Theology in the Raw - Should the State Ban Conversion Therapy for Minors? Dr. Julia Sadusky

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

Dr. Julia Sadusky is a licensed clinical psychologist, author, and speaker who specializes in sexuality, gender, and faith and has written several books in this area, including Start Talking to Your Kids about Sex. Julia has submitted an Amicus Brief concerning the recent case against the ban on conversation therapy in the state of Colorado. Join the Theology in the Raw community for as little as $5/month to get access to premium content.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology to Ra. My guest today is my friend, Dr. Julia Sideski, who is a licensed clinical psychologist, author, and speaker who specializes in sexuality, gender and faith. She's written several books in this area. And she recently submitted in amicus brief, no, amicus brief is apparently the correct pronunciation regarding some laws surrounding sexual orientation change efforts in the state of Colorado. This has become a really big issue, especially among Christians in Colorado, and that's where we go. And, man, I learned a lot from this conversation. Julia is always so clear and wise. And even when I push back, she always responds so graciously and makes me think like, huh, okay, actually maybe didn't understand everything I was saying. So anyway, welcome back to the show, the one and only, Julia Sideski. Julius Sideski, welcome back to Theology and Narov. Hi, Preston. It's good to be with you.

So glad to have you back on. You've been on at least two times, I think. So this is a kind of a different context. So you recently submitted, okay, so I was saying amicus brief, but it's amicus brief is the actual pronunciation. Allegedly, that's right. Allegedly. Regarding some stuff going on in Colorado regarding laws surrounding conversion therapy. We'll get into that in just one second. What is an amicus brief for those who don't know? Yeah, so I didn't know until a little over a month ago. And it's apparently that any time the U.S. Supreme Court has taken up a case,

there are expert witnesses that submit kind of letters or documentation on behalf of both parties in the case. And then there's these amicus briefs, which are people in the community, usually people with some investment in the case at hand who submit a letter to the U.S. Supreme Court for them to read to try to inform their decision on the case. So it's people outside of these expert witnesses who just have something to say to try to help inform, again, both sides and both positions on the case. Okay. That makes sense. Tell us about the law that was passed in, I guess, 2019, and then now is being challenged. I think that's even, I'm not even 100% sure that's the right language to use, but I know in

2019, a ban on conversion therapy was passed in Colorado, which is most many states have a ban on conversion therapy, but that's being challenged recently. So just give us a bit of a background of what you're interacting with. That's right. So there, yes, was a ban on conversion therapy in minors in Colorado in 2019. And that maps. along over 20 states, so have these laws in place right now, banning conversion therapy specifically in minors. So adults could go to a therapist and request conversion therapy, but minors couldn't. And parents of minors couldn't go and expect that type of intervention from a therapist under this law. And so the idea of the ban was kind of restricting that specific

type of therapy. And then I believe it was in 2022. Kaylee Childs, a Christian therapist in Colorado Springs, who is a Denver seminary grad, filed a lawsuit against the state of Colorado saying that these types of laws and this law in Colorado in particular was a violation of her freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. So her argument is that the law is too restrictive of what she can and can't say in therapy about sexuality and gender. And so since the law came out, she has not felt like she could work with minors around sexuality and gender. And so that's kind of where her position is. And then it's worth naming the law hasn't been enforced on anybody. So it's not as if somebody has had disciplinary action under this law since 2019. But I think her argument is that

there's potential for that disciplinary action to target religious populations. Okay. And so what is your amicus brief? Yeah. What's your, what's your, what's your position on this then? Yeah. So I would say the position that I've kind of come to as far as reading the law. Of course, I moved here in 2019. So I read the law right when I came. It was super relevant. And I work with a lot of minors. So it's pretty impactful to what I am doing. Now, the law actually, is really reflective of a 2009 American Psychological Association Task Force document that looked at therapeutic approaches for people seeking conversion therapy. So if you look at the language of the law, what it allows with minors are things like support, helping facilitate acceptance,

identity exploration and development, adaptive coping skills, which are all language that came out of that 2009 document. So the law is really written for mental health providers and uses language that mental health providers who are licensed ought to be aware of related to this task force document. And so in that way, it wasn't particularly scandalous to me at the time. It felt really similar to how I'd been trained, which is that the goal of therapy around sexuality and gender is never going to be about putting forth as a clinician the fixed out in any direction of identity outcome. So in the same way that I couldn't come forward and say,

hey, here's an intervention that will make you not attracted to the same sex anymore because there's not good psychological evidence of those interventions being effective. I also can't say, hey, I know how to help you medically transition, and that's my expected outcome for you. That's the goal I have for you in therapy. So laws like this keep therapists from kind of putting forth any fixed outcome with minors, which I think is really valuable. It also, in my mind, actually, is really helpful to Christian families who have been taught that conversion therapy is kind of the only approach available to them when it comes to these questions. And so what I've witnessed anecdotally and the research supports this is that when people go through conversion therapy as minors,

kind of whether the therapist intends this or not, it seems that the young people who don't experience change in attraction or change in identity over time seem to get really angry at God, feel very alienated from God. It does a number on their faith and their connection with God. And a lot of conversion therapy approaches blame parents for their child's sexual attraction or gender questioning. And so it also alienates these young people from their at a time when they really need them. And so my position in the brief is actually that a law like this banning an intervention that and a set of interventions really that are not shown to be effective and have done harm to people's faith and family relationships, it's actually advantageous

to Christians to have bans on things that don't help us in forming a relationship with God that's healthy and sustainable and don't help us bridge gaps of communication with our families. So I'm four bands like this, and I don't think the law bans anything that is helpful in therapy for these young people. I do a lot of work with young people and I'm able to be super effective in helping them explore identity in ways that are in line with their faith under the law as it's written now. Yeah, okay. So I have the law that, so just to be clear, so your amicus brief is a challenge. Gene, the recent challenge, or vice versa, it's, it's supporting the 2019 ban. That's right.

