Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep994: #994 - A Transwoman (Seda) Interviews Preston about His Views on Trans Identities

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

Writing a book on transgender idendities as a non-trans person is a bit bold, some might say audacious. This is why I decided to open myself up to my friend Seda, who is a transwoman. Seda read my book Embodied and appreciated a lot of things in it, but she does have some disagreements, which we discuss in this podcast. Seda has become a friend over the last year and has been an incredible dialogue partner.  –––––– 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/theology –––––– 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. My guest today is my friend Seda Collier. You might remember about a year ago, Seda was on the podcast for the first time. That podcast was interesting because Seda had reached out to me after reading my book Embodied. Seda is a trans woman. She read my book, really loved it, had some questions, reached out to me. And we had a couple email exchanges and I said, hey, why don't let's... I think we set up a time to Zoom chat to get to know each other more. And I said, Hey, why don't we just get to know each other more on the podcast? I'll just hit record. And so that's what we did. So our first time actually talking to each other, at least online, was recorded in real time. Again, I think it was last fall, maybe. So we've kept up since

then. Seda came out to the Exiles in Babylon conference where we were able to see each other for the first time. We exchange emails and we chat periodically. So I wanted to bring her back on the podcast. But I said, Seda, would you want to come back on the podcast and you be the host? You interview me. And at first, she was like, Oh, no, no, no, no, I don't do that. I'm like, no, no. Like here, here's my motivation. Like I, I'm not trans. I write this book on transgender identities, which is a very daring, some might even say audacious thing to do. So I would love to take the backseat here and let a trans person, a trans woman, yeah, have at it. Whatever

questions you have, pushbacks, whatever you want to do, the floor is yours. So that's what we do in this podcast. We talk about several different things. The main leading question, which took about a half hour to actually come back to after Seda asked me it. She was pushing back against my biblical argument against transitioning, which I have in the book. I make the argument somewhat cautiously, but I did give reasons why I don't think transitioning resonates with God's intent. Seda transitioned over 10 years ago and isn't quite convinced, I'll say it like that, of my argument. So we get into some details surrounding that and other things. So anyway, that's what this podcast is all about. I hope you enjoy it. And please welcome back to the show for the second time, the one and only Seda Collier. Seda, thanks for coming back on Theology in the Raw.

I thought of this a while back when we decided to do another podcast. And I was like, you know what? It does take a little bit of audacity. I don't want to frame it negatively, but I'm somebody who doesn't experience gender dysphoria. I'm not trans and I write a whole book on transgender identities. Some people think that that shouldn't be done, right? Like if you don't have this experience, you're not allowed to say anything. I don't believe that because, yeah, the conversation and obviously I'm not writing a memoir.

I'm not claiming to have the experience at all. I'm trying to, you know, approach it relationally as much as I can. But, but this conversation does raise lots of ethical, theological, scientific questions and stuff that, um, I think, yeah, I just want to know how to navigate and, and, and know, find some kind of answer to some of these hard questions. Anyway, that's a long way to say, I think it's okay to write the book. And yet I do, I am, I am nervous about writing something like I wasn't nervous about doing it because I don't have that experience. So yeah, I'm in this in-between space. I wasn't nervous about doing it because I don't have that experience. So yeah, I'm in this in-between space. Anyway, Seda, I would love for you to have the complete freedom to ask me to push any

question you want, push back, criticize parts of the book, praise parts of whatever you want to do, whatever you want to do. This interview is in your court. So you can have, take it however however you whatever direction you want to take Seda I'm rambling because I'm nervous I just keep talking even though I say I'm not supposed to be talking I'm kind of nervous

right now I'll stop yeah I really admire your work I like your work I respect it I think I agree with you on writing that and I think that your work. I respect it. I think I agree with you on writing that. And I think that your work, your ministry is like a city on a hill. It's like the light of it is a beacon of hope for a lot of people. Or, you know, for me, it is. Yeah. So on this, I think we agree with a lot more than we disagree,

but on this one subject that I'm going to talk about, um, today or, or start talking about is something that we disagree about. So I think it's important to your work. It's important to my life because I am a transgender Christian. Your work is with transgender LGBT Christians and people in general. And so I think it's something that can be really meaningful. The other thing, I'm going to enter into this through a podcast you had with Dr. Abigail Favali, your podcast number 886. number 886. And I want to be clear also that Dr. Pabali can

view this and I would welcome her rebuttal. We did have a really nice, after I listened to the podcast, we had a really nice email conversation. She lived in Oregon at the time. I understand she's in the process or has already moved to Notre Dame. I hope she does well there. I'm sure she will. But obviously, we're not – we were close enough that we could have taken a day on a weekend or something and met, and we talked about that.

