Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep2: Diversity of Trans* Part 2: Gender Dysphoric but not Trans*

Episode Date: January 25, 2021

Renee has experienced gender dysphoria from an early age and it’s never gone away. She hates wearing dresses and has never worn make-up, which means she doesn’t at all resonate with the culturally defined gender stereotypes of western culture. Renee is also a radical follower of Jesus, has a masters in Theology and is pursuing a Ph.D., and aspires to be a writer and theological educator. While she experiences ongoing gender dysphoria and doesn’t fit your typical narrow box of femininity, she also doesn’t agree with many things in a “gender affirming” ideology.  Pre-order my book Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church, and What the Bible Has to Say from this website to recieve pre-order incentives: https://davidccook.org/books-preston-sprinkle-embodied/ Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | 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 a Raw, and welcome to part two of my ongoing series called The Diversity of Trans. My guest today is a person who I have recently met. Renee and I go back, oh, a few months. She has helped me think through the transgender conversation by looking at some stuff I've written and editing it and just gave such amazing feedback on some things I was working on last fall that I decided, hey, I have to have you on the podcast. In fact, you have to be part of this ongoing series because Renee has a, again, Renee is part of that large umbrella of diversity.

And I am so excited for you to listen to this conversation. Renee is, she's a theology student. She's super smart, pursuing a PhD in theology and has a really kind of different journey. And I'm not going to spoil it. I'll let Renee talk about her own journey. We end up talking about all kinds of interesting things that stem from her journey, including gender stereotypes, why she, you know, experiences gender dysphoria, but does not like identify as trans. Now, there are certain contexts where she's fine with that label,

but she is suspicious of some of the philosophical and theological assumptions that oftentimes go into, you know, people or worldview, you know, people that would identify as trans. So again, we, we, we're going to get into that at great length in the upcoming, um, conversations. So if you would like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in a raw. And also, uh, next week, my book embodied, uh, transgender identities of church and what the Bible has to say, uh, releases. So you have one more week to take advantage of some of the pre-release, pre-order incentives, I guess is what they're called.

So if you pre-order the book before it comes out on February 1st and you get some extra perks like a webinar with yours truly and a lengthy video that kind of explains some of the backstory that's involved with that was involved with writing the book and some commentary on each of the chapters. So you can look at the show notes for details on how to take advantage of that pre-order package of incentives. So without further ado, let's get to know this wonderful, wonderful, beautiful human being, my new friend, the one and only, Rene. All right, welcome to Theology Narah for the first time, my new friend, Rene. Rene, how are you doing on this afternoon? I am doing wonderful. This is fun. Well, thanks so much for being part of this conversation. In fact, I don't even, we may have corresponded through, I'm not sure if I told you this, but this is part of a three-week series I'm doing called The Diversity of Trans, and I'm just trying to

interview a whole wide spectrum of different people who would be somehow under this large umbrella of this thing called trans, whether they identify as trans or experience dysphoria or used to identify, no longer. I mean, just a whole wide interesting interesting spectrum it's going to give me a lot of emails so um so you're part of a really interesting conversation um why don't you begin by just telling us your story your background and would love to hear um your you know how gender dysphoria fits into that and would love to hear your theological journey up until present day. Just the little bits. Yeah. So I was born to wonderful Christian parents.

Absolutely nothing bad to say whatsoever. I have no stories, no horror stories from childhood. I had a wonderful upbringing. I was their little girl, and I I still am and I always will be. And I was not a particularly introspective kid, not terribly impressed with logical fallacies or anything like that. And so I just I just lived my life and did me up until a certain age. I grew up with brothers, and I had this intellectual comprehension that I was a girl. But at the same time, I didn't have any sense that that was different from being a boy. I just, um, you know, this intellectual detail of being a girl didn't at all impede the fact that I was just one of

the guys and could be anything I wanted to be and do anything I wanted to do. Um, so little incongruence there. Um, just wore whatever clothes my folks gave me. I was just busy living my life. I would say around the age of like six or seven, I remember getting really tomboyish. I was really into cowboys, really into horses. I remember I had this blue t-shirt with horse heads on it, and I loved wearing that shirt and jeans and cowboy boots. And I was, I was just all about that life. And then, um, that, that continued for years. About the time I was 10, I made some interesting friends. Um, they were part of a, a plain church. It was kind of like Mennonites. Not quite, but everyone dressed like Mennonites, basically. And for some reason, this resonated with me, and I started dressing like

them. And I struggle to explain this time of life. I think it's kind of strange. So from about 10 to 13, I looked like I was Mennonite. And in retrospect, I think that was my way of telling people around me that I was different than their perception of me. Very bizarre way to enact that. But I was trying to communicate that I wasn't what they thought I was. So that went on for three or four years. When I was 14, I, I became a Christian. And the very interesting thing that happened shortly after that was that I, I desisted from all that Amish nonsense. You desisted from the, okay. That's yeah. Yeah. I just, I took off the dresses. I put on pants. I very much went back to sort of that, that tomboy phase. And yeah, the dresses were just a thing of the past. Don't know what to make of it. Just me being bizarre. Make of that what you will. And so I guess I had this thing with clothes minus that little dress period. If I could just dress the way I wanted to, I didn't have to think about my body.