So it's written on the state of Colorado, yeah. My biggest question, I guess maybe potential pushback, not necessarily to you, but to the way the law is written, is the correlation between sexual orientation and gender identity. So it says, here I have the 2019 thing. It says conversion therapy means any practice or treatment by a licensed registrant or certificate holder that attempts to purports to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity. Those seem like just categorically different things, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings towards individuals of those. the same sex. So I guess my two problems slash questions

questions slash problems are the correlation between sexual orientation and gender identity and to change behaviors. So if a 13 year old is like, yeah, I'm having sex with multiple same sex partners. That's a behavior.

So the band would say you're not allowed to say maybe this isn't advantageous for you to be sleeping with a different person every night of the same sex? Like, would that be, would that be, would that, would the law say, yeah, you can't go there? Yeah, it's a great question. And I think it's actually one of the biggest assumptions that happens with this law because

of the way it's written. So your point is a really good one. And it captures, I think, a lot of the concern about the law that I think required the state of Colorado to really flesh this out in a way that, again, laws can be in person. in their communication of. And so in some sense, having a case come forward is helpful in fleshing some of this out more clearly. So the first thing to note about why are they combined?

And I share some of your reaction to that, that, you know, wouldn't it be great if these laws were kept separate? And there was one around gender and there was one around sexual orientation. Now, why is it that they're combined in this case? Well, a lot of the people who offer conversion therapy offer it. in the realm of orientation and gender identity. They themselves advertise that they can help people with what they see as kind of the same bucket

of challenges for people where your early childhood attachment relationships, woundings in your peer relationships, and relational traumas have caused a disconnection from your fundamental sex identity, whether that manifests in same-sex attraction or gender distress. They would see it as kind of the same bucket. it. And so the effort to kind of address conversion therapy as such is recognizing that the

group of people offering it are trying to treat gender and sexual orientation with the same approach. And so then this brings up the second question about behaviors and gender expressions, that if you, most people understand how conversion therapy has been practiced around sexual orientation better than they do around gender. Now, for me, as somebody who has worked with people with gender dysphoria who have gone through conversion therapy, what they tell me that happened there was the therapist would try to teach them gender conforming behaviors. So sitting differently, speaking differently, kind of adjusting gender nonconforming behaviors to align your sex with the opposite sex. So parents of minors

being told if you get your son in baseball instead of ballet, you're going to help. help him consolidate a gender identity in keeping with his sex. So again, this law was written by providers, for providers, who ought to hopefully know that that was the behaviors that were being targeted, as opposed to you can't help a teenager who's engaging in unsafe sex practices stop those behaviors. And thankfully, the law actually names that. It says what conversion therapy isn't is sexual orientation neutral intervention.

where you're trying to help, for instance, with safe sex practices. So it's actually not saying you can't help with any behaviors of teens in this realm. What it's saying is you can't try to change the orientation or gender identity through the use of behavioral changes in the person, meaning promising them that if you change certain behaviors, you will no longer experience the attraction or identity questions that you have. That's super helpful. So I would, I think you'd agree, but the way the law is currently written is not super clear on that. But the way you explain it, that makes perfect sense. That's right. I don't think the word in here is specific to that point.

But that's, I don't know, as I've looked at different laws when it comes to sexuality and gender conversations, I'm like, yeah, you're a politician, not an expert in the conversation. Like you're in the language. Oh, my gosh. Unfortunately. I read through the entire, the soji. is it Soji laws or the big long way it was like an 80 page thing and I remember reading this like did you have one expert like edit this thing this is just like every line was like it was coming from somebody that didn't know a clue about the conversation it was really odd you know like well yeah so that's why I don't deal in politics I'm still so that so with the behavior with the gender behavior piece in a sense they're prohibiting a a clinician from trying to enforce like stereotypical behaviors, you know, like enforcing stereotypes upon the person that match their biological sex, as if if you're, you know,

a male person and you're more feminine, then like, oh, if you play baseball, then you're going to become more male or something. Like that is obviously would be unhelpful. I'm still, I still can't get past the gender identity piece because, Like, it seems like, so you're not allowed to change an individual sexual orientation. Okay. So right there, that's like the assumption that sexual orientation is largely stable, right? It's part of who they are.

And we could dissect that and break it down and talk about fluidity or, you know, like, fringe cases where people do change. Whatever. But in general, it seems like this is part of who they are. This is stable. Don't change something about who they are. I feel like if you're to ask me, okay, now let's move to gender, is biological sex or one's internal sense of self, which one is more stable? I mean, we have biological sex.

