husband as another woman

you know that no this is just a really easy hang husband as another woman, you know, that, that, no, this is just a really easy hang for me. And that's, you know, it's super conflicting for me to be in there with the women. And in times when I go to women's retreats or I'm not involved in the women's ministry at all in the church where I am now, but there I was, you know, when I was up here in Massachusetts and man, those days I would go home and I would want to cut so badly because it would just, and it was just so horrific to, and I can't even explain it. Just like the anxiety and the hatred towards myself and what I have and what I wanted

to have and, um, just how that anxiety would build up over the day of being around just women. And then what that would look like when I was at home was silence and just all of the thoughts that would come flooding in in that silence. Can I ask you with the self-harm thing? I know a pretty high percentage of people, much more than people realize, struggle with this.

I didn't realize it until I first started as a college professor and we were sharing stats of student self-harm. Can you speak to somebody listening to the 5, 10 percent of people that might be wrestling with that or more even? Can you speak any words of wisdom and advice to that person so that they maybe don't do that? Yeah. So I now have a safety net. When those, the self-harm spiral is, it's just that is a downward spiral.

When pain starts to get out of control, it's a way that you can control the pain by inflicting it on yourself. So the mental pain becomes physical pain, but it's physical pain that you have control over. So, and it's just a cycle and it keeps getting worse and worse and worse until you actually do something. So I now have, I have a structure set up. I have people that when that's, when that spiral starts, I send a text, hey, this is what's going on. And they know they're like three or four.

So it's not just on, you know, one person that they always have to be that thing for me. But they know as a group that they need to come together okay who's got leslie today you know it's it's unfortunate that i have to do that but it's something that i've put in place to keep myself safe um so so yeah it's just having the and the minute you can break that cycle and start and open it up and stop spinning and And for me, that's what it is. My head just starts spinning and nothing can stop it other than creating pain myself rather than experiencing the emotional pain that I'm feeling. And so when I can reach out and I can break that cycle, that once again, that gives God room to speak into my life rather than constantly being overburdened by the lies or just completely drowning in the lies.

By reaching out, I give room for the light to come in and for God's truth to come in about who I am. That's super helpful. Thank you for that. And I know these are sensitive personal topics that I'm sure aren't easy to talk about, but your vulnerability is, I think, going to help a lot of people. I know for some people, too, I don't know if you've experienced this. For some people, it can be almost like a self-atoning, like if they do things that they know are wrong, they feel so bad, they feel so guilty that this is their way of kind of punishing themselves.

Would you say that's almost like a different category of self-harm? It's a different way of processing it. But yeah, I've certainly, kind of the mea culpa thing is certainly something that I've done before. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Let's jump forward to your ministry now. Talk to us about what you've been doing since you came to Christ and maybe share a few stories, you know, some highlights, maybe some highs and lows from your current job, which is much, much more than a job. Yeah, so now I work with Lead Them Home. I'm the gender identity ministries director. We're in the process of putting together a three to four hour presentation that will go around the country that we can present to pastors to introduce them to the gender identity conversation and,

and just kind of give them some help because there's this huge question mark right now. And you see so many pastors wanting to do it right, desperately wanting to serve this community, but just having no idea what to do. And so that's, that is the hope is that this will be a tool to help, help pastors and church leaders engage in that. That is the hope, is that this will be a tool to help pastors and church leaders engage in that. I'm also a mentor for LGBT youth, and it's youth and adults, honestly.

Like, I think the oldest person I'm working with right now is 63. The youngest is 14. So it's, you know, really kind of a spectrum. It's predominantly trans people or people who are genderqueer. I see trans as a spectrum now.'s kind of an umbrella term so anyone under that umbrella term so that's part of it there's also LGBT people that that I work with as well but it's primarily trans kids there, I sent this out in a newsletter recently, but we had one kid who sent in an email, you know, it started out with just, I go to a Christian school. I'm transgender. I told my friend who told the school, the school administrator, who then told all the parents, including mine, my parents will no longer talk to me.

