Welcome to hallway transgressions. I'm Chris. I'm Ryan.
We are two private school alumni and this podcast serves to examine the worldviews of Christian pastors and teachers through a postmodern lens.
Content warning this episode contains explicit blatant transphobia and homophobia.
Please listen at your own risk. Some content may be alarming to listeners. Trigger warning this episode can discusses topics that may be
controversial offensive or triggering nature to some individuals. Listen at your own risk. Hey Ryan, what's your bright spot?
All right, so I think last time I said my bright spot was that we got the cat's
harnesses, which I don't know if we got dog harnesses before we got the new ones.
They fit way better than the the dog harnesses we got but now the new thing that we got just came in today was two
backpacks to carry the cats in so now we're gonna be able to put them into their own little
backpacks take them on a hike somewhere or something and then let them outside like sit down somewhere
probably and then put them on their leashes and let them out and see if they want to explore or just chill.
They're they were outside cats at one point so we didn't want them to be completely indoor
so we wanted a way for them to be able to go outside.
So we're excited to get them used to the backpack so we can take them out. Is it backpacks that you wear?
Yeah, so it's it's a backpack that we would wear that is like a carrier.
So the cat goes inside of the backpack and it has like venting things and whatnot. It has like a Sherpa lined
floor piece and yeah, so and then they can be like there's like a little string that you can attach and hook them to the
backpack so they can't like jump out and escape.
That's pretty cool. Yeah, we we tried putting them in there Nezuko was fine with it. She she was chilling.
I was walking around the apartment with her in my backpack and she was fine.
Kiri on the other hand was not having it. She was just kind of crying the whole time.
So now we have we're doing the same thing we did with their normal carriers where I have the backpacks
just by their carriers and I'm putting their food into the backpacks now.
So I'll put them in there and they'll associate being inside the backpacks with good things such as eating.
Yeah, so hopefully they'll enjoy that and we'll get to have adventuring cats. We'll find out.
So anyways, what is your bright spot?
You know, my bright spot is well last week I cut my finger open and that was great.
Well this week I didn't do that.
And also, you know, I was just really excited to do this podcast and get it ready to go.
So actually seeing it on real podcast feeds is super cool and super great.
I'm just really happy that the response has been super good for five listeners.
And yeah, just happy to being able to do this.
Yeah, our few listeners seem to be excited for another episode.
Yeah, they seem to be excited for this specific episode.
Yeah, yeah, I think so.
Oh, I also wanted to say that last time I said that bullying works and I just wanted to clarify that I don't condone bullying.
Yeah, me neither. Bullying is stupid.
It was just a really specific joke from a different podcast and we're just going to leave it at that.
Anyway, before we get started with this podcast specifically, I want to just, you know, ahead of time apologize for me and Chris having to be the ones to represent the LGBTQ plus community.
We for I mean, speaking for myself, at least I am a cisgender straight white man.
I really am not in a like the best place to be a representative for this.
I want to be an ally.
I want to do what I can.
But again, I am still ignorant on a lot of these things.
So I just want to apologize for anything that me or Chris gets wrong in this podcast.
We're trying to do our best, but we know that impact can be different than intent.
So we apologize.
Yeah, yeah, same for me.
Please reach out if we get anything wrong.
We'd love to correct anything at all.
Like, we're still learning as we go, of course.
So please reach out if you have any comments or concerns.
And with that, let us begin.
So we're responding to we're skipping ahead from in season three, we're skipping to the episode that dropped on April 18th.
Season three, episode 17, the title from zero prep to a major conversation, same sex attraction and gender identity.
Their description for this episode is the guys were a little behind on show prep this week,
but they end up discussing a massively important topic, same sex attraction and gender identity.
They touch on logic and rationale, social and emotional factors and the Christian response.
Don't miss this one.
Yeah, and we sure didn't miss it.
What was your first reaction when you saw this in your feed, Ryan?
I thought it was going to be interesting to hear what they had to say.
I didn't know.
I really didn't know what it was going to be, but I knew it probably wasn't going to be good.
Yeah, I think my first reaction when I read it was just a pure, pure dread and just internal just pain.
Yeah, this I didn't write any notes for the previous episode.
I've got what, three for this one.
So it's a doozy.
It took me, I don't know, it's one of their longer episodes at about 50 minutes long,
and it took me about three days to get all the way through.
I mean, it was just painful for me.
It was very frustrating.
They have an attitude of knowing.
They seem to be very confident in their position of, I mean, obviously not too much of a spoiler.
But they are very transphobic and very homophobic.
And they seem very confident in their understanding of gender dysphoria and same sex attraction.
And I mean, really just the LGBTQ plus community in general.
And it was a lot of, it just felt really a very cocky attitude to me.
Oh, yeah.
And what gets me the most is the like pity that's behind it.
It's not all just, we know what we're talking about, but it's like they pity people that
in quotes struggle with that.
Like the whole time is like feigned care that like they really just care about these people.
And that's why they do it, say the things they do.
And it's just rough.
We'll get to specifics eventually later in this episode.
Let's start out at the beginning.
So I was surprised in this episode, they really jumped in to their topic very early.
I feel like most of their episodes, they spend a couple, like maybe 10 minutes out of a 30
minute episode just catching up.
Yeah, they start with what sounds like there was some talk before they started recording
because they made some sort of pregnancy joke.
That's how it starts.
Like Slow Fur's back.
Are you like pregnant with energy?
I don't know what the context was of that, of such a joke.
Slow Fur, how are you hanging in there?
Are you vibrant right now?
Are you pregnant with energy?
I'm not pregnant with, yeah.
I guess if we're using that phraseology, I have delivered.
Yeah.
And then they go on to D likes to complain that he can't say pregnant woman anymore.
It's pregnant person because we wouldn't want to assume anything.
We're in the days of, you know, pregnancy.
You can't say pregnant woman.
It's pregnant person.
So yes, that's right.
We don't want to assume anything.
Right.
That's right.
So it's just so passive.
Yeah, it's just it started.
That's the very beginning of the episode is with that.
And you just know, I really turn it up to 100 there.
It's just rude.
They have a basic misunderstanding of the situations that like the situation of ungendering
language is just where it's the left is trying to create more of a safe space for everyone.
Yeah.
Safe space for everyone because we've got people that really want their dichotomy, their
two boxes to put everyone in.
And then there's reality, which is just everyone's similar to each other.
And it's not like there's guys and girls like people really want to have these separations
when really I feel like there's just such a wide mix.
Like people like to use the term spectrum for a lot of things.
I don't know if there's a better term, but just in reality, I just see people as people.
There are women that are manlier than certain men and whatnot, like based on our gender
stereotypes.
Like, if we just got rid of that, then everyone just see everyone as similar to themselves,
not as like how they're different.
Like we really want to differentiate and I don't get it.
Call people women if you know them and that's how they identify.
Like we're not like it's not trying to remove the concept of a man and a woman from language.
It's just removing it from official language so everyone feels included.
And it's really insulting to just make such a casual, callous joke like three minutes
into a podcast.
Yep.
But it really just, I guess, sets everything else up for the rest of this episode.
Sure does.
So it starts with Luke Johnson talking about YouTube kids, which leads to Slow for talking
about teachers and whatnot.
He is kind of vague about it, but it has to do with, I don't even know because it's so
vague and like there's a lot of problems with YouTube kids.
It's kind of funny because there's a ton of problems with YouTube kids and they just pick
like something that's such a non-issue to go after and it's really weird.
They just don't like the idea of educating kids about gender identity because this, here's
a specific quote that got me really good, at around like three minutes and 15 seconds,
Luke Johnson goes, quote, it's infuriating when you mess with kids.
I don't like that, unquote.
And the thing is, I think that's why we started this podcast because we don't like when they
mess with kids.
Like it's just funny because that's what I think about their podcast as well.
It's like you guys are messing with kids.
Yeah, because their main audience, I mean, after looking through their podcast description,
I haven't listened to all the episodes, but a lot of the questions come from students
and just graduated students.
So their audience is made up of people they teach daily and that's what's so concerning
to me.
This is like a public representation and just a public record of what they teach in the
classroom to these kids every day and how they interact with these kids and what their
curriculum and what their inner thoughts are.
