Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep974: What Is Autogynephilia? A Conversation with Danny

Episode Date: May 23, 2022

The theory of Autogynephilia is one of the more controversial and much neglected aspects of the trans* conversation. Some people say it doesn’t exist, while others say that most natal male trans* persons have Autogynephilia. Autogynephilia “is defined as a male's propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a female.” Several scholars have done a lot of research into this phenomenon: Ray Blanchard, J. Michael Bailey, Anne Lawerance (who is a self identified autogynephilic trans* medical researcher), and several others. My conversation today is with my friend Danny, who says he experiences a kind of autogynephilia and has learn to walk in faithfulness to Jesus in the midst of it all. –––––– PROMOS Save 10% on courses with Kairos Classroom using code TITR at kairosclassroom.com! –––––– Sign up with Faithful Counseling today to save 10% off of your first month at the link:  faithfulcounseling.com/titr or use code TITR at faithfulcounseling.com –––––– Save 30% at SeminaryNow.com by using code TITR –––––– 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 Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review. www.theologyintheraw.com

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. In this conversation, I'm going to be talking to my friend, Danny. We're just going to use first name only. And we are going to talk about the concept or theory of autogynephilia. You can Google that, autogynephilia, or maybe I'll leave something in the show notes that explains what it is. I just glanced at the Wikipedia article on this and it gives a good overview of what autogynephilia is. The term was coined by a sexologist named Ray Blanchard and has been popularized through other scholars such as J. Michael Bailey, James Cantor, Anne Lawrence, and Alice Dreger, and several others. Basically, autogynephilia is a theory about a kind of trans experience that some

biological males or natal males have. Whereas many trans people, so let's just say biological male trans people, might be same-sex attracted, not same gender, but same sex attracted. Somebody who experiences autogynephilia would be this idea that some people are, some biological males are sexually aroused at the idea of having a female body. Whereas for other biological males who are trans who don't experience autogynephilia, they might have a very just feminine appearance. They're very stereotypically feminine in their behavior, whereas somebody who experiences autogynephilia would be a biological male who might also experience some level of gender dysphoria,

but they have a more erotic component to their gender dysphoria. They are aroused in the thought of having, of inhabiting a female body. So my friend Danny experiences autogynephilia. And so this topic is very controversial. Some people say it doesn't exist, which is simply untrue. The question is not whether it exists. I have several friends who experience this, who experience autogynephilia. So in as much as they exist, it exists. The question is, how do we understand it? How many people experience this?

Is it something that's just on the fringe of the trans conversation? Or some people would say that. Other people would say, no, if you're a biological male who's trans, who's attracted to women, you probably have autogynephilia. And there's lots of debates about everything in this conversation. So I'm very excited to talk to my friend, Danny. I've known Danny for a few years now. We've had lots of conversations about this. He not only has the experience, but he also has, you know, that experience has forced him to do a lot of research,

wrestling with what is autogynephilia? Does this fit his experience? And how does he navigate this with his Christian faith? So I really can't thank Danny enough for having the courage to come and he wanted to have this conversation publicly. So yeah, really encouraged by him. And I think this conversation will help out other people who might have experience autogynephilia without knowing the name for it. So please welcome to the show, my friend, Danny. All right. Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Rhyme. I am here with my friend, Danny. Danny, how are you on this early morning? Well, it's early for me. It's 730 for me. But yeah, thanks for coming on Theology in the Rhyme. Thanks, man. I am so, so, so excited to be here. I am a huge fan. You know, I just listened to

the episode with you and Chris on it. And I don't know if we're going to be able to match that kind of chemistry, but I'm hoping to get somewhere close. Well, it's funny. She did so good on that episode. In the past, she gets really nervous about being, you know, people listening listening and stuff and she talks so that in the past we've done it we've had to do several takes and i'm like dude just be yourself just don't because she's worried about saying the wrong thing or saying too much or whatever like um and yeah she she definitely did did really good on that on that um on that episode so i'm feeling a little nervous a little starstruck here, but, uh, yeah, I'll try

to relax. Oh, you're fine. Um, well, let's just get into it and tell people, you know, who you are as much as you want to share. And then I definitely want to get into this concept of autogynephilia. Most people don't even know what that means. And they're probably tripped up when they even hear that word, like that English word, you know? Um, but yeah, I would love to dive into that, but tell us, uh, give us a little running start about your story, who you are, and we'll go from there. Sure. Well, there's a lot to tell, I think. But I'm going to try to keep it to the relevant portions as it pertains to gender and sexuality. So going back, I think it's helpful to start from the beginning. Basically, for as long as I can remember, I have longed to present as or experience life as a female.

Really, some of my clearest memories from childhood kind of center around that concept. I was jotting down some notes before this just so I could try to articulate myself clearly. And it was amazing to me how many moments I could recall from childhood that kind of centered around this desire of mine. And I'll go so far as to call it kind of an obsession back when I was a kid, a fascination, this persistent desire to, yeah, be a girl or some approximation of that. I had dreams about it. I remember one of my earliest memories growing up. It's kind of a, in some ways, it's kind of an embarrassing memory for me. Because I look back on myself, and I was trying to manipulate my sister into kind of daring me into trying on her ballet leotard. And it's

embarrassing, because I look back and I was, I feel like I was so transparent, but I guess I, you know, it was my little secret and I was able to do that. I remember, for instance, in second grade, our teacher asking like, hey, if you could trade places with anyone for a day, who would you trade places with? And I'm kind of showing some of my age here, but I was like, I'd trade with Cameron Diaz because I'd like, I want to experience life as a girl. And I didn't tell anyone that. That wasn't the answer that I said in class because I always kept this very close to the vest. I just kind of knew intrinsically that I would kind of be made fun of or that it wasn't appropriate for me to kind of have these desires. I remember being fascinated with like RuPaul on Hollywood

Squares. We used to watch that a little bit or there was an opportunity. I don't know. Maybe we had like a themed field day in elementary, and one of the girls in my class brought in this old-fashioned dress. And they were like, do any boys want to try it? And of course, it's like, no. But then I think one boy was like, yeah. And then that gave me permission, so I was like, oh, I want to wear it. That was really fun for me this is all elementary this is elementary school still yeah this is elementary school i remember in middle school

um sixth or seventh grade there was this they introduced this concept of like powder puff you know where the girls play football the boys are cheerleaders and at the particular school i was at the girls got to like choose one guy. So like each cheerleader would choose a guy to kind of take her place. And I remember trying to convince this girl, like, hey, I want to do that. Like, will you let me do that in so many words? And this guy is like, why do you want to do it so much? And I was like, what? Me? I don't. Like, who cares? It's stupid. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And going on into middle school, that's, I think, when I first started to kind of sneak into my mom and sister's closet, um, to try on what they were wearing or if like something was left in the bathroom, if I was like at a friend's house or something like that, and there were like girls clothes