parents including mine my parents will no longer talk to me um the school this was a catholic school the priest told her that she or i'm sorry told him that he was going to burn in hell um and the closing line of this of this initial email was um i want to die i want to go be with god in heaven but i don't know if god would even let me in. Help is like is this initial email we get from this kid and this is just we don't get these every day but this is not a rare occurrence and this particular kid I followed for about six eight months and then you know just got an email I'm not gonna be able to talk to you again for a while I've been kicked out of my home I don't know how long how much longer my phone's gonna work and it's it's now september of 2019 i haven't heard from the kids since uh november of 2018 so it's been almost a year um so increasing

family inclusion is a huge part of our mission uh missional statement as an organization um but also being there to pick up the pieces for these kids when the parents don't. So we have a justice initiative, you know, for kids who are in college and their parents have kicked them out. We help pay room and board for them. And there's no faith requirement in it. One of the kids we're paying for was just in San Francisco and transitioned this summer. We are simply there to show the love of Christ, to nourish their faith identity. And so that's another huge part of what we're doing outside of the training. And of course, you know, as a bigger organization, training pastors

and elders, just what to do with LGBT people in the church as a whole. How, thank you for being involved in that. My goodness. I mean, I hear those stories and it's like, I mean, that, that's just, um, especially somebody who's naturally empathetic. I don't know how you sleep at night. I mean, that's, I really don't. You don't. I mean, I, yeah, I, I, cause I, I hear similar stories too and it's, um, it's overwhelmed. It's overwhelming, you know, which is why we do what we do. Let me ask you the question.

This is something I've thought about. I don't think you and I have ever talked about it. But so everything you said, I'm like absolutely on board. And you've heard me speak out against, you know, parents kicking their kids out of the house or whatever, you know, increasing family inclusion. But what about, let me just take an example from just a straight kid what if you'd have just a real obstinate destructive disrespectful straight kid you know and there's and again even there i'm not kicking someone out of the house unless they were doing such destructive things that are putting other family members at harm i don't know i don't know but let's just say somebody who's not let's just say they're out of the house or over 18, whatever, but they are, yeah, let's just say

they're very, very hyper disrespectful, destructive. They're doing things that were, say, maybe funding their college would be enabling them, you know, would actually be like, no, they need to realize that if you don't, if you live this way, it's going to lead to destruction and you need to get a job. You can't keep whatever. Like, I could see parental wisdom in saying, you know, we're not going to pay for your college. Again, I'm just thinking just straight people right now. But let's map it now on somebody who happens to also be LGBT. I mean, I'm trying to formulate that question really carefully like is there a place and i don't

even love this phrase and i'm not sure i agree with it but is there a place for tough love for somebody who is living these kind of destructive ways who also happens to be lgbtq do you know what i'm trying to i mean i i I, I. Yeah. So it's. Like, oh, so here's how I'd formulate it. Like, like the, you know, did you guys provide funds for somebody that needs college, dorm, whatever? I would say, you know, to me, I was like, that sounds so brilliant. I was like, I hope people take, you know, imitate that example, but I would want to know.

Well, I, I wouldn't want to, I wouldn't want to just, just because you're LGBTQ and you've been rejected by your family, therefore you're qualified or you should be getting whatever like there's you know um is this actually going to be helpful for them in in the long run so we what we're doing is very we don't have the same responsibilities that a parent has so so let me be clear about that um But Bill has a phrase that Bill Henson, our president and CEO has a phrase that really kind of guides how we interact with everyone, gay, straight, trans parents, pastor, whatever, whether it's somebody that's coming in as completely homophobic or someone

who's been completely wounded by the church. And that's that the gospel of gospel of exclusion has no power to reach an already banished people. We cannot exclude people in the name of Christ or in the name of discipline who have already been banished by the church. We have to show inclusion, love, and acceptance. We have to be the loving aspect of Christ. They've to show inclusion, love, and acceptance. We have to be the loving aspect of Christ. They've already had the harsh truth thrown at them. It hasn't been in love. It's been in harshness. So we have to be that aspect. And that's, you know, going back to

the pastor who loved me, there was that initial of just love and acceptance. There is a time where truth will come into play but you cannot speak truth into somebody's life until you have permission to do that and so if you're having this gospel of exclusion of okay this rigidness of we're going to do this this and this and to an already banished people they're not going to hear the gospel and and obviously as a ministry as someone in ministry that is my goal is for, especially this community, people like me to understand that not only does God love you, not only does God adore you, God is chasing you. God is pursuing you, you know, and that's,

that's just such a foreign idea to so many LGBT people that, you know, it's not that God tolerates me. God is chasing after me. God is, you know, with the prodigal son, you know, the father lifting up his, his robes and exposing himself. Like God is, is exposing himself and is, is, you know, uh, you know, showing humiliation to come after us. And it's, you know, that's everybody, but we, we have this mentality that it's everybody, but us. And so that's where we're just like, you said this before, I believe as well, but I would rather be wrong and be right in relationship than to be right in theology and wrong in relationship. And I think that's just kind of where you have to operate from, especially in this conversation.