Again, I wasn't very introspective. I realized this looking back after the fact. I just didn't want to think about it. And that was that. I went to college when I was 17, and that's when I really started to sense that there was some social incongruence between who I thought I was and who people perceived me to be. And so I would just make friends with guys. I hung out with one professor a lot. I was in his office like every day. He was very kind to me.

And years after the fact, he told me that the other faculty had come to him and were like, why is Rebecca in your office every day? Like they thought I was after him creepily or something. And he told me, you know, that later, much later that he, he told them she's not up to anything and I'm not kicking her out of my office. And that was perhaps the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. Um, sticking up to the entire faculty of the college like that. It was a very small conservative Bible college. So, um, yeah, I remember we had, uh, um, like formal events twice a year. And at the first event I wore a dress and I looked ridiculous cause I had no sense of fashion and I still don't. Um, but after that, I never wore one ever again. I looked ridiculous after that too, because I just wore like slacks and a guy's collared shirt. During this whole point, I had no conception of trans anything,

absolutely nothing whatsoever. This was not a category for me. I didn't realize that some people switched genders or had surgery, nothing, absolutely nothing. I had been taught from a young age that homosexuality was an abomination. And that was my sum total of anything that didn't fall within heterosexuality or cisgender experience. So I graduated from college, lived some life, went some places. Four years after that, I went to seminary. And that, for the first time, was where I started to think more in categories of gender and what it would be to be trans. And that basically came about because of two incidents, both of them social. And one was a baby shower.

My best friend at seminary, his wife got pregnant. She invited me to the baby shower. Of course I went. And it really bothered me I remember sitting there thinking uh I am not like all these other women in this room do they realize that I am not like them or is this just me seeing something that they can't see and I thought about it for weeks and months after that super bothered me. Um, and then the second thing that happened was one day I, I had the realization that no matter, um, how hard I worked, no matter how much study I did, I would never be accepted in the church as I wanted to be because I had the wrong

biology basically. Um, so I could study the Bible and theology all day long, but, um, that would still not matter as much, um, as it would as if a man did it to my professors and to my family and to my church. And so, uh, basically those were just a couple of social incidents that touched off an exploration of what gender was and what it would be to be trans. It took me a long time to even begin to think of myself in those categories because I had so much internalized yuck factor, I guess, against the idea of being trans. yuck factor, I guess, against the idea of being trans. Can I ask you real quick? Because you haven't mentioned the term gender dysphoria,

but would you say you're experiencing mild, moderate, severe gender dysphoria at all? Is that kind of woven into everything you're saying? And how does that fit in with the whole Amish phase? I know. That's to me. I find it embarrassing. People don't know what to do with it. I don't know what to do with it. So psychoananalyze me and put that some category. Let me know. Absolutely. And again, this is until I was well into seminary. So the realization of all this is pretty new. I put all these pieces together in retrospect, and it was just like this whole puzzle coming together. gender dysphoria throughout all of this. I think it was highlighted by social experiences, but there has always just been this low grade discomfort with my body, with it in totality, and also with specific aspects of it. That's never been officially diagnosed. I guess I've never cared enough to go get it diagnosed. I don't know what that would achieve. So I recognize that it exists. When I listen to the stories of other trans people, I resonate with them. I realize that there is some aspect of my experience in the world and their experience in the world that overlap.

in the world that overlap. Did you ever feel like, leaving aside the scientific and philosophical credibility of the statement, but did you ever feel like you were born in the wrong body? Like there was some essence of maleness that you were, and yet you had a female body. Was it that strong of a disconnect? Because I know a lot of non-trans people hear the phrase born in the wrong body and i've tried to help people understand that people typically aren't making a scientific claim it's just that's the best kind of way to describe what it feels like to have typically moderate to severe dysphoria um does that phrase at all resonate with like did that resonate with your experience? Yes, absolutely. Again, I I consider myself discard it, I could kind of get at the real me. Intellectually, I know that's ridiculous. Theologically, I reject it. Philosophically, I think it's bogus. Scientifically, it's ridiculous.