I mean, that's, you literally can't change that. Like, it seems like a ban on conversion therapy should say, don't change someone's sexual orientation. There's a stable part of their humanity. or don't try to change your biological sex a stable part of their humanity then 100 years after they die

we'll be able to tell it's like it's just it's a one of the most basic objective parts of our humanity that simply does not change gender identity as you know especially with youth

I mean that's all over the map really I mean it's not saying to all these changes or whatever not even saying we should enforce a change in gender identity I think there's a place to help people work through that out and everything. I wouldn't jump in it. But I mean, if the opposite is changing, you know, gender identity is stable. Biological sex is not. Then I'm like, well,

we're not on a different planet then. So help me. Wait, am I missing something with that? Like I, yeah. Yeah. It's a great question because I do think one of the critiques of the law and one of the things that I think has been a point of dialogue for a lot of people out of this is that even the use of the language gender identity for religious populations is a bit of a touch and go moment for us because we would historically, and not just Christians, but many people would historically frame that around biological sex, not gender identity as such. And so I think the use of gender identity as a term in the law has challenges for interpreting the law for many religious populations who would say, hey, why are you partial to gender identity over biological

sex? And that's kind of how it seems. Now, I would add not just religious, because when it comes to this, I would say the majority of like secular feminists would, I mean, they would say that my experience as a woman and the oppression I face in society for thousands of years is because of my biological sex. Like, my biology is why there has been such a push for emancipation, for freedom, for, you know, destroying the patriarchy and, you know, reducing sexual abuse and Me Too and all these things. Like, our biological sex is a female is at the heart of feminism, really.

Yes, that's right. And it's a good example of how, yes, secular feminist thinkers and many progressives in our country are very skeptical of some of the more recent queer theory and kind of gender affirming care models because they feel like a lot of people who would otherwise maybe identify as gay are adopting gender identity labels and they have concerns about that as well. So there's a bit of a shared experience there of concern, I think, across difference. So, okay, so I think what's happening there is that the gender identity framing is confusing for people, and it feels, again, partial to a philosophical set of assumptions that Christians would, and other people, as you mentioned,

would have concerns about. But let's concede that each of us has a subjective sense of our sex identity. We have a subjective relationship with our body. And the word that's used today to talk about that subjective experience of self is gender identity. So I, I could concede, even as a devout Christian, that I have a gender identity. My gender identity is female. It's in line with my sex. And most people have a gender identity in line with their sex. I would like for a minor who identifies as female and is female biologically to go to therapy

and not have a therapist who's progressive try to change that young person's gender identity to trans or non-binary because that natal female. is gender non-conforming in some ways or sometimes wonders if she's at home and with her body. I would like the therapist to not be allowed to change her gender identity away from female identifying. She's born female, okay? I would also like for my clients who are minors who come in to see me and identify as transgender at 13, to know that by law, as a therapist, I'm not allowed to come in and say, hey, I'm going to help you identify with your biologetic. sex over the course of therapy changing their gender identity. So again, whether the gender identity

is, again, for most of us in alignment with sex or for some people not in alignment with sex, the premise of the law is you can't use therapeutic intervention that lacks research evidence to try to manipulate the gender identity of the person away from where it is at the start of therapy. Caviot being, the law itself acknowledges that what you're allowed to do is identity exploration and identity development-based interventions, which actually concedes that for many people exploring gender and sexual orientation in adolescence, there will be remarkable shifts in that development over time for many people. So in that way, I think the law actually allows for a lot of good therapy in the realm of gender without me at the start of therapy saying as the therapist,

I know how to help you align with your sex or I know how to help you figure out these questions in a way that makes you identify as trans and non-binary at the end. No, the approach is actually, I'm going to help you do good therapy so that if at the end of therapy you align with your sex, it's because you were never really meant to identify in a different way. And good therapy helps you resolve that question in an anchored way. I can't speak to the therapeutic part of this. That's your job. You're okay.

I've sat down with enough people that experience severe gender dysphoria in. Obviously, it just breaks my heart, but it just leads me at a, I'm just like, I, I, I, obviously, I don't, Obviously, I don't know what to do. I wish there was a pill to take. I wish there was a solution. I can't imagine living in a world where most things can be kind of treated, whether, you know, naturally through psychotherapy, maybe through medication, but gender dysphoria is just this nebulous, torturous experience. And I know there's degrees of gender dysphoria.

But so that's where I just get stuck when it comes to, like, I can analyze a theology. philosophy and everything and sometimes I almost hesitate it's like okay Preston you argued your case now what I do and that's where like I don't know I don't know I my eye was a narrow lane of like Bible philosophy theology you know and sometimes I almost hesitate like well if I if I can't give the solution then should I even speak anything you know so anyway I just want to give that major major caveat especially I've got friends listening that are trans and and and you know where for them it was like I'm either going to kill myself and I tried to several times or transition because the dysphoria was so pervasive and powerful and I have yeah it's just it's

it's it's one of the more challenging things in life um so as a major caveat I do want to still explore the intellectual side and again it's not at the expense of the therapeutic side but like going back to your analogy like you you wouldn't and again I'm just I want you to help me think through this. If I'm off at here, like, if somebody is biologically male and they identify as female, or no, sorry, sorry, let's just say somebody is biologically male and identifies as male. And you would, you know, you said, well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't try to therapeutically change them away from that. It seemed like you made kind of a one-to-one correlation. So if somebody is biologically male and identifies female, I also wouldn't, like, try to push them away from that either, you know.