left on the bathroom floor or like a hamper or something like that, I would kind of take advantage of that situation to, to put on those clothes. In high school, I got the opportunity to opt in for Powder Puff. So that longstanding dream became a reality. So I did that for a couple of years in high school as a junior and senior. In fact, I was captain of the Powder Puff cheer team senior year. So a real dream come true for me uh yeah um yeah it's basically any opportunity that i had where i could feasibly be dressed up and yet have an excuse that like oh my arm was being twisted or this is just like uh any kind of socially appropriate way to to bend those

gender boundaries without kind of revealing that oh this is actually a deep desire that i have this actually means more to me than it does to everyone else yeah and are you you're attracted to uh girls still i mean or are you attracted to guys or are you or is that not a category you're really exploring at that point or at this point um i remember in middle school wondering you know because i i hadn't really fully reconciled to myself what my desires were in terms of uh like i you know it's funny i i would, like I said, sneak into my mom and sister's closet, do all this stuff. But I, in those moments, I wasn't really thinking like, what am I doing? Like, what does this mean about myself? I wasn't really asking those existential

questions. I was just kind of going with the flow and, and, and just kind of, um, doing those things. And so I remember in middle school one day I was, I just asked myself like, am I gay? What, what is this? Um, and you know, back in those days I make myself sound really old, but, uh, back in that time, you know, middle school, especially gay was basically like, uh, you know, a bad word to say about someone. Um, but I, I asked myself, honestly, I was like, what is this that I'm experiencing? Um, and, and it didn't seem to fit. I was attracted to girls. I didn't have like any strong sex drive or anything like that. There wasn't that present. But I knew that I was attracted to girls. I longed for female companionship, I think to be accepted by females. I knew I wanted to get married to a girl someday, but yeah, that it,

it wasn't very, um, it wasn't really a focal point of mine in middle school or anything like that. Okay. Um, yeah, but actually I, I, I, that provides a useful transition to kind of talking a little bit about sexuality, which I think is important to link into this conversation about autogynephilia, um, which in my story, I'm still kind of a long way from discovering. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Keep going. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, growing up,

I, I think I was, well, I know I was just a really self-righteous church kid. Um, grew up going to church. I grew up believing in God. There wasn't like a moment that I had where I knew I was a Christian. It was just sort of like a, a given for as long as I can remember. This is my set of beliefs. Um, so I, I really had this habit, I think of minimizing my own sinfulness and, and my own sinfulness and maximizing and being acutely aware of the sinfulness of everyone else around me. And this was really, I think, exacerbated in my adolescence and early adulthood

when I realized that I essentially had no temptation to look at porn, no temptation to masturbate, which was apparently, from all accounts that I heard, kind of a problem that a lot of people had. You know, I heard Greg Coles recently at the Exiles in Babylon conference, shout out. Yeah. And he was sharing how in youth group, they got together, they got together all the guys and they got together all the girls and they were like, guys, listen, we know that you want to look at pictures of naked women. So just don't do that. And Greg was like, Hey, all right, this is awesome. Uh, like I must be some kind of super Christian because I don't have those

desires at all. Um, and it was only later, I think he said something like that he found out that his desires were so shameful that they couldn't even be brought up. And I really resonate with that story because I feel the same way. Like, I kind of felt like I was a super Christian. Like, hey, I have no desire to look at pornography. I have no desire to masturbate. So I must be doing pretty good here. I looking back, I really, I think by it's gonna sound weird to say, and I don't really know quite how to explain it. But I feel like my sexuality was almost like dormant. Like it was sitting there. I was functionally sort of asexual growing up in that.

Did I have attraction towards members of the opposite sex? Yes, there was attraction, but there was it wasn't rooted in anything sexual necessarily, which which makes sense with what I've learned later. That orientation, as you and I both know, is not just rooted in wanting to have sex with someone. Right. There's so much more that it is rooted in. So, yeah, I I had that experience with my sexuality where it just wasn't really a big deal for me. So I had, going back to kind of the gender side of things, I had these secret desires, this secret life behind closed doors, but I hadn't really admitted to myself that it was really a thing. So it didn't really preclude me from that self-righteousness that I was feeling because I hadn't reconciled the fact that I had these desires. Well, finally, I went off to college and through this campus ministry that I was part of called Christian Challenge, I got really serious about following

Jesus and what it meant to walk with Jesus and surrender to his lordship. What does that mean? And I think I finally experienced enough cognitive dissonance in my brain from what I was doing secretly and from what I was doing the opposite of secretly. Publicly? Publicly. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. Where I came to the realization that I have to reconcile what is happening here.

reconcile what is happening here. So at one point in this Bible study I was a part of, we were challenged to embrace James 5.16, confess to one another and be healed. So there came this moment this morning, some dear brothers of mine, including my actual brother, I'm an identical twin, which I think is interesting, and we can talk more about. We were praying on campus, because again, very righteous. And there came this moment where one of my friends started confessing some sins, and it hit me. I knew immediately, like, oh, no, God, I don't want to share this about myself. But I felt like God was really calling me to share this secret part of my life. And so I couldn't work up the courage. We finished the walk. And my friends were all about to like,

peace out and go to class. And I kind of said already kind of fighting back tears, something like, Hey guys, like, I really feel like I need to share something with you. Will you skip class? And like, just hear me out here. And, you know, college kids, I don't know if they had any problem with skipping class. All right, sweet. Yeah. right sweet yeah uh so we sat we went to my brother and i's apartment and i i shared with them in the limited language the really limited language that i had at the time like i don't know what i said i think i said probably something like hey i don't know how to explain it i i am there was a lot of prefacing, like, just so you know, I'm really ashamed of this just so you know. Um, but I, I, I said something like I'm addicted to, to cross-dressing or something like that. Like I, I didn't really have any other words to describe it in the moment. Um, you didn't say, you didn't say like, I desire to be a woman or i feel like i should have been a woman or something like that like those categories weren't quite there or no okay yeah

yeah those those categories weren't really there at the time and i had sort of wondered um this this was a constant question to me is It's like, what is the end of my desire? Is the end of my desire just to be able to wear women's clothes all the time and present as female all the time and pass as female all the time? Of course, I didn't know all those words at the time either, present, pass, all those things. I kind of wondered that, or I wondered, am I, am I like one of these transgender people that I have seen on the news or read about or that sort of thing? Because my experience doesn't really seem to directly map onto that. Um, yeah. So besides, um, besides that moment of coming out, more important than that, I think, and that was the first moment of coming out. I kind of viewed that moment as the end of my testimony. So I was like, okay, in my mind, from this point on, anything that follows is just going to be sort of like irrelevant.

It's going to be like, and they all lived happily ever after. Like I, for lack of better words, I kind of viewed myself as healed at that point. And I wasn't trying to deceive myself or lie to myself or anyone else. I really felt like, um, Hey, I've confessed this. And now I've experienced like, I'm a new man in Christ. And so I'm going to lean into what that looks like to, to be a new man in Christ. So I told some of my close friends, I told my then girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife, essentially that narrative, which is like, yeah. Um, Hey, this is a part of who I was. I have been crucified and risen again with Christ, and now I'm this new person. How did she, I'm curious how she, at that moment, do you remember how she, what she thought about it?

