Theology in the Raw - S8 Ep887: Polyamory, Sex w/ Robots, Procreation, & the Meaning of Marriage: Andrew Bunt

Episode Date: July 26, 2021

Yup, we talk about all of that. Not sure I need to explain more than what’s in the title. Our conversation is actually quite theological and it doesn’t shy away from the tough questions, the embarrassing questions, and the questions you didn’t know you had until you listened to this episode.  Andrew is an assistant pastor at King's Church Hastings and Bexhill and is the author of Who In Heaven's Name Do You Think You Are?: Exploring Your Identity In Christ and People not Prounouns: Reflections on Transgender Experience, which you can order here: https://grovebooks.co.uk/products/p-166-people-not-pronouns-reflections-on-transgender-experience Andrew also works for an amazing organization called Living Out (https://www.livingout.org), which helps the church talk about faith and sexuality. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.comVenmo: @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 the Raw. My guest on today's show is Andrew Bunt. Andrew is an assistant pastor at King's Church in Hastings and Bexhill, and is the author of a couple books, Who in Heaven's Name Do You Think You Are? Exploring Your Identity in Christ, and the recently released book, People, Not Pronouns, which is a short book that deals with the transgender conversation. Andrew works for, or I don't know, he probably volunteers for, the amazing ministry called Living Out. It's a UK-based ministry that deals with questions about sexuality and gender.

It's very similar to the ministry that I run here in the US, the Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender. And I've gotten to know Andrew from a distance over the last maybe year or so and have just found him to be an absolute delight, super thoughtful, super gracious. I mean, I feel like he's one of those guys that we find ourselves almost finishing each other's sentences. So yeah, I'm really excited to have Andrew on the show. I think you're going to enjoy this conversation. We talk about, well, we talk about some interesting topics, as you probably know from the show title. If you would like to support Theology in a Raw, then you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in a raw.

All the info is in the show notes. Please consider leaving a review of this show and sharing this episode as you see fit through your various social channels. All right, let's get to know the one and only Andrew Bundt. Hey, Andrew, welcome to Theology in the Raw. Thanks for being a guest on my show. Yeah, thank you for having me. It's great to be here. So for those who don't know who you are, why don't you give us a brief snapshot of who you are, where you come from. You do have an accent, so we can start there. So I'm from the UK, as you can't tell. I'm on the southeast coast, right at the bottom.

I've got to say, I go to London, head straight down. When your feet get wet and you're in the sea, you're in Bexhill, which is a little seaside town, mostly retired people and young families where I live. And I serve as an assistant pastor at a church here and also in the neighboring town of Hastings. And I also work for an organization called Living Out. Yeah, so for those who don't know, I mean, Living Out is, I mean, I hope I can say this.

It would be, we have almost like an informal relationship. When I say we, the Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender, and Living Out, to my mind, is just doing such amazing work over there in the UK. And everything I read, literally, I mean, everything I read, literally, I mean, everything I read by you guys is just amazing and so thoughtful. And you balance that, just that grace, truth, tension so well.

So I'm just glad you guys exist. Yeah, thank you, thank you. So I preached at a church where Andrew Wilson used to be the pastor. I'm blanking on the name now. Is that near where you're at? That's Eastbourne. That's the next along the coast. So it's my church, Hastings and Bexhill,

and the next town along is Eastbourne. Yeah, just a 20-minute drive down the road from me. Wait, is that where – who's the senior leader there? It's changed recently. A youngish guy called Ollie Stevens at the moment. Okay. Great guy. I was thinking of a guy – again, I'm –

it's earlier here than it is there. I was thinking of a guy, again, it's earlier here than it is there. I'm blanking on all his names, but there is a, oh gosh, he's written a lot on sexuality. I thought he was a pastor near Hastings, but maybe not. Oh gosh. Anyway. Glenn Scrivener is based in Eastbourne. Or Speak Life. He does stuff in sexuality. Anyway, I don't want to bog down the conversation. And you studied at Durham, right? Yeah, yeah.

So undergrad in theology at Durham and then a master's in biblical studies at King's College London. Okay. Are you going to go on to do a PhD or do you feel better? I'm very open to the idea. I've kind of gone back and forth.

I've explored it sometimes. It hasn't come together. Yeah, I've kind of gone back and forth. I've explored it sometimes. It hasn't come together. Yeah, I feel quite open-handed about it. I would enjoy it. I would love to do it in some ways. But I also think I'm enjoying what I'm doing. I feel I'm doing what God's called me to do. So wait and see how things pan out, really.

Okay. Okay, cool. Do you have any certain area, if you could, do a PhD? If somebody said, Andrew, you are going to do a PhDd if somebody if somebody said andrew you are going to do a phd i'm paying for it this is your calling but like what would you do it do it that is the dream isn't it yeah um i know my my first love is biblical studies that's what most of my uh underground masters was on so i don't sit on there i have a weird infatuation of leviticus and just in general the kind of underdogs of the bible underdogs in general i think i have a half or underdogs of the bible included so maybe something around Leviticus or the minor prophets

or something although increasingly I wonder if I did do a PhD if actually I do something around ethics because a lot of my work now is ethics I wonder if there's some work to do around polyamory I just think we're totally not ready for what's coming in terms of polyamory or and or sex robots they know the next big things and i wonder if there'll be some good work to do around that yeah um that yeah occasionally i think would that be a way to go and maybe it will be one day i don't know how to i don't know how to word this is when we talk about these things it's just there's there's no real pure way to word it but uh yeah i've been very interested in polyamory and sex with robots.

The idea, the cultural phenomenon, phenomena of those two things. I mean, oftentimes they get used as kind of like, well, thing as just something that's like evidence that of the moral decay of society. But these are two really interesting questions that aren't just fringe thing. I don't know what it is, how it is in the UK, but in the States, I've read several stats where something like 5% of the population are or have been in some kind of polyamorous or maybe an open relationship, which would be a form of polyamory, sort of. And sex with robots, I mean, we can go there if you want. I mean, that's the little I've dabbled in that my favorite thing to do

is to go to places to speak and throw in the bombshell of sex with robots and it's like what? students love it

we're teaching students they just love it and it's just really a conversation zone because I think what I think yeah it is happening the trajectory is moving

it's moving quickly I think quickly on both of them and we that we'd expect and that most people would expect I just don't think we're ready and we'd expect and that most people would expect.

I just don't think we're ready. And actually we need to get the underpinnings or understanding of sex so we're ready to respond to that and not have quite kind of shallow answers to that, which is always the risk. I think always, the work I do now on same-sex attraction and transgender and stuff, I think we're always playing catch up as Christians.