But she was busy, and it ended up dropping off of, I think, both of our calendars and getting lost in the cracks. So the question I want to start out with is from a comment you made in that podcast where you said, I can't make a good ethical case for transition for transgender Christians. And my response to that is that I've never heard any person, whether Christian or not, make a good case that transition in general and mine specifically is inherently and always unethical and in conflict with Christianity. that in my experience, my transition was key to growing in faith and to experience the fruit of the Spirit. You know, like it says in Galatians, what is it? Five. I forget that. Five.

Yeah. Yeah, five something. Five something. Five twenty-eight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We could Google it, but that would, yeah, speed bump in our conversation. Right, exactly. So in this conversation, I want to see if we can pull those together.

If we can't, I don't have any expectations about it. My expectations on this is that we're going to have a good conversation, hopefully move this in a way that will actually help other Christians or other transgender people to navigate this situation. Yeah. So your question is, what is, in a sense, it's kind of turning around that comment. So what is an ethical or theological case against transitioning? Yeah. Right. And you made it in your book, Your Body, which I have here on my iPad right next to me. I should get my copy out, but I should remember what should, uh, I should remember what I said. Um, yeah, no, I mean, yeah, that, that's, uh, obviously, uh, uh, a huge question in general,

but obviously for, for, for your life. And even, um, I do remember really hesitating writing that chapter or going into it. I think in my first few paragraphs, I'm even like, I almost don't want to write this chapter. Um, but it seems, Oh yeah. It seems disingenuous. Like, well, you're going to talk about this topic and not address that question. Um, just because it's, it's, it's, it's relationally difficult to address. Because it's relationally difficult to address. So yeah, I was nervous going in.

And I have a few caveats up front. First of all, you are among a few friends that I have, let alone other people that I've met along the way, where based on their testimony, transitioning was a sort of... I don't know if everyone would put it in these terms but almost like a latch ditch effort to survive there was just so much debilitating um uh depression anxiety suicidality i mean whatever term you want to i know gender dysphoria is kind of its own thing but just it's just i could not move forward in life. And then post-transition, they, including you, have experienced life much more fully. Not that all the problems or whatever struggles went away. Not that dysphoria went completely away, but it was significantly minimized to where it was livable.

Would that be an accurate way to just sum up how you would look back on your transition? I mean, you, that was like almost, almost 18 years. Um, I, I started transition in 2000, like January 1st, 2007. So it's a, it's an easy date to remember. Right. Um, had surgery in, in, uh, January, uh, or not, uh, July 23rd, 2013. So we're coming up on nine-year anniversary, and it's like, wow. It's like life keeps getting better. Going back to your book, actually, a quote from Embodied is, I think there are good biblical and ethical reasons why a disciple of Jesus should not transition. I want to say, I agree with that. I absolutely agree with that.

Okay. And, um, what I would also say is that, um, I don't think there are good biblical and ethical reasons that no disciple of Jesus ever should transition. So for you, there's a lot of wrong reasons for transitioning, but we shouldn't, from your view, it shouldn't be stated absolutely, like as a category for all people. It's not an absolute. Right. Okay. And we've even talked before about some of the rise in the teenagers transitioning and

some of the medical approaches there where both of us would be really right um not like pretty nervous about that to say the least okay so we can get back to that later on right right remember i'm in the driver's seat so yes you hold me to this don't let me wander say to don't let me get away okay so let me um my my one one more caveat and then I'll sum up my case. I do think that there is more ambiguity, less clarity on this question than other questions. For instance, the question about the definition of marriage. you know, I hold to a, I not only hold to a traditional or historically Christian view of marriage, but I think that, man, I think there's a lot more clarity in scripture on that, that, that sex difference in marriage is, is, you know, we have several statements along those lines. We have statements about what kinds of sex, sexual relationships are valid or not. And there's just really direct, clear statements there from my point of view. Um, and we can bring up a whole host of other theological questions where it's like on the scale of clarity to less clear.

It's like we can figure out where we're at on that. And I would say that there's less clarity on this question, specifically the absolute nature of it. Could there be some exceptions to maybe a general paradigm? And that's where I'm like, well, here's where I'm at. Here's why. But I'm certainly open to be shown where my thinking is flawed. And I would recognize that there's some, we're going on some broad theological themes, not just specific statements in scripture. And whenever you do that, you should be a little, a little more open handed. So having said all that,

here's, here's how I guess I would hold on. Yeah. Hold on to that. Okay. Okay. Cause I want to move to something else. I want to move something that I've been thinking about a lot.

Okay. And get your thoughts on that. And that is, again, I'm, I want to stick with our, with your interview with, with Abigail for a while, Dr. Pappali. And in it, you discussed gender as a social construct and all of that stuff.

You agreed that gender has a biological basis. I agree with that. But the gender role, gender expression, gender stereotypes are all social constructs. And you even talked about in that, that, you know, in the way that some people and probably and know probably about it, some trans activists talk about gender, there are like literally 7 billion some gender identities. Yeah, yeah. Talked about the gender identity of precedent. I mean, that was from your interview. But I want to take it a step further.