However, that's what it feels like on some sort of subjective level. I want to come back to the theology. That's interesting that you... Yeah. some sort of subjective level. I want to come back to the theology. That's interesting that you, yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, I mean, I want to come back to that. And also during the, if I can ask, I think you kind of hinted at it, but were you, are you like a same sex attracted? Like is that all wrapped up in the experience too? I'm actually not, which I know is fairly atypical um nope i

i like guys i am definitely straight um and i know that's odd um in this experience that but that is different i mean in my intellectual understanding again looking on from the outside with loads of gaps in my knowledge with males, you have a lot more diversity in who they're attracted to within the male trans experience. Within the female trans, it's large. I don't know the percentage, but overwhelmingly same sex attracted. So that is. I've never heard a story of like uh a woman with gender dysphoria who is attracted to guys so i'm curious about that as well interesting yeah yeah i'm sorry i keep interrupting your story so oh no you're fine i think i've babbled on long enough to give the

impression that i'm as bizarre as i am so so you want so then you decided to pursue kind of theological education you have and i would imagine because you've been to some you like you said conservative schools and you're you're in a more conservative evangelical seminary now um uh is that does that does that um do you still resonate with that brand of evangelicalism? They're my people. And I think that's, you know, the Lord has placed me in a particular place with particular people in a particular tradition. And I cannot just lightly abandon that. And so I own them as my people um but at the same time i'm i i'm not an easy person for them to have around i don't think i i take some major exception to a lot of

uh characteristics of evangelicalism i think yeah how are you treated? I mean, yeah, but yeah. How, how's that going? Being somebody who, who doesn't fit kind of the stereotype of the kind of person that would be in this theological journey. Has it been good or difficult or? Mostly good. At the same time, I've really made a point to not make gender the centerpiece of my existence. And so it's not the litmus test I use when I encounter an individual and begin to explore relational possibilities with them. possibilities with them. I have some very good friends here who I've just never discussed this with. And it's not because I don't trust them or they wouldn't respond positively. In fact, I have every confidence they would have my back and take a posture of humility towards me. It's just, I don't know why it has to be the defining aspect of my life.

So, yeah, things have gone well. And to the extent that I've shared my experience, I've been received positively. That's on an individual level, though. I don't know what institutionally would happen if I was to be more open about it. But I guess my question what is the it i mean so you and i know you're so you're not like quote unquote i don't know if this is the right phrase but like out or but you're i mean there's somebody i'm not i mean it's like you're a human who wrestles with some level of gender dysphoria I mean, it's like you're a human who wrestles with some level of gender dysphoria.

So that puts you in the camp of a very, very normal, typical human who's wrestling with whatever. I mean, we all, you know, there's all kinds. You don't, like, or do you identify as trans? Is that term a label that you use to describe yourself even internally or privately? Or no? Or how would you describe yourself? I will use it and own it depending on the context. It depends how the person I'm talking to defines it um i think it it has some ontological baggage possibly that a word like gay doesn't and so i'm a little more

hesitant to pick it up and pin it on my shirt um i'm perfectly fine fine describing myself as gender dysphoric. I think it's a bit more awkward, but it fits a little bit better. What I think is actually my experience in the world. I'm not trying to be trans anything. Like I, I think femaleness and maleness are immutable. And so I'm not, I'm not actively trying to change that in any way so like yeah I guess I would use the word gender dysphoric but before I would use the word trans but it would depend

on the context. Gender dysphoric does feel a little clinical right and I use the phrase most people I know are okay with the phrase I haven't seen a lot of backlash with it but it just it doesn't it's hard there is no kind of in between air like type are okay with the phrase i haven't seen a lot of backlash with it but it just it doesn't it's hard there is no kind of in between air like tight phrase between gender dysphoric and trans it's not so clinical and yet not as as you said ontologically potentially problematic

with the trans what so i'm curious can unpack, you said you have some problems with some of the ontological implications that the term trans often conveys. Can you unpack that a bit for people that don't know what the term ontology means? Oh, yeah. The word trans seems to describe not only my experience in the world, but some essential aspect of my being, if I'm understanding properly how other people are intending me togender experience, but I don't want a word that is saying I am in my inmost being a man in a woman's body because I don't believe that. It doesn't align with my theological convictions. It doesn't align with my faith. I very much believe I am a woman, even though sometimes the feelings don't match up the experience doesn't quite uh cooperate sometimes why why don't you believe that you can be a woman in a or sorry a man in a woman's body or or vice versa i mean um