And actually I would love us to actually learn to discern the times, listen to the guidance of the Spirit of God and where we should be focusing and actually get ahead on some stuff so we can engage right in the heart of it. Not kind of five years after society's changed and made its mind up. We go, hang on a minute, we better think about this. What do we think about this? So, yeah, that's why I guess it sticks in my mind now, even though it's not quite here in the mainstream yet, because why don't we ready for that point rather than react then? I read somewhere, it was a sociologist, a really credible sociologist that said, if the trajectory keeps going at the pace it is, talking about like pornography, talking about just technological development, which both of those things i don't see slowing down or like um and this i think it was a female sociologist said if things keep going this way

by 20 i think it was 2050 more humans will be having sex with robots than with other humans unless pornography all of a sudden starts to die out or if technology technological advancement kind of like people got kind of sick of developing new things, you know? Yeah. If it's money, it seems unlikely. Very unlikely, which is a little bit frightening. I mean, and this was a secular sociologist who said this is going to have significant effects on society. And there's even moral arguments society and there's even moral arguments that are interesting to consider for instance what if the prevalence of robots for sex uh reduces child trafficking uh prostitution even adultery um all these things like and there's obviously several problems with the line of reason but you

people i would be interested this isn't just some crazy weird fetish kind of thing that's taken off things like and there's obviously several problems with the line of reason but you people it's interesting this isn't just some crazy weird fetish kind of thing that's taken off it's like it's going to be an ethical conversation as well how have you thought through this i didn't expect to talk about this on the podcast by the way this is really interesting but right yeah i think i think you're right that what's interesting is there are very few good secular arguments against either these and it's focused on sex robots and sex robots really. There's kind of the general current disgust that many people would feel, but disgust wears off the more common something becomes and the less new an idea is to you. So that'll wear off. There's very little then reason for secular

people to object particularly to sex robots. But as you say, there are some arguments some people will try to use at least to argue for them as a positive thing. And I agree there's some problems with that. So I think as with all engagement with sexuality as Christians, what we need to do is go deeper. We need to think more deeply about what is sex about. And, you know, because that ultimately is always the reason for the difference between a Christian sexual ethic and sexual parameters and a secular one. Actually, it's not that God has some arbitrary lines that you know, jump through these hoops for me and I'll bless you, actually it's no, here's the grain of

the universe, here's the way to live to find fullness of life because this is what sex is for and about. And so when we understand sex is about being part of the deep one flesh union of one man and one woman which represents the deep union of Christ and the church who are two and only two, that's important for polyamory, who are different in the sense of male and female referencing Christ and the church in their way. And particularly sex robots is the fact that sex is meant to be about the giving of oneself to another. Sex is not meant to be what can I get out of this relationship and this physical activity, actually it should be how can I lay down my life for your sake, who I'm committed to in this covenant? How can I reflect the ministry of Christ to you by laying down myself for your pleasure? And of course, the sex variable is exactly the opposite.

The sex variable is, who cares about the sex variable? It's not about them, it's about me. What can I get from this thing? How can I take God's gift of sex and make it about my satisfaction? get from this thing? How can I take God's gift of sex and make it about my satisfaction? And actually, as your pornography, we'll find it's a never-ending kind of tunnel you fall down because you're always looking for it to satisfy, and you won't because sex can't satisfy. It's not meant to satisfy you in that long-lasting or total fulfillment kind of way. And so I think it has become a thing like porn where people go deeper and deeper into it. It gets more and more hardcore, whatever that will look like in that kind of context because it's looking for satisfaction in something that can never actually meet that need and the great thing is that because the one

thing that could happen it could happen that with which we've seen kind of a little bit the sexual revolution in general and it could happen with porn it could have been a sex robots that many more people begin to realize this isn't doing what it promised the sexual revolution promised me if i had lots of sex and minimal emotional connection all that kind of stuff hook up cultural that but i'll feel great and it'll be fulfillment it'll be self-actualization of my real self inside and actually if more and more people as it's happening to some extent realize this hasn't worked hey i don't feel overly fulfilled by all these relationships of lots of sex and no emotional connection all this porn or this sex of a robot And also I look around the world and I think actually all the sex revolution

Has caused some kind of problems like me too in different kind of things It's possible that the fact we're going against the grain of the universe will become apparent and people will think Maybe this isn't the best way to use our bodies and our sexualities I don't know if that happened happen, but the greater good it might do, who knows? Yeah, I feel like there's glimmers of that moment, but nowhere near enough to turn the tide. Right.

Yeah, I mean, if we do get to the point to where sex is a robot, it becomes pretty popular. And if that doesn't satisfy, it's like, well, what comes after that? Like polyamorous sex robots? I mean, it's hard to imagine a world or it's easy to imagine a world exactly what you're describing. One that when you keep going against the grain of the universe, keep going against the way God has designed humans to act, there's just going to be that itched. It's never quite fully scratched. It's just this,

what's the next thing? What's the next thing? After a while, you would think it's just this what's the next thing what's the next thing after a while you would think it would just get tiring like i don't know maybe we should rethink this whole thing you would you would think it might get to that point it's hard to imagine society kind of having a for lack of better term some kind of like conservative awakening but maybe i don't know i don't know it's happened before right i mean yeah yeah it can yeah i know there are there are strong anti-porn movements among completely secular people now okay if you realize the damage of porn that's had on them um and yeah how much better life has been for them getting free for porn in lots of different ways so that's an interesting thing because that is an experiential it's not a uh religious thing uh kind of work

through morality thing it's just actually i've experienced the fact that this really wasn't good for me yeah uh so i'm gonna break free from it and so it is interesting that in that particular area there's a thing happening on where it goes eventually i mean you know i want that blue sky thinking will transhumanism and sex robots merge will we get to the point where actually the next stage is electrodes in our brain which always fire the necessary receptors to fill that stuff so we have a 20 i don't know but that's kind of that's the crazy stuff you know that gets developed at the moment and because we are people who are desperate for pleasure or desperate for satisfaction rightly we're made for that but actually we are just kind of on a quest for uh the set the temporary sensation of pleasure

wherever we can find it and sex is a big one we've gone for in our culture in our day and age and in the west at least when actually the true satisfaction can only be found in god is there and waiting but with minds blinded people aren't going to turn there until christ acts i wonder if um i just thought of this right now uh so it's probably incorrect but um i mean if you had like some kind of economic collapse, that would play a significant role, I think, in some of these things, because I mean, let's face it. I mean, it's like it's like Hunger Games. It's the capital. It's having too much, way too much money, way too much time on our hands, way too much comfort when we start just just kind of just getting numb and just just pursuing pleasure after pleasure after pleasure. But that really is a first world problem, right? I mean, people that are, you know, working to put food on the table,

if they can get two meals a day, you know, it's awesome. And they just didn't, I don't know. It's like these kind of problems don't exist in those kind of societies, I don't think. Would that be accurate to say? I mean... I think so. I don't, I'm probably an expert on that, but am i is that would that be accurate to say i mean i i think so i don't i'm far from expert on that but i think so yeah and you do one yeah if an economic crash if i know some major environmental thing something hugely disrupts you know yeah it's done it to an extent but disrupts even more because it's an interesting example it has caused people some people to think more deeply ask the bigger questions question what

life is about. If my life really is suddenly a threat or a lot of the things I thought I would always know I was running after to find fulfillment, I can't go and do them, has aren't caused me to ask questions. Interesting certainly here in the UK we've had so many people do alpha courses like exploring Christianity courses online. People, you know, most weeks at our church we're getting people turn up who have maybe some church background, maybe not, have engaged with us in an online context over the last how long it's been and now are with us. And you think, oh it's interesting, this season has done something and God can and does use, yeah, the unpleasant things to disrupt us from that comfort and to

bring us to that. Which I guess comes back to, you know, if you think, are you familiar with, what's the name of Yuval Harari's book, H, Homo Deus, which is about transhumance. So it's trying to, it's really, really helpful. So it's about transhumanism and basically he's saying we as humans have dealt with in the West, modern Western world dealt with the big problems that have played us for centuries and millennia, which I'll forget the three are war, famine, and plague. And they're not completely dealt with. And interestingly, he had to deal with does COVID undermine his idea? Yeah. But actually, if you deal with war, famine and plague, which, to be honest, for us in modern Western countries will not plight us to a huge extent, maybe with

the extent of plague, but even you compare COVID to how it would have been 100 years ago, or how most other pre or kind of pandemic sort of history being, it's not much different. Once you deal with those, all that matters is pleasure and elongating life. And so he says, our focuses now are not dealing with the great evils of war, famine, and plague.