And that's what concerns me so much because it's so backwards and problematic and frustrating
to hear.
And I just really worry about the kids in Lakewood and graduating Lakewood as they enter
real life, they leave the safe space of a Christian private school into what life is
actually like where you leave the good and evil binary of Lakewood and move into the
gray that is normal life.
It's confusing and it's difficult and it sticks with you.
It sticks with you for a long time.
It's hard to get rid of.
But once you do get rid of it, life is much better in my opinion.
Yeah, I don't know if it can or if I can actually get rid of everything.
There are just certain postures I take towards situations that I don't consciously notice
that was trying to me or just like ideals and stuff.
There's a part of it that I would say was good and I can use it's good, but there's
a lot that I had to recognize and deal with and become aware of.
It took a bit of work and it was really just because I went to school for Bible and religion.
I don't know how or like what how it would be different if I didn't do that.
Yeah, I feel like the few classmates I still talk to and hang out with, we all have kind
of a similar story of like learning very quickly in school.
I know mine was a who wrote the Bible class.
I took it IU that was like reading the Bible just as a literary device and not as a scripture
where it started to unravel and ask questions I've never asked before and start to view
Christianity more as just one of a bunch of religions.
The semester after that I took a class about Judaism, Islam and Christianity together and
I think there was a lot of added context and understanding that came from how these religions
were created, like how similar they are, their holy texts grew up together really.
Stuff like that that was missing from my liquid education that added a lot more context to
religion and Christianity specifically.
Right, I think like they were I felt like I was taught more how to respond to other
people than to learn for myself what I believed.
Like like they that's later on they talk about grooming, but I was being trained to be some
little apologist basically like you need to be able to defend what you believe.
But it's like what if I don't know what I believe?
It doesn't matter.
Use these tactics.
Yeah.
Well, I think that's interesting as because technically 10th and 11th grade Bible was
supposed to do that for you, but it was so much book work and like the right answer was
very specifically the Baptist view that there wasn't any room to almost discover what you
believe.
It was more just like you were saying it was more like I know how to answer this question
based on the Baptist view of Christianity or the Baptist view of theology versus I know
how to answer this because this is what I think about God and how I believe in God and
it was structured in that way.
Specifically I'm arguably structured in that way so that you almost become Baptist and
then you take UTT and then you become an apologist for this very specific view of Christianity.
Right.
The kids profiles on all of these platforms and there is a tweet that linked to a video
of someone clicking on YouTube kids and just all of this quote unquote education on the
difference between sex and gender and how they're not always the same thing and they
don't always line up and but it's like marketed towards kids and man I tell you what infuriating
when you mess with kids.
I don't like that.
He doesn't use the word grooming in this part I don't believe but later he does for other
things but he's saying without saying that he thinks the left is grooming kids and to
thinking it's okay to be LGBTQ plus which to be clear it is totally fine for that to
happen.
It's who you are and that's okay.
Really they're grooming kids but anyway whatever.
So after talking about YouTube kids for like maybe 30 seconds Slopher jumps into some stuff
he saw on not the not the B.com.
We talked about the Babylon B last episode.
Arguably we talked about that far too long.
I had a lot to say and so not the B is their sister website run by the same people.
So one of the creators and editors Seth Dillon has described the not the B website as a humor
based entertainment site that offers commentary on stories that are so outrageous they should
be satire but somehow aren't.
It's a website where they let opinion editors talk shit about people center left to far
left and just generally just be assholes.
They have they have the same three topics as the Babylon B most notably right now is
just unbelievable amounts of transphobia and homophobia because of the quote unquote don't
say gay bill.
We'll get to that in a second but I just wanted to mention something first.
So Slopher is talking about an article specifically in here.
It's titled Transgender Teacher Tells Six Year Old Students About Transgenderism Says
Doctors Make a Guess About Whether a Baby is a Boy or a Girl with the confused thinking
face emoji.
And so they're making fun of them thinking that this teacher is a biologist or doctor.
Like a teacher's aide and talking to second graders about saying he was transgender and
then describing to them what it was and was saying things like sometimes the doctor when
you're born looks at you know your physical makeup and your anatomy and guesses what you
might be but sometimes they get it wrong.
Seriously I'm a doctor in medical school and I'm right.
I think a boy yes at this year in this particular person speaking must have been a biologist
evidently so to make such a call.
I think he was more saying that doctors assign a sex at birth but it's more of like a guess
at their gender and what their gender identity is going to be.
And since the sex that was assigned at birth did not match his gender identity he had to
come out like he said when he turned 18 he told everyone he was actually a boy because
his gender identity was that he was a boy.
And so the doctor guessed at that.
That's how I understood it.
And so then he came out that he was a boy and everyone treated him well and he seemed
to be happy which is cool.
It doesn't always work that way.
But I also was just going to say like they were making fun of the idea that doctors guess
and I just want to know what they think doctors do all day.
Like you go in they'll see patients they'll hear their symptoms do some tests and make
an educated guess at what it is.
Like that's all doctors do is make guesses.
Why.
Why are they so like they got so defensive of doctors making guesses.
Like doctors are always right.
Doctors who went to medical school so they know exactly what's happening in every single
person they wouldn't guess their doctors.
Like I think they need to lower their view of doctors like their people do.
They went to school to be able to make educated guesses.
Doctors can be wrong.
I hope they know that they should not just trust every doctor that they meet.
This is a really good explanation of being trans to give to first graders actually.
I like that a lot.
Oh yeah.
I thought he put it very well.
Not that I would understand if it's good or bad honestly but to me it's how it was like
a good explanation.
Like he used the whole imagery of like wearing an itchy sweater that keeps getting itchier
and itchier.
Yeah.
I thought it was good.
At least good for trying to simplify a very complex thing that people like adults are
still trying to understand.
It's hard to understand because it's nothing most of us has ever experienced before.
And yeah the analogy of the itchy sweater is it makes a lot of sense.
I don't think a lot of people are trying to understand or want to understand.
Yeah that's true too.
And that's not like a like a political ideology thing a lot of the times too.
It's distance.
Like this has nothing to do with my life.
I'm not gonna try to understand it.
Yeah.
Or like you're not even a part of our culture.
I mean I know on the left it happens a lot where it's like a what is it trans exclusionary
feminist.
Where it's being left leaning but still not accepting that people can be trans and it's
very annoying and it's toxic no matter where it happens and it's not okay.
Just let people live how they want to live.
Why is this so difficult?
All right.
We made it about six minutes into the podcast.
Yeah it's been.
Yeah.
Oh my god.
I didn't realize that this article to straight up misgenders.
Yeah the whole time they use she and her and like this woman.
It's really rude and just insensitive.
Like try to at least act like you're trying to understand where these people are coming
from instead of thinking you already know.
So slow fur attributes it to Peter Heck but in my experience with reading those articles
Peter Heck was a little bit better.
Like he was still rough but this dude that has that in the article is Joel Abbott and
he is just terrible.
Yeah.
Well that just shows.
I mean it like I'm really glad I laid the baseline and then the last episode about these
people that write for the Babylon Bee and not the bee and I'm assuming their social
media I'm scared to even look at that.
They've been kicked off on and off all their social media for misinformation.
So take from that what you will.
But so they made their own.
I'm very scared to see their users over there.
Especially after reading our book reviews last time.
But like it's insulting that these writers who just do not care about the people they're
writing about and just so inflammatory and so there's no research.
They're like the only so they quote from the Daily Wire is the only other place they get
any sort of resemblance of research from.
And it's just an echo chamber in of itself of being super transphobic about it and like
just misunderstanding the whole situation.
Like this isn't even they talk about teaching kids about sex and like sexual perversion
and sex acts and like that's not even what any of this is like this.
This first grade teacher is just explaining what it means to be trans and a very easy
to understand way for kindergarteners through second graders can understand.
And it's just enough information you know kids have short attention span so it's just
long enough of an explanation to explain what's going on make people who might feel the same
way feel included in understanding just give information all around the kids without explaining
anything like perverted or whatever they talk about later.
Yeah.
So at five minutes and 20 seconds slow for also talks about teaching kids about sex and
mentions as Peter Heck and some of his good writing and stuff like that teaching about
sex because some of the dialogue actually dealt with literal sexual perversion trying
to say that this what I mean some of the stuff it was just like it was gross it was embarrassing
and I couldn't believe it.