philosophically i struggle to understand how we can take terms that have historically applied to biological sex and somehow then turn around and also apply them to my my subjective sense of self I don't understand the chain of logic there if you understand it please explain it to me uh i yeah i guess that would be why well if yeah i mean um this i mean because i did this is really kind of the heart of so much of the debate surrounding trans and oftentimes i don't i wish people can kind of boil it down just on a clarity perspective i know everybody's I don't I wish people can kind of boil it down just on a clarity perspective I know everybody on you know like really angry there's so much anger right tension and but it's like if we can just settle down a little bit and boil it down to what are the fundamental questions where we are

that we are giving different answers to it and I think that is the question is when we, you know, so biological sex, we all know what that is. But then you have this newer concept of gender identity, which is almost always described as an internal sense of self as male, female, both or neither. What is that essentially ontologically? What is that internal sense of self um is it a separate property of human nature that is as and i'll use a phrase one more time ontologically significant as biological sex or is it a response to biological sex that may be right may be wrong you know if if my internal sense of self if i I am male, and that's just either our male, female, or small percentage

might have an intersex condition, then that is factually who you are. Now, if your internal sense of self disagrees with that, then is that disagreement more true to who you are and why? You know, that's, I guess, how I would. And as I understand it's there's probably two

main arguments in favor of kind of gender identity being this kind of independent significant aspect of personhood one would be the brain sex theory like somebody could have a the brain of the opposite sex right or to Or to a lesser extent, the sexed soul theory, like, hey, yes, I know I'm male, but my soul is female. I think both of those are problematic and can't – I mean, this is chapters eight and nine of my book. So I – but it's not – I don't want to make this podcast about me. I'm trying to, like – is that how you understand kind of the potential,

um, arguments, I guess, in favor of seeing gender identity as just kind of robust, independent aspect of personhood is, is that the way I'm describing it? Is that, does that resonate with how you've wrestled with it or? Yeah, for sure um i guess the way i i'm presently thinking about this and this is very time capsule-y as i've told you this is something i'm i'm still thinking through um i guess the best i can do with this category i hear of as gender is to consider it my orientation towards my biological sex. Um, and that, and that is the most sense that I can make of it. So I'm either in line with my biological sex or I'm, I'm somehow, um, opposed to it. Um,

I'm somehow opposed to it. But I don't understand how one can take the category of maleness or femaleness, man, woman, and change it from biology to this inner psychological sense of self. I don't understand how that works. So I can talk about my relationship to my body. But I think what people are trying to describe when they talk about gender may have more to do with personality than with sex, you know? Yeah. So does that make any sense totally totally i very much right you know i just i forgot yeah i had to read a paper i wrote and you gave amazing feedback but it wasn't my book i keep talking to you as if you've read my book um i have it i'm really looking forward to

it i will probably be much more clear on all this myself after i read it i i um yeah i i think you'll very much resonate with it which the fact that if you resonate with it that means more to me than if some non-gender dysphoric person does so that that's um yeah because that's the biggest accusation or critique really is because i don't have this experience i don't know what i'm talking about you know which which i i in no way would i ever claim to say here's what it feels like it's not a memoir you know um it's it's not an autobiography but i there are so many philosophical scientific theological psychological concepts that undergird and are intertwined with this whole entire conversation and just i mean how do i say without sounding like just because you experience gender dysphoria

doesn't automatically make you an expert in brain sex theory or you know the sextal yeah you know like there's um there are there is a philosophical theological conversation that also needs to happen alongside the relational conversation. Did you ever, if I can, I've got so many questions. Did you ever consider transitioning? Is that ever part of your journey? Were you entertained that as a relief? Only in the most abstract of terms as a thought experiment, honestly, because by the time I encountered these categories, you know,

I already had deep theological commitments. I had already become a Christian. I had already received some theological education and it was pretty clear to me that transitioning, at least in my mind, would run against the grain of, you know, the world as God intended it to be. And so that was that that was never really a serious consideration. What about again, you may kind of mention this in passing or hinted at it with the baby shower. What role do gender stereotypes play in maybe your journey or specifically in how it is related to the level of dysphoria you experience? And I'm asking because other trans or gender dysphoric friends of mine, when they're in a real strict

environment where gender stereotypes are being promoted, it typically kind of exacerbates, aggravates their dysphoria. Is that true to your experience? Oh, absolutely. And in fact, if I hadn't spent three decades in an environment with such intense gender stereotypes, I am not sure that the gender dysphoria, in my experience, would have ever really risen to the level of anything more than subconsciousness. I think it was intense sort of cultural pressure to be a certain way in the world that brought it all up to the surface. And I very much understand that, you know, not conforming to gender stereotypes is not the same thing as gender dysphoria. I get that. But, and I have no answers to the nature versus nurture debate, none whatsoever. But I do think that