Yeah. I will not forget that moment. So we had just gone to see it was around christmas and we went to see the nutcracker ballet together um and it was a big struggle for me because things that according to our culture are sort of inherently feminine are are some of my bigger triggers for experiencing gender dysphoria or the sense of dissonance that I have right of feeling like hey I that's I really want to be that person or to be dressed like that person or to be experiencing what they're experiencing um so I felt really especially prompted I was already I was already gonna tell her then after that night, I was like, gosh, I can't really keep this inside anymore, especially after I've told now several others. she looked at me um and there was just absolutely like no condemnation you know anytime you're sharing something like this anytime you're coming out it's like there's a very real sense of vulnerability attached to it of like hey i'm kind of laying myself before your mercy here and i'm

kind of at your mercy in terms of are you you going to reject me or are you going to kind of embrace me? And she did, um, to her credit. Yeah. Um, she fully embraced me and, and yeah, was ready to continue, uh, moving forward in our relationship. That was nice. Yeah. So speaking of moving forward in our relationship and kind of swinging back from the gender pendulum to the sexuality pendulum, we got married as any good Christian should right after college. Yeah. Essentially, yeah, right after graduating. One of the first of my friends to get married I was really proud of that um and as part of that arrangement getting married uh as you might know um or I might assume I became sexually active uh for the first time in my life. And what happened then was that I experienced this massive paradigm shift

in the way that I experienced my body, where that sexuality that I described as kind of being dormant, I guess you could say it sort of awoke from its slumber. And I had this huge paradigm shift where all of a sudden I kind of experienced myself in like a sexual way, which was just so different for me. It's difficult to describe even. But yeah, it was like I wasn't sexual. And then I was. Wow. All of a sudden. And it was in a way that I was totally unprepared for. Kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. We kind of had trouble finding community in the place that we moved after we got married. It was a challenge for us and we experienced some early marriage issues some tension and i think in that i was kind of seeking relief and one day i i stumbled upon these

uh these transgender fiction stories that i used to read i i forgot to mention that back in uh back in high school was when i first kind of stumbled upon this category of online um through yahoo answers believe it or not where people would write these ridiculous obviously fabricated stories like um sorry do i need to say any of that again i think i lost you for a second oh uh no you, you're fine. You're fine. Yeah. It was, I think on my end it was frozen a little bit. Yeah. Keep going. Okay. Yeah. So these stories that I discovered somehow on, on Yahoo answers like, um, Hey, uh, my sister caught me trying on her clothes and now she's like forcing me to dress like a girl for a week. So she's asking me to ask y'all who answers, like, what, what should I wear? Like stuff like this.

Um, so I kind of stumbled upon that in high school. It was kind of innocent enough. Um, but then now stumbling back upon it after, after getting married, um, those kind of getting married, those kind of innocent enough fantasies turned into erotica stories. And that kind of led me to understanding that my gender and sexuality, these secret desires that I thought I had overcome through Christ back in college, they had sort of become intertwined with my sexuality in a way that I couldn't quite explain in a way that I I couldn't I certainly couldn't get rid of no matter how much I didn't like it so I kind of fell into this pattern that would continue to sort of be a struggle for me um yeah even to presence where uh either i would fall into like cross-dressing and or reading this erotica pairing that with pleasuring myself sexually shame resolve to never do it again and then doing it again yeah yeah kind of over and over and over and over again. And then five or six years into marriage, I had kind of like I had finally reached this breaking point where I came to the realization that something needed to change.

I think that I need to start presenting as female, part-time, maybe full-time. Basically, I had this sense from Levitical law and just my understanding of the Bible that God didn't approve of my cross-dressing, but I had come to a point where I honestly didn't feel like I had the strength to resist that urge anymore. So I kind of brought this up with my wife. And she kind of felt blindsided at the time, you know, because the narrative I had presented before we had gotten married is, hey, this is in my past. And now I'm telling her, like, this has so plag plagued me and I cannot resist it anymore that I don't know if I can go any further without embracing this somehow, whether it's like dressing up at home or things like that. Can I ask a quick question? Please do.

Always, Preston. I've got a bunch of questions i'm trying to i'm trying to withhold uh until you get through your whole story but the one that i do want to ask is so the cross-dressing component i've seen variations within people within the broad let's just say trans umbrella on one end cross-dressing is to you know there's there's no erotic component to it. And then on the other end, there is an erotic component. At this time, was it an erotic component?

Like was it more lingerie, underwear, and just was it more to fulfill kind of a sexual desire? Like looking back now as you kind of interpret your past? Well, you know, when I was in high school and middle school and I noticed sometimes that I would become aroused when I was cross-dressing. But because I had this sort of dormant or untouched sexuality, there was no temptation for me within that to bring that to any sort of release or anything like that. Um, and really I just kind of viewed it as an inconvenience because it was kind of counteracting that image that I was hoping to see back of myself in the mirror of female. Um, so it was, it felt kind of incidental at that time. But then after I got married and when I would cross-dress, I would feel this arousal. And all of a sudden there was this need for release. Because your sexuality had been awakened at that time. So that, okay.

Yeah, so to speak. I have a friend of mine who has a similar story and he said when he cross-dresses it's really he says his experience is is really different than anything he's he's seen now i'm sure it's out there but he said it's not it's when he's experienced he experiences a lot of high levels of anxiety in life. And for him, the only thing that relieves his anxiety is like women's lingerie, like sexy garments. But he says, it's not,

that sounds like, okay, that's just eroticized because it's not really that. It's just like this, this like femininity that just like soothes his soul. And you know, sure. Yeah. What is more feminine?

He's so, you know, even describing that, he's like so ashamed of it. I'm like, dude, just be honest with what you're experiencing. We can't, and, you know, so I appreciate him

even sharing that, but it's like, he was just trying to grab, because it wasn't, when I read Autogynophilia stuff, it's kind of like that, but not quite. It was just more,

but it wasn't just like non-eroticized femininity like some other trans people might experience. So I don't know. Yeah. If that resonates at all or – Yeah. No, definitely. I find that things that are especially feminine have sort of – and we can open up a can of worms as to what that even means.

But I think everyone knows what I mean. Things that would be regarded as especially feminine in our society, that those are things that have sort of a special lure kind of over me and over my psyche of like things that I feel especially drawn towards. Well, I even asked him, I said, just what about silk boxers, silk shirts, wear a silk shirt, you know, for the men's department or whatever, if that exists. I was like, no, it has to be, there's something mental that like it has to be from the women's department, it has to be for females, you know. It was almost a psychological component wrapped up in it. It's really interesting.

So, you know, it was almost a psychological component wrapped up in it. It's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I can identify with that. No. Good question. And I'm almost done with my monologue.

Okay. Yeah. So I reached this breaking point and I felt like I couldn't really resist anymore. And that's when I kind of secretly, I started searching like Christian cross-dressing. Again, I have very little terminology to work with at this point. So I was just like Googling what I could in incognito mode, of course.