I was floored when I saw this I'm like man now I see why DeSantis and others are trying
to do what they're doing.
I mean it was unbelievable.
I wanted to talk a little bit more about Florida HB 1557 and SB 1834 which is titled Parental
Rights and Education.
So the Florida House and the Florida Senate have both passed this bill and Governor DeSantis
has signed it into law so it comes into effect July 1st 2022 if it's not challenged in court
and paused and held.
We'll see.
So the bill has four or three main pieces to it.
The first is the school district is to ban the teaching of LGBTQ topics in the classroom.
Schools are to not encourage discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in
primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate
for students which I will add is very subjective very broad of descriptions.
It doesn't really limit that any more than saying that just to keep it open enough for
enforcement.
And third parents that feel their student was subjected to a discussion or educated
about gender identity and sexual orientation have the right to take legal action and sue
the school district for violating the bill.
This is things we've seen before with the abortion act in Texas just really giving people
the ability to sue someone or something else giving them a lot of legal backing for that
situation and just all in all enforcing limitation without actually enforcing it.
This kind of a it goes around a couple legal protections in the law by doing it that way
for the abortion bills specifically or the the anti-abortion bill specifically it gets
around if the government isn't enforcing it by having a person sue another person then
it gets around the legal precedent of Roe v Wade and Casey which is allowing abortions
for now.
And with this bill it gives the since the state isn't enforcing it the state isn't
enforcing it through the schools it gives a little bit of a roundabout way of getting
around the equal protection clauses in the Constitution.
There was another part in this bill an amendment added by Senator Joe Harding co-author in
the bill that if a student can buy confide sexual orientation or gender identity to a
school official they must tell the parents within six weeks.
This amendment was thrown out and it didn't pass but I think it's important to mention
the specific one because it shows the rhetoric of the politicians writing this bill and what
they actually want.
So some statistics that came out after this bill started debate the public opinion research
lab at the University of North Florida pulled a representative sample of 685 voters registered
statewide and found 49 percent of the respondents opposed the legislation 40 percent support
it either somewhat or strongly.
Among Republicans 44 percent strongly approve of the legislation compared to 19 percent
of registered Democrats.
Men were more likely to feel that way than women but only by two percentage points.
More notably than gender age appeared to be much of a stronger factor in these bills among
the 55 to 64 year old support for this bill is the strongest with 48 percent somewhat
or strongly supporting the idea that teachers should not encourage these discussions.
That contrast strongly with those between the ages of 18 and 24 and that age group the
poll shows 35 percent of that age group strongly or somewhat approve of the legislation and
51 percent somewhat or strongly disapprove the poll shows.
I think it's interesting bringing up these statistics and showing that a lot of the voters
statewide Florida oppose the legislation and yet it still passes and support wanes drastically
as you get lower into the voting age of 18 and 24 just showing as as you get lower and
lower in the into age brackets the support for being inclusive and supportive of LGBTQ
plus rights is stronger.
So this bill is created to alienate students and more create an us versus them scenario
to scare LGBTQ plus people.
It also removes the safety barrier that students have at school from their home life and creates
a scenario where a parent has the ability to exert more control over a child basically
treating children like they aren't human beings but property of the parents as seems to be
the trend recently.
So yeah first of all I want to mention how much they focus they being the Lakewood Park
podcast they focus on physicality as being reality and mentality as being fiction.
I get somewhat confused when like why are we weighing physicality more than someone's
mentality like how they think like that is all physical as well like thoughts or chemical
reactions going on in your brain.
It's like everything that we're doing like I feel like they're making thoughts and like
ideas and consciousness to be something not physical.
It's something outside of our own like body when I feel like all of that is still housed
within the body like that is all part of physicality but they differentiate the two.
Do you agree with that?
Yeah yeah they talk I remember specifically them talking about naturalism which I thought
was very odd and they seemed very confused at how someone could naturally like their
body is physically what we consider male but they feel like they're more of a woman and
they're more female and they didn't seem to understand how thinking works or like how
consciousness works or how feelings work.
They seem to like think that if you're a naturalist in quotes that you don't have thoughts like
I don't I was really confused by that.
Yeah I don't even have anything in that I didn't even try to get into the whole naturalism
thing.
My thing is like they they focus on what's easy.
They're like okay this is something we can see like they love the idea of being able
to see something and being able to take truth from seeing something right.
So you see the doctor sees the genitals of the baby and knows whether the baby is male
or female and that means that their gender identity must be boy or girl too if not they're
delusional is what they're basically saying.
And so do they understand like the liquid should offer a hermeneutics course of some
sort or something like think about interpretation.
Yes we can all see the same thing the exact same thing it is you can say it is objective
in that it is there everyone sees it.
Everyone's interpretation of that same thing everyone looking at the same thing all those
interpretations can be different.
That's where it gets subjective just because you can see thing doesn't make like your interpretation
truth of that thing.
And so I don't know why like just because they can't see these people's thoughts like
they can't see a manifestation of their feelings of who their sense of themselves it must be
delusional and that's where I think modernism does some wrong here.
Modernism is I mean and going through school you can tell they love modernism.
They hate postmodernism modernism being like this very logic oriented scientific method
of do this experiment this way get results trying to be objective and not necessarily
trying but in modernism I think they actually believe they can be objective and postmodernism
kind of goes into say like hey no you can't really be objective.
Everyone has their own bias and you cannot just get rid of that that is ingrained into
how you think like you can't necessarily be objective you can try you can identify your
biases but they're still going to be bias in there.
And so they really think just because they can see these things that it's obvious and
they just throw out someone's thoughts and self images that you must be what you look
like that is what I get from from their perspective and I disagree.
I think what how you see yourself internally it has a much bigger effect on who you are
and who you're going to be than how you physically look or how you physically what your anatomy
has like why I just get confused why they're so attached to if you have a penis you must
be man you must be godly man you must fit into this role that we have assigned you rather
than be who you want to be be who you are.
Well I mean even if you think about it like they have this weird concept just about specifically
trans people right like yeah people go to church wearing clothes that make them feel
good people go to school with clothes that make them feel good it's not like any of the
hosts go to school and stuff that like is unflattering really like they want to feel
good when they go out like they don't yell at their partners because they're wearing
makeup going to church and that's not natural like people want to feel good in their bodies.
So why is it like why is the line here like why did you put it here it's odd.
Yeah it's it's really weird.
I don't I don't I try to understand I feel like I was at that point but they really do
most of the episode is focused on trans people and their issues with trans people and so
that's going to be the majority of this episode they do bring in sexuality at some point but
in a bad way where they're like relating the two.
Let's first of all say gender identity is different from sexual orientation.
Those are two complete different topics.
I think they just see like LGBTQ like the T is in there it is in like this like sexuality
domain in a sense but it really doesn't have to do with sexual orientation.
So first of all like we're going to try to cover the trans part because that's mostly
what they focus on through this episode.
Yeah but basically I just see them taking the easy way out instead of trying to understand
someone they just look at their genitals and say what they are.
That's the content they consume I mean not I can't say for all of them but Slow For specifically
I know in other episodes he mentions the different writers and I kind of know the content he
consumes generally but I mean in this specific one he brings up Joel Abbott and Peter Heck
and they are very anti trans people very reactionary right opinion writers and their opinions are
I mean their opinion I mean basically their opinions are shallow and unresearched and
it's the easy way out and it's the same kind of attitude we get throughout this entire
episode as well.
So Slow For goes on to talk about I don't know if he was talking about a specific person
he knew or just in general but he talks about people who have transitioned and end up regretting
it and trying to use that as part of his argument for the why trans is bad.
I was reading articles of those who are coming forward now as being transgender dealing with
that and going through the therapy and the hormones and excuse me surgeries and realizing
that this was not what I was promised this is not fulfilling me this is not fixing what
I was dealing with and it's still there and but now I'm worse off and very interesting
to hear this particular individual well what there's there's a few on there that are interviewed
on this clip I have.