But it's like, well, those seem, seems like apples and oranges or astronauts and orangutans, really. Because one is like the most stable part of our humanity. So somebody says, yes, I agree with that. And it doesn't cause me distress. Of course, you wouldn't, you know, change them away from that. But if somebody is objectively, undeniably, the most stable part of the humanity is they're male or female. we can talk about intersex if we want it just seems like it seems like categorically two different things where it's like of course you wouldn't try to change somebody if a male away from

identifying as male but that seems categorically different than and let's just okay let's let's let's switch the language from somebody as male identifies as female one could use the phrase i wouldn't want to try to change their gender identity away from their what their internal sense of self. Another way to say the same thing, correct me if I'm wrong, is I want to help this person accept the most basic object of unchangeable part about their human nature. And if you want to get spiritual, you know, that God put on them. So I mean, in the same sense that like if somebody is dealing with other body dysmorphias, I'm not saying gender dysphoria is the exact same thing. But it is a into broadcast.

category, right? Some sort of distress that your body is causing you. That can lead to eating disorders. It can lead to other things. And it could also lead to gender dysphoria. I'm saying a lot of things. But just, I guess it's helpful. Help me think through this. Yeah. Because Preston, this is exactly what's happening in the amicus briefs or amicus briefs on the other side is there's a lot of pointing to exactly what you're saying, which is why wouldn't we use things? in the case of gender to help people accept their sexual identity or their kind of biological sex. Why wouldn't we do that? And it's appropriate to ask the question in part because the field historically has seen alignment with one's sex as the best outcome for people with

gender distress. And it's also the most common outcome that most people historically found ways to kind of live in their sex body, right, and cope in different ways with that reality, but not to transition medically. So this kind of shift towards medicalization. Again, I think there's a lot of good discussion to be had about is that the best we can offer people. Now, as it stands today, we don't have established protocols that we can give to clients that we know work in helping them accept their sex identity. That's the crux of why I think right now there has been an effort to say, let's not with minors come in and say, we're going to help you align with your sex if we don't have

established protocols for how to do that. Now, with eating disorders, I have plenty of established protocols as a specialist in that that I know actually how to treat eating disorders quite well. I can help people shift their relationship with food. I can help them with their body image. Now, if somebody came to me, though, with an eating disorder and said, I want to not have an eating disorder at the end of therapy, what I would say to them is, hey, you might be reduced in your symptoms.

You may not meet criteria anymore, but you very well might still have the same thoughts, the same disordered thoughts at the end of therapy as you do today. you may at the end of therapy still look in the mirror and have major body image distress where you see something different than what's real there. So I actually don't have a treatment protocol that evaporates the presence of eating disorders. And all the more in the realm of gender, we, to be honest, I mean, what Mark and I developed in grit is not a treatment protocol that helps people align with their sex. Now, some of my clients do at the end of therapy align with their sex.

And through that approach, we've seen there be helpfulness in creating space for that possibility for them. But to say that our approach changes their gender identity would be misleading. It doesn't do that. If they're going to, at the end of therapy, align with their sex, I can help create space for that to be possible. But my interventions are not targeted catalysts for that outcome that I can promise. And so that's maybe the nuance of a law like this that gets lost in some of this. It's like it's more about the therapist being humble enough to say we don't have research on interventions that create that outcome. So we're not going to promise the outcome.

We will do identity focused work. Yeah. That's really. Okay. So the difference is not so much a philosophical difference, but it's a clinical. it's that there hasn't been established protocol that has been shown to be effective in helping somebody with gender dysphoria align with the biological sex, which is so discouraging. Well, I mean, there are.

It is discouraging, that's right. What about, so I'm blanking out his name. The guy up in Toronto, he was like an expert on gender dysphoria and child. He developed a biopsychosocial model. Is it Zooker? Ken Zucker. Ken Zucker. Ken Zucker. Yeah, yeah. So this is all the side of my pay grade, okay? We'll go there, Preston. Let's go. So all I'm going to do is just mention it. He's done a ton of work, I mean, for a decade, 30 years, plus dealing with children of gender dysphoria. And he would never claim at all 100% effectiveness. But a fairly, fairly effective rate, given the published articles that I read. And, yeah, I think he coined the term biopsychosocial model where you're really exploring kind of the person holistically.

And one of the big things I remember reading about was exploring ways in which past trauma could, not always, but could be related to a triggering gender dysphoria. One of the top ones he found was, and I saw this in other studies too, was with biological females. internal miscellized misogyny that's right was the number one um factor that can cause gender dysphoria again not in every case in fact there was an online survey it's not peer reviewed so i don't you know i don't even know if it's available anymore but it was of over 250 women with gender to females with gender dysphoria and they asked like what are what are some practices that help alleviate or minimize alleviate address reduce gender dysphoria, and the number one, like 92% says dealing with internalized

misogyny. And Ken Zucker tells stories of kids that have some incident in their past where just to be a female was just bad, terrible, weak, you're no good for society. And then, of course, when they look down at their female body, they're like, this is bad, this is bad for society, this is weak, this is insufficient, this is less, you know. And so from a person who's not an expert, you're like, that kind of makes sense. but at least in some case. But Zucker was working through that model,

and he got fired from the main gender clinic in Toronto for practicing conversion therapy. I'm like, wait, what? If you just ask other questions about someone's past history and trauma, like now you're trying to convert them? Like, it just seemed Orwellian when I saw that is like 10 years ago. That's, I don't know, so when I read that, maybe I'm kind of triggered when I read some of this stuff.