Keep it out of my search history. I don't want anyone knowing I have these struggles. So that's when I discovered, and I promise this isn't meant to be a plug for anyone listening. That's when I discovered the Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender. And through it, a wealth of resources, like the Whole in My Heart podcast, and other resources like that, where it was like, it honestly was like I was stumbling across a desert oasis after kind of wandering through the desert where I realized I wasn't alone. I didn't have to struggle alone. And I didn't necessarily have to hide my experience

in this secret shame. That was a really huge watershed moment in my life. And from that point on, I kind of started to read more, learn more, listen to more podcasts, things like that. I had these important questions that I wanted to answer, namely, what was my experience? What is this that I have? And what does it look like within my experience to faithfully follow Jesus? Does that mean that I can like cross-dress sometimes to relieve this tension that I feel? Or is that totally off limits? Or, yeah, I just, I was kind of open to discovering whatever it was that I was going to discover. I had this question, discovering whatever it was that I was going to discover. I had this question, I mentioned it to you before. What is my desire? Was I sort of, I'm using air quotes for people on audio, was I just

a cross-dresser? Or yeah, was I like a true trans person? Because of those aspects of the trans narrative, the typical trans narrative that I didn't really resonate with. For instance, I never felt like I was a girl trapped in a boy's body. I always had this internal sense of self that I was a boy. It's just that I really wanted to be a girl or experience like that or accepted as such. That's such a fine distinction i don't know if people if that can even yeah sink into people's even as i hear that i'm like what's the what's

the difference you know what's the like i don't feel like i am a girl chopping the boy's body i just want to be a girl because a lot of people would talk about non-autogynephilia trans people in that like oh so you just want to be the opposite sex but that's yeah and i yeah i guess for me it comes down to i had heard all these stories of people saying like i knew that i was a girl trapped in a boy's body and i would tell my parents that from a very young age. And for me, that didn't really resonate because I was like, well, I didn't. Yeah, I never thought that I was a girl in any sense of the word. I knew that I longed to experience life like that, but that wasn't my thinking.

And telling my parents was the furthest thing from my mind, from my earliest memories. Like I mentioned that early scene that I have in my head of me manipulating my sister. What I didn't say was that, you know, in my head I thought, oh, I should say something to my sister so that she doesn't think I'm enjoying this. Meanwhile, I remember kind of looking at myself in the mirror and smiling like the Cheshire Cat, just like ear to ear, like this side of myself in this ballet leotard. So I yelled out to my sister, like'm gonna kill you I'm like five or six at the time um and uh my dad comes up and like is knocking on the door to like get in because he's like mad that I just yelled this to my sister and I'm like one second one second I'm like quickly like changing because I knew like I couldn't tell my dad like my dad couldn't know this about myself

so telling my parents was like the furthest thing from my mind. And I wasn't, yeah, I had never sort of insisted, Hey, this is, this is who I am internally. Okay. Okay. Um, yeah, it is a really fine distinction and it's difficult to explain, but I just knew when I heard those stories. Part of it resonates, obviously the part where I'm like, have these strong, uh, sort of compulsive, uh, irresistible urges to present as a member of the opposite sex. Um, but I think that's, that's where the distinction is for some it's for me, it's a member of the opposite sex. And for some it's like, well, a member of the opposite sex and for some it's like well i am a member of what you might consider to be the opposite sex you just can't see it because i'm trapped in the wrong body right right right that's interesting so you didn't you wouldn't say you

were you experienced like gender dysphoria i haven't heard you even mentioned that or or would you be if you went in be diagnosed with gender dysphoria yeah when uh a question i have often asked myself um do i have gender dysphoria to the level that it would be diagnosable through the dsm-5 or whatever number we're on five yeah five right now yeah um i think i experience mild to moderate levels of gender dysphoria i heard um cat on your podcast a long time ago use a use a analogy that was really um helpful for me catla prairie yeah um and it was this that it's kind of like oh wait no maybe it was ben shulkey okay sorry guys if you're listening maybe you both said it um it was it's kind of like the radio it's compared to the radio gender dysphoria.

Sometimes it's turned down so loud that it's all you can think about. And sometimes it's barely buzzing in the background, but you know that it's there, but you kind of have to strain to hear it. And I've had those moments where like, I'm, I'm thinking to myself, this is so weird because I know that I experience significant gender dysphoria at times. But right now it's hard to access it. Like it feels so distant, like that experience belongs to someone else. And yet sometimes it's so loud in my head that there are times like, I don't know, today is. that there are times like i don't know today is uh well maybe i shouldn't i i don't want to peek behind the curtain of the production too much but today is april 26th i don't know when this

podcast is fine it'll probably two or three weeks yeah yeah and um on april 18th i woke up feeling like, so just last week, I don't think I can do this anymore. Like, I think that I have to transition. I don't think I can be satisfied in this life until I do. Wow. Yeah. Which, which can I, I mean, can you pinpoint like what triggers that? Yeah. Is it lack of sleep? Is it being around certain environments? I mean, really, it's – and I know for some people, they're like, I have no clue.

Other people can kind of pinpoint certain environments that exacerbate their dysphoria. Yeah. I don't know if I can pinpoint it, so to speak. I do know that I can kind of feel more dysphoric if I'm, like I said, if I'm looking at things or kind of interacting with things in my everyday life that are typically associated with femininity. For instance, if I see makeup, like lying out on someone's countertop, I go to a friend's house and there's like makeup out on the countertop. Like that makes me desperately like want to like wear that wow um or yeah things like that um so yeah go ahead well as um and if i some things i say could sound like i'm trying to be funny or whatever i'm really i'm not but like if you if you if you wandered into like victoria's secret would that be like disastrous i mean um something like that where it's just so like in your face or is it not that cut and dry?

Yeah. No, I think – That's kind of disastrous for most males no matter what. I mean unless you're gay. Sure. I mean, yeah, it would um disastrous in a sense for me and that it would be it would be very difficult for me to be there without wanting to put on those clothes myself without imagining myself in those clothes not to say that i would you know necessarily

like lose control and start like stealing stuff. Yeah. I mean, the temptation might be there, honestly. Like I, I often feel temptation to, um, kind of do things that are outside of cultural norms. Um norms because this desire within me kind of reveals itself as desperation sometimes it's it's so strong that it's like I I'm not an alcoholic I don't struggle with that but I might compare it to sort of that sense that if an alcoholic might be around a bottle of alcohol, that compulsion and drive to like, um, drink that is sort of, for me, I feel this kind of compulsion or drive to, um, yeah, to present as female as realistically as I can. Um, let, let's go back to, let's finish your story.