Okay. And I want to say, is gender identity itself a social construct? Ooh, gender identity. I would say the modern definition of gender, and if somebody is new to this podcast or whatever, everything you're saying about gender, social construct, repeating what I have said, social construct, repeating what I have said, that's according to the more modern use of the term gender when it's used not to refer to biological sex. So I don't think biological sex is a social construct, but how we express ourselves, pink, blue, long hair, short hair, yeah, there's socially constructed things that go into that the reason why pink is an a female gender expression is because of culture modern american culture there's nothing intrinsically female about the color pink so um gender identity i would say it yes well i would say it has

elements of social construction i'm thinking out loud here say this so um can i butt in with some of my thoughts and see how that informed yours well let me let me yes let me finish this thought real quick so um and i'm thinking like if somebody says my my gender identity is female and i ask them hey can you explain why that is? They would probably describe femaleness as a gender identity in ways that are grabbing onto cultural constructions around what it is to be a female, if that makes sense. Absolutely, it does. But my thoughts on it, cause I've been,

I've been thinking about this a lot and, and I think that all identities that, that identity itself is a social construct that, that, you know, like faith identity, right? My faith identity as a christian is a social construct it's created in a context of other people who share that same faith so whatever your identity whatever identity you have or whatever identity you choose for yourself as your social, as you know, as who you are, is, is a chosen or socially imposed self-reference that may or may not be rooted in reality. That's the way I described it. Oh, that's right. So did you make that up? That's a great, that's, that's a great, I think so.

Although, I mean, yes, in the sense that I, if I that if I took it from someone else, I don't know where that was. It's something that I took in at some point. But yeah, but it makes sense. Identity is a chosen or socially imposed self-reference that may or may not be rooted in reality. So, for instance, you know, take race, right? Race is an identity that is socially imposed. Yeah. But we take that in, right? Race is an identity that is socially imposed. But we take that in, right? So I totally identify as white, because as far as I know, I have no ancestors from south of Alsace-Lorraine

in the last 500 years. And I do want to say too, sometimes just because something is a social construct or informed by social construct constructs doesn't mean it's wrong or bad or anything we're social beings i mean christian it could be a has social elements to it as an identity you know um so yeah it's not because some people think oh it's if you say it's a social construct then then you're dismissing it. I'm like, no, I'm just saying our current society informs whatever this thing we're talking about. Right. Well, take the identity, sex identity, right?

Identity of male and female. It's a social construct because you take that in. But if you lived on an island somewhere where you never encountered a female, right? All the, all the people are males like Preston. Um, would, would your sex identity have any meaning? I don't know that it would. That's an interesting question. I would say, I don't think biological sex is a social construct. I think it has. I don't either. Okay. Um, I don't either, but I'm, I'm saying, I think your sex identity, you know, is a social construct. What's the difference? I

think I know what you're saying, but what's the, what's the difference between your sex and your sex identity? Your sex identity is you take that in as you know, as you present, for instance, is you take that in as you know as you present for instance your sexual identity is as male right biologically you are male your identity is rooted in reality you're in in that case right so and like occupational identity right so, for instance, I work for the government, right? So I have an occupational identity as a public servant, right? But I also have maybe an imposed identity from a certain segment of the population as a bureaucrat. Well, that same thing, but which one am I going to adopt? I'm probably public servant because a bureaucrat doesn't sound so good. But it's a reality in either way. In the same way, you can have

identities that don't reflect reality. You were talking in a recent podcast about um furries which is something i'm not familiar with oh you gotta google google well actually no don't google yeah but but i understand from that it's somebody who is who's adopted a species identity as something other than human homo sapiens even though they are homo sapiens right so you've adopted an identity that does not reflect reality yeah it's just to be furries are a little more complex than that that i don't think they many of them wouldn't actually think they're a different species but they would um kind of uh take off as far as i understand it's more like a role it's almost like it'd be similar to how some people describe drag you know where it's almost like a performing thing

not that they actually think they are this or whatever but they um would would yeah maybe you should just google it because i wasn't prepared for furries but um yeah no i don't want to talk about furries anyway i'm talking about identity okay yeah no that's okay i i it's kind of like when um did you uh you see the movie um oh what's the one uh jumanji with uh the rock do you see them uh it has a jack uh jack black yeah yeah so there are these avatars in a video game whatever and and uh jack black who's um who's a female in a uh well interestingly in in this male bodied avatar in this video game you know so female but it's Jack Black, you know, um, and sees the rock and, and she, Jack says, that there's, that's a man right there, you know? And to, to your point, she wasn't saying, he wasn't saying like, that's a biological male, but like, that's a man he's muscular just ripped he's huge he's strong chiseled face you