That's super helpful. I keep, by the way, I don't know if you can hear, but I keep muting my microphone so that some of my noise doesn't come through. It isn't okay. So if you don't hear me, like amending what you're saying, it's not, I'm doing it over here in my head. You're like, he's so non-responsive. I get really self-conscious about that. Like when I'm talking and people are just like this, like just staring, I'm like, all right, so obviously you don't agree, or maybe you do agree, or maybe you're asleep, or maybe you think I'm an idiot. And I started getting all in my head, but anyway. All right. Let's talk about the whole trend side of this. I know you and I have had some conversations about rapid onset gender dysphoria. You know, the people who don't experience,

let's just say early onset gender dysphoria from childhood, like, like you and, you know, many other people we know, but it seems to be, I'll just say it seems to be, that there seems to be this idea that there could be social influence, social contagion, or even like a trendiness or popularity about being trans or LGBTQ. I just heard, we have a local high school here in town that's in kind of a progressive area, and I just heard some teachers said that about 40 of the student body identifies as bisexual or non-binary or kind of an in-between category um which you know i i hear that and and i'm like wow i don't know like scientifically bisexuality

is like 0.9 of the population like how is it is it 40% of the height? I have to at least ask the question, is there some kind of trendiness going on? And even as I'm talking, you might be like, ah, triggers. But I'm doing that intentionally because I want to fire you up. What are your thoughts? So again, there's people who, I mean,

obviously have what can be debilitating gender dysphoria. And then is there another category of some trendiness that could be feeding into this? And how can you help us think through maybe those two kinds of, let's just say, transgender experience or identities? to kinds of, let's just say, transgender experience or identities? Sure. So I can't speak into what another transgender person thinks, feels, says, wants, does any more than you can how another straight person does. I will say that, you know, even if you go into the DSM, what are we at, four or five now at the DSM-5?

Five, yeah. the DSM, what are we at four or five now at the DSM five, um, you know, um, late onset gender dysphoria is something that, that is, um, you know, that, that has been, that is in and has been in there that, you know, that it can occur during puberty or much later in life. Um, you know, the whole rapid onset gender dysphoria thing, you know, when you go back to the initial um article you know that came out of brown the the frustrating thing about that is that nothing has been done studying trans people all of these studies are trans or parents of trans kids and so whereas it might be um it might be something that came out super fast for them. You don't know how long it's been in the kids mind. And as a, as a, you're muted. What's that?

You were muted. I was thinking like, right, right, right. No sound. But there's nothing that's been done like actually studying the kids. And these kids honestly may not have language to express what they're feeling. But to say that 40% are non-binary, I would want to get into that community and find out, okay, what does non-binary mean to you? Does it mean that you don't socially line up with what these gender roles are? Or are you saying that physically you don't feel like you line up with a male or a female? And I think that that's where we're evolving as a society and trying to find the language for these different terms. And so saying that 40% is non-binary doesn't really tell us a whole lot about what's really happening.

Are there really 40% of the kids with dysphoria? Are there 40% of the kids that are raging against our current societal norms of what male and female, what masculine and feminine look like? Do you have any insight into that with this particular district? No, this is, this is a, and it was, again, it was kind of several different categories thrown out and I didn't even, I don't even want to verify the 40%. It was just two different people said it's just such a, it's almost like, and I have seen this at several different high schools that I've been connected with, or even junior highs, where being, you know, a straight,

just straight, and especially if you're white and cisgender, it's almost like, what's wrong with you? You know, it's like, I know some people that's almostgender, it's almost like, what's wrong with you? You know, it's like I know some people that's almost like it's almost completely flipped around. Like the experience that your friend had at the Christian high school at some public high schools. It's almost like just your existence as a straight white male cisgender. It's like you embody everything that's wrong with society. And some of this is it's teenagers sorting stuff out. It's it's just there's it's I was you know, we's teenagers sorting stuff out it's it's just

there's there's it's i was you know we're all searching stuff out as a teenager but um uh it can't i mean it can't i don't know like if the dsm is correct i mean that's the authority you know gen people who experience like diagnosable gender dysphoria is it's not there's no way it could be 40 couldn't be 20 or even 10 um my my assumption is what you i mean even said it that that there are these rigid stereotypes or just like expectations for what you should be that are being resisted i actually like the phrase gender non-conforming because it's so general enough that it's like, I know

a lot of straight cisgender people who would almost resist that. Guys that don't like to watch football because they don't like to see violence or people getting hurt. It's like, whoa, what's wrong with you? You're a man, right? It's like, where in the with you you're a man right you know it's like wait

where in the bible does it say you have to like enjoy violence you know like um now you and i happen to like football but so what's happening here is very common and with when anytime a marginalized community starts to get a voice is that appropriation happens. And so what is a term that is meant to, to describe something that is very real in someone's psyche, you know, of how we identify or what physically we want all of a sudden, because it's been given a voice. And so it's now in the main, not necessarily in the mainstream, but at least has a voice in the mainstream it's being appropriated.