And, uh, I would love love to learn like when you discovered this concept of audigan affiliate we haven't even you know i'm sure i i record my intros typically after so i'm sure i've already explained it a little bit just so people kind of know you know get a running start to what we're talking about but um yeah i would love to hear when you ended up discovering this concept and and research in that and what that was like. We've got a mind mouth. I was thinking the same thing. That chemistry, just like I was talking about. So yeah, I had recently in my story kind of discovered the Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender and started reading and pouring over these resources in a desire to

answer some of these outstanding questions that I had about myself. So one night I was searching for answers in a book that had been recommended through somewhere. It was Mark Yarhouse's Understanding Gender Dysphoria. And I came across this term that I had never heard of before called autogynephilia. And all of a sudden it was like a light just came on. And I thought, oh my gosh, I think this might be me. But then I kind of quickly reached over and turned off the light because i was like i didn't i didn't like what i saw uh in that description that i'd read it sounded really taboo it sounded really deviant and i i didn't want that to be my experience um so and and even in the book he explains that there's controversy surrounding the theory and so so I think I kind of clung to that. And I kind of heard mixed by what I had read. But yeah,

at that point, I think it was around that time I actually reached out to you for the first time. Yeah. I was traveling for business and we set up a phone call just so I could kind of bounce some ideas off of you. Like, hey, I've heard about this autogynephilia thing. Like, what do you know about it? You're kind of the expert, Preston. So you told me like, hey, I've heard about this autogynephilia thing. Like, what do you know about it? You're kind of the expert, Preston. So you tell me like, what's up with this? And yeah, you listened to some of what I had to share. Well, you listened to all of what I had to share. And then gave me some thoughts on it and, and talked a little bit about the controversy. And from there on out, I think I was more open to it.

So I gradually kind of started to discover more and more and the more I read. So I started out with this chapter on autogynephilia, um, from this book by Deborah So called the end of gender, which I can't recommend the book, um, because I haven't read the book. I only read the chapter about them pertaining to me. I've read it. It's worth reading. I've got several issues throughout with it, but yeah, it's worth reading. Yeah. I actually heard about it through you in a book review you did on it. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. When I saw you write in the book review that it mentioned autogynephilia I was like oh I have to read that okay so I read this chapter I find that I found that to be very

like exposing in a sense you know it's like um when I did the Enneagram I used to say that I never felt more exposed by anything than I when I realized it was an Enneagram 7 and I read these description these descriptions and it was like it was an Enneagram 7. And I read these descriptions, these descriptions, and it was like, it was like putting a spotlight on me and revealing all of my inner workings. Well, that was amplified times 10. When I read this account of autogynephilia in this book, End of Gender, just this little chapter about it uh and then multiplied by a hundred when i read deeper accounts into it like uh men trapped in men's bodies by ann lawrence um and that is and ann lawrence is a medical researcher who is a male to female trans who identified who says

i have autogynephilia right and then yes she identifies as an autogynephilic transsexual. Transsexual is the word that's primarily used, well, pretty much exclusively used throughout the book. The book was written in the early, late 90s, I think early 2000s. So that was kind of some of the language that was being tossed around. At the time for a transsexual was like someone who had undergone medical transition from male to female or female to male right um and that was a distinction that doesn't really exist anymore we don't really use that word so much anymore but yeah that's that's kind of how she identifies i think still yeah um and what was so fascinating to me about that book is like, well, fascinating and scary. I mean, it was really kind of painful to read at times because it's like, gosh, talk about

my innermost workings kind of being revealed for everyone to read about down to like, um, sexual desires and fantasies and this like secret, um, addiction that i had had to erotica like it's just like fully laid out in the book like it's as if they said hey everyone this is what danny's doing rather than just talking about right in general it was that close of a yeah real quick i mean i sorry to keep cutting you off but but maybe give a, as if I didn't introduce the concept, maybe just give the most airtight, clear articulation of what autogynephilia

is. And I know there's probably different variations. No pressure. No pressure. Okay, so Anne Lawrence defines autogynephilia as, well, Ray Blanchard defined it.

Okay, see, I'm already getting off track. A propensity to feel aroused at the thought of oneself as a woman. And that's it. That is the definition. Now, Ray Blanchard, he's the sort of the of the father so to speak of autogynephilia he created and coined the term in 1989 um is rooted in latin um to mean love of oneself as a woman um now ann lawrence in this book men trapped in men's bodies i heard ray blanchanchard and Anne Lawrence on two separate podcasts recently that they recorded.

And he describes that book as the definitive book on autogynephilia, men trapped in men's bodies. So she really fleshes out this concept. What's helpful about that book in particular – I mean Ray Blanchard is a sexologist. He's written tons of articles on it. He coined the term. But Anne Lawrence is a self-identified autogynephiliac trans-identified person, medical researcher. But that book surveys like over 240 or something stories. So you have kind of the sweet spot of a personal story, the medical professionals and or the medical credentials and loads of other people. It's not just her telling her story,

but surveying other people, which is why I think what I like about that book is it does give kind of layers of nuance to different kinds of experiences that might be classified under the broad umbrella of autogynephilia rather than kind of collapsing it under kind of one stereotypical kind of understanding, you know? Right. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things that the book lays out as kind of, it describes autogynephilia is that there are, that it, they define it as a paraphilia. Um, so words just intense uh sexual desire um i can't remember the the textbook definition of paraphilia i think it's like it's like an atypical yes sexual desire something that's just not part of the majority experience whatever but that even that's because we could say same-sex attraction is a minority experience, but that's not classified as a paraphilia.

So, yeah, there might be something more. You can Google it, I'm sure, if you're listening. Paraphilia. Yeah. So, Blanchard and then further, and Lawrence lays out these four different types of autogynephilia that's that someone might experience um which are anatomic um so wanting like experiencing arousal from uh imagining oneself with like the body parts of a female behavioral that is um to imagine oneself like engaging in kind of typical female typical behaviors, whatever that looks like, which can range from having sex as a woman to riding a sort of female type bike. that can really range quite broadly um physiologic so like experiencing female functions such as like pregnancy or breastfeeding or even menstruation and then uh transvestic which primarily applies

to like putting on women's clothes uh and they don't have to be we talked a little earlier about like intimate apparel lingerie it doesn't have to be. We talked a little earlier about like intimate apparel, lingerie. It doesn't have to be anything like that. It could be like a bow in your hair or something or a bow in your hair or like socks with like frills, you know, around like the ankle or like I'm trying to think of like the most basic uh just like a a t-shirt basically like that's a women's t-shirt or yeah it could be anything so yeah there's kind of four types that they outline and i experience i i think all of them to a certain extent, but to varying degrees, like what they outline in the book is that people, autogynephiles who, um, have stronger anatomic autogynephilia tend to also have stronger levels of gender dysphoria. And for me, like I've never hated my, I hated my i you hear a lot of trans people talk about how they hate

their bodies and um autogonophiles are are not excluded from that category there are a lot who would really hate their bodies feel shame in their bodies i um fortunately don't really have that sensation in myself. But I have imagined myself with female parts. And yeah, so. Real quick, there's a couple of distinctions I think for our audience that would be helpful to clarify. Like the difference between somebody who might experience, the difference between a trans, under the broad trans umbrella, autogenophilia and then everything else.

Typically autogenophilia only affects biological males, or at least it's like 99% or something. I mean, it's, it's, there's been some, I don't know, explorations of biological females who might experience this,

but for, for the most part, it's biological males who are not attracted to other males. Like they would be attracted to females and they would have a more for lack of better terms a stereotypical masculine uh social resonance you know like they might be athletics it's it's fairly popular among military men in the military who are very masculine. And J. Michael Bailey, another guy who's written on this, talks about computer programming or kind of masculine typical fields of professions. Electrical engineering, stuff like that.