if there was something there before nurture, three decades of being nurtured in, uh, evangelical gender stereotypes probably made it worse. Do you see, I mean, do you see gender stereotypes being promoted consciously, unconsciously, like a lot in evangelicalism? It's a little bit of a loaded question, but I'm throwing you a softball but um yeah no everything is gendered there's literally nothing that's not gendered and uh in my mind the world would be a much happier place if we could just maybe recover a focus on our common humanity and you know not fixate on whether or not we're men or women or i'm not saying throw that out it's a essential aspect of our humanity but that is not the totality of our humanity so I mean everything everything is gendered we can't sing a song

in church without breaking into parts I mean there's no escape from it I don't think I've been in a church like that in years that's funny but really yeah yeah yeah um well you come down and visit mine we'll sing some parts um wow gosh i have so many different questions yeah so you you made a distinction between gender dysphoria and stereotypes and the way i've tried to describe it we'll let you hear if this if you resonate with this like gender dysphoria just kind of comes from within. You could be in a room by yourself that's not gendered

and it just comes, it springs from within. It's hard to explain, but stereotypes are more from without. Like it's just kind of external aggravation that's been very much, and those are kind of in, as some have described it to me, they kind of play off of each other, we can't just say somebody gender gender dysphoria just wants to live out the stereotype of the other sex um yeah yeah no um very much so actually i was thinking of my uh my sister-in-law my sister-in-law is an awesome

human being. She's a hotshot firefighter, actually has worked in your state, and she could beat my butt any day. I mean, she does everything. She's amazing, very outdoorsy, has biked across Alaska, crazy stuff. But know, but at the end of the day, she put on a wedding dress and she married my brother. And that is something I could never bring myself to do. So both of us are definitely bucking gender stereotypes. But at the end of the day, there is still something that separates me from my biological sex

that's not separating her from my biological sex that's not separating her from her biological sex so it's a step beyond stereotypes so you couldn't get into a dress like a wedding would that just be so oh my gosh once i was in a uh a wedding as a bridesmaid i said this is this is what friends do for one another um it was terrible. It was like out of body experience. I gave the dress away the same day after the wedding. I was like, I hope I never do that ever again. Was it really like psychologically really difficult? I mean, were you?

It was. It was. I find wearing a dress to be super, super upsetting psychologically. Really? I just can't do it really. Every once in a while, I'll almost psych myself into it and then no, can't do it. Is there, I don't know if I've ever asked anybody this question, because in every trans or gender dysphoria person I've talked to, you know, clothing is a big,

it's very much either can exacerbate or help relieve dysphoria person i talked to you know clothing is a big it's very much either can exacerbate or or help relieve dysphoria to some extent good friend of mine we were doing a filming project together and her dysphoria really started to flare up and she had to run and get her baseball hat and put her hat on oh yeah i know it's like she's like can i wear it she's almost in tears can i can i do you mind if i do this in a hat? I'm like, yeah, of course. Like, but it was, you know, that for her, that was, is there ever in your personal opinion or experience, a, a, a line that you try not to cross when it comes to clothing?

Cause I know some people are always going to back in their mind and say, what about Deuteronomy 22, five? cross-dressing what about now in our western country there's so much crossover with dressed especially for females you can there's a lot of stuff you can wear that you probably enjoy wearing that you're not like cross-dressing but is there anything in your experience where like ah because of my convictions i'm not gonna put this on or wear that or whatever that's a great question yeah is it offensive i hate asking okay oh no not at all um yeah you are so right i feel very fortunate and living here in western society like this to have many options to choose from i mean if i was in some countries i would the dysphoria would be out the wazoo.

I wouldn't be able to handle it because of the clothes I would have to wear. Um, in my mind, I, I, I do wear guys clothes, but I am not attempting to present as a guy. That is always the line I very much, um, have decided not to cross. I am never going to dress myself with the intention of making others think that I am a guy. So some of the clothes I wear, it's just practical. I have really wide shoulders. I don't fit into girls' shirts. I can't wear them. And so I just – I wear a lot of guys' shirts.