know but that that is more like that spills over now into more of a social construction of what it means to be a man you know man man a manly man you know um yeah yeah he he was making a statement of more but then just acknowledging the biological sex. So it sounds like that's kind of what you're saying, that even being a man or a woman has socially constructed elements as an identity. Is that? Yeah, that identity itself is socially constructed. And it can be either rooted in reality or it can diverge from reality right and i i think the the objection that um i'm gonna call it non-affirming people or christians have

about trans identities is is that that our identities are are are not, um, they're not an accurate, they're not rooted in reality. Okay. Right. I'm going to be all over the map here a little bit, but I think that's okay. Hopefully it'll come back to come together. Is it all the years of psychedelics? Hey, I didn't do that many. Um, I've told your story several times where you met Jesus on a acid trip back in, or you're, yeah, that's a crazy story. That's insane.

Yeah. Well, it is. It is. And what's really interesting about it is, you know, meeting, well, like matthew chapter four in a way um but in a way the the inverse well i don't want to go there yeah it'd be great to talk about that like i mean that could self. But so building on that, Abigail said the body reveals the person in that podcast. And I think that seems to me to be very simplistic.

Now, what she means is that the maleness of a person reveals the essential truth about that person. And it seems to me that it's the essential truth, right? But how else do you apply that? For instance, what does Stephen Hawking's body say about him? Right? The body does reveal something about the person. I'll agree with that, but it doesn't reveal the person. It reveals

an aspect or maybe a few aspects of the person. We frequently all too frequently hear about some professional athlete who has an absolutely beautiful body who does some really reprehensible thing like Kareem Hunt, right? The video of him pushing and kicking a woman, right? I mean, this big, strong, so what does his body reveal about him? I would say that that action actually reveals more about him or a very significant aspect about him than, um, you know, just the body itself. So, and, and the other thing about it is,

what does that say about, you know, is the brain part of the body? Right. Yeah. That's, that's where when people push back against certain trans, certain trans ideologies, you will never hear me say transgender ideology in the singular Seda. Yay. Thank you. Yes. I mean, you, you, uh, I was already on board with that and you reminded me of that. Um, uh, thank you. Yes. I mean, you, you, uh, I was already on board with that and you

reminded me of that. Um, but when certain, when some people typically more politically conservatives attack what they think is transgender ideology in the singular, they often just say, this is just biology. This is just whatever. And it's like, we got the, you're, you're ignoring the whole complexity between biological sex and the brain, and the brain is part of biology. So just to say biology is not – it's just sloppy, really. And if I've done that, then I would sloppy. I don't think I've done that, but yeah. I don't think so.

I don't think so. Maybe in passing in certain conversations, I might say – I typically don't say well it's like snippet like twitter type phrases in a complex conversation so yeah well i think those are forgivable okay so should i answer the question then and then um yeah sure okay so it's related to what you're going with identity um so i so I would say, so is transitioning compatible with a, um, a biblical view of human nature, whatever. And I, um, suggested not again with some level of like, Hey, there's some, there's some complexity here. There's body brain complexity, there's scientific complexity, there's less scriptural clarity.'s body-brain complexity. There's scientific complexity.

There's less scriptural clarity. But as I look at the totality of scripture, there's several things that I see. The biggest one is the starting point of, and this is summarizing my chapter, which you've read, but that God creates humans as male and female in Genesis one. And that, that biological sex identity that God has given us through our bodies, um, is related to how we

bear God's image. It's, it's in the image of God, he created them male and female. He created them so that there seems to be some kind of relationship between bearing God's image and our biological sex. We see throughout scripture, you know, and this is where we kind of, it's a theological big picture, but like a Judeo-Christian view of human nature does have like a high reverence for the body. And then that's in a world where there's lots of other philosophies that didn't have that view. Platonism and Neoplatonism had a more negative view of the body. And then you have in, you know, the first few centuries after Christianity started, you know, Gnosticism and other kind of forms of Christianity also took on more of a Neoplatonist view of the body.

So you have the image of God related to bearing god's uh bearing god's image as male and female and then you do have a few places in scripture where maintain like um maintaining distinctions between male and female are upheld so you know you had the cross-dressing prohibition which i you know is if that's all we had, I'd be like, well, okay, I wouldn't want to plant my stake there. There's some questions about translation or whatever. But then you have other passages like 1 Corinthians 11, where it seems that like the Corinthian church was kind of collapsing, like male-female identities. And Paul says, no, let's maintain these distinctions. And Paul says, no, let's maintain these distinctions.