Yeah, yeah. So it's – which all of that is very different from another kind of trans-biological male, trans trans identified person who might be just more stereotypically female, probably attracted to other men. And this is where Blanchard had these two kind of airtight categories of you have the, he called it the homosexual trans person who's attracted to the same sex. And then the autogynephiliac who's attracted to the opposite sex. I'm so glad that you brought that up, Preston, because I totally passed over that. And that's one of the major kind of point aspects of the theory.

Do you find those broad distinctions accurate and helpful? And I'm asking both for your own personal story, maybe other people you've talked to, and then also in your research. Because that's probably where Blanchard's gotten the most criticized is there, he says, two airtight boxes and there could be more fluidity between them. But yeah, we'd love to hear your thoughts on those kind of distinctions within the trans identification. Yes. rewind a little bit okay and then i'll answer that question um so yeah um what ray blanchard set out to do is he was working at this gender clinic um and he had seen kind of, yeah, what he thought was a lot of different types of, quote unquote, transsexuals come through the clinic. And he sought to kind of understand them and categorize them. There were tons of categories.

So he was seeking to kind of simplify these categorizations and seek if there was some smaller common denominators that people could be categorized by. And so, yeah, he came up with these two subtypes, the non-homosexual male to female transsexual and the homosexual male to female transsexual, which all of these terms sound terribly antiquated now, 20 years later, but at the time were pretty standard, um, for the field. Um, so essentially his theory was that, yeah, there were two types of transsexuals as evidenced by the patients that he was seeing at this gender clinic. There was the homosexual type, of course, referring to biological male, um, wanting to be with biological male. Um, so in this subtype, as you mentioned, they kind of

express themselves in overtly feminine ways from a very early age they would have what would be defined as early onset gender dysphoria so from like the earliest of ages we're talking like three years old um these people are very clearly like um expressing themselves in ways that are kind of female typical um yeah have female typical interests and and that sort of thing so he had that category um and then he had the category as you described for the non-homosexual uh which is what i would fall into um being someone who is attracted to women um and within this category yeah not stereotypically feminine would give no indication that they are feminine and often end up transitioning later in life like we're talking about middle-aged transitions usually they're married they have kids wives families yeah when they come out at 40 45 or 50 people are like what in the world like

never would i have guessed because they're again they've had a very masculine kind of background um so yeah the theory is extremely um controversial and i think one of the primary reasons for the controversy surrounding it is that people feel like making broad sweeping generalizations by clumping people into these two categories and i i think that's a very fair criticism i i don't think that it's helpful i have found the concept of autogynephilia very helpful for understanding myself and my own desires. But I don't think that it's necessarily helpful to use these two categories and say, oh, you're attracted to women, therefore you must be this, or you're attracted to men, therefore you must be this. I don't find those helpful so i would agree with

with critics on that point another reason why it's kind of controversial is because blanchard or and lawrence would address critics by saying like well basically if you are heterosexual and you experience gender dysphoria and you say that you are not autogynephilic you're misreporting yeah you're lying you don't understand yourself and this is based on tests that ray blanchard conducted where they measured um tumescence i won't get into what tumescence is people can maybe don't google it but essentially male arousal yeah um stories of like wearing women's clothing or that sort of thing so even people who said they weren't aroused by wearing women's clothing

a lot of them did show signs of arousal when they heard stories about like this sort of thing so that's kind of how they base their argument of like well if you say if you say that um you're not autogynephilic you might be lying or subconsciously kind of misreporting without realizing it you haven't reconciled to yourself that you experience this arousal even though that you do so it's kind of suggesting that i know you better than you know you yeah and this is the category that you fit into which yeah that those tests the penis doesn't lie as they say but um i um i can see both sides of that i can see how that can be really offensive for somebody else in a lab coat to tell you, I know you better than you know you. At the same time, my very basic Christian anthropology tells me that sometimes that's true. Like sometimes you have people, again, struggling with an addiction or something or like, I'm not addicted to alcohol.

How dare you tell me? I know my limits or whatever. or i'm not this that like it's self-deception especially when shame's involved and that's also true too so i and i don't know where to go with that because when i when i read when i read j michael bailey's book a man who would be queen which is another very controversial contribution to this. Yeah. And then when I, in my basic understanding, when he gives his description of the kind of – here's kind of the aspects of somebody who would fit an autogynephiliac. And then I look around in society.

I'm like, I see a whole lot of people who fit that to the T, you know? And yeah, who am I? I don't know these people. They're just in the media or whatever. But it's like, my word. Like, you could not get a more – or somebody – I've read people, some trans women writers who say, autogynephilia doesn't exist,

but then they'll turn around and describe their experience. It's almost like you're quoting autogynephiliac literature when you're describing your experience. It's almost like you're quoting autogynephiliac literature when you're describing your experience. And for me, it's – and people who – I don't know. For me, I want to look honestly at this because, again, we talked offline. Whenever I talk about this, which is usually briefly in passing in my talks, I almost always get people that come up and say, oh my gosh, you're describing my experience.

I thought I was the only human on earth that experienced this. Now there's a name for this. And it's really liberating. So my motivation is to say, hey, if this thing exists, which it does, but how widespread is this experience? My goal is that let's expose – not expose, but let's be honest with what we're wrestling with so that people can move forward in life. If we just pretend like it doesn't exist, that's not helpful. At the same time, I do know people that would use this to stigmatize people. CEO, you're – and that's – I'm equally frustrated at that. So it's really – it's a hard balance, you know, because, yeah, I don't want to tell people, hey, this is what you are experiencing when it seems like they are, but not.

Can you speak into that a little bit? Have you talked to other people that might be where you're kind of like, I feel like you might be in denial, but you don't want to say that or? Yeah, sure. Where you're kind of like, I feel like you might be in denial, but you don't want to say that? Yeah, sure. I think that the truth probably, as you are saying, lies somewhere in the gray area where there's more autogynophiles than the deniers who say that it's just made up by transphobic scientists to delegitimize trans experiences. There's way more than they think that there are um but at the same time there's probably less than ann lawrence or ray blanchard would suggest that there are i think do they do they give a percentage or anything of biological males within

the broad trans umbrella yeah she says and she says this many times within like the first a little bit of the book um that's a great academic reference for you by the way the first little bit of the book so go look up where i'm talking about um yeah uh she says all or virtually all non-homosexual transsexuals experience autogynephilia. Non-homosexual. So that's not all biological male trans people. It's all who are not. All who would identify as heterosexual being a biological male who is attracted to biological females. Which, you know, these terms, as you know, that we're using right now, biological male, biological female, are in and of themselves can be controversial in some circles.