Our focuses are extending life and increasing our pleasure. Hence, he says, kind of transhumanism and stuff. Interesting. I forgot what I brought up in our conversation. What's the name of that book again?

I needed to check it out. Homo Deus. Homo Deus, that's right. By Yuma Harari. And there's one called Sapiens which she sees kind of history up until now of humanity which I haven't actually read.

Oh. It's meant to be very good. Sapiens, yeah. I heard about that one. Yeah, too many books, Andrew. Too little time. Too little money. All of it.

Before we leave Sex with Robots, I robots i'm curious again just kind of thinking out loud like morally speaking where would you place something like this and i'm just gonna kind of just theoretical spectrum of like say masturbation porn use sex outside of marriage maybe full-on adultery like um have you thought about it in those kind of categories like how and people say yeah i don't know if like what why is this a sin and how bad of a sin is it's not an actual person um you're not i don't know there's i guess different scenarios where people would think through this but i don't know where would you place i haven't thought about it and i always lose to put marks and things i mean i guess guess one thing to say is that some people to that question would just say all sin is the same.

I think we need to clarify that's not probably the case with the different levels of punishment given in the Old Testament and stuff. All sin is very serious, and all sin deserves the ways of death. But I think you're right to say there's gradations. I wonder if it does make a difference that doesn't involve another person. So for example, I wonder if it's different from adultery because in adultery you are committing offence against the other person and against their spouse. Here you're committing offence against your own body. Paul would say committing offence against your own body in 1 Corinthians 6, he said, sleeping with a prostitute. I'm sure he would say the same with a sex robot um but maybe not directly against someone else although actually

if you are if your engagement with a sex robot is attached to a fantasy of someone who is a real person yeah that's your ass in against them so yeah serious enough that we should be thinking about it engaging with it and um yeah i don't even our people well i and i don't want i don't want to even say i'm advocating for the way of thinking that's like well how bad is it you know like it's just kind of a a thin way of thinking about human behavior morality and say i mean i like your idea of just like it goes against the grain of the universe it goes against the the way god's us. It goes against God's intention. It's moving away from our humanity and not toward our humanity. But some people like that more just like, is it sin?

Is it not? Is it bad? You know, how bad is it? As bad as this? Yeah. I think it's a misuse of God's gifts of sex, which is not a good thing. And probably sinful. And I think all the arguments for, you know, what actually is a better way of sex addicts dealing with addiction and stuff. I just think biblically we can say no, because if

you, you know, Romans 6, if you act as a slave to something, you become a slave to it. We do become a slave to the things we do. And actually even kind of not biblically, just what we know about the brain and neuroplasticity and addiction and different stuff, just seems to me like we know that actually that's not going to be a lasting solution to a problem such as sex addiction. Yeah. I'm just trying to think of some secular argument. What about weenie?

You have a sex addict who's addicted to having sex with prostitutes. Could this be a way to ease them off, kind of like the nicotine patch for people addicted to smoking? Just kind of like, let's just ease you off. Give you this robot for a few weeks. I could see people making this argument.

Yeah, of course, absolutely they will. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I mean, in a Christian context, it comes down to your viewing sanctification, doesn't it? I think one of the things I've learned in my own life over the last few years is God is incredibly gracious and takes us through process and journey. And I've noticed in my context, I've got a charismatic kind of context. There can easily be a big focus on kind of instant change.

Pray, click your finger, it will happen. How can that still be an issue? Biblically and the language of freedom, we get freedom from these things. I think biblically, certainly in Paul, the language of freedom is about freedom from guilt and condemnation and stuff. That's an instant thing in the moment we turn to Christ. His language for our growth, our being Christ-like, our living rightly, seems to me to be language of growth, of maturing, of walking out, it's ongoing stuff.

And I do think in my circles at least, there's too much or there's not enough openness to that sanctification is a process and takes time. And so although I don't know, I don't know off the top of my head what I think about that as a way of helping that process take place. I do think the general concept of someone's not going to go from a sex addict to freely living out a biblical sexual ethic overnight is OK, even for someone who truly is born again. I think that fits with biblical pictures of this. So yeah, if I'd use that way of helping someone's situation, I don't know. But the idea of the journey, yeah, that's biblical, I think. Okay, so polyamory.

Are you seeing polyamory becoming more popular in the UK? Do you see? Not in my circles. I mean, what I deserve. Not in your charismatic circles? No, not yet. Who knows? No, I mean, I don't have stats. I don't know if there are stats. There weren't last time I looked, which is that you're going to probably have to work on this for how common it is.

I was aware of the stat you kind of talked about from the States. I think what I do see is it in popular media. OK. about from the States. I think what I do see is in popular media. And this is how these things happen of you get the same thing happening with the same sex relationships. You get the TV drama about a polyamorous throuple, three people relationship as there was one on the BBC, the main TV channels over here last year, I guess it was. Which you start by watching if you have no exposure to polyamory, you start by watching thinking this is weird, this is disgusting, this is wrong.

And then you watch and you think, oh they're such nice people. And you think, oh it's so lovely the way that relationship development went. They all really love each other, how could we possibly deny this? And you get the victim narrative where they came out to their friends and family

and they all kind of rejected them. How awful that these poor polyamorous people are rejected so you're getting those kind of stories in yeah from mainstream tv providers in the uk which are the things which will change public thinking and suddenly what previously has been kind of just not done and not accepted because it's just a bit odd might be a sense of disgust about it might be oddness but there's no good secular arguments against this it won't take long for that to change then there's celebrities celebrities are always the people um the trailblazers a number of celebrities have said various things over a period of years now really about uh monogamy not being natural um being in relationships or the smith the will smith and um and his wife and their family have said

various things. There's kind of debates over whether their relationship is or isn't open. They think a bit ambiguous about that. Their daughter, Willow Smith, I think her name is, has come out saying she feels she is or could be polyamorous because she can love both a man and a woman at the same time. And again, especially for our young people, hearing things that are a kind of celebrity figure, someone they look up to to that's all the kind of things that starts to normalize things so i really think it's on its way even if i can't tell you how common it actually is in practice in the uk at the moment i mean it's i and i i don't like bringing up analogies too um too quickly or without caution.

Obviously, every kind of relationship we're talking about has its similarities and differences from other kinds of relationships. But what you're describing, I mean, it's almost word for word the societal acceptance of a same-sex relationship, right? I mean, 20 years ago, there was that kind of natural aversion, and then you start introducing it through media, some celebrities, I mean, Ellen and others coming out and it's like, Oh, we like Ellen. And, and wow. So it's just, it's, it's, it's kind of more normal, you know?

And I mean, is it, and I'm not, I'm okay. A few more qualifications. I'm not a slippery slope person. I'm not, I really careful with saying this is like that or whatever, but I mean, but this is theologian to ross i like to just speak and think honestly i mean do you see very strong similarities between how society has accepted same-sex relationships and how it probably will do exactly the same thing with polyamorous relationships yeah i i think so and i likewise don't like slippery slope arguments and they tend to a bit scaremering, a bit just kind of complaining about the world.