So you do have a few passages throughout Scripture that seems to affirm the Genesis 1 and 2 picture of humanity. So that's a really short... I would actually affirm that as well. But, you know, but again, we have certain things that, that indicate something that there are exceptions, right? And you talked about brain sex theory and that it's inconsistent. And what I find interesting about that is, is that Abigail says brain sex theory fails because the scientific evidence or data is contradictory and inconsistent. And I would say, yeah, ish, but there's some there there, right? Yeah.

jump ahead here Preston because what I'm kind of building to is is that what it means to be trans which is a question you ask in that interview yeah is is that you have is that a transgender person has a subconscious sex that is different than their biological sex. Right. And that's so, yeah. Which is, which is different than gender identity, right? We use the term throughout the way that the medical establishment, the psychological establishment, and so on, talk about it. We talk about gender identity and and there's

some things that are really don't seem to work um with that let me let me just read have you seen the um what the american psychological association says about transgender what does transgender mean i'm sure i've read it this is this is yeah i'll read straight from their website yeah transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth by that definition that's like what 30 40 50 percent of the population yeah that definition i think that definition is propped up by gender stereotypes without acknowledging it like absolutely yeah you know and and i think that's why that um that whole branch why why we get into so much trouble in our whole – the way that this whole conversation goes is because we haven't been able to identify what being trans really is, right? professionals or healthcare professionals who are making this claim that, that is clearly based

not on biological reality, but on gender stereotypes and, and this thing called gender identity, which I think is a social construct. And again, you know, I have to make that caveat. I'm not a healthcare professional. I'm not a psychologist or a psychiatrist or anything like this. I'm just somebody who's looking at it and going, that doesn't make sense. Yeah. Well, you're well-read, too. Don't sell yourself. Oh, yeah.

You don't just have the experience, obviously, but you're very very well read in this area. And I would also like to say, when it comes to this science, the quote unquote science around sex and gender and all this, I'm very unimpressed with people's credentials. Some of the stuff they say that's so inaccurate, so clearly ideologically driven that it's like, oh, I think this is kind of fair game for anybody because the quote unquote experts don't know what they're talking about so exactly you know on the other on their hand you have you know like on one side you have somebody like paul mchugh who's like this very well credentialed doctor who you read what he actually says and it's like he didn't even look at anybody he he knew what he was he knew his conclusion before he interviewed those trans women they were trans women um you know when he first started back in the 70s or you look at say um you know uh dr thomas bevin right you you quoted from his book the psychobiology of

transgenderism and trans uh transsexual, he or they or she comes to the conclusion, she's trans, come to the conclusion that transgenderism is a benign behavioral phenomenon, right? Well, it's not benign if it causes people such severe distress that they commit suicide or that they need some really invasive surgery in order to find relief. That's not benign. Right. That's a disorder. Yeah. go with with the whole trans conversation is away from gender identity and toward um identifying as subconscious sex right so this is this is i'm taking this directly from

julia serrano i want to make you know okay this is not original to me i want to attribute this where it belongs but jul Julia Serrano, who is a feminist, radical trans woman, who is, as far as I know, not Christian at all. experience of being trans is that her subconscious sex meaning that part of her that there's a part of her brain that truly believes that her body is female that's my experience yeah yeah you know and and it's it's the part of the brain you can't access consciously and so that's what you mean by so it's subconscious sex is a form of kind of brain sex theory right in a way but but brain sex theory is talking about that you have male brains and female brains right right and you can get into the wrong brain in the wrong body and and i think this is completely, not completely different, but I think this is significantly different, right? Because in the way that seems to me to be consistent with all the data points, scientific data points, scriptural data points, and testimony

of transgender people, including people who have transitioned and then detransitioned, is it's not like you have a male brain and a female brain. I think there's a lot of data that says that that isn't the case. But that every brain does have a subconscious sex, right? There is a part of your brain that is engaged in what your body is, what your body looks like, that is connected to the sexual organs, if that makes sense. push back or disagreement more of a yeah yeah is that sex as a thing is intrinsically anatomical i almost said biological but it's it's and there isn't like subconscious sex is not a thing that can be subconscious it's it's a the term sex is describing anatomical bodies. And if you say, well, no, it can't, we need a term to describe the sexual dimorphic nature

of Homo sapiens as mammals. So if sex isn't that, then we need a term to describe that. Like how, how would you describe the fact that mammals are sexually dimorphic because that means it is sex huh it is sex so then but that but then we can't use sex to describe something that's something different something that's subconscious but you have both right there's there's a part of your brain that is that is instinctive that like the amygdala and the the hypothalamus right that is associated with things like emotion right oh i feel like a woman well what does that mean right right um that doesn't really make sense because because did you know how do you even like what does that relate that i mean

yeah yeah i mean it doesn't make sense category woman is not a feeling right it's a it's an objective state right exactly and and you know you're not saying so just to be clear for the people listening so when you say subconscious sex you're you're saying this is something different than when people say i feel like a a woman, therefore I am a woman. It's more than a feeling. More than a feeling. It's actually, it's hard to describe because it's not something that's accessible through conscious thought. Right?