He mentions people regretting transitioning and yes that can happen that's why even like
with surgeons they should be pretty thorough in making sure that the person does have this
dysphoria between their body and who and their gender identity and whether it's going to
benefit their lives like they have different things that they do to try to decide like
this is going to be better for this person it's not just anyone who goes in being like
I want reassignment surgery they're not just going to be like okay let's go do it right
now like it does go through a process and yes there are going to be people that eventually
end up regretting it and it does suck for them like it's a big bummer I don't know
what to say about it but I don't want to assume that there's like one correct way of doing
things that applies to every single individual just because it wasn't the right choice for
that specific person doesn't mean that it's not the right choice for everybody it doesn't
discount everyone like it's a big generalization of like oh this person regretted it so it's
bad.
So yeah he talks about this I remember I looked into it a little bit there's definitely people
that have the regret transitioning there's people that it didn't it helped but it didn't
help fully and they still have other issues doing reassignment surgery is a big deal you
go through stuff with a psychologist and therapist and the surgeon to make sure like you said
there's a process a big process it's an important milestone that can happen and it's sometimes
for the majority of people that do transition it's a life-changing event they feel better
with themselves they are less suicidal they're less yeah and so I looked into people who
have regretted transitioning there's definitely been people that have regretted I don't want
to limit their stories there it's important to hear those as well but the 60 minutes specifically
there was a couple of news outlets 60 minutes specifically ran a piece about this a couple
years ago and it came out later that the journalist didn't actually talk to any of the people
who transitioned they talked to their parents and in a lot of circumstances the parents
weren't supportive of the transition and it didn't seem like the stories were all clear
it was very messy and even then even if we go through what slopher is talking about he
almost generalizes it and makes it a bigger deal he doesn't talk about any specific statistics
or anything like that the statistics vary a little bit it's very confusing of a field
it's about maybe 8% of people who transition later might have possible regrets doing that
but the majority of people do not have any regrets they live better lives that way I
hate bringing up these statistics in a way that it almost dehumanizes I'm trying not
to dehumanize people but like they just make it such a bigger like this stuff a big deal
and like they just they always preach it as fact and that's what gets me this whole episode
like they say these things and treat them as like fact without citing anything specifically
besides something maybe they saw and like there's just so much more nuance to it that
I'm trying to bring out as well yeah that goes into I think there's like I'm getting
to the end of slow first bit here so he goes on to this thing of saying he says if the
Bible is true and goes on true you know and then we do have a real God who created us
on purpose and purposely made humanity to be two genders and for a function to be there
and you know I really do think a lot of what we're seeing is just flat out you know if
we're rebelling against our creator and we're rebelling against the truth then of course
this is going to be a part of it to where we are rebelling against the very design of
the the two the gender binary system that he made within humanity he basically says
that trans people are rebelling against the creator and this is where I get really confused
too because he's probably only talking about trans people that transition like that actually
have the surgery go on ERT and change their bodies I think that's specifically what he's
talking about he lumps that as all trans people I don't think that's necessarily correct
though but so he talks about trans people rebelling against the creator and in that
sense it's like are you just talking about because you have a surgery to change your
body or you do things that changes your body because we have so many different things that
we use that is supposed to change our body or help our body or yeah like they they might
be against cosmetic surgery but for some people that's probably the best choice because some
way that their body was formed is causing them harm and that's where I think they just
get too focused on physical harm it's like oh yeah it's causing them physical harm so
they should have a surgery so that they are physically well what if their body is causing
them mental harm like we just disregard mental harm at all like a mental health is just not
a thing I did not hear anything about mental health going through liquid and I'm hoping
they're addressing that in some way now but you can tell by the way that they talk that
they are much more focused on physical well-being than mental well-being and it's like mental
well-being doesn't matter that's just something secondary your body is most important your
mental health comes last do you get the same kind of vibe yeah yeah you can you put that
really really well I get exactly that same vibe yeah so they're saying it's a rebellion
against the creator and I just because you're changing something from the way that you're
born does that make you rebellion against the creator if there is one like part of that
creation is the mind the the part that is saying something's wrong that is a part of
the creation does the brain not matter does like the mind or the brain are do the does
that matter at all in their perspective it depends if it's defending the faith or not
I think and like like that's kind of a joke but kind of not at the same time I mean like
it's just another weird line in the sand being drawn for no reason like we have so many amazing
surgeries like like was it me what was I rebelling against the creator when I got my gallbladder
removed because it was slowly killing me or like my tonsils and adenoids removed because
I was getting tonsillitis every year every six months and my adenoids removed so I could
breathe better like I've had surgeries that are like removing and changing my body I mean
that's what most surgeries are I guess yeah and so you have also you have also rebelled
against the creator by changing the creation yeah and like maybe he maybe Slither needs
to be more specific but the way he mentions us in the podcast the definition of what he
thinks is rebelling against the creator is broad enough to include almost everybody who's
had any sort of preventative surgery and maybe even like I remember a couple years ago a
man got something happened some accident and he was able to get his face entirely reconstructed
um like so he got plastic surgery which is plastic surgery is done on burn victims and
things like that cosmetic surgery is using those techniques to improve and alter the
body um I actually learned about that recently so I'm very happy to know this knowledge now
but like he it was a miracle recovery right but under this definition he would also be
rebelling against the creator really like I just don't like this definition I don't
think it's right and it's just another weird line drawn in some arbitrary sand really right
which leads to the last thing that he had to say was him being he didn't use the term
androgynous but he was upset about the people in ads not looking like a specific gender
like he was upset that even the ads are getting rid of gender you know I'm scrolling through
on my phone and just random advertisements that come up some for ups or whatever and
the the person that they show it's like intentionally um almost like a gender neutral type person
um I got one from from walmart uh that that was showing a barbie and it was like a like
a genderless type human you know and it's like trying to it's like wow that's that's
at the core of of our rebellion rebelling against him even trying to erase oh no so
I said now being androgynous is rebelling against god oh brother like come on like just
because people express that way or like these companies are trying to be inclusive of everyone
like obviously they're a business they're trying to get more clicks and the way they're
doing that is because people are more concerned with inclusivity and so they're just trying
to make the people in these ads more relatable or at least include more of the population
that's been left out for who knows how long forever like now you don't need to get upset
about a category of people that dress in a non-gendered way like they don't I don't know
if they even know about non-binary but I don't think they'd be for non-binary people at all
either I think they'd they'd find a problem with that too even if it doesn't involve like
surgery or anything they just have a problem with someone not adhering to one of the two
gender stereotypes that the patriarchal church has brought yeah like and even let's if we
take the massive ben shapiro assumption that everything they say right now in this episode
is true and that being trans and changing is rebelling against God it's a sin all that
stuff if we take that all is true the people in these ads don't believe have the same belief
system as you so why does it matter how they look why are you getting super upset about
how someone else decides to present themselves to the world like why does that even matter
to you at all like it doesn't it really doesn't and when you start to take a minority group
and decide that they are sinning against God for being who they are it's just entering
really dangerous territory like I just don't get it I just don't get it yeah they don't
get it either though we're all in the same boat here guys we all don't understand so
stop acting like you do I I try to and who knows but anyways that's the end of slow first
bit there at the beginning which leads into Jed so Jed had some ideas as well which he
goes in and talking about Genesis shows ideal creation that was one of his first things
he goes Genesis is what is showing ideal creation because Genesis one it doesn't just talk about