A lot of people like to use terms like male, assigned male at birth, AMAB, or assigned female at birth because the theory is that basically biological sex doesn't exist. Yeah. I mean, there's people who believe in a flat earth too but i mean i i don't how many i don't know i tell people like everything in this in this conversation is controversial at this at some point you just have to be okay here's

some of my assumptions and i'm going to be gracious and how i present them but um yeah it's interesting though though, because like those. So these are like these are like major tenants of some. Now, when people say like the word trans ideology, that's it's as I've heard you say many times, it's hard to pinpoint. Like, what are you actually talking about? Because there's so many different kind of branches of transgender beliefs and ideas that it's really hard to pinpoint what but some loud voices within transgender ideology are promoting this idea um and there's been a backlash and autogynephiles are kind of the recipients of that backlash so i've listened

to podcasts recently where it's interesting autogynephiles kind of take fire from all sides of the debate where it's like okay so people on the right um on the far right like obviously they're going to be like um okay so there are these are like freaks who like want to dress up as women and get pleasure from it um then there are people who you would generally associate as being very liberal people on the left side of the of the political line like feminists for instance a lot of feminists raise questions about gender identity ideology. This idea that like, for instance, which we could talk about if we wanted to,

like trans women are women or kind of ideas like this and say, well, actually, I think it's important to protect female spaces. And now I hear that there are some kind of, I couldn't tell you all the waves of feminists. So forgive me for kind of generalizing. We're moving from three to four right now from what I hear. Third wave feminism has been around for a couple decades. And I've heard people talk about we're moving into a fourth wave.

But yeah. Yeah. So I've heard some pushback from feminists saying like, well know why we're you know why this ideology is being pushed so hard it's because of the autogynephiles right it's because they don't want to be if you call them autogynephilic instead of just saying that you are a woman just like i am a woman um then they are pulled out of the reverie of their um sexual fantasy and autogynephiles struggle with narcissism and so there's this narcissistic rage that fights against you and says no you have to identify me as a biological kind of get the sense that you know, I don't know how to discern all that. Um,

but I, I get the sense that autogonophiles are kind of being scapegoated in a sense of like all the ills of the transgender, the transgender movement can kind of come down to this category of people, which I think is a little distressing in some ways. And all of that's very, to me and to you, very interesting. And if you want to engage this conversation on deeper levels, it's good to be aware of that. My fear is that when we let Babylon's culture wars shape our heart too much, then as Christians, we miss the opportunity of some very loud and influential voices giving the impression that that represents all trans people. Or take, you know, biological males and female athletics. A huge thing on the news, you know, right? It's all over the place.

But for every one, and I'm not saying that's not important in and of itself. I'm saying for every one biological male trans identified person trying to play in female-only sports, there's 500, there's a thousand trans people, many of whom are in our churches who are wrestling with their gender identity, who if all we do is focus on what society tells us we should focus on, we're going to miss, or our hearts might be shaped in a more combative way on, we're going to miss, or we're going to, our hearts might be shaped in a more combative way. And we're going to miss out on pastoral opportunities

with many people who are right in front of us that we're missing. So, and again, I'll say it one more time. I'm not saying those broader societal questions are not important. I'm just saying when we let our favorite news outlets be this, that, and only that, you know, Ben Shapiro on the right or whoever on the left, you know, it's like, that's just, they're just, their lens is that culture war. And that's, we can't let that shape our hearts, you know.

You know, and I think when, I agree with you completely. You know, and I think when I agree with you completely, I think when Christians do engage in these culture wars, they can inadvertently. And I do believe it is inadvertent most of the time. uh, I, what's the, what's the buck, uh, when you shoot a shotgun, what's, what, what comes out of it? Shot, uh, collateral damage or, uh, yeah, anyway, the collateral friendly fire, friendly fire, maybe, or yeah, yeah. You, you unintentionally hurt people when you're attacking some enemy over there and you don't realize you have lots of friends in between you and the enemy? You know, I've been sitting, I was sitting in a small group and this woman in the small group brought up like

how she had to go through like a DEI training at work. And when she said this, I'm like thinking, oh no, where is this going to go? And, you know, she was like just talking kind of and i don't blame her because you know i think without without kind of intentional education on like how can we engage these topics with love as christians kind of the default um mode is sort of talking about these topics with some sort of level of derision so she was talking about how like using people's preferred pronouns and she kind of spit it out like she was disgusted with the idea of using people's preferred pronouns and like there were audible like groans in the room, like, oh, yeah, preferred pronouns, you know, and I'm sitting there like, oh, gosh, like, can I be a part of this group?

Like, am I going to be welcome in this church? And yet there was another there is a guy who is also there who kind of vaguely shared like, hey, I'm really struggling with something. And I just want to let you guys know that i'm like struggling and then one of the leaders was like yeah and what is this if not a safe place and it was just such an interesting juxtaposition of like what happened like 30 minutes earlier where i was like well it's really not safe for anyone who is trans and who needs like um to use gender pronouns to basically function in the world which of which you and i both know people in that boat um yeah so all that to say i hope that when christians hear my story that it um would inspire them to kind of a level of compassion of understanding of knowing like

hey look i didn't choose this experience like believe me about that there have been so many days where i wish i had a radically different experience where i wish like oh why can't i just struggle with porn like the like a regular guy you know which which sounds so ridiculous to say right but it's like i have been pushed to that limit so much by like this inner shame that i feel about this experience that i have that i didn't choose and also according to most studies out there all studies that i've heard like i can't change i'm i'm not able to like affect change into this if you want to call it a paraphilia, or if you want to refer to it as gender dysphoria or whatever it is, like this is like a part of me. So I'm just seeking to

like faithfully follow Jesus within that, um, as, as painful as that is sometimes. Is that the studies show that, um, likely you'll deal with this for life? I mean, you can mitigate it, maybe do things to help reduce that radio noise in the background? Or where are we at on that with how to manage this? You know, I have heard, so for instance, like from Ann Lawrence, that, yeah, in terms of if you want to classify it as a paraphilia, which I think in and of itself is a bit controversial. Yeah. find to be helpful and maybe uh less stigmatizing and ann lawrence promotes the same idea yeah that hey this can help people to like think of it as like a sexual orientation but paraphilia is apparently i'm not a scientist or a researcher but can't can't be changed um oh okay would you

mind if i would it be okay if i read something from this section, which I think is really, um, and then I, I've got another podcast here in a few minutes. So, um, after this, we'll we'll start to land a plane. Sounds good. Okay. So this is from a section near the end of men trapped in men's bodies. Um, it's the section entitled the existential dilemma of the gender dysphoric autogynephile. And why I like this, I feel like it's really poignant and gives people a sense of kind of the struggle that someone in my shoes might experience. And I'll just preface by saying, this is my struggle without Christ, like without Christ, this is my only hope. What what she's describing here in this section of the book.