I'm like, ooh, is this, I don't know. Like, have we really thought through? that's right how we're kind of collapsing so many things into conversion therapy when we might be cutting off healthy not not the kind of conversion therapy you're talking about like oh go play baseball you know but like no what about would would a therapist be able to really slow down and explore holistic the person holistically i guess is my main question yeah and i think a person like cayley childs i mean i don't know her but i've read all that she's submitted and and her take is I can't do this therapy.

So she opted out of doing this work with minor when the law came out because she felt like exactly what you're saying, can I do good therapy in this space with minors? The ironic piece of this is that's hypothetical. And as a person who practices in Colorado with minors, I do that type of therapy every week. I had somebody just this week talking with me about internalized misogyny and how they felt like that has impacted their gender journey. So, right, but so what is the law, again, allowing for? And it spells it out in the law. It says you can do support, acceptance, you can do identity exploration and development, which captures a lot of things. That's, right? It kind of names, like, help people explore

how this came to be for them, right? That's what identity exploration and development means. help people explore how identity is shaped by a lot of things, environmentally, genetically. And it's actually in keeping in a really nice way with the cast review, which I'm sure you've been privy to. They have really cool diagrams in the cast review about all the things that they've come to know can contribute to gender identity over time, including cultural norms about masculinity and femininity, including peer influence online. I mean, they're conceding. that, hey, there's a lot of pieces that converge in these gender explorations for people. And so to say that the law doesn't allow therapists to do good therapy is so interesting for me

because I'm doing that therapy all the time publicly. I'm telling you about it, right? I mean, you know, and it would be one thing, again, if in the state of Colorado I had witnessed therapists who were Christians who were doing that exploratory work get disciplined. since 2019, I would be just right in line with Kaylee Child saying, hey, wait a second, that's just good therapy. So if there was a Ken Zucker case here where somebody got fired here or somebody, you know, lost their license here for doing that exploratory work, I would be the first in line to say, hey, wait a second, that's what I do every day. And that's effective therapy. That's

identity exploration. That's not what's happening here in Colorado in this case. It seems like what's happening is the hypothetical concern has driven understandable fear that has led people to opt out of doing the work because they're afraid of punishment. And what I would say is, again, as far as I can read from Colorado's responses to her, they're saying to her, what you're wanting to do in therapy is not against the law. And they've said that explicitly in their responses to her that what you're saying you want to do, good exploratory work, is not against this law. You just can't promise you know how to change their orientation or gender identity through therapeutic intervention because you don't know how to do that. So all that to say, I think

your point and your concern is a good one because there has been such politicization here that there are some licensed providers and some advocates in the field who would say Ken Zucker was doing conversion therapy. And to me, that's very problematic. That's a very significant overgeneralization of what conversion therapy is. But to those people, I would be doing conversion therapy as well, right? I suppose. But the people who are putting these laws in place, as far as I can read, are mapping it in an intentionally narrow fashion, allowing for a lot when they add those clauses in around identity exploration and development. And that actually in my mind and in my practice has given a lot of latitude for this really good therapeutic work that lets people reflect on

what's contributing to identity development and not just assume I ought to medically transition on the one hand or somebody's going to help me get rid of dysphoria forever on the other hand yeah that's so helpful truly that that okay that completely makes sense now um it's hard when everything's so politicized right because yeah you can yeah i got even i said even as i did i read this law and i was like what so you can't even help somebody explore you know past drama or or is can you help somebody, would it be helping somebody with gender dysphoria except the biological sex? I know it's a very general statement and there's no one-size-fits-all. But as a clinician, if you can kind of see like, gosh, I think there's some, maybe the gender

dysphoria isn't super severe, you know, early onset, it's just really, but man, there might be some social factors here. There might be some, there might be some group. influence. Maybe it's associated with an eating disorder, cutting, maybe autism or something. Like, there's other factors here. And so if you kind of assess, like, I think I can actually help this person accept their biological sex. And I'm pretty confident that that will reduce gender dysphoria. Would you be allowed, you'd be allowed to kind of go down that direction? So the key here, right, is you're collaborating with a real person in that realm. So another good example of this,

honestly, Preston, that I think of a lot is religiosity and religious identity and minors. So there are plenty of minors who come to see me and they are raised Christian and they say, I'm atheist or I'm agnostic. And it seems very evident to me that in those cases, even though they're quite compelling and how they share about that and they're convicted that they really have rejected it, very quickly it becomes really clear that they're very shaped by their Christian beliefs and values, and they probably could identify as Christian. They don't seem to have any theological or philosophical, significant arguments against it. But at that point in life, they're saying, they're putting their, you know, flag in the sand,

and they're saying, I'm not a Christian today. And I'm a Christian. And I would love for that person to identify as Christian at the end of therapy. But if I say to them, like, my goal and my hope and what I'm here to do with you is to help you identify as a Christian. That's very different than operating in therapy in a way that gives them space to explore identity so that if they identify as Christian at the end of therapy, it's because they came to a place where they realized what I saw, right? Which was, there was a path for them to identify as Christian here. Similarly, for people with, you know, kind of gender

distress that may be mild or maybe more related to, fill in the blank, 200 other variables that could be resolved clinically that don't require medical transition. What I say to my clients is most people historically don't transition. So insofar as you're telling me, for instance, that you're not bothered by your name, I want you to have freedom to not change your name unless you really, really feel like you need to change your name, right? So it's like, but I'm not coming in with a minor and especially a teenager and telling them, hey, my goal for you is to not change your name. Do you see the nuance there? Yeah, yeah, that's really helpful.