I feel more comfortable in them. When you say guys' shirts, what does that even mean? like in the men's section or just like the little cut of women's shirts is too narrow for my shoulders and so i mostly have guy's shirts i have like one women's shirt and i'm always like kind of hunched over because i don't want to rip the shoulders out it's ridiculous and your hair you have short hair right or do you have a uh it's fairly long i oh you do oh i could see it back there oh you're yeah that's also a thing i would i would love to cut it but um for the sake of people in my church i don't because i think they would see the cut hair and it would just be um they wouldn't know how to deal with that i'm

not sure it would be a thing that would actually edify the body just for me i would i would totally cut it if i was the only person on planet earth that bums me out a little bit i mean there's loads of women who have super short hair that are gender dysphoric they get away with it you would actually really hurt yeah now this is just something for me i i would never place that on everybody else. The thing is like people mistake me for a guy already because I do wear a guy's shirts. I'm pretty tall. Um, and so how tall are you? Oh, five, nine. I think it just not really tall, you know, fairly tall. So, uh, sometimes I get get mistaken anyway even though i'm absolutely

not trying to be so i feel like if i did cut the hair you know everybody would mistake me for a guy what about like makeup and nails and all that stuff is that like the same thing with dresses is it all exactly it's i i'm very proud of the fact that i've never worn makeup a day in my life and I never intend to. Really? Wow. That's yeah. And can you put your finger on, is it that those things are associated with a brand of femininity that you just don't resonate with? Or can you even put your finger on why those cultural signals of femininity are so difficult?

Yeah, I don't know that there's any great objective logic to it. Just for me, that is, those are the lines into stereotypes of what it means to be a woman that I simply can't live into with any sort of integrity. It's so out of line with my personality that I would just feel like I was, it would be like dress up. I'd be living a lie. And ever since I did become a Christian, whenever I have attempted to present myself in a more stereotypically feminine way, I I've tried, it's always been a failure. Um, and I've always had the thought, this, this is not what God wants for me. Um, this is, this is a lie. This is not true to my personality or to what he's called me to. So I honestly, there's been some freedom and

just coming to terms with the gender dysphoria. I, I don't try to put on dresses anymore. And I don't, that's not something I'm, I'm forcing myself to do or to be. So I might not. Sorry. No, you go. Well, I'm not pretending to be a guy, but I'm also not pretending to be a girly girl. And that's the beauty about the biblical presentation of womanhood. It doesn't create these narrow boxes of femininity and say, you must live this out. The way I've said it is, I do believe, not just I believe, I think it's true, but that, you know, sex is binary. There's male and female.

Again, we can talk about intersex, but the Bible is very loose in how we can live out our male or female identity. Like very flexible, beautifully flexible. Jesus himself challenged the Roman and Jewish perceptions of what it meant to be a masculine man. Many biblical characters push back against those cultural stereotypes. And some people have even used that to say, therefore, they stand in for kind of a trans identity i'm like no that kind of in a roundabout way that very logic promotes the stereotypes you know you know what i mean like you can be a stereotypical math more masculine female and you haven't violated anything in scripture but to say well they're not really female they're trans it's like now you have drawn an arbitrary line saying you can't be a more masculine, typical female, if that makes sense.

Does that resonate? I mean, you kind of. Totally. Yeah. No, I think both church culture and secular culture are drawing from the same well with this hyper fixation on gender and gender stereotypes. It just manifests a little differently in both cases. Wow. Yeah. Interesting. Is there anything that you do or that aside from the, aside from social environments where the stereotypes are kind of being promoted, what can you do to lessen your dysphoria? I mean,

that's always kind of, that's kind of the million dollar question is how do we solve this? How do we alleviate this? How can some people, especially when it's more severe. So in your case, you know, it's more mild, you said, but what, what are some things you can do that do lessen it, you know, or what would be your advice to somebody maybe that has even more severe dysphoria? Is there any kinds of advice you would give to say, Hey, maybe try that that you know i found this to be helpful in my journey or oh gosh well i would never presume to advise anyone um this has very much just been my my own little experience in the world i i think it's very important to just be yourself. And I know that sounds cliche, but people spend so much energy and so much agony trying to craft themselves into the gender version that they desire or whatever. And the fact of the matter is that,

especially if I'm speaking to a Christian, I mean, if you are biologically a male, then you are biologically a male. You don't have to achieve that. That is something that has been given. And if you're biologically a woman, the same thing. And so there is nothing I can do to add to or detract from my biological sex, or my maleness or my femaleness. And so that kind of lifts a burden. I think if you just accept that,

you have more freedom to live into your personality. And I, I found a lessening of dysphoria by just doing the things that God's given me to do. Um, living into the talents and the gifts that he has given me, um, being true to my own personality, um,

not, not putting on a show for, for anybody, whether they want me to be more female or more masculine so i just wear my my weird clothes you know and i'm you know yeah there's a lessening of the dysphoria for it okay does that make young or was it more in your teenage years? So I wouldn't describe it in characteristic terms. You know, my folks gave me dolls, and so I played with dolls, and I was also out in the backyard punching my brother in the nose and rolling around in the dirt you know so like I just I I did things but I I didn't have

a well-defined sense that I was any different than a boy I just kind of took it for granted that I I was one and again intellectually I had this piece that I was a girl, but that somehow just didn't sink down into my, my soul in any sort of meaningful way. I just assumed I was a guy who had this label of girl. And I know that makes absolutely no sense. But it's how I, I thought about it at the time. And I think it's the way the dysphoria was manifesting a little bit. Do you think it will ever go away? Do you ever hope for that or think it might or do you just kind of like this is part of it? Oh, it would be great. I would love that.