So, his circumstances force him to consider the existential question. Could he live a happier, more meaningful, more rewarding life as a woman, as a transsexual woman, or would he be better off continuing to live as a man? This is a genuine dilemma because neither option is really satisfactory. Continuing to live as a man would be the easier, less expensive, and safer option. That way, he could keep his job, his reputation, his friends, and perhaps his marriage if he has one. Continuing to live as a man wouldn't kill him. He has, after all, done it for years. He could continue to live a life of quiet desperation. But he would still experience significant and often severe gender dysphoria,

perhaps every day of his life. Eventually, he would become an old man who had never tried to live his dream. He knows that what older adults invariably regret is not what they have done, but what they fail to do when they have the opportunity. The thought of wasting the only life he will ever have is sad and frightening. Alternatively, he could pursue sexual assignment. That way, he could at least tell himself that he had tried to live his dream. And if he were to succeed in some measure, how great would that be? How many people can say that they achieved, in some measure, what they wanted most? If he successfully transitioned, he would finally be playing on the right team, the women's team, and those awful male genitalia would be gone forever. But he also knows that he would never have a normal life as a woman. He would always be an

oddity, albeit perhaps a fascinating or even admirable oddity. And he could easily lose any of the things that currently make his life comfortable and safe, his job, his reputation, his friends, his family. Moreover, the kind of womanhood he could achieve would inevitably be shoddy and inadequate. He would never be able to completely erase the masculinizing effects of testosterone on his body and brain, nor the masculinizing effects of decades of living in society as a man. For an autogynephilia dysphoric man to be willing to try to rebuild his life around his paraphilia by pursuing sex reassignment, despite the genuine risk and inevitable limitations involved, he usually needs to be both very brave and very desperate.

And let me tell you, I have felt that desperation many times before. This is more above all else what leads me into doubt and weighing the cost of my following of Christ more than anything else. This is what I'm sacrificing. If, you know, Paul says something along the lines of like, hey, if there is no hope, then we as Christians should be pitied above all else. I feel the weight of that when I think of like, well, what if there is no life after death? And this is the only life that I live. And this is my only hope at like kind of happiness on earth is to pursue these things. Yeah, that's a real weight that I carry. And I know a weight that besides autogonophiles, a weight that many of my trans brothers and sisters carry.

Anophiles await that many of my trans brothers and sisters carry. So that paragraph is so honest. And yeah, it's, it is sad if, because it's written without Jesus. Right. I mean, and that's,

you know, that can be cliched like, Oh, just Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, he fixes everything. It's like,

well, life can be more complicated, but still like, I mean, you said it best, just you add the hope of Jesus in the middle of that and then it's manageable. But if not, when I read that assessment, like here's this option, here's that option, it's like I'm kind of screwed. Like either way, I'm just rolling the dice and there's not a lot of hope

there. What advice, I just got a couple of minutes, if somebody's listening, which I, you know, which was probably 20,000 people listening. I would imagine there's at least 100 people listening that might be resonating with your story. That's like a small church. Danny, you can be the pastor. What would you tell somebody who might be like, oh my gosh, I did not know there's a name for this, or I feel like this might be me.

What's the next step for somebody who's resonating with your story? You know, I think that a tremendous amount of relief to a certain extent can be found from having a name for your struggle and, and kind of finally identifying like, oh my gosh, this is it. And there's other people like me. Um, at the same time, I think there's also a tremendous amount of joy. It's a bitter joy but joy nonetheless that understanding that everyone is kind of empty without christ um in in what i just shared you know, I feel that very poignantly because I know truly in the depths of my heart that my only hope is in the restoration of all things at the end of time when I can stand

before Jesus and I can truly experience that healing that I once thought that I felt where I don't feel any dysphoria anymore and I'm at perfect peace and a perfect satisfaction. That's where my real hope lies. My hope doesn't lie in necessarily self understanding or anything like that. I think all of these things are helpful. And certainly helpful to the extent that they can release us from feeling like, oh, I need to feel a special amount of shame for my experience. But yeah, I don't know if that's very, as helpful as you might have hoped for those hundred people listening. But yeah, I want to tell them too, like, you're not alone. You don't need to feel an extra dose of shame for what you're experiencing. Like, Jesus loves you in your brokenness.

And by the way, it's not just you that is broken. Everyone has broken sexuality. Everyone has a broken gender identity as we're all just trying to navigate like how is god calling me to live as a man or as a woman or as an intersex person of one of very few intersex persons who might be kind of ambiguous but um yeah yeah it's what about a resource where would you point them to is they're like oh my gosh what is the best thing out there that I should read then? We've referenced Anne Lawrence's book a lot. There's nothing really.

I mean, in terms of a Christian approach, you have Yarhouse, his two-page, two or three-page discussion of just kind of what it is. I have a passing paragraph in my book. All the stuff out there is not, I mean, they're not written by Christians, which I think can be really helpful for understanding it, but they're still not going to give like a good pastoral kind of assessment. But yeah, what would be the one,

the next, if someone's might be experiencing this, but it hasn't read anything, what would be your first recommendation? I see you're recommending I write a book. I get it. I'm reading between the lines. Wink. Okay. No, I am. Very astute. I think that one of the most helpful kind of summations for me was in that book by Deborah So, The End of Gender. Again, I won't recommend the whole book or endorse the whole book. Heck, hear this, please, anyone.

I don't necessarily endorse all of the theory of autogynephilia, although I do find it helpful for understanding myself. But that chapter is a really good, I think, entry point into getting a really good summary of what the experience is. really good summary of what the experience is. And if you're interested in exploring further, then yes, Anne Lawrence's Men Trapped in Men's Bodies is a really good read, but only for those who are interested. Yeah, that one's pretty academic. I have one other friend read it and he thought it was helpful. If you want an easier read, but a more controversial read, J. Michael Bailey is a man who would be queen. I thought it was – like most critiques in this conversation, most harsh critics haven't charitably read a book. Like when I read the book, I did not see it as transphobic at all.

He's got trans friends. He's good friends with Anne Lawrence and others and everything. He just writes as like, hey, here's the science. Here's the facts. He's got trans friends. He's good friends with Dan Lawrence and others and everything. He just writes. He's like, hey, here's the science. Here's the facts. He's not sensitive. He's not a sensitive person or writer. But he's not offensive.

I didn't find it offensive at all. I thought it was really helpful actually. It's on my list. It's a page turner. It's more – what's funny is it actually won an award from the Lambda. The Lambda. Yeah, but then it was revoked because people got upset. But originally – He was nominated, yeah.

The LGBT community originally found it really helpful. Then other people didn't and it got – I mean he got death threats and rape threats and I mean just horrifically – yeah. I mean, yeah. It was was the wake of that was nasty. In fact, Alex Dreger, Alice Dreger, her book, Galileo's Middle Finger, which is I think is the best titled book of any book ever. Galileo's Middle Finger. It's a good one.

She documents kind of that book book and also when people do science and it's becomes politically incorrect what happens and everything and um yeah um and these are all there they all these people who write on this are on the left these aren't like concert this isn't like no you know chris rufo or – I don't know if that makes sense. But it's not like somebody who's out to destroy the left or whatever. These are all people who are very liberal in their thinking. You probably explained this in your introduction. But that is one reason why I'm choosing to kind of withhold more information about myself is just, you know, to protect not only me, I have, I don't have the biggest self-preservation tactics, but my wife,

especially in our privacy, just as I look to hopefully approach this conversation with, with a lot of nuance and grace and yeah, understanding. Danny, thanks for being on Theology in a Raw. Thank you so much for your honesty, your courage and your wisdom, really. I know that this podcast is going to help people who might not have found help anywhere else. So thank you so much for opening yourself up. Thanks for having me, man. It's been a pleasure. Take care.