I don't think it's slippery slope. I think these are just all the natural, understandable outworkings of changes in our thinking that have taken place. That's true. Same-sex relationships, same-sex or kind of secular modern views and trans or polyamory sex robots. For sex, it's two things. Once you take a well, once you change what sex is about, you can change what you do with it. When sex stopped being in a Christian view, it's a Christian view about the self-giving of one to another in a covenant relationship or two that mirrors Christ and the church,

and where sex becomes actually just a pleasurable activity, actually the doors open wide. Also when you remove sex from biology, which that's the key thing, so one of the key things that has happened is we've separated sex and procreation. In our minds, we do not associate sex with the production of kids. Every culture before us until not that long ago,

until the middle of the 1900s, I guess, largely would have done. When you had sex, it was a real risk. Sex was costly, as Mark Regnerus, or how he says his name, says in his book, Cheap Sex in his book cheap sex actually sex with with with contraception coming on reliable contraception Sex is really cheap because there's not big risks there used to be so once you Untie the kind of the link between sex and procreation which by default makes it between two people and two people of the opposite sex you which by default makes it between two people and two people of the opposite sex, you kind of remove

the problems. And what was fascinating in that TV programme I mentioned about the polyamorous throuple is it all went really well for them to right near the end of the episode where there was a couple and a young lady who joined them in this relationship. The lady of the couple became pregnant and suddenly you think, oh you've got a problem. And they realised they've got a problem and they realised maybe this relationship can't work because now the man and the women who originally together are forever united by the fact they have parented this child together and only the two of them have Biologically in DNA fed into this child Where does this other ladies in the relationship now kind of fits and I find it fascinating

It's like why the last episode you pointed out one of the big problems of polyamory like right the last episode you pointed out one of the big problems of polyamory of actually two three more than two doesn't work in a sexual relationship one of the key things sex is about and what's so annoying is it ends you think they're going to end with they're going to have to spit up so it doesn't work and like the last shot spoiler alert for anyone who watches this it's called trigonometry the last shot is them all in the hospital hugging kissing it's all okay it never is explained how is it suddenly okay that two of them are forever bonded by this child and the other one isn't,

which previously, you know, just before the birth was a great problem, but now it isn't. But that's one of the things. Once you take away the link between sex and kids, basically sex becomes open to pretty much any form, context, relationship, mixture of people, which is one of the reasons I think in our

Christian teaching of sex, we need to reclaim the link between sex and procreation. You have to do it well and carefully. You have to answer the questions of contraception. We're very sensitive to the reality and the pain of infertility for those who experience that. But actually, by completely pushing that away, I think we've opened the door to some of the problems we have in helping our people to hold to a biblical view on sex. I've been thinking that direction too. I mean, probably like you, I mean, being raised and nurtured in a, I was in a, just a kind of a non-denominational, non-charismatic, but conservative evangelical context. And yeah, it was, I never really put the two together in that kind of like, it's like, yeah, sex can lead to procreation.

And if you want to procreate, then you have the freedom to do so. But I never linked the two together so strongly. And then, you know, you start reading some more Catholic theology and you're like, wow, this is kind of different than the environment I grew up with. But then you take that back to the scriptures and just a Christian theology of sex and marriage. And yeah, I'm not quite maybe Catholic yet in this, but I see the logic of it. And I haven't been too impressed with kind of the counter arguments because they usually have to do with some kind of like almost secular version of human autonomy and freedom um so here i don't know what do you think about this i mean i obviously there's infertility um but even things like what about like sex

in or an old couple getting married or say they're past the age of childbearing. I mean, nobody's going to say they can't get married, if all is considered, you know. But what if having kids isn't even an option? A really strong procreation argument would say, well, if procreation is completely off the table, then you shouldn't get married. I've never heard anybody actually say that.

No, no. Or even maybe, well, there's the old couple getting married, but also what about a couple getting married that they aren't infertile, but they just are choosing not to have kids, but they still say they're called to marriage. That one's a little dicier for me. Yeah, that one's tricky. And as a person in this situation, I was having a conversation of why. Because it might be there's a really dicier for me. Yeah, that one's tricky. And as a person in this situation,

I was having a conversation of why. Because it might be there's a really good reason actually we feel such a calling to go to this far-flung place and we just think it would be so hard to bring up a child while doing what God calls us to do there. And I think theologically, I'm still not sure if I'm comfortable,

I want to talk to that couple. I still don't know if I would be comfortable to marry that couple. But that's radically different to, oh, well, who'd want kids? Who wants the money drain, the time drain, the energy drain? This relationship is about us. Because then I'm going to say, no, guys, this relationship is there to bless other people, to be fruitful, both in the production of something, also the blessing of other people. I think with couples who are too old to parent

children or to conceive children, all those who go into marriage knowing that because of a medical condition, one or both, they're going to be unable to conceive. I think where I see a difference there between an opposite-sex couple and with a same-sex couple, same-sex marriage, is their bodies are still orientated towards the production of children. With two men or two women, that just can't be the case. There's no way in which their bodies, without the help of children. Yes, with two men or two women that just can't be the case. There's no way in which their bodies, without the help of science which has been developed, can produce a child that combines genetic

material from both of them. In a case where you've got a man and a woman united in marriage and a sexual relationship, even if they know a child is not going to be produced, it's still the case that their bodies are created in a way which kind of points in that direction. Again, it's the thing we go with the grain of the universe. And with the old age, things may be different, but certainly with a case of fertility, the body's might be orientated in that way, but may not always function that way. And we as Christians always have the best explanation for why there are some things that are not as they should be. And infertility is the best example of that. And this is why I think it's not insensitive to those experiencing the pain of infertility to

link sex and procreation very firmly. Because actually saying sex and procreation meant to go together legitimizes the incredibly deep pain of people experiencing infertility who long for kids. It's saying actually your pain is totally understandable. Your pain is totally justifiable because something is not as it should be because we were living a world that is broken and marred by sin and so sometimes things don't work as they should be and so with those people we love and we lament and we try and be church family alongside them but actually we don't kind of hide the truth that sex and kids are meant to go together actually we say because that's true your reaction is totally understandable we want to to love you in that yeah that's good yeah no it's yeah

i think that's really that's about where i'm at with my thinking i think um it is it is hard i mean because it's this just goes against so much in our not just secular culture but it's at least in the in the states i mean it's been largely absorbed by the church for for a number of years and i don't so not actively like it's not like the church is like pursuing this secular vision um for sex procreation marriage whatever but it's like it's just kind of it's just like slowly absorbs it you know so i? So I don't necessarily fault, not fault, but I mean, I don't know. It's almost like it just kind of slowly happened, it seems like, you know, where there's so much of a secular understanding of sex, marriage, procreation that just kind of trickled its

way into the church. And this is going back to one of your previous points about just the deep need for, or you were talking about like being reactive against the next thing. We're always kind of playing catch up. And one of the ways to get ahead, right, is to just lay a thick foundation for what is sex for? What is marriage for? I like to ask young people sometimes like, you know, oh, we're going to get married. And I'm like, why? And it sounds rude or whatever. I'm like, no, but really like, well, cool. Like, why do you, how do you know God's calling you to marriage? Like, what, tell me about that, you know, like the vision for marriage,

you know, and they look at you funny. Like, well, we're in love, you know, and not to diminish that at all. I think the Bible talks about that in some places, Song of Songs and others, but there has to be a deeper, more kingdom-oriented vision for what God creates. Because the reality is the feeling won't last. You might get married because of the feeling of love, and I say that's part of the thing, but if you're not committed to loving that person through self-sacrifice when those feelings wane, your marriage is not going to last. And actually, your commitment in marriage is,

I'm going to love you as in I'm going to lay down my life actively for you day after day, regardless of how I feel. And actually that will maintain the feelings that the commitment of marriage, the laying down your life in active ways. If the scaffolding in which you work on the feelings, if you try and make the feelings, the scaffolding of your marriage, your marriage will crumble because feelings come a day. One day you will wake up and they won't look so good. Or one day they'll do something really noisy. You think, you're not so sweet after all. What happens then if all it's based on is your feelings? There's got to be something more firm to it.