So how do you describe something? Okay. So, so how do you describe the, the blue sky to a person who has been blind from birth? Okay. Right. But the sky is still blue, right? Okay. No, that's interesting. Yeah. Okay. I mean, this is, this is really hard to even explain but and but it's it's probably a lot easier for me because because there is no way that a person who is i'm going to use the word normal although i don't like to use that in this context typical i typically use typical rather than abnormal normal. Yeah.

Typically that would be a better way to do it. Yeah. Um, so yeah, you know, someone who is typical, um, will never be aware of the, of the, that subconscious sex even exists. But the way Julius Serrano described it is that there, that there's a part of her brain that's absolutely convinced from, you know, from the beginning that,

um, that her genitals were female genitals. Right. But wouldn't you say, I totally relate to that. And I have zero disagreement with the lived experience i mean that's yeah and i think i you know five years ago or even three years ago i would have said dismiss that it's like well whatever okay you know but i'm like i i don't want to dismiss

lived experience i don't think you can build a case just on that but i i want to take that very seriously and so yeah i'll i'll i'll have kind of zero comment about um i have obviously i can't even understand what it is to to live what you're describing as subconscious sex but wouldn't it i mean going back to the original can i tell you what it was for me sure i mean there's lots of different ways but one of the ways is that it felt like there was an internal war, that there was an internal war that I didn't really have full access to that was ongoing and constant. And it's reflected in dreams that I had, this recurring dream that I had for years and years and years, where in my dream I would encounter this man who would just stand there and who was, I knew, threatened my life. And so I would attack this man, right, male,

with all kinds of different ones, different dreams. It's like everything from guns, clubs, knives, baseball bats, fists, you know, in all kinds of different ways. And the man would just stand there. And whatever I did would not harm him, no matter how violent it was. And it was absolutely terrifying. And it wasn't until after I transitioned that I realized that that man was the male persona I'd been trying to hold on to. Right? For all that time. And unfortunately, our time is getting short and I have to go to work.

Oh, gosh. Okay. Yeah. And so there's a few things that I want to go to work. Oh, gosh. Okay. I mean, yeah. And so there's a few things that I want to get to. Let me at least add one thing regarding. So when you say subconscious sex, I'm going back to the original definition of an identity is something that may or may not be rooted in reality. I would say if a biological female has a subconscious sex that is not female, then that identity, as strong as it is and as real as it is as an experience, is still not rooted in reality because the person is factually female or factually male based on their biology.

Would that be? That actually gets to the question you ask in your in your book embodied it's all it's based on this question it's repeated throughout if someone experiences incongruence between their gender and you is why which one why not both well i would say both are possible for sure as an identity um a male can certainly identify as something as a reality reality um because the our brain is part of our body right right right well i see that that's really sound like brain sex theory and that's where i get it's not it's not no i i i think it's distinct from brain sex theory right because brain sex theory says male brain and female brain is what i understand yeah yeah yeah right and that's not the case right but but you know if you look at intersex you have some

intersex conditions that you can't really say well is this person ontologically female or is this person ontologically male like like um well that's talking about someone who has who has both xx and xy chromosomes right so that's um that's because there is ambiguity in the anatomical right biological because you can because you can measure it because you can see it well well not necessarily it's it's the very thing that we're talking about, biological sex. There is ambiguity there. So if we ask the question, is this person male or female, based on the very meaning of sex, there might be some ambiguity there. Whereas somebody who doesn't have a sex condition, there's no ambiguity in the sex based on the definition of sex. Definition of sex.

Until you say that the brain is part of the body and is part of the sexual anatomy of the human being, which I find it really hard to say it's not. Well, that, I can't, I just sound so much like brain sex. Because if you say the brain is part of sexual anatomy, that is the essence of brain sex theory, that the brain, the state of the brain contributes to whether a person is male or female. And I would say it doesn't. That the brain... I would acknowledge that males and females have general patterns of behavior and interests and thoughts that are different on a general level, but not on an absolute level. The brain's not sexually dimorphic like the body is, but, but see now I'm, I'm punching in the wind because you're saying, well, yeah, I'm not even, I'm not trying to argue for brain sex theory. That's, that's exactly right. What I'm, what I'm,

what I'm arguing for is that, that where the data points line up is that transgenderism is a neurological disorder to me. You would say that? You're fine with that phrase? Because some people would find that offensive, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I believe there are plenty of people. But I think that it is.

are plenty of people but but i think that it is and i think that that it where it's found is that for whatever reason and i think it's complex and it probably includes the the bnst or bsdc whatever you want to call it which is you know yeah the part of the brain right right. And in Embodied, you talk about or you cite a study that talks about how they've discovered that the BSTC, the way you put it in that is the BSTC doesn't mature. until like um i don't know age you know 2025 something like that which which is a data point that is that it can be used to say well what does that have to do with with the subconscious sex then with with actual you know something different in the brain being trans but i look at that and i compare that to another data point the fact that um among adolescents who experience gender dysphoria um depending on the study i think it's like 66 to 88 yeah resolve yeah to me that that those line up right i mean that's like what would you expect of something of an organ that doesn't mature until that point or a you know a part of the brain that doesn't mature until that point or a, you know, a part of the brain that doesn't mature until that point is, is yeah.