I am not trying to construct my identity around this at all, especially not some sort of public identity. As a Christian, I, as a Christian, I already have a hero in a community and a cause and a reason to suffer. And I, I, I don't need to seek that in a trans identity. Um, so I really have no motivation to keep it if it goes away by itself, but I don't really see it going away. I think it's, uh, it's probably here to stay. It's been three decades now and I, I see no reason that it going away. I think it's, uh, it's probably here to stay. It's been three decades now. And I, I see no reason that it's going to change.

How can the church, um, yeah. How can the church and not, you know, you, you probably have limited experience and it's not like you're an expert on all the churches in America, whatever, but as you kind of look on, I mean, what can the church do to better engage this conversation? Or maybe I, maybe I shouldn't even ask, maybe I should ask, do you see the church engaging this con this aspect of the conversation, you know, the just gender dysphoria trans plus you see it doing a decent job,

a better job, a terrible terrible job and what can the church do to um yeah to engage a conversation better and i'm thinking both on like on interacting with the kind of ideological pressures outside the church but also the very much the people within the church that are wrestling with this parents siblings or people themselves who have dysphoria or identifies trans it's a big question sorry but um i mean i think there's a couple couple levels to that question um you know i think individuals in the church are great and people like you who are just hearing stories and listening to me babble like you know way more about the stuff than i do um but you are you're attentive to my

strange story and um you you have an imagination you're able to comprehend that your experience in the world uh is not necessarily the same as other people's experiences in the world. And you're able to understand that there are other ways of being faithful to the Lord besides the way in which he's led you. And, um, you know, the individuals in the church who understand this are, are a huge blessing and, um, uh, refuge really. And, uh, I really appreciate them. Um, corporately, you know, the church in America, what do I know about all the churches? But I, I do see, um, I do see some trends toward fear mongering. Um, you know, I think ignorance leads to fear. People fear what they don't understand, of course. And I see a lot of

ignorance about what it even is to have gender dysphoria. I mean, people are getting to the point where they can talk semi intelligently about what it is to be gay. But you want to have a conversation about gender. And I mean, people are just drooling into their keyboards. So I, it would be a blessing if people could educate themselves about just basic terminology. Um, they don't have to get it perfectly. I'm, I can't even talk about it perfectly, but if they cared enough to learn about other people's experiences, um, that would be a good starting point. So terminology, you mentioned terminology, that would be a good starting point. You'd say like, just understand what we're even talking about. What are the terms? What terms shouldn't you use?

Yeah, yeah, just a basic dictionary and add to that dictionary an imagination that says, you know, how is God meeting this person? And it might not be in a way that I'm comfortable with. Yeah. What are some, do you have any like real quick, obvious terms that either you, well, let's just start with ones that you don't like or that you hear and you're like, can you please not say that? Or just to reveal kind of a certain level of ignorance? Oh, yes. I grew up with one. Oh, yes. I grew up with one. Almost every Sunday, not every Sunday, I'll be fair, but almost every Sunday, the pastor would wrap up his sermon with a litany of the world's evils. There was alcohol, there was drugs, and there was homosexuality, there was liberal politics, and there was transgenderism. There was liberal politics and there was transgenderism. And I, to this day, hate the word transgenderism. I'm like, what is that? That just is a nameless, faceless, personality-less enemy that you can vilify. actual people behind that word um who could be living their life in any number of ways including um you know in faithfulness to god so really don't like that word nameless faceless say do you remember what you said that was a brilliant line um oh gosh what did i say

nameless faceless personality list enemy maybe something that you can vilify yeah i'm working on a blog on why it's titled why i don't use the term transgenderism so i'm gonna quote you here if you don't mind i'd like to hear more about this from you that sounds really cool vilify um well yeah so um uh it's there there are some a few contexts where i could see it being a term i personally never use it just because i never want language to be an unnecessary barrier um so to the best of my ability i try to use language that where there's other terms more humanizing terms that are available um there's also some some phrases and stuff that would be more progressive that i that i also don't use like i don't talk about sex assigned at birth i don't that's conveying a reality that i think