how creation is made it also talks about like it shows the ideal form of creation like it's
like this isn't just God creating this is also showing what creation is meant to be
creation at its height creation at its peak and I was just gonna say one person's ideal
is another person's hell like first of all it's not it's not as easy just because like
this story adapted to I shouldn't I shouldn't get into some of the history of it but like
Genesis you can tell it's not like an original story that's in the Bible it's been used in
a lot of different areas and it's written by people in a very old culture a very misogynist
patriarchal culture that loved the same things like this separation and so just because that
person's idea of creation and what ideal creation would be doesn't necessarily make it I know
that they believe in like the what not inerrancy but infallibility of the Bible at that point
like you're reading too much into a myth like the specifics of that I don't think are what
matters much I don't think the storyteller was trying to say hey look at this the whole
per point of the story is to show that this is a woman this is a man this is how they
relate to each other type of thing like but that's just one of the things he does go into
talking about so I'm gonna say the ideology that is affirming of trans people he claims
that that is the new Gnosticism and this it's like a new form of Gnosticism where it's saying
it's just kind of like oh who you are is something detached from your physicality is something
independent of what your physicality is it's a fun one so he's saying that who someone
is their idea of who someone is is detached from their physicality like he goes in I don't
know if he uses delusional there but he does say that it's something that doesn't exist
like this who someone is their idea is not reality that their physicality is who they
are and again I just go into this whole like so it's just someone's mentality does not
matter like they're just so focused on this physicality of a person like I would say like
what makes someone who they are is how they think I it just doesn't make sense there
a body is part of who someone is but I say what matters more is who they see themselves
as maybe if people weren't so binary and didn't shove genders into boxes people would be fine
having a male body and feeling like a woman but no people treat men one way and women
another so the real problem isn't with their physicality but with societal norms given
from a history of patriarchal Christians they are upset because people are not fitting a
mold that was created by the church or just by by past generations and I'd like to think
that with progress we learn new things we throw out some of the old dated things and
we get a newer understanding of them like growth like I said last time requires change
but like I don't I was talking with Natalie about it just this idea like I wonder if this
is just a hypothetical and who who could even answer it I wonder if anyone would have dysphoria
if they were just allowed to exist and not treated how they looked like didn't get a
certain treatment based on what their body looked like like if if people just allowed
other people to exist without pushing on some sort of standard like oh you look like a boy
you should act this way you should dress this way you should be this way if people didn't
do that would there be any dysphoria with between their self-image in their body like
there no one I think can answer that because that is an ideal world that's never going
to exist but I was just curious about that like is it I feel like society is one of the
issues like our cultural norms societal norms are is what's making people within that community
have dysphoria or feel bad about the body they were given like going back to that that
teacher's video he talks about the doctor assigning him the sex of female of being a
girl and what did his parents do they immediately go dress him up in girl clothing like we have
girl clothing and guy clothing like dress him up in girl clothing put him in girl activities
and whatnot like we have these like these activities are for girls these are for guys
and because of that that probably caused his dysphoria to be worse that is a big assumption
I will admit that like but I just have a feeling that it is because people treat people a certain
way based on how they look that they are like this is not the way I want to look I want
to be treated the way that I see myself not the way that you see me and I don't think
people are going to be able to do that that's just again I don't really have any expertise
just a straight white man as Bo Burnham puts it right we like to paint our fingernails
sometimes that's true I did suggest that we paint our fingernails while we recorded this
podcast I thought that would have been funny paint your nails is not just for girls everyone
can paint their nails if they want to let them if it makes you feel hot go for it don't
make it a big deal unless you're gonna like go overboard with how much you love them then
go for it that's fine I love I love when I me and Natalie both have our nails painted
and everyone just complements mine but ignores hers it's just hilarious because no one's
used to men having painted nails at least not straight men yeah it's pretty fun I like
doing it makes me feel good makes me feel like I can type amazingly I can I just look
good typing like I could be a hand model you can do whatever you want to do if I don't
push down my cuticles before I do it then they look a little like wrong like off like
not long enough yeah I have to push back my cuticles or else like it's more of like a
rectangle where the short sides are because from the tip of my finger to like the cuticle
that part is small it doesn't look right with the width of it when I don't push back my
cuticles and paint them so yeah that's a part of my routine if I ever paint my nails I got
to push back my cuticles before I paint I still can't I still can't paint between the
lines so we're still working on okay so that was the whole new Gnosticism thing so I went
to harvest fellowship one week with my parents and I was one of the earlier times we went
as I was starting putting myself back together after deconstructing and he the pastor mentioned
he was talking something about how the Trinity started I don't remember I don't remember
what verses he was talking about somewhere in the New Testament and he just really wanted
to talk about the Trinity and so he brought up a story of a I don't have my notes here
because this is just off the cuff unfortunately there was a early church leader who didn't
believe in the Trinity and someone other people were praying to show them the truth of like
if this was real or not if the Trinity was real or not to give them a sign and then the
guy who didn't believe in the Trinity was a big proponent of that side died before he
was able to give his side and and so he dies and the pastor was just making fun of him
and his side because of that and it was like super weird and insulting of like I was so
early in Christianity like the Trinity wasn't set you can't just make fun of someone like
that just because they believe different than you like making fun of him dying like and
I just I that was the first flashback I got when I was listening to Jed talk about Gnosticism
of like first off relating these two is not even the same and second off it just kind
of like just because people had different beliefs than you doesn't mean you can just
like roast them or like that like it's annoying.
So at this point we get to Mr. D's perspective on this whole topic got Slow for Down got
Jed down on to Mr. D. So Johnson Luke Johnson asks Mr. D. What he thinks about people that
don't make this a big deal like people that think of gender identity and think like oh
that's not a big deal. Let people be who they want who they are. I not want to be if I say
want to be they're going to hit on that. Let people be who they are. He has what about
these people that don't think it's a big deal that they should just be able to be who they
are. And these response is quote ultimately that response is unloving unquote.
I think that ultimately that response is unloving quite honestly.
So what we're doing right here Chris ultimately we are being unloving to trans people or to
yeah it's mostly just trans people that they talk about in this episode. So yeah we're
being unloving by disagreeing. This is where I see manipulation by these teachers kids
that listen to these teachers and these teachers make these things sound like oh it's obvious
like oh like it's just this idea is stupid. Like how could you even think that when they
joke about it and make it to a point where it's like this is unloving you're being unloving
if you don't do this and make it's hard to disagree with teachers. And when you make
it sound like such just like a fact like you were saying I consider that indoctrination
or manipulation of these children. So I was saying to affirm people's identity is to be
unloving is what he's saying. And then he calls he says that trans people are suffering
from a delusion. And that's clearly what this is.
In no other and no other sphere of life where somebody is suffering from a delusion and
that's clearly what this is. Do we lean into that and say yes you should do that. Nobody
who is suffering from schizophrenia goes to you know a psychologist or a psychiatrist
and they're like yeah you know what you do you know your your hallucinations are real
and you should live that out. And they don't affirm that they get help for the person.
Using terminology like clearly again is just like this. You're trying to make something
be dumbed down so that people agree with you especially when you're talking to an audience
of students. Like when you use words like that like that's clearly what this is. You're
just disregarding any other thought. You are just shoving it out like it has no place there
and which he always was the one that said don't listen to me do your own research type
thing but if you come to the conclusion that you are that is different than mine then it
has no place here is how I see it. Well he says it's a delusion and I was going
to say like tell that to the World Health Organization. They do not see it that way.