You know, as it matures, it revolves, resolves for a lot of people. This is actually the, the thing that has, that really turned me away from, you know, like, like 10 years ago or so I was, I was an advocate for early transition, for adolescence, for medical transition. I was like, yeah, how would my life have been different had I started transition when I was 13 and running around wearing

my mom's or sister's clothes part of the time and the rest of the time working really hard to prove that I was a man. I was a boy in the case, you know, I mean, seriously, you know, I don't know if you're familiar with, with the book that, um, uh, William Decker wrote to be a man. No, I read that as a textbook. It's a novel, you know, and I was reading it as a textbook, you know i read that as a textbook it's it's a novel you know and i was reading it as a textbook you know to be a man this is what i need to do you know didn't work right but but um i did want to cover a couple more things yeah and then i have like a hundred thousand more questions to ask you and yeah

but um in the interview with abigail she says a temptation is a promise that can't deliver and ultimately trans identification is a temptation because it promises something that can't be delivered and i want to push back on that a little bit because what did transition promise for me it promised relief from gender dysphoria right and it delivered yeah right like now you were on a scale of one to ten were you like at a your dysphoria like at a 10 before and now it's a zero or how would you map it out? When I start, when I started transition and I was, I was off the scale. Really?

I was like, my, my transition was so severe that, that it was really, really, really hard to function at all. Your, your dysphoria was so severe. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It's like a year after I transitioned, I overheard my son playing with his next door neighbor friend from across the street who watched this whole thing happen. And his friend said, don't you miss having a dad? And Trin said, no, I like her much better as a woman. It's because all of a sudden, instead of having this disengaged, depressed mess of a father, he had a parent who was engaged, who was available, who was able to express love, who was alive. So she follows that up by saying that it, transition, promises that you can become something other than what you are. But that's not true for me because her promise, right, what it promises is that I'm a transgender woman. Right. Which, by definition, is a male with a subconscious sex of female. OK, that's that's my definition. Right. Because I'm using subconscious sex instead of gender identity, because gender identity is is not a trustworthy term. Really? You'd say that? Okay. I absolutely, I would absolutely say that. You know, you look at all the different gender identities today.

You look at all the words that Judy Butler did with gender as a social construct. All of that comes down to gender identity. And you have people who have gender identities that have nothing to do with male or female, but gender exists in relation to sex. Right. She seems to be making the promise here that if I reject my trans identification, that I can become cisgender. That is not, you know, that's something I can't do. It's like, yeah.

Non-trans identification is a temptation. I tried to do that for what? 35 years. Really, really hard. Um, and, and so non-trans identification is a temptation because if I identify as a cisgender man, I'm still a trans woman. Yeah. If I identify as a cisgender woman, I'm still a trans woman yeah if i identify as a cisgender woman i'm still a male right you know it's a catch-22 so um so the temptation then is to pretend that i'm not trans yeah yeah trans identification i i think her i mean i don't want to put words on her. I think she's probably, I mean, you, you, you are a bit of an anomaly, Seda. Which, I mean, you're a great reminder that there's so much diversity within the trans conversation. But I think Abigail's probably arguing again, that statement is probably directed against somebody who thinks that they can change their anatomical sex and like that biological sex can actually

change but you're using the term trans woman not i am now biologically female although subconscious sex yeah so i'm i we would need to have you heard which i'm gonna have her on the podcast again but i think she's probably probably a lot of people that are uh arguing against a trans ideology are not gonna be addressing your your uh points of view um but did matt walsh miss it on his on his uh his documentary you know i i appreciated the documentary and obviously it's actually lined up with a lot of what he says. But man, he, yeah, he's, there's zero nuance in his, the kind that the certain trans ideology that he's addressing, which he thinks it's probably the whole thing. There's lots of complexity.

I mean, no, it seems almost no awareness, even brain sex theory and why that is right or wrong, you know. So, but I didn't expect nuance. Right. I actually appreciated your podcast because you really, on that, because you really pointed that out. You emphasize the fact that this is just one story out of many. Yeah. Did you watch the documentary and did you have thoughts on it? No,

I'm not going to sign up for the daily wire. Hopefully it'll come out some other point where I can access it. But, but no, I had to do it for research purposes. Yeah. Well, that's a good excuse.