Yeah. I almost want to talk about mixed orientation marriages. You said something that triggered a thought. But I want to tie the knot on polyamory for a second. One thing, so I think the key missing link between, well, let me organize my thoughts. A secular

sexual ethic, it has to do with consent and lack of harm, right? If there's genuine consent and it's not harming anybody, then there's, that's basically the framework. So that would make sense. Obviously, polyamory satisfies those two things.

But there is another point that often comes up, and that has to do with orientation. That once you start to introduce a stronger ontology of sexual identity, that this is not just what I do, this isn't just some choice because that that's a pushback it's like well look some people are you know gay others are straight some are bisexual but polyamory it's not like you're just choosing to do this but i don't know if you remember this dan savage uh gay um Dan Savage, gay journalist or whatever, and he got hammered when he said polyamory is not an orientation by a bunch of people. Yeah. And the earliest article I found is 2011 in a peer-reviewed law journal where somebody argued for polyamory as an orientation. So you take the definition, how we even define an orientation,

and they kind of show that this is very similar to how polyamorous people describe themselves. And see, that's a key phrase. It's not just a polyamorous relationship. It's not just polyamorous desire. Once you start using the category of polyamorous people, I mean, I think that's going to be significant we're already seeing that that shift in language to be more ontologically significant anyway i'm i'm that's have you seen this and what do you think about that yes oh definitely and that

is inevitable because another one of my key passions is because the way identity has changed because now culture is constantly telling us that who we are is how we feel inside. Our feelings and our desires are who we are. That is more real and more important than anything else. It doesn't matter your body's orientated to have a sexual relationship with someone of the other sex to be with children. Actually, if who you feel inside,

you want to have a relationship with someone of the opposite sex or same sex or lots of different people, that is kind of who you are. And because we have said that with so many people and places you now have to say a polyamory because if you deny that polyamorous desire is who someone is well then you also have to deny that actually an attraction to guys for a guy is who someone is right but that message is being shouted so loudly at us all the time the

classic example you may have heard someone else do this keller does it wonderfully um is frozen i love frozen uh but it is just the story telling our kids from you know day dots that who they are inside needs to be embraced she starts being the good girl finding her identity what other people say about her living up to their standards you know staying inside not freezing people to death all that kind of stuff yeah then the whole film is her throwing off that constraint of what other people think of her and embracing who she really is inside and she goes off and sings that song let it go the you know the big anthemic statement which became such a big hit and part of the reason it became such a big hit is that is what our culture believes about who we are let it go i'm gonna let it all out i don't not holding it back anymore i don't care what

people say this is who i am and even if people back home are freezing to death because of who I am, I've got to be true to myself. Our culture has said that so loudly, so many different ways. That's just a quintessential example that if someone finds, I love you and I love you, I desperately want to have a sexual relationship, both you and you, well then you do. That's who you are. Then as Christians though, we easily say, no, we all know we experience lots of desires that aren't good for us, desires which aren't going to be the route to fullness of life. No one really believes that what you find inside always is who you are and should be embraced as who you are. If we can't use it across the board, maybe it doesn't work. Maybe it's not who we are. Maybe someone needs to tell us who we are. And from that, we we know how to live and yet that internalized of identity is it's it it has been absorbed by the church as well

sometimes not on the extreme levels but it's it's uh it's very prevalent i just that's does remind this remind me you just did you review carl truman's book there is new yes the making of modern yes the rise andumph of the Modern Self. I have not read your review. I'm curious because everything you're saying reflects a lot in that book. Just so you know, I liked a lot of it, probably agree with much what he said. I think there's some serious problems scattered throughout.

I think there are more minor points. There's that one page that was just really terrible at the end when he talked about celibate gay Christians. I don't know. I just think it was pretty bad. But it wasn't his main point, but he did try to say it. Here's another example of how. And I'm like, oh, my gosh.

Anyway, your quick thoughts on that book? Yeah. I mean, he's tracing the development of thought and thinking that brings us to this point I just described. The roots, yeah. He's showing that this way of thinking, it's taken 200 years in the making, really. Yeah. And he's kind of pushing back on the argument or accompanying the argument I made earlier that contraception changed everything by saying thinking was also changed. I think in the kind of the tracing of historical version of thoughts, I found it hugely enlightening. People I have not read and would struggle to read, so I'm very glad scholars like him helped me to do that. I can't easily critique

it. It was certainly very enlightening. I think, yeah, I think, and I don't want to be critical of this actually because it's understandable, I think just some of the ways he talks about the LGBT community, even though it's very kind of, you know, so as a same-sex attracted or gay guy, when people talk indiscriminately about the LGBT community, especially negatively, just gets a backup. They're like, well, surely by definition, I'm in that crew. And yet you're not describing me at all. And even, you know, the whole book is premised on how would his grandfather not have accepted the idea, I'm a woman trapped in a man's body but today people would which is a fair game isn't it's just a point but actually the trans conversations moved on most people don't talk about being trapped in the wrong

body anymore i'm quite against that language yeah and you just wonder i don't know if it was read before it's published by anyone who is more of an expert in that particular area yeah karl trubing is an amazing scholar and it's an amazing piece of work. He just might have benefited from a little bit of a scan from someone who kind of, and that would have noticed what you said. And the other thing I said is

I really hope the publishers commission a shorter, accessible paperback edition for pastors, which has more application. Because understandably, being a big academic thing, it doesn't need much application. It's probably a bit too much

for most pastors in my kind of context. But it's such good stuff. It'd that is available that's great no that's almost word for word my critiques it doesn't seem like he's he's been really engaged in the lgbt conversation um a little bit and i you know looking at some of his endorsers and people he's getting advice from it's it's it's maybe one piece of that conversation but yeah i think it definitely could have used more nuance and it's hard you know as an academic but also as somebody who does a lot of more pastoral theology i you know i can i don't know i i kind of go back and forth

on that like in in one sense if an academic is doing academic work it's kind of like well their language isn't going to be as like and they're not going to, you know. And sometimes, yeah, like going back to the analogies, sometimes using analogies can offend certain people, especially the way they've been used in the past. But if it is a good logical argument to refer to the logic of this thing and then this thing and test consistency, like academics don't have the right to say, oh, that offends me. I can't deal with it.