And exactly what you just said. Well, yeah, I can identify with that, you know, because I don't like this or I do like that. Okay, so great. So maybe we need to redefine what we see as masculine and feminine. But gender nonconforming when it comes to identity is so much bigger than what a straight cis male would think of it as being. And so it's, i think that's another

part of this is that there's so much appropriation happening as it's as the um as the language is becoming um just just more prevalent that people are trying to make it fit themselves because that's what we do as a society we want we want to be inclusive and we want to be included in whatever's happening um not that i'm saying that's what gender dysphoria in kids is at all. There was like a stop and moving on in the conversation here. That's super helpful. When a minority community gets a voice, it can become appropriate. That's super helpful, actually.

Yeah, I'm going to mull over that. You said you had some thoughts on Littman's study. You kind of mentioned passing, but I just want to give you some more space to kind of go into that. Yeah, there's not a whole lot. Sorry, just to repeat, the big thing you had a problem with is that it was just looking at the parents. It was interviewing the parents. Exactly. Beyond that, I don't want to give that study my time or energy a whole lot because there's just so much in it that I'm against.

But it's, you know, the fact that it's saying that this is all new and everything, and it's not. You know, the numbers are being reported perhaps at a higher rate because it's bigger in the conversation. But, yeah, just that it's about the parents. Once again, it's about the cis people, the cisgender people so people who whose minds and bodies are in alignment um i would love to see an equal you know something else come out of you know brown or you know one of the one of the other idly league schools specifically about what it's like for us you know give me a peer-reviewed study for for trans people that's something i can get behind um parents are just trying to figure it out they're doing their best and it's something that i've

said to you with the best of intentions you're going to make mistakes you're going to fail miserably because it's it's new to you and it's a conversation that you're learning about rather than a conversation you're in and so it's's just upsetting to me that, you know, these three sites and then that one study are something that is are just looked at so prevalently as, you know, part of this ROGD conversation. But it's all done by cis people and it's all interviews with parents and parents experiences with their kids with nothing looking at what the kids or those of us who have gone through it are actually experiencing. Would it be, what about, um, so I've been listening to a few other, um, websites, podcasts, blogs from, uh, kids, kids, like young twenties who did go through what they would identify now as like

ROGD and then have now detransitioned socially. They never medically transitioned. I think one of them might have that I listened to. There's one, Peak Resilience is one website. It's for biological females who went through kind of the ROGD stuff. And now they're on the other side. They're like 20, 21, 22. And I think they still identify as lesbian or some of them do, but they kind of,

they kind of say the same thing, say the same thing that they might've had more masculine interests, but they were very thankful. They didn't take more medical intervention because they said, yeah, it was kind of a, there was a trendiness factor to it. You know well i think that's where you have to nail down you know what we said earlier that you have to nail down the physical aspect is it is it a biological difference that you're feeling or is it a social difference and i think as as women are starting to to find their voices even more and more as you know as, as, as, uh, feminist movement is, is moving forward and everything that, um,

that there's more and more pushback against what is a male role versus, or sorry, I'm trying to use your terms here. So you would say, which is a masculine role versus a feminine role. You can use, you can, no, this is like, well, no, it's just, just for the sake of consistency throughout your other, other podcast. This is fascinating that you're honoring my pronoun. Take a lesson, Sprinkle. I know, I know, I know.

We didn't get into that. I just, it was so, I mean, you referenced somebody, you know, when you, when people miss, don't use your pronouns and my audience didn't know that that was actually me. Well, I wasn't referring specifically to referring specifically i know you weren't i probably this is just delightful that you were saving my face even though um i'm a big fan of using people's preferred pronouns especially when you first encounter the person and i so if i can correct If I could correct, and I was using she when we met. So it's, but I've known you by day then. Yeah. Anyway. But if I could just go back to one thing you just said really quickly, you said preferred pronouns. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's not good. Right.