He also compares it gender dysphoria. He compares dysphoria to schizophrenia. He compares it
later on to anorexia and compares it to bulimia and it's just very ignorant to think that
those are similar. Oh he also compares it to identifying as a different age. Your delusion
is accurate and you should lean into this and do everything you can to do this. If I
you know claimed you know that I was 65 years old and I should be collecting you know retirement
benefits the government wouldn't go for that. It's just it's are you not trying to understand
where this person is coming from or are you just trying to force your perspective on to
other people because no other perspective can be right. I've already found the correct
perspective. None of the other ones can be right like he doesn't give anything else a
chance and I just think it's so rude to compare it to disorders such as schizophrenia or anorexia
or bulimia. They're not the same thing. This is the stuff but just it it wasn't it hurt
it hurt to listen to. Like it was so ignorant and off putting and insulting and it like
at this point I got to the first time I listened to it I got eight about eight minutes in and
had to stop and then I made it to about 12 minutes in and had to stop and then I got
about 26 minutes in and just stopped for like a whole day of like it's just it's it it hurts
to listen to it's it's not right it's insulting it's I mean it's angering it's frustrating
and really like it just it made me sad too of like I'm just imagining they're so confident
in their viewpoint about this and so confident to not listen to the communities of the trans
community and honestly so many other communities they don't listen to them and what they're
what they're saying they don't listen to organizations like the World Health Organization later he
talks about the APA and they just don't listen to what scientists are saying what studies
are saying what statistics are saying and they're just so confident in themselves that
they're clearly right using an adverb that he uses clearly what it is that they're suffering
from a delusion like that's so insulting to the people that have been trying to tell us
how they feel for so long and they're finally getting representation and protection and
help and then you just have people who are who study theology and have church adjacent
degrees who think that they know more than the World Health Organization or the APA or
the hundreds of psychologists and psychiatrists and therapists and the community themselves
who are telling you how they feel and you just are so ignorant that you can't even listen
and you can't even understand what they're going through so I just wanted to talk about
so the Williams Institute UCLA did does a survey every couple years on with people who
I identify as trans and it's specifically about unique risk factors and revolving around
suicide so if that hits very close to home to you these numbers I'm I don't want to
dehumanize people by bringing up too many statistics but I think it's really important
is like understanding what this attitude of this podcast brings to the table what comes
after if this viewpoint becomes mainstream if the parental rights Florida bill becomes
law like federal law if stuff like this happens and the trans community loses a lot of their
help that they have now it gets worse and I just wanted like really hit home of like
what the science and statistics and studies are telling us and why we need to see that
they are human and they are struggling so I don't mean to diminish anyone into a statistic
and I just want to keep saying that so I don't because I don't really want people to know
that so the Williams Institute writes that this is going to be just quoting straight
up from their samples and I'll leave the link in the description if you want to look into
more of the study so experiencing discrimination or mistreatment in education employment housing
health care etc leads to higher levels of suicide attempts for example the prevalence
of past year suicide attempts by those who reported that they had been denied equal treatment
in the past year because they are transgender was more than double that of those who had
not experienced such treatment 13.4 percent compared to 6.3 percent I'm gonna skip her
down here to respondents who had been rejected by the religious communities or had undergone
conversion therapy were more likely to report suicide thoughts and attempts for instance
13.1 percent of those who had experienced religious rejection in the past year had attempted
suicide in that past year by contrast 6.3 percent of respondents who had experienced
religious acceptance in the past year attempted suicide in the past year those who had quote
de-transitioned at some point meaning having gone back to living according to their sex
assigned at birth were significantly more likely to report suicide thoughts and attempts
both past year and lifetime than those who had never de-transitioned in quotes nearly
12 percent of those who quote de-transitioned attempted suicide in the past year compared
to 6.7 percent of those who have not quote de-transitioned going down a little bit further
these are the factors that are associated with lower risk of suicide thoughts and attempts
for the survey respondents respondents with supportive families reported lower prevalence
of past year and lifetime suicide thoughts and attempts those who wanted and received
hormone therapy and or surgical care had a substantially lower prevalence of past year
suicide thoughts and attempts than those who wanted hormone therapy and surgical care and
did not receive them a lower proportion of respondents who lived in a state with a gender
identity non-discrimination statute reported past year suicide thoughts and attempts than
those who lived in states without such a statute so their conclusion comes to end quoting it's
clear that minority stress experiences such as family rejection discrimination experiences
and lack of access to gender affirming health care create added risk for transgender people
furthermore the cumulative effect of experiencing multiple minority stressors is associated
with dramatically higher prevalence of suicidality and i just wanted to bring that up and just
point that this this attitude that uh the host uh have in this episode is um specifically
called out in this survey respondent as leading to higher thoughts about suicide so like it's
it's important that we talk about what's wrong and why being non-affirming has very much
issues and how much it affects like they don't the hosts don't have this attitude of how
serious their topic is they're making jokes they're laughing they're talking and they
just have this attitude of being clearly right about this when the statistics say the exact
opposite so d says a lot of stuff that assumes he knows the absolute truth including like
he basically says anyone that like anyone who affirms people being trans anyone who
affirms their identity uh that that ideology that belief that that is right and okay that
flies in the face of all logic and truth and i just think it's funny that he thinks that
like he must be pretty cynical towards just all of humanity in general like this poor
guy probably thinks he's one of the only people that is logical and can identify truth like
everyone that disagrees must just be so illogical and just can't discern what truth is like
like if it's so clear why doesn't everyone believe it like if you think these things
are just so clear and so concrete i would just argue that you'd be wrong in that sense
just because there is such controversy over it like it's more complex than what he likes
to make it out to be he likes to make it seem so simple like how can people get this wrong
like maybe you should think of it as more complex issue but again they seem to only
talk about people who transition who have reassignment surgery like just that specific
area when that doesn't like i think that i think that involves all trans people i don't
think they understand that there are a variety of trans people and what they decide to do
uh but he goes on he really believes that dysphoria is a mental disorder and even goes
on to claim that the apa classifies gender dysphoria as a mental disorder which is completely
incorrect he misrepresents the apa's position uh the apa is the american psychiatric association
for those who don't know that uh from one of their biggest publications uh that's used
with psychiatrists is uh the dsm or it's actually an abbreviation for diagnostic and
statistical manual of mental disorders and the most recent one is the fifth iteration
of that uh and within that manual here is a quote it says quote it is important to note
that gender nonconformity is not in itself a mental disorder the critical element of
gender dysphoria is the presence of clinically significant distress associated with the condition
unquote they try to clearly say in there that it is not a mental disorder it's just uh and
then on the apa's own website uh they go in to talk there's some there's some good stuff
just right at the beginning uh good for people like me who really don't understand it all
that well uh but it basically talks about gender dysphoria referring to the psychological
distress uh that results from incongruence between one's sex assigned at birth and one's
gender identity uh people who are transgender may pursue multiple domains of gender affirmation
including social affirmation for example changing one's name and pronouns they may look for
legal affirmation which is changing gender markers on government issue documents so that
is a legal affirmation of their gender they may look for medical affirmation such as uh
pubertal pubertal suppression or gender affirming hormones and or surgical affirmation which
is what they like to focus on uh so it says of no not all people who are transgender will
desire all domains of gender affirmation as these are highly personal and individual decisions
that just shows that there is a diversity within uh within transgender people i guess
uh just i that's why it's kind of hard just to use that term because it does lump everyone
together it's hard to like we want to differentiate but it's hard to like people within this domain
are very different from each other it's not like they're all the same person uh and from
there luke johnson just comes in with homosexuality like it has something to do with conversation
like he doesn't transition at all he just jumps into homosexuality in which like we
said before these are very different topics even on that same apa website they talk about
gender identity being different from sexual orientation uh people who are transgender
have the same diversity of sexual orientations as people who are cisgender i don't know why
he thought like oh let's jump into homosexuality but now we're jumping into homosexuality or
they like to use ssa same-sex attraction i guess also i think it's funny natalie pointed
out like they use the term homosexuality all the time and they never use the word gay like
they're scared of using the word gay so being trans has nothing to do with sexual orientation
that is a part of who the person is their sexual orientation but it doesn't have to
be with have to do with them being trans the problem has shifted and this is uh kind of
harkening back to that podcast i referenced earlier with carl truman uh homosexuality
has been around for a really long time right the greeks did it but for them it was a behavior
not an identity and so some people might say that that's wrong some people might say it's
right they're going to do what they're going to do but they didn't associate a homosexual
action with who they fundamentally fundamentally were as a as a person and uh but that's where
we're at now is that my sexual orientation my gender my understanding of my personal
gender or whatever that has become who i am an identity problem so he goes on to talk
about homosexuality in the past and how it was just a behavior is is what he says how
people would have homosexual relations with each other but it was just a behavior i had
nothing to do with who they are they like he tried to say like they didn't make homosexuality