Like, well, no, we're in a seminar and you're, somebody's pushing back in your thesis. You need to address it. You can't just, we're not going to, you know, cod there ever a place to just do academic work as a Christian with the LGBT conversation, given the history of how we've kind of butchered our approach to that? So anyway, again, just kind of thinking out loud and resonating with what you're saying. With polyamory, am I right to say I think that it could eventually beming friends listening are going to be irate that I'm even saying it like this. Well, no, there's ambiguity with same-sex relationships, but just within the Bible, there's kind of not, right? I mean, I know obviously all the counter arguments, but I mean, you don't have like a positive example or God regulating a same-sex

relationship. You don't have any kind of... you know, the few times they're mentioned, they're prohibited. Marriage is always defined as male-female. But with polyamory, more specifically polygamy, you do have kind of some ambiguity, especially in the Old Testament, that, you know, I don't know. I could see somebody saying, well, it's just not as clear. So, I mean, once it becomes widely accepted in society,

I could see maybe a bigger portion of the church being open to accepting it. That's just my unpaid prophetic prediction. Have you thought about it from that angle? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. The small amount, and from what I've seen, a small amount as yet of Christian stuff, or stuff that's been written in support of polyamorous relationships from a self-identifying Christian perspective,

tends to be fairly negative or doesn't want to use polygamy in the Old Testament. They tend actually to push back against that, push away from that, because it's not polygamy, it's polyandry, it's polygyny, multiple wives. Very, very patriarchal male-centered. Exactly. And so what I've read tends to actually want to really critique that. And, you know, there's some healthy critique to be pushed back there. So most arguments I've read haven't been from that.

People more often, the two theological arguments I've seen made are that a thruple particularly better reflects the Trinity. Oh, yeah. made are that a thruple particularly better reflects the Trinity. So actually they say if human, so it's a bit of a kind of maybe the image of God is meant about relationality, about reflecting God and the Trinity, well actually three is better than two, so we can better reflect God in that way, is one argument made. Another argument made is actually the relationship between Christ and the church is the relationship between Christ, one, and you, me, and lots of other people. So actually, so people say Jesus is a polyamorous. And so therefore, actually, a polyamorous relationship just reflects the relationship between Jesus and lots of Christians. On the former one, the Trinity thing, I think it's

important that scripture doesn't, to my knowledge of sight, particularly link sexual marriage relationships and the Trinity. I think it deliberately doesn't do that. So I don't see that in Genesis 1, 27, 28 kind of stuff. And I think God was wise not to put that in because he knew, you know, marriage is about Christ and the church, not about the three persons of the Trinity. General relationality in our being, yeah, okay, we're made in the image of relational God, that makes sense. But it's not the case that marriage and sex are linked to the Trinity in scripture from what I can think. And on the Christ Church thing, it's just a classic individualistic mindset. We so easily think.

I'm trying to change my preaching to recognize, because so often I preach individually. I'm preaching on Sunday on Leviticus, yes. The message of Leviticus is how can imperfect people live with a holy God? And God takes the initiative to make that way possible, which means God wants you. Isn't that incredible?

God wants you. The book of Leviticus shows God desperately wants a relationship with you. And I thought, that is wonderfully true. Actually, God wants us. God wants the people for his name. Almost always in scripture, it's corporate. And it's so easy for me, as a modern Westerner in an individualistic society, who thinks more of myself than than I should to think, yeah, it's Jesus and all of us, including me. Actually, it's Jesus and his bride, the church. And so really, I think the argument that argues a polyamorous relationship

based on that is more individualistic than the Bible allows to be. Yeah. Yeah, if you push that Christ and the church in that direction, I mean, that's just weird. Not everyone. You have Jesusesus who's now

bisexual with like billions of spouses like it's there yeah yeah i don't know if we want to push that the individualistic version of that to its logical conclusion and clearly christ the church is a singular entity in that analogy and yahweh and israel and the. Um, yeah, it'll be, yeah, it'll be, it'll be interesting what happens here. Um, let's see, we haven't gotten your book, uh, Andrew, uh, it's now what, 45 minutes in the podcast and you, this is so hilarious. You recently wrote a book and didn't realize that it was already out. I don't know if I've met an author that was like, oh, my book came out last week. I didn't even know. I think it's not my fault. It's a very small, a really good small publishing company. There was a charity in the UK who produces small booklets. And I think just because they're small

and they're trying to do a lot of work, it wasn't made crystal clear to me when it was coming out. Or I didn't hear it. So I thought it was September and excitingly entered the world last week. So tell us about the book. What's the title? What brought you into wanting to write a book on such a non-controversial topic? Oh, well, yeah. So the book is called People Not Pronouns, Reflections on Transgender Experience.

It's only a short booklet, as I say. And really what I hope it provides is a first stop introduction to the topic of trans, the experience of gender dysphoria and how might we as Christians reflect reflect on and kind of respond to that which i guess grew out of my my interest in that topic my having opportunity to think and engage and teach on it which really started uh i guess six years ago when mark your house produced the book understanding gender dysphoria

really helpful book i kind of picked it up as someone who is interested in matters of sexuality and gender as a guy who seems as attracted as as a guy who has had a level of discomfort about my own gender. I thought it'd be interesting. And as I read it, I really resonated with the experience of gender-destroying people, and just what Mark was describing for two reasons. One, for a time in my childhood, there was a time when I very strongly believed that I'm a boy externally. I was a girl inside. Really? I had this really vivid memory.

For some reason, a vivid memory of being in my grandparents' porch. I don't know why I was there. But of this fear that one day I would get pregnant and my big secret would be found out. Wow. I was a sheltered Christian kid. Didn't know how these things worked. But I really believed that inside I was a girl and I might get pregnant. I remember thinking, I'm going to have to never get married and live with my parents forever so no one finds this out and that abated that went away naturally

as I grew up but always lived with this kind of sense of not really making the cut as a man hated being in all male environments always wanted to be with the girls harbored like hated stank dudes which is our version of like the pre-wedding kind of thing for the guys yeah always always secretly harbored this longing to be invited to one of my friends hen do's with the girls anyway all of this when I read this book i was like i can totally get how some people genuinely experience themselves to be of a different sex to what their body says and then also i noticed well this is an experience of people who are experiencing something that is difficult confusing unsettling and where people in the church just don't get them and are not

treating them well often i was like that's exactly the situation of same-sex attracted people even just five years ago before that. And I guess this thing actually, we need to be proactive. This thing is coming, this thing is happening, and real people are being affected. We need to engage. So basically from that point, I began to think about it, read about it, try to learn about it. Began then, began to realize that, began to get some invites to speak in different places, because as you say, not many people are happy to or kind of feel able to engage with it. People began to realise that, began to get some invites to speak in different places, because as you say, not many people are happy to or kind of feel able to engage with it. Longest to be short, I got to the point where I thought, and I think there's some thinking I've

done that could form a helpful short introduction. And what I try to do is give a three-part overview or structure for a rounded Christian response. Because my observation is often as Christians, we focus on a particular element of a Christian response and actually we don't get the breadth that we need. So I talk about a heart response, then a head response and a hope response, each one of which is needed and each one of which I hope the booklet brings something a little bit extra to the conversation and to the resources that are already there. So the heart response is all about actually what do we feel towards transgender people and just affir further the point that has been very well made elsewhere of we need to actively love and need to have genuine compassion for the genuine pain of gender dysphoria. And I've really got at that in the booklet because still I hear stories of people in the UK who have horrific experiences in what should be or are well-respected Bible-believing churches.