It's a little bit of, just like again, I wouldn't want a secular clinician with a Christian client who identifies as trans to try to make the Christian client not identify as Christian as if that's going to help them fully accept themselves. Like, I don't think the therapist wielding that is what we do in therapy with just about anything if we're good at our job.

And so it's not that I don't have hopes for my client. in a lot of different realms. I'm free to have all the hopes. But if I'm leading with this outcome for the person, and then let's say they're not identifying as Christian at the end of therapy, there's so much about that power differential that can be really troubling in the therapeutic alliance if they feel like they failed my goal for them. And that was one of the biggest problems that I saw with conversion therapy approaches is the therapist was very explicitly naming my hope for you is this outcome. And then insofar as that outcome didn't happen.

It wasn't just I missed my goal. It's I missed my therapist goal. And if my therapist was a Christian, well, maybe that's also God's goal for me. Oh, wow. And the power of that on somebody's mental health is pretty significant. I'm just so incredibly impressed with how clear and articulate you are around these very complex issues. that Julia, that absolutely makes complete sense if I can kind of summarize it back. So the same constraints you might have, not in constraints, but yeah, let's just stick

with that for now. The same constraints you might have as a committed Christian that your clinical practice kind of necessitates that you hold back on that a little bit. You're not there evangelizing people when they come into your clinical practice. You wouldn't have a clinical practice if you're doing that. similar constraints might exist with you also front loading or setting out as the ultimate goal your views on maybe sex and gender but also it's just good but also I also hear so it's not just kind of legality stuff but it's also you're saying that's actually bad clinical practice

when you are kind of enforcing what you think is the right answer on somebody that actually can be counterproductive you need to help them explore in a healthy ways and that's the best space they can be in to perhaps align themselves with whatever language you want to use, God's design, faith in Jesus, whatever. That's right. Yeah, because there's nothing more ordered, right, than knowing our maker and worshiping him, right? So there's nothing more fundamental in what we're made for than to worship God with our lives. And I so deeply want that for every person, including myself. And in therapy, we concede that perhaps the best way for that to be sustained over time and authentic and life-giving is for the person to opt into it freely.

And I think conversion therapy interventions have so often not allowed for that level of freedom and exploration that's needed. And I connect it to my faith and not just my faith, but kind of theological understandings of free will. Like, God seems to think there's immense value in our freedom. He gives us way more freedom than I would have given up as if it were me. And there's something within that. I think that's instructive for me as a clinician when I work with people. And I pray for the kind of humility and self-control to be able to walk with people

in those places when I cannot control the outcome or when I could. but it would not be helpful or virtuous, too. You just lost our reformed listeners with that free will. That's right. I know the free will. Not everybody thinks that free will the same way. My audience is pretty diverse. That's right. If they'll have me. If they'll have me, that's how I process it. A reformed therapist will have to come up with a different way of connecting that, I suppose. That's funny.

Can you talk to just switching gears a little bit? Can you talk to us about kind of what you've learned over the years and dealing with so many patients, especially young people with gender dysphoria? What have you learned? Have there been? Yeah, so what have I learned from working with people in this space over the years? I will say that I have built a lot more confidence in an exploratory approach, a client-centered approach. I think earlier on I had way more concern that if I was working with people with this level of self-restraint

kind of patience around this that all of my clients were going to go down a pathway of transition, let's say, like by virtue of just the slant of the culture, I think I expected that outcome most or all of the time. And it's been really striking, and it's maybe built my confidence in young people as well, the level of thoughtfulness and maturity and reflectiveness and nuance that people can cultivate and develop in adolescence that allows them to be really wise and prudent and not cavalier most of the time in these questions around gender. And it's been so striking for me to hear from my teen clients how much they benefit from having a therapist who's not reactive as they're kind of trying out some of these pieces and exploring and today I'm here

and next week I'm here to have somebody who can just kind of buoy along with them and be resilient to these places has been really life-giving and also has been really constructive for people's faiths. People who otherwise have felt very controlled in religious communities around gender and have felt like they had to have the right answer to walk in the door will tell me that just feels like an exhale to be in therapy with a Christian provider who is creating a lot of latitude and space for them to explore this. And then they'll say things like, and maybe God's more like that, right, than like the people who get reactive. And so to be able to kind of, to be a Christian, to be in these spaces, it helps me see the

relevance and the importance of Christians in this work with people. And I think that's part of why I spoke up about this law is I want people like Kelly Childs to feel effective and confident to do this work, to step into this work. I don't want us to live in fear. I think there's no better time for Christians to be working in gender than now, actually. And so I want to help inform people about the things that I've learned, right? And the kind of approach that I've taken and how I've seen it really help people instead of living in my own fears and insecurities about legalities and political ramifications of some of this culture war dynamic right now. That's super helpful.