a part of their identity like he has a problem with people's sexual orientations being a
part of who they are unless they're straight then that's fine i guess it's a it's a sexual
orientation like are we still on this belief that like people choose their sexual orientation
like are we still saying that like it's just it is a part of who they are did they get
to choose it not that i know of uh i was gonna say like in the past so he says it was just
a behavior i don't know what research he uses to come to that conclusion i don't know where
he's getting that from but like what if we just considered that maybe it was a part of
those people's identity in the past like maybe that was a part of who they were but it was
it was dangerous for that to be known in a patriarchal context so they just put off being
just like hey this is just a behavior or uh maybe they just didn't take sex as seriously
as the church does or has in recent history uh maybe it wasn't tied to who they were because
it was just sexuality maybe they just didn't care about sexuality but we make it a really
big deal today i don't know like there's a whole lot of options that could be for his
claim but i wouldn't know he didn't saw he didn't cite anything or source it so i couldn't
tell you do they do they think do they believe that being gay is a mental disorder as well
do they think same-sex attraction is a mental disorder i think they do i don't think they
don't say it because they don't believe it is i think they just don't say it so they
don't get backlash well i think that's true and the church likes to have its own uh almost
a secret code for itself where it uses terms and words that mean the same thing as what
everyone else uses but they say it different to try to get away from backlash i think that
they would say it is uh if someone has in quotes i'm going to use their language same-sex
attraction they use that term that way instead of saying gay or they're um attracted to the
same sex they use ssa as an abbreviation because that's the term they use and so that's they
can kind of use their own thoughts and processes and say that like it's a sin that god has
bestowed on this person to be attracted to the same sex i remember specifically i remember
slow for talking about this in our um utt class that was the first year he was teaching
at lakewood and um he i remember him specifically talking about this and using terminology like
that i can't say that he still uses it that way um it i mean he doesn't talk super a lot
about it in this episode so i don't want to like assume that he still thinks that way
i just remember in class he had um so one of his friends is a pastor who described himself
as suffering with same-sex attraction um and described himself as it being um a sin that
he suffered through it was a um a trial that he had to work through and he met his wife
and was attracted to her and they had um kids together as a way to say that like you don't
have to struggle with this forever um me looking back at that now i would say that well and
he also um said that he just when he watched tvs he was when he watched tv or video or
something he still had that um not lust but attraction and he thought men that still looked
nice um what i know today i would say that the way they use the language was just tiptoeing
around him saying that he was bi and not gay i don't want to give a term for him obviously
but um the way the story reads to me now looking back is it was being used to project this
way of saying same-sex attraction isn't something that happens to you all the time you can work
through it it's a sin that is all right not a sin it's a sin and a um a thorn in your
side kind of going back to the whole uh thing with paul um that god gives you to struggle
with so you can become better that's kind of the language i remember them using in class
and so they use someone that had found a partner that was a woman and they had kids together
as a way to diminish people who are in relationships with the same sex i just very clearly remember
that and it still is i wish i could i would love to find that um person that had talked
to us in class about this so i want to talk to him more about it yeah now that i i would
like to hear more of his story it would be interesting to hear um i there's a youtube
channel um god is gray uh she did some interviews and stuff with people who are kind of similar
but i just have a very distinct memory with um this person so i always be curious to talk
like one-on-one about it yeah so at this point we get into a bit of a i want to tread carefully
because i don't want to say anything wrong with with jed or anything like that uh jed
does in the episode uh come out and saying that he did struggle with dysphoria uh while
he was going through school and kind of his whole experience which like he doesn't seem
to think it was like such a bad thing to be at lakewood i think he he gives lakewood too
much credit and and his uh explanation of going through school at lakewood uh but he
went the whole time and didn't didn't say anything about his his dysphoria in school
uh but he talked about his internal struggle and the questions he would ask himself uh
like how would this make me a better person how would this improve my life and he doesn't
really get too specific about what this is like he uses terminology like if you do what
you want to do uh i don't know what he's talking about like do what you want to do is that
like the like transitioning i i couldn't i don't want to read too much into it but he
was saying if you do what you want to do uh like it may not be good for you uh how would
it make you a better person and he basically was like the life i have is is good i'm going
to keep the life that i have and i took that as more of like what settling is like life
is good enough the way it is i don't want to disrupt that i'm going to settle for what
i have right now now that that may be a bad interpretation he could be very happy with
his decisions and i would be happy with that as well but not everyone could be happy with
staying like sticking with the dysphoria just because your life is good enough and you don't
want to ruin it like i would say the problem there is that it would get ruined at all if
you were to say anything and that's what i think lakewood was was doing was making it
scary to say anything because you think your life's going to change completely if you just
tell people about this part of you so like yeah it sounds like he didn't say anything
because there may be backlash if he were to express himself that way so the lesson i got
was don't do it but later on they do say do and i'll i'll get into that but he's basically
i heard like the life and the body you have right now can be good is is what i heard him
use was the word can and so i was thinking well if it can be good it can be bad too it
is individual i don't think it goes across the board but it's good to hear his account
of it i was also really upset when slopher said something about like recognizing that
in his senior year like pointing that out i i felt very uneasy with him saying that
did you get the same feeling yeah it didn't feel good when slopher's like yeah i noticed
that about you your senior year is like what are you trying to do here like what are you
trying to prove yeah i don't know yeah well i don't know why he said it uh anyways after
after jed talks about that and kind of talks about his own journey with that luke johnson
comes in and this is my own summary of what he said uh so luke johnson comes in and he
basically goes okay jed now you are our personal representative for everyone who has dysphoria
please tell us how to make everyone better like that's that's not a direct quote but
that's what i heard when he was like uh jed like how can you help people that are dealing
with this since you experienced it yourself he's like purposefully making jed a representative
for everyone who has dysphoria and what to do to basically cope with it i i don't i don't
like the the turning him into a representative i don't know if he would want to be that representative
but he takes it on anyways and he tries to give some advice to any other students that
are dealing with the same thing uh and he uses uh phrases such as like uh living the
life god is calling you to and how lakewood helped him uh live life how god was calling
him to live his life and so i thought it was funny he i just feel like he gives lakewood
too much credit he's too he's too in it uh but my experience with lakewood was not with
lakewood helping me to go where god was calling me uh lakewood told me where to go they had
their own idea of where god calls everyone and told me to go in that direction basically
like god's calling you this way you need to go that way that's the way god's calling you
they didn't help me they just told me where to go and he defends lakewood and i just think
just because just because lakewood doesn't have the intention of kids feeling scared
of talking and uh like just because they have that intention of okay let me start that over
we're i gotta i don't think i wrote it out well uh just because lakewood doesn't have
the intention of causing kids to feel scared about talking about these things does not
make it okay intention doesn't make the impact okay causing kids to feel scared of talking
about these things is not okay intention does not matter they need to be aware of the impact
of their actions and not just hope that it works out because they want it to you wanting
it to work out in a different in a certain way just because you want it to be good doesn't
make it good your intention does not matter as much as the impact that it causes and we
can see that the impact is that kids do not feel safe to talk and i don't blame them so
jed goes into calling for kids to feel safe to tell someone to feel safe to bring it up
but i still would not say that you're safe to bring those things up they want you to
bring it up so that they can be there to quote help quote unquote you they want to help you
or should i say save you like you are a victim of something it is very manipulative it's
like you should feel safe but we want you to change we want to change this part of you
so tell us about that part so we know that we have to change that in you and then they
jokingly associate the consequences of i just put coming out i feel like coming out kind
of encompasses everything it might not i might be wrong with this but i'm just saying coming
out is telling people about like whether your gender identity sexual orientation anything
like that so they jokingly associate the consequences of coming out as being locked in tunnels sent
to hell failing bible class like all in a joking manner again and this isn't just me
saying oh don't worry you know you don't have anything to worry about as somebody who's
gonna clap the hammer on you this is something this is again this is something that i experienced
as a young person facing these issues i felt these things i came to people with them and
i was not sent straight to hell i wasn't excommunicated from lakewood park um you weren't put in the
tunnels i wasn't putting the chained up no i i didn't fail bible class because of the
fact well that's the tip of the cap to you nick unintentionally maybe intentionally associating
coming out with bad things happening and then being like but that's not gonna happen but
like that's what everyone believes and there's a reason for that there's a reason that people
have these these ideas it's not just coincidental that people think oh something's bad something
bad's gonna happen if i come out like there's a reason for that you should still be scared
i don't know why he says this because it's in the handbook that you can get expelled
for like stuff like this right like they're a private institution so they can have as
many rules for expelling a student or suspending a student as they want like i there's punishment
for this that's why no one does it and i i feel like almost you gave them too much credit
for not having this attention uh my opinion would be that they do have the intention of
scaring kids into making them what they want i don't know if i would go that far to say