I heard one just half a year ago at a church in London. A trans person joined, really kind of gets settled in. A person befriended them in a really lovely way of walking alongside them. When friends of the person who befriended found out this person was trans, they started picking on this person, telling them to withdraw, and they basically abandoned this trans person. And now they don't want to go to a church because they don't trust Christians, they're being so hurt

and I was like man there's still a need for us to talk about what's our heart attitude, what's God's heart, how should our heart reflect that then the head response oh no no, go ahead, I thought you were done keep going, the head response I then turned to well how do we think about transgender, how do we kind of conceive of this

and gender dysphoria? And really there I talk about identity But we've done already because my observation is in our culture trans and the experience of gender dysphoria is so much an identity thing Who I feel inside is who I am Doesn't matter what the body says what anyone else says and you see that so clearly in the language in coming out stories and different Things I didn't think I'd seen something which directly kind of engaged the identity thing. So I talk about internal identity, like I talked about earlier, how our culture, such as Frozen, so clearly tells us that story, but how it doesn't work because our feelings, our desires, our intuitive beliefs can change

on a stable basis. They can conflict. What if I really want this or really want that or I really believe this about myself and I believe this, but they can't go together, well, which one's me? And the big killer is we all know actually there are some things we might desire which we wouldn't say we should embrace as who we are or there are some things we might believe about ourselves which we wouldn't say that's who you are. There are parallel trans experiences which sensitively you can bring into the conversation and use there. So I say actually if who we are inside doesn't work and actually basing who you are and what other people think of you doesn't work,

well, they change their mind. You can't always live such a good life. They always think well of you. We need something different. We need divine identity. So I explore the fact that we're given divine identity as those in the image of God. And strikingly, Genesis 127, it's in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.

In the same way the image of God is a given identity by the fact that god creates us and he gives us the identity the man and female is likewise given very next verse is be fruitful multiply fill the earth there's something bodily you know how do you know if you're male or female it's whether your body is or what role your body is orientated to blame reproduction i think you see out there and so i talk about that i talked about stereotypes as well. And my continued discomfort with my masculinity, I think, was about stereotypes. I just didn't believe I made the cut. I so didn't feel I could really be a real man. But actually realizing though Genesis 127 says I'm a man because God says I'm a man, freed me. It gives me the freedom to be how I am. So the fact that I love Downton Abbey and

musicals and pretty things without changing who I am. That doesn't change who I am as a man. It's just how I am, actually. These things aren't kind of influencing that. So talk about stereotypes. But then kind of you get there, and that's often, I think, where people stop. We've got a heart response. We've got understanding. And I think that does mean that transitioning isn't the best or the right option for someone who's following Jesus, which is gender dysphoria. But then you're saying, okay, but people are left with gender dysphoria, which can be incredibly painful and debilitating and difficult. We can't just leave it there.

So I talk about hope response. So I actually say, how does the way the Bible resources us to handle suffering in our own lives and support other people who are suffering, how does that equip us to walk alongside some people who may, out of faithfulness to Jesus, choose not to transition, even though everything in them kind of screams out that they want to? So I talk about the Bible's big story, the explanation it gives us, the hope it gives us of the future, the role of laments in dealing with pain, the role of just being good friends to people, how we navigate painful things in life.

And so my hope is that those three things together give us a full-bodied response that can engage all the issues that are needed. And even though it's a short booklet, it can't tackle lots of the practical questions, it's hopefully a framework to keep in mind as we then talk about or think about those questions. That's great, man. That sounds like a, man, what a greatly needed book. And I mean, of course, you can't answer all the questions it's designed to be a short book but man we need some of the big books we need but we need the short

ones too that you know that more people will pick up and can digest and just get that introduction that's fantastic um so it's already out uh people not pronouns did you come up with that title uh i think so yeah yeah. That's pretty good. I saw that. I was like, I had to think about it. Like, ah, that's, yeah, that's provocative. Not provocative. What is provocative in a good way?

Challenging, hopefully. Challenging. Yeah, challenging is a better word. And I think, yeah, a thread throughout it is that. And that's, you know, a heart of all the work I do with sexual such raising gender actually of let's not forget the people yeah we so easily talk we talk abstract and pronouns is the classic one of the trans conversation we go abstract and and there's a the course is an important place in those conversations yeah but i know what it's like the same thing struck the gay guy to sit in a room and be talked about yeah or to sit in christian

context and feel excuse me this isn't abstract content construct. This is my life. What about me? Yeah. So I think, yeah, part of it is trying to personalize it as well. That, yeah. So going back to the parallels between, so I didn't know that about your background. Would you, did you, would you say you experienced gender dysphoria or would it not have been like, like if your parents brought you into a psychologist, would they have like diagnosed you? Did you have most of the signs or was it not have been like, like if your parents brought you into a psychologist, would they have like diagnosed you? Did you have most of the signs or was it not quite?

I think probably not. I don't know. I, I, I, I didn't be trying not to talk to myself having a gender dysphoric. I just don't know if it would have been clinically diagnosable in that way. I won.

I think in this context, day and age today, I would have done. I think, I think because it was, I didn't tell anyone, I hadn't ever heard of anyone being a man or a woman trapped in a man's body. I had no box to put it in. And so I just kind of felt it, decided to never get married. I'd live with my parents. It would

just go away. It wouldn't be an issue. Dealt with it like that. Whether it would have manifested more strongly had I been in our context where I would have heard those kind of concepts and ideas, I expect I easily could have identified as trans, and I think that might have aggravated, I wonder if that might have aggravated the experience of that at the time. But who knows, in some ways. I've heard something similar from a lot of different, especially

gay men, that, well, like, for kids, like, sex sex and gender to take the modern kind of way people understand that they're kind of collapsed together so that boy girl masculine feminine they're all kind of blurred together so it does make sense that as a younger kid and i've heard this from several other people who as they grew, they ended up just being same-sex attracted gay or whatever. But they said, yeah, when they were younger, it was a lot. So when they got older, they were fine saying, okay, I don't maybe resonate with a lot of the stereotypes of

masculinity and femininity. But as a kid, it's easy to interpret that as I am a girl or I am a boy. So I think that have you in your experience with other people have you your story have you seen other people say that that's similar to their kind of trajectory too i think so i think it's not a universal thing but i think i think anecdotally yes and certainly i'm aware of similar although there are studies i mean gender non-conformity seems to be one of the right uh strongest predictors of same-sex attraction later in life i think especially for guys. Not always the way, but especially can be.

And the rate of guys particularly who experience some level of strong gender non-conformity, even gender dysphoria in childhood, who then grow up to be same-sex attracted is really high. I mean, one pediatrician once told me I think it's basically 99%. And that's not from a study, but their pediatrician observation was it's as high as that. I think what studies have been done show that that's particularly with guys

but I think we're seeing in the UK at the moment all the stuff about trans teens and stuff and the number of now detransitioning people, detransitioning young women who are saying actually I was a lesbian, I'm a lesbian, I'm attracted to girls and who are saying actually I was a lesbian or I am a lesbian or I'm attracted to girls and there was internalized homophobia or whatever or gender nonconformity and that led me down the trans narrative. I think we are also seeing the evidence of it among young women as well. Well, I've seen that concern especially with older LGB people, primarily LG people, lesbian and gays, that –

and I'm not necessarily endorsing this view. I'm just saying that it's a fairly popular viewpoint among older gay and lesbian people that a lot of the younger people identifying as trans, they would say, I think you're just gay. Like I don't, and a lot of them say, yeah, if I was raised in this generation, I would have probably been told I was trans or genderqueer or something too. So that there does seem, I don't know. And I can't speak to it experientially. So I think it's an interesting observation, especially, as you said, with what seems to be a growing number of detransitioners. Do we have any data yet on that specifically? Like people who would fit more the rapid onset gender dysphoria paradigm where there was some sort of like social influence in their trans identity as a teen and

now they're detransitioning it just seems like a a lot but i'm just you know if what am i going on i'm going on personal stories friends of friends of friends and their friends and their friends and then online communities and what seems like a new YouTuber every day that comes out with, I'm detransitioning. But all of that's still anecdotal. Is that still 5% of trans-identified people? Is it 50? Do we have any actual data on that yet?