That's encouraging too. And it made me think like it's almost similar to if somebody's wrestling with their faith and they are around somebody with all the right answers and they really are the right answers and they hear over and over and over the right answers versus being around somebody who asks a lot of good questions. We'll give an answer if they're asked, but it's just more concern with listening, understanding, maybe not giving black and white right answers, but helping the person just process and think. As I imagine, those two theoretical environments, I think the second one can often lead to, quote, unquote, better results than the first one, even if the first scenario had all the right answers, you know, pounded into them, you know. It sounds like kind of similar what you're saying as a clinician and how you approach people.

That's right. I think because both can have the right answers. I mean, this is the irony of it is I feel like I have a really solid anthropology. I feel like I have a really solid theological and philosophical anchor as I do my work. And my strategy, right, of walking with people is a different strategy than the person who comes in and says, let me tell you how it really is. And when I speak with pastors or people in ministry around walking in this space, the analogy I'll use is, you know, if a person comes into a conversation with you and they say, I don't believe in God anymore. How could God exist, right? I mean, it's all I used to believe in God, but I just don't anymore. A good loving God can't exist in this crazy world as it is. And maybe an over-eager, fresh out a seminary, pastor, a minister, you know, might even draw from in my Catholic denomination, right? We would draw from Aquinas five proofs of the existence of God. And I'll make the joke that, you know, you could do that and you would be right. And I know

those proofs and they're quite compelling, you know. So you could share the five proofs and you would be right. But if you are in ministry for any amount of time, when somebody comes into you with that commentary, you know on some level that 99% of the time what they're telling you is they've been hurt, they've been disillusioned in life. And that, They can't hold a loving God with the reality of the world as it is. So it's a question of theodicy. And you will do better to understand how that person has been weathered by this life and the ways maybe they feel betrayed by God or abandoned by God or abandoned by people who represent him.

And you being a Christian who stays with them there is actually what helps them imagine a world where a loving God is bearing witness to problems and staying in it with us. He's actually real and there with us in our pain. And so you can say the right thing and it not be the right time. And that's where we need discernment in ministry. That's where we also need discernment in our clinical practices to guide us. But frankly, we also need laws and regulatory bodies that help us do right by people and reinforce areas where we might be inclined to,

to use our roles to kind of coerce the outcome. And even when it's a good one, coercion is never free. And there are always consequences to that. And so it tempers me. It brackets me as much as confidentiality laws bracket me. Right. I know it's not good to say the names of my clients. But having a law really keeps me on my toes to make sure I never do that, right?

It's almost, I made me think, like, if people have intellectual, hangups about their faith, most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time, there's deeper things there, right? That's kind of the manifestation, these intellectual hangups, theological hangups, but there's usually stuff going deeper that if all you do is, like, correct their intellectual error, you're kind of squirt into flames of the fire. You're not really getting to the roots of it. I've got another question, one more question, got a few more minutes.

And I guess it's kind of a two-part question. One, I kind of want to see how you would understand the situation. And then number two, depending on that, how you explain and respond it, you know, over the last few years, big debate about especially younger kids, especially biological females, identifying as trans or non-binary, gender fluid. and that that identity is largely the byproduct of their social peers, social influence. There's a phrase that sometimes used to describe it as rapid onset gender dysphoria. A lot of people don't like that phrase, but so we can ditch that phrase, but just say like there's, you know, one kind of category and not that it's an airtight category, but where people's gender identity is, to some extent, maybe a large extent, derived from social influence, whereas there's other people that, you know, whether it's, they've experienced early onset gender dysphoria from the time

they're two, three years old, maybe later, but it's like, it doesn't matter what social environment they're in. They have clinically diagnosable gender dysphoria. First of all, how would you, do you kind of, do you agree with that kind of distinction or would you want to reframe it or re-explain it? And then in as much as you agree with that to some extent, how do you deal with that in your clinical practice? Yeah, so I definitely, you know, have witnessed what everybody else has witnessed, which is that there is an increase in natal females who are exploring gender, who have no history in childhood of that distress. And I've also witnessed that for some of those teens, they share

with me that kind of being given the option to explore this at this time in history has made them ask questions they wouldn't ask at another time in history. So how do I name that? I use kind of two different frameworks. One is just naming searching teens. Teens are exploring and searching for ways to make meaning out of their experience. So if a biological female has a challenging experience of puberty, she might go to these categories to account for that. She's making meaning out of her experience. She's not making it up. She really is having challenges with puberty. Sure.

Yeah. And so I think sometimes the rapid onset has a quality of a suddenness that trivializes it. And that's where I like to be able to give credence to the reality of somebody is responding to something real when they ask these questions. Now, is what the real thing is, something that will require medical transition? Well, historically, no, actually. So I like searching teams. as one option, that's how I'll talk with parents, or just the reality of kind of peer influence

in the sense that peers impact identity formation. Peers invite us to ask questions across the board about politics, about all kinds of things. And I think that's actually, I would frame that mostly positively, if we have adults in our lives who can help us discern and critically evaluate that messaging. And so to me, the problem is not. not that peers may be influencing this. It's that many young people don't have trusted adults in their corner to help them build the critical thinking skills to engage in thoughtful ways with this space. So that's maybe where clinical practice comes in, right? Is especially with natal females who don't have a history. And I just tend to be descriptive about that with them.