conflicts with um actual reality but um yeah transgenderism it just sounds like a disease and it it's right i mean it but exactly what you said here this you you the words you gave to it exactly my kind of intuitive why i don't like it just this nameless faceless enemy that has been propped up that you can vilify and yes there's ideologies there's movements there's things out there that christians should understand dissect and refute if if need be or at least provide a better response to you know um but it's just too it's just you're collapsing so many different people under one term um it's why i i often i mean even though i have a book with the subtitle i actually rarely use the term like homosexuality anymore or somebody when someone

says do you think homosexuality is a sin i'm like what do you mean by homosexuality like i've got gay same-sex attracted friends that are so sold out for jesus that they're committed to celibacy you know and it's like are they like is that a sin no that's righteousness you know the essence of it yeah so i i just really don't like broad brush terms when a more specific thing is trying to be communicated um but oh but what i wanted to say is especially for younger people their intent their antennas are up. But they hear somebody say transgenderism. Oftentimes they write you off. And real quick, I have a quick story. I was speaking on this topic at

a school and a Christian college. And when, when i was being introduced um the person said you know preston's you know becoming kind of a leading voice and talk about transgenderism and i forget how he he used the phrase no but and honestly well and ted this guy's an amazing person you know and just people just don't know not you know and that night i met with uh an lgbtq uh student gathering oh and when i walked in the first you know it's kind of a q a whatever the first hand was like why did you i'm just curious why and it was pretty why did you use the term transgenderism somebody else jumped in and said no he actually didn't and this whole

debate kind of erupted when it was settled that i didn't use the phrase it's almost like my credibility like quadrupled people are like oh i'm like yeah i intentionally don't use that phrase like oh really like you know that that's not that we don't like that like yeah i so anyway all that to say um deliberate avoidance of this term can often be a powerful bridge builder. Absolutely. There's no need to be unnecessarily offensive. I mean, there are enough ideological chasms for us to bridge between the LGBTQ community and the evangelical church.

We don't need to be trotting out these terms that just depersonalize people. That's a great story oh no and it solidified because i've been like sober for about a year from using that term you know but it was the first time when i really saw like in practice how deliberate like publicly avoiding like avoiding the term um i even i even had a guy uh i just did a radio interview a couple days ago and he quote he said my my book is titled embodied transgenderism the church and i'm like oh no no it's not called that anyway what other terms are there other terms that uh or phrases or things you hear say that just kind of irk you?

Oh, I'm also not a fan of the word agenda in basically any context. I'm like, my agenda is to be an Orthodox Christian. I'm sorry that's offensive to you. How do they know what my agenda is? It's, again, a depersonalizing word that doesn't really do anything except stoke fears yep what about um uh this was people made a big deal of this a few years ago um transgendered versus transgender is that with the d the ed at the end is that a big one or kind of like whatever you know far more than i do in this

particular case i was not privy to that part of the conversation yeah i think just grammatically transgendered i forget i forget the exact explanation but it's just it doesn't just grammatically doesn't fit right when you talk about a person as being transgendered like that something happened to them or you know yeah present i please coin a new term for us something that i can use to just describe myself in a snazzy succinct way i will be eternally grateful how about a child of god image bearer who is female period that's great but a bit too long for the twitter handle well hey any any uh we can wrap things up any last parting words pieces of advice um challenges to the church or even maybe parents with kids who maybe are wrestling with their gender identity?

Wow, that's a weighty responsibility. I think friendships are very important. I think they're the context in which dysphoria will be diminished. dysphoria will be diminished. People will come closer to their creator and to one another. If we have weak friendships, it's going to be very difficult to make any headway in this entire conversation. If we're not willing to approach the other and make them another self, nothing good can happen. And so I, yeah, I think be a good friend. Yeah. That's a good word. That's a good word.

Oddly enough, it's been my, typically LGBT, mainly the L's and the G's within evangelicalism that have helped me understand the value of friendship, especially the ones it's how they have deep intimacy which we all need right you can live without sex but you can't live without intimacy is is what they often say and so but what's to your point um we like straight non-trans whatever we are people we often suck at this you know and it's it's i've um yeah i think we've hidden behind you know marriage or hidden behind you know broing it up whatever um and um yeah it's i'm so thankful for my lgbtq christian brothers and sisters who have taught me the importance of friendship. So that's, yeah.

It's here, here. They teach me tons as well. Well, thank you so much, Renee. Best of luck in your theological adventures. And maybe one day we can meet in person. It'd be fun. Preston, that would be great. I really enjoyed this.

Thanks so much. I did too. I learned a lot. No, thank you.