Not to my knowledge. I'm not sure. I think partly in terms of academic studies in the UK, there's been genuine fear of engagement. I'm friends of an older guy who wanted to say he's a clinical psychologist or psychologist, wanted to do some research on detransitioners, was denied ethical approval. And basically the small print said they were scared what people would say on social media about the university.

So is it, is it, is his name James Caspian? James Caspian. Yeah, I've read about that. Can you I read it somewhere and I was like, wait, so that actually happened. I mean, it's always always wonder like, I don't know. Is that really what? Oh, no. Yeah, I've sat down with a lovely guy. He worked for 10 years in a private gender clinic with adults primarily, I guess. I'm not sure in London.

He's a psychiatrist, so we do kind of assessments of people who have marks and stuff. Became very concerned with the lack of psychiatric assessment and exploration of kind of psychological interventions before putting people onto a social and medical transitioning pathway. So resigned from his job because of his kind of Concerns about we doing the right thing and this is right for me to involved in wanted to go and do this research at a UK University and was denied. I think there was a different region reason given on like the official paperwork but it was also made quite clear somewhere that basically it was a kind of

Reputation thing that was the issue he then took it through um he challenged that ruling uh at in various courts i get confused the court system here it got quite senior i eventually went to the european courts i think and amazingly didn't win which i do think based on their situation does seem quite amazing um i think so didn't get kind of given the permission. So I think the figures are missing because academic research isn't being allowed but then also I think these transitioners tend to well they tend to fall off the books you know if you stop taking hormones and such like you're not

going to turn to the people who you now think forced you to go into them far too quickly didn't give you sufficient support beforehand you're it's not going to trust them so you don't go back so the success rates look great look all these people who are now living happy lives who never came back or they didn't feel they could come back because you pushed them in an unhelpful direction they're now feeling very unsure about that and that's just to have the numbers at all just so my audience can follow this it's actually an important point because there has been a couple i I don't know, one, two, three, four surveys done on transition regret. And they usually turn back 1%, 0.5%, 2%, maybe 5% transition regret. But that's what you're pointing to is the methodology that has gone into that. It's pretty shady. Just that, like, well, all the people that transitioned, we never saw them back saying,

hey, I regret this. It's like, well, the fact that they didn't come back doesn't necessarily mean that there's been positive, ongoing positive results. And also there's that kind of key, I don't know if you've heard the kind of seven to 10 year mark that the first few years after transition, there's typically a pretty positive response. But a lot of people have said that seven to 10 year, once you get seven to 10 years after, that's usually when a decent number, again, it's hard to even have the percentages, but that's when a lot of the regret comes in. And regret might not lead to detransition. I just talked to Scott Nugent, who transitioned at 42.

He's 48 now. So, yeah, he's right in that six, seven-year mark. And he says he, holy, I mean, so many issues with his – he had so many surgical problems. And even ideologicallyologically he didn't it was just a it wasn't but he's like i'm not going to detransit he was like no i'm not going to detransition that's just going to bring more problems but there's certainly a level of like yeah i don't recommend this you know um yeah so i don't know yeah it's it's uh but that's interesting that i mean it's sad really because detransitioners are people, right?

We come up in an effort to humanize a minority population where dehumanize dehumanizing a minority within the minority. And if we can't do research on this from a data perspective,

how are we, we're not helping the cause just because a story might be a threat to somebody's ideology or something there's two ways we can't protect people who are exploring the possibility of transition and help them make a wise decision is this a wise thing for you but also detransitioners tend to be left with radio to help afterwards um so one of the kind of uh working groups i'm involved with here in the uk which basically a group of people clinicians i think pretty past the most of the working groups I'm involved with here in the UK, which is basically a group of people, clinicians, I think we're pretty past them, mostly clinicians, saying, how do we love trans people when they're Southern Wales nation?

What role could we be playing trying to help this messy situation we're in? And one of the conversations we're having is there's so little provision for detransitioners medically. You've got a lot of medical questions, you become a threat of hormones and stuff. It's so hard actually to access the kind of support they need. Detransition care isn't a threat of hormones and stuff it's so hard and actually to access the kind of support they need you know detransition care kind of isn't a isn't a field of medicine so it's beginning to think what are the needs what are the questions how can we help that but there's yeah it's such a sad thing that actually these conditions are the the overlooked people i mean a good thing in a sense is their voice is being heard much more which i think is good in terms of thing of

safeguarding young people especially but i think their needs aren't particularly met. And there are certainly many medical needs that need to be addressed by medical professionals. But I also think there's an opportunity for the church to raise up. Here we have a group of people who are hurting, who are being mistreated, who many people are now rejecting, who are not finding people who will support them in this pretty much unwalked path yeah that should be our job surely surely those in the outskirts those uh being pushed out we're the ones you're meant to love them and wouldn't it be amazing if someone jesus and they think i know the best place

i can go to get support and love is my local church so my little visions i'd love to yeah that'd be amazing things happen that should be the kind of people we are, right? That should, that should happen. Yeah. It's tough. I mean, I was with you, I've got several friends that have detransitioned and, or are detransitioning and that's a, man, that's, that's a tough, really tough spot to be. Sometimes like the dysphoria is still there perhaps. And there's medical challenges. There's financial stuff. There's social. Just the whole, because they are, in most cases,

this community that celebrated them, accepted them, now see them as toxic and a threat. And if I put myself in other people's shoes, I mean, some detransitioners have been quite outspoken against what they would see as ideological brainwashing and have challenged. And even in the case of the UK with Kira Bell, have had effects on kids having access

to puberty blockers and so on. So if I just try to see things from the other side, I could see like, oh my gosh, these detransitioners, they're not helping us really with their outspokenness. But yeah, I don't know. I think it's really helpful to have a range of different voices being presented so that we can consider all, all, all kinds of people. But Andrew, I've taken you much too long. Well, not too long, but this is a little, a little over time, but man, I'm so excited to read your book. Thank you for the copy that you have sent my way and love what you guys are doing at Living Out. Can you give us some,

if people want to find you or the Living Out resources, where do they go? Yeah, so livingout.org is our website, and we're on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter under Living Out. And I'm Andrew Bunt on Twitter. And most of my stuff is on Living Out

on thinktheology.co.uk. Okay. And you guys, I don't know, in 2021, you guys really cranked it up it seems like I mean you guys are producing all kinds of blog posts

and book reviews and podcasts like there's just a lot of really really helpful accessible and thoughtful

resources so thank you for what you guys are doing and pass on my greetings to the rest of the Living Out

team you guys are awesome yeah alright take care thanks Andy for being on the show thanks so much Preston real pleasure on my greetings to the rest of the living out team yeah all right take care thanks andy for being on the show real pleasure you