You know, you don't have that early onset experience. You've shared with me that this happened around this time in your life. You've shared with me there was a lot going on at that time. You've named that your parents are concerned about friends. They're concerned about trauma and how that impacted this experience. So would it be okay with you if we take our time kind of mulling through some of these waters together? Why? Because I want you 10 years from now to look back on our work and feel like I did right by you. And even if you would make the same exact decision now that you'll make three years from now if you explore this, I, but believe that you will have way more confidence in that decision long term, when the going gets

tough as life throws curves balls at us, that you did right by yourself, by really giving yourself the space to map this journey with gender, to understand all the things that have impacted that journey for you. And then when you make decisions about something as critical and relevant to your life as identity, you'll feel really confident and settled in that as you do due diligence. And I have never had a client say, I don't want that in that moment. They're all like, sign me up for that, even if some of them roll their eyes, you know, the adult in their life who is saying, let's start your time with this in

this film. Yeah, that's super helpful. And it's such a, I just want to highlight something you said, it's so important. And I've learned, I've learned us over the years and talking about the social influence side in an unhelpful way. You know, we're always learning about. how best to communicate something that doesn't produce results in people's hearts that you don't desire, you know, and when you talk about social influence, as you said, it's just so

important for people listening to understand. It can immediately come off as trivializing or even dismissing their actual experience. That is not what we're talking about. We are simply talking about what are some sources, some things that might be. leading to feeding, exacerbating the experience. We're not talking about whether the experience is real or not. And I've seen that, especially with parents,

that are really, you know, driven by fear, whatever. And then all of a sudden, their 12-year-old comes home and says, I'm non-binary. My, you know, pronouns are they, them. And then you look at all their friends are identified as non-binary and you think

clearly there's peer influence here. And I think that probably is largely correct. But that does not mean that that experience from your kid is any less significant personal powerful to them than somebody else who may have had gender dysphoria since they're three years old. My, I guess my big concern is that it seems like in the broader culture, medical interventions don't make that distinction, you know, aside from the ethics of transition and whatever, it just seems like. if something is a byproduct of some more recent teen social influence, it seems like, and correct me

if I'm wrong, I think the data, well, I don't know if we have enough data on this. I don't know if we've had enough time to have longitudinal data, but it seems like the long-term identity is more malleable, more fluid, more susceptible to change than somebody who has had early onset gender dysphoria. They still have gender dysphoria past puberty because what, 80% post-puberty, sometimes it goes away or is alleviated. If they have had lifelong gender dysphoria since they're a child, man, there's a good chance that that might be something they'll wrestle with. And just from a secular standpoint, you could say, well, if you've exhausted all other

things, then maybe medical transitioning is a therapeutic option. But if somebody is a young teen and there's clear signs of social influence, that's where I would be like, ooh, if I was an atheist, okay, nothing new with my, I would be like, ooh, I would be much more reluctant and even, I don't know, maybe I wouldn't be, make a good clinician, probably advocate away from irreversible intervention, just from a clinical perspective, if there is social influence, it's clearly involved. How's my assessment there? Yes, I think that's right on.

I mean, even the diagnostic manual, the DSM-5 names that people with, onset dysphoria tend to experience a lot more evolution in that identity over time. They're less likely to, or they're more likely, we should say, to adopt a kind of identity that may align with their sex or may lead to partial transitions. So there's a bit more latitude in those cases than in these early onset cases. And so the DSM concedes that. I talk with families about that. And I think there are many clinicians across, again, the sociopolitical spectrum who would recognize that with minors, medical interventions are something to hold with gravity and weight. And certainly, anecdotally, the families that I meet with and the

therapists that I consult with regularly, again, these are the ones that come to me, tend to be very cautious about these interventions with minors, even when they're sociopolitally. political beliefs or theological beliefs are not things that lead to concern there. They're just cautious about interventions that are irreversible. And I think that's well-founded. And in fact, I think many people, again, in our broader culture, are given pause about the push towards medical transition prematurely. There seems to be some concern about that more broadly. And there are plenty of people who would say, what's the big deal? Let people tell us who they are. I'm just not one of those people who would say that. Yeah, I'm glad you're, I'm glad you're not,

because I think that feels a little irresponsible to me. Julia, where can people find you in your work? You've got a website. You got a, yeah. I've got a website. I've got a Patreon where I'm putting out some video content. I have a YouTube channel, Instagram, Facebook. People can follow along that way. And my website, which will put in the show notes, has recent book projects and just information about upcoming events or ways to follow along what I'm doing. Last time I had you already talked about your recent book. What's the title again?

How to Talk to Your Kids About Sex? Yeah, talking with your teens about sex or start talking to your kids about sex. That's two books, yes. Absolutely amazing. A game changer. I learned every page in there, I was just, oh, my gosh, I was learning so much. So if you got young kids or teens, they're sexual beings, then I highly recommend. and Julia's work in this area. It's so good. Thank you so much, Julia, for being on the podcast yet

again. Yeah, it's so good to talk with you, Preston. I really enjoyed this conversation. Are you looking for news with a faith-based perspective, then tune in to the pour over today. The podcast that delivers the world's biggest news stories through a lens of faith every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On the pour over today, you'll hear the same news and headlines as a major outlets, but interpreted in the context of God's sovereignty. I absolutely love that. You can stay grounded in the midst of chaos with faith-forward, engaging summaries that connect current events with eternal perspective. Just search the pour over, okay, spelled P-O-U-R, like the coffee, on your favorite podcast platform or find the direct linked in our show notes.