that's their intention yeah we'll have to agree to disagree on that they might they
might see it as like utilitarian like it's a necessary evil who knows i don't know they
might see it as like if i love this person i will have to do this kind of thing like
a tough love almost yeah we'll have to i'm sure later episodes will get into more of
lakewood's positions on things like this and their intention anyways after associating
that i just wanted to say that honestly you shouldn't need you shouldn't need to have
to tell anyone anything or come out that shouldn't be like something you have to do to be yourself
you know like that's to say that like someone needs to tell you about it or come out to
you to suggest that is to basically say they need to admit or i even heard them use the
term confess that you have a problem like they're seeing it as like by you telling us
about this you are confessing that you have a problem like if if you actually thought
it would be safe to be yourself you wouldn't have to tell anyone anything but it's because
there's an environment that you do not feel safe to be yourself and you don't feel like
you can tell anyone who you really are and they're just saying but you should feel safe
to tell us confess to us is really what they're saying it's not it's not a problem that's
who you are is not a problem it's just silly again just given lakewood too much credit
i think taylor was a good enough school he should know better he went to taylor i know
some cool people that went to taylor i don't actually know much about taylor but oh and
then i don't know it specifically i just started responding to things and not writing down
what they were saying so at this point they talked something about the church being interpreted
as being hateful and they're trying to show like we're not hateful we care type of deal
because i fear that all you know just like what you know people who experience same-sex
detraction heard with the debate over gay marriage is christians hate homosexuals you
know and and i fear that this is the message that you know people struggle with gender
dysphoria are getting is that christians just hate people who are struggling in this way
that are just different you know so that's i think the danger in all of the arguing and
battling back and forth is the message that's portrayed yeah i want to say the fact that
people interpret the church's doings as being hateful should say something the fact that
that's a thing that people interpret it that way it should say something but no it's everyone
else's fault for misinterpreting them if your impact doesn't match your intention maybe
try something else stop doing the same things over and over again blaming everyone for misinterpreting
you like you're just putting the blame on everyone else because they don't understand
me or should we just believe that there's a reason people see it as hateful i think
there's something in that i completely agree with that like yeah if everyone else says
something's hateful and you're like it's not hateful all of you are wrong and that's a
lot of people that have to be wrong yeah no you're just you're just misinterpreting me
i'm not being hateful i'm being loving by by harassing you at planned parenthood or
i don't know we don't need to get into that that's not this episode that's another one
we'll get there this episode has hurt so much like to listen to to write to do like i'm
just i'm in so much pain and like listening to you talk for this past 45 minutes i just
want to cry like yeah i'm almost done there's just a little bit more so they do start to
discuss with each other how they would try to comfort someone that would come out and
confess to them like they talk about like doing it the right way like listening to them
whatnot like they're doing this whole act that they really just care they care about
you so much and so they're like trying to figure out the best ways to converse about
these things and so they say when it comes to somebody opening up and confessing struggles
i get that was their direct quote that used the term confessing struggles they consider
this confession um no i'm not saying that that doesn't happen we still have like a lot
of opportunities where it does but i do think you know to jet's point as well we also when
it when it comes to someone opening up and confessing struggles a lot of times the church
can be a really gracious and kind and loving place i think the rub comes in just where
you're saying nick where how do we continue to show kindness to the person yet engage
for truth and the argument because of the broader implications um and that's i think
that's just a difficult a difficult balance to have to engage in the debate while also
clearly conveying love for the person and a love a love that wants to see wholeness
and joy and and and peace and no more no more of all of the um all the struggles that come
with with kind of calculating to you know the world's solution when it comes to somebody
opening up and confessing struggles like they're basically wondering how do we tell someone
nicely that they are wrong so that they will agree with me like they're talking they're
just figuring out like how do we talk to them so that they understand that what they're
doing is wrong and they agree with my position and they change they're not talking at all
specifically about like how do we get to know this person how do we try to understand them
it's no how do we in a nice way tell them they need to change how do we tell them nicely
that they need to repent from who they are they're more focused yeah they're more focused
on what you're doing wrong than who you are they're more focused on trying to correct
you they're trying to fix you they're more concerned with that than just you that's why
they're going on about how how do we talk to these people like how about you just talk
to them like a person i don't didn't think it was that hard to treat people as people
uh okay here's a trick well i don't it's out of context at this point but literally they
use the phrase deliver you from whatever you're struggling with you know the world's solution
on what can deliver um you from your you know whatever whatever you're struggling with like
what kind of savior complex do these people have like they trying to quote deliver people
from what they're struggling with and then sloper goes on to generalize being lgbtq plus
as uh people who have sexual sin so he tries to generalize like hey we're all in this together
we all have our own sexual sin we're all in the same boat when it comes to you know um
dealing with sexual sins and temptations and that's just a part of this group of people
that have sexual sin like stop if i if i step out and and and cheat on my wife with this
person you know every everything you were just saying like all those desires and temptations
could be there in that but in that context and situation you know um yeah uh my life
is gonna change you know after and what i have now is good and you know so as you were
saying that it was like wow that that that that could go for for other areas too other
sins and he associates it with cheating on one's wife he considers being gay or trans
or just queer in general as similar to someone who cheats on their wife or like not even
that being asexual or like any of the other things really it lumps it all as sexual sin
all of it it lumps it all of it together it's stupid it bothered me a lot that's where i
left off i just gave up it was getting to like just little one sentence bits or just
like phrases i was like i'm done i'm sick of it yeah yeah so that part happens uh at
about 40 minutes in and so this episode is 50 minutes long they pretty much end the conversation
there um well that conversation they mentioned they didn't have a plan again obviously they
didn't have a plan my god um didn't have a plan at all um and then they mention an article
there was a guy in germany who got 90 covid vaccines and then all of the extra cards they
he sold so they were legitimate batch numbers he sold them off um they make jokes about
this i mean it's don't get 90 covid vaccines like uh testament to how safe these mrna
vaccines are that that's like he's not dead but don't do that obviously not good no need
for that also and then selling these cards was not a good choice as well whatever but
the thing that got me just really quickly it doesn't relate to anything else but i'm
just mad the thing that got me the most about this was the language they use about the vaccine
they didn't outright say it was bad or anything like that they just made jokes using far right
conspiracy language about microchips um saying stuff about being magnetic uh magneto stuff
um so they say things like far right conspiracy theories like this might you might die in
30 years you might not they call it the fauci ouchy microchip being magnetic like magneto
just conspiratorial jokes and things that they start saying as a joke um i think the
problem is it doesn't it comes off kind of like a joke but at the same time i've heard
these things from actual other people not joking and the power the position of power
that the hosts are in over their listeners it's just a worrying trend to have to being
so casual about covet in general um and being so casual about vaccinations in a time where
it's very important to get vaccinated to protect yourself and things like that i didn't really
like that and i'm not i thought it was weird that they even talked about it but that's
just what the last was so you didn't miss anything at the end there yeah it was like
okay that don't say things like that to children yeah it's fine because i also think most of
people listening would be like high schoolers so give them some credit there they should
be old enough to understand certain things yeah i mean but it's just the it's the position
of power that teachers have in high schoolers lives um i mean maybe it's just a main thing
i just remember really looking up to um my teachers and taking everything they said as
um more factual than anything else not saying that everything they said i took as fact but
i was more inclined to believe things that they said versus um other people in my life
just because i'm around them so much and they teach me actual information so sometimes it's
hard to parse through and you know you're in high school so you're busy you know so
it's hard to parse through everything someone tells you so sometimes you just repeat things
yeah that's what that's what college is for because you know statistically there's a bunch
of kids that don't go back to church after they go to college yeah i wonder why that
happens so odd kind of a crisis they should figure that out or i don't know i would have
been more likely to have like stayed within that world if they would have introduced me
to just more concepts and ideas and perspectives but they didn't and so i got those at school
to close us out here again i just want to apologize for anything that we may have misinterpreted
or misrepresented in this episode again like chris said please reach out uh inform us we
would love to learn more from other people we'd love to hear the different perspectives
and and just learn more because honestly i'm just an ignorant person as well so apologies
for any misrepresentations please let us know how we can make it better and i just want
to say again i'm sorry for statistic i know statistics take groups of people and lump
them together and that's problematic when you're talking about individuals i really
just was focusing on specific things to show how dangerous language like this is and i
do want to reach out to the hosts of hallway digressions as well we want this to be almost
an accountability and a conversation we want to bring up problematic points and topics
and things that we find our issues we want to talk about them we want to help and bring
them to uh the host's attention and just really we don't want this to be an attack we're not
trying to make this an attack we want this to be like a line of open communication and
just to explain why things on the podcast are problematic and why that they're they
have issues and hopefully explain a different perspective about things as well