I don't have to do it for research. I'm just living my life. So I'd be interested in seeing it, but you know, but having your, your review is good. Yeah. I think you would agree with, you'd probably actually, yeah. Appreciate a lot. I think I would resonate with a lot of it. It sounds like, you know, because, because I'm very skeptical of, of, you know, a lot of the way this whole conversation is. Right. Yeah. But you know, that's just me. Yeah. One more thing I'm going to have to leave, but, but I,

I wanted to close with one other thing that she said, because this one, this one is, it kind of hits me kind of hard okay um she said people i have to go to the grave struggling with gender dysphoria oh yeah and and my question is i mean i have a number of questions about this and we're not going to be able to address them unfortunately because i'm gonna have to leave um but but one of my questions is like what is how does my suffering from gender dysphoria bring any glory at all to god yeah and i it it didn't it doesn't what does it push me to do is to lose my faith because if i can't resolve it right then what did i do i mean it's like what are my options you know because i tried everything um therapy um occupational therapy going and joining the marines and and being a commercial fisherman um you know

prayer oh you know yeah talk talk about you know paul um with his with his he got his thorn in the side right and he prays three times and and and god says no three times and he's like okay well i guess i'll deal you know how many times did i pray to get rid of gender dysphoria um 400 000 you know i mean it's i mean probably not that many but you know but yeah a lot and and the answer was no so what point does does refusing to take no for an answer become an expression of lack of faith? You know, using chemicals to relieve acute distress, I would actually consider that to be, you know, neglecting my children. How about that one? Yeah.

Is that a sin? I would count it as a sin, you know. Suicide? Yeah. Is that a sin? I would count it as a sin. Suicide? Yeah. So I wonder what other disorders would we as Christians say, well, gee, yeah, there's this medical treatment you could take that would relieve the symptoms. It's not going to change anything. It'll just relieve the symptoms, but you won't suffer. But we think it's not ethical for you to do this, so just suffer. It's like the way I hear that is, sure, you'll suffer horribly for the rest of your short life, but at least you'll be welcome in church. And after you kill life, but at least you'll be welcome in church.

And after you kill yourself, we'll throw you a bang up funeral and tell you how holy you were. Say to everything you're saying there is whenever, just so you know, whenever I give talks on this, I typically take everything you said in the last five minutes and set that alongside how I'm understanding scripture. And I just let it, the tension kind of linger saying, I don't have a good way to resolve this. And I think it's because of your lived experiences like you, that Christians, wherever they land need to be really open handed and acknowledge the profound complexity here. Um,

and yeah, I don't, I don't, that's, that's where I'm like, I, when people like you and a few other friends say, okay,

what, what else could I have done? I have to say, I don't know. And I don't, I don't know. I don't know. Um,

I think, I think where we need to go with this, in my opinion, I think where we need to go is to try to find better diagnostic criteria. Because right now, I think that the diagnostic criteria we use suck. Yeah. To put it. Well, so from my knowledge, most quote unquote experts in this field, a lot of there's, there's, it's really, it's pretty, there's few who are taking therapeutic approaches that are really robust and thoughtful and, and, and profound. The majority that when people say I went to go get therapy, the person typically is not as qualified as they may seem. I am curious, is there, do you think there is a possibility of

some kind of therapeutic measures that is extremely maybe rare? Maybe it's the future will bring us some kind of therapeutic measure that will actually be successful at resolving the I'm really skeptical because I would think that given what neuroplasticity, the way I understand neuroplasticity works, where you rewire your brain by certain things, I would think that my brain would have been rewired a long time ago to be fully male. Because I tried really really hard you know yeah i mean i tried like i don't i don't i honestly don't know what else i could

have tried you know but um since since you were pre-transition trying to resolve dysphoria there's been a lot of advances in the last 10 years and and uh neurological development especially when it comes to gender dysphoria i mean this is 10 years ago it was like i mean people right right we've come a long way because there's been so much research done on it so i and again i'm not saying there is better therapy out there now than it was 10 years ago i'm just i'm wondering if if if there is you know um because you know i'll hear other psych you know some psychiatrists like estella oh uh o'malley the uh she's irish psychologist or psychiatrist i think and there's others like in the uk that when i hear them talk they they i don't know it seems more promising but again i i'm i don't know

the area so i don't want to like speak beyond to get on my knees on it but yeah you know and and for me i think it's too late it's it's like yeah it's like i'm over six years old and and i have a life that is absolutely filled with joy um with you know with faith with um you know yeah friends and stuff like that. But if you had somebody who was experiencing gender dysphoria as a child, and there were some way to resolve that through neuroplasticity, I have no idea what it would be. Right, yeah. But yeah, it's worth looking for.

Sure. Do you want to close this out? Or I'll thank you thank you for being the host of the origin of rock today hope i was a good guest well you were an awesome guest and you were a pretty good host too because you kind of you know you're have been a trans host or something uh really love you appreciate you thanks santa appreciate you This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.