So, so I would love to explain why to the people that are listening, that the preferred makes it seem like it's optional. To me, it's not optional because simply using somebody's pronouns can decrease suicidality by 40% to 60%. Those aren't a person's preferred pronouns. Those are their pronouns, period. When somebody tells you their pronouns, you honor them because it could mean the difference between them being alive or not you never know if you were that one person that's going to speak into their lives enough to validate who they think they are so that they're alive tomorrow hold on hold on a second i got a guy drilling above my head i have a really i want a

question that i want to ask you. And I love, this is what I love about Leslie, um, is that we have such a good relationship. We can ask hard questions. Um, I don't, I, I agree with everything you said there and that's fascinating and horrific really that the suicide rate is so high. Um, when there's people not using other person's pronouns. What about the person that says, well, wait a minute, she, him, his, hers refers to somebody's biological sex. And unless you're intersex, you are either male or female biologically. So we are lying to the person we are. And I'm just quoting people. And I hope this isn't offensive. This isn't me. This is people out there. Why would we reinforce delusion by

calling a biological male she or vice versa? What would you say to someone that said that? I have a hard time with that, honestly, because that is very triggering. But I would say that Christ met people where they were. I would go back to Jesus and Peter. And when Jesus was saying, do you agape me? Peter said, I phileo you. Do you agape me? I phileo you. Jesus, you know my heart.

Jesus changed his language. Do you phileo me? Knowing that agape was the standard, the agape is where he wanted Peter to be. Jesus changed his language to meet Peter where Peter was. So I think if Jesus can do it, we can do it. Oh, I gotta think about that. We can do it. Oh, I got to think about that. I'm going to mull over that. I might agree with that. Where'd you get that from?

My brain? I don't know. That's fast. Because that is, somebody could say, well, Filet-O-N-Gappe. Well, no, they are different, and he does change it. I got to think about that. You know, one thing that our mutual friend Greg Coles brought up, and we have, at the center,

we have a paper addressing this and why Christians should be okay using somebody's pronouns. So preferred is not the, you're encouraging people not to use the phrase preferred pronouns, just say their pronouns. You know, even the Greek word theos, for God, it means God, right? It's used all over the New Testament, theos. In the first century, if you walked around this marketplace talking about theos, people would think you're talking about Zeus or some pagan, like it was, and yet that term has been used against its textbook meaning in the Greek, the Greco-Roman kind of mindset.

Again, these are not perfect analogies, but they do show that there is some flexibility in language. My biggest thing, honestly, isn't that theological. Well, it's incarnational. It's Jesus met people where they're at. When he came down, he spoke. He didn't speak heaven. He didn't speak God. He spoke kind of a trashy version of Greek, corny Greek that was like for the uneducated, you know, and, um, people don't know this, but the God, the, the book of revelation has like,

it's like terrible Greek grammar. Like if you were like a Greek teacher in the first century and you read revelation, you'd fail. John, you know, like it, you'd fail, John. Like it would be, no, seriously, it's like really bad Greek grammar. And so, but that's another small example of God meeting us where we're at with language. Hey, we're just about out of time, Leslie. I want to make sure that people know how valuable you are for the kingdom.

The work you're doing. I will say it. I mean, it's probably is better coming from me. I mean, you are an invaluable piece of this conversation in the broader evangelical church. I mean,

I wish we could multiply you by a thousand that your ability to dig into people's lives, to be available, to walk with people, to know. Like it's you walking with somebody, the people you walk with is always going to be better than me, I think. I mean, it's just there's going to be things that you can bring to the table relationally that I never will be able to. So we as a church need to release, like we need to release you, support you, and raise up other Lesleys across the board. So you are, and I'm just going to say, you're self-supported.

You raise support. Yeah. And you need more support. And you should not have to worry about money. The church has enough money. We're a multi-trillion dollar organization. We've got the money. So how can people support you and your ministry?

The site is leadthemhome.org forward slash Leslie. So L-E-S-L-I with no E at the end because my mom decided to be incredibly cruel and curse me with people spelling my name wrong my entire life. So it's leadthemhome.org forward slash Leslie, L-E-S-L-I. There are options there to do either monthly or one-time gifts. You would accept both. I would highly encourage people. $10 a month, $20 a month. Think about it.

There are several thousand people listening to this podcast. If you got 50 people at $10 a month or $20, that would be huge. They wouldn't even feel that. 50 people at 10 bucks a month you know or 20 bucks that'd be huge and that's not it's like that's they wouldn't even feel that so look if you guys trust me out there and you're like I don't know about the Leslie person you know

and her pronouns or whatever just know she if some of you need to know she is a side B or she holds her traditional theology she's not out trying to transition people across the board whatever but she's going to enter into people's space walk with them where they're at in ways that you and I can never do. So thank you so much, Leslie, for your work.

Most of all, thanks for your friendship. And we're going to see each other again in a couple weeks, and we're going to grab a beer and hang out. So can't wait to see you again, friend. Yes. All right. Take care.