Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #412 Exploring Her Struggle with Gender Dysphoria and the Triumph of the Human Heart with Cynthia Breheny

Transcript

#412 Exploring Her Struggle with Gender Dysphoria and the Triumph of the Human Heart with Cynthia Breheny · Claymore: Become Who You Are

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, the production of the John Paul Tour Renewal Center.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I'm Jack Rigard, your host, so glad you're joining me.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: You're going to meet an incredible young woman today.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: She's bright, articulate, humble, a designer, an author and, maybe the most exciting thing yet, she's a mother of a new baby girl.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: She's going to share a glimpse of her life today growing up with gender dysphoria, her search for alternative therapies without transition and her work helping others through the Paradox Institute.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: So buckle up and get ready for today's episode.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I'm excited and grateful to be with Cynthia Brayhani today.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Cynthia is with the Paradox Institute.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I found her as I was researching an article that I was writing on gender ideology.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: She wrote an article called Transideology the modern hydra and that explained it to me right there.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: The title did and helped me frame some of the work that I was doing.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Then I backed up and I saw that she had a personal journey and an experience with gender dysphoria and then the work the Paradox Institute was doing.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: So let me just read you a little bit of her bio and then we're going to bring her on.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Cynthia is a professional digital artist, animator and author.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Her lifetime experience with gender dysphoria and her professional design skills, provided with unique abilities to communicate sex and gender concepts.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: She's the communications and design director for the Paradox Institute.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Cynthia, such a pleasure to have you.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Yes, and so we were just talking about this a little bit on ear.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: But since you're new to our audience, tell us a little bit about where you live and a little bit about your own personal journey there.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: So I live in North Carolina, but I'm originally from Florida, from a mixed race family.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: My mother is a Cuban immigrant and my father is white and, as you can imagine, being from a Hispanic background, the gender stereotypes are very strict.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: And.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: I didn't even really quite understand just how much that impacted me growing up until I started getting more into this whole sex and gender debate and everything.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: And even when I did my therapy for my gender dysphoria I didn't really grasp just how much it had influenced me.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: And just in talking to other people and everything it really kind of helped me explore that and talk to other people and realize that those kinds of experiences when you're growing up and all your formative years really can impact and influence your psychology and everything your ideas about society, and so that has really helped Unpack that just a little bit.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: when you say that in the background, what were you hearing from the roles?
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: I'm afraid to use the word gender now because it can go off in all different directions, but yeah, kind of, what were you feeling when you're saying that?
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: So in Cuban culture it's very, very rigid.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Men are supposed to be very macho, Women are supposed to be very feminine, and my grandmother, I wasn't allowed to bathe myself until I was 10 or 11 because my grandmother was so like you know.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: It has to be done the right way, and if you don't bathe with like really thoroughly, you will grow worms in your vagina and your ovaries could freeze if the water's too cold.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: It was a lot of really strange superstitious things factoring into it.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: And then immediately after being bathed I would have to have my hair done up in curlers and get perfume and powdered and dressed up and everything and it was just part of my life.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: I didn't know really that other kids didn't have that experience until I was in school.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: And I was always more of a tomboy at heart.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: So, of course, at school, like I'm allowed to wear like pants and things, and at home not really.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: My grandmother wanted me to wear like more dresses and things like that all the time and I got to play rough and tumble with boys and just it was more relaxed, and so I was seeing all of this hyper femininity at home and then at school it was like I got to just be a kid.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: And so.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: I think that really factored into it.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Also, my mother has her own issues, obviously, with these same sex stereotypes, like who wouldn't?
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: It gets pretty exhausting for everybody, and so she really has had this kind of I just all of these wokie terms now, but she does have like what I would call internalized misogyny, like true internalized misogyny.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: It's where she's always had this bitterness towards women and being female and just always kind of walking around lamenting being female and how guys have it so much easier.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Guys are great, guys are this, and I heard that growing up and again this was just something that was just part of, you know, the tapestry of my life, like it's just woven into it.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: So I didn't even realize that just this was something that was formulating like my opinions on on sex and sexuality and adulthood and everything.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: So now I do, but it took so long to realize.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: It seems so obvious now but growing up with it like it was just part of my life so I didn't really even think about it.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: You were almost living in two worlds, where your experience at home was, was, was kind of alien, or vice versa to the one you're.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: You're experienced on the outside, and so, as a young person, I work a lot with what I call childhood innocence and stolen childhood innocence.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: And that can happen, cynthia, in so many different ways, can't it?
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: You know, children can be hurt in so many different ways.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: We have these beautiful little hearts.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: You know, I always think of children.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I go by, I work out and I'm jogging by this school very often and I see the young people outside playing.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: You know, just like you reminded me of what you said, they're just playing.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: And you know, you know, girls are jumping up and down on the.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: You know the same with the boys, and right, they're all just playing, figuring it out, yeah, then you see the joy come in out of them and, man, these ideologies, now, and, and, even in our families and stuff, these, these, these things can really hurt children.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: So, so how did you come to terms with this then later on?
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: So you know, you're pretty young at this time.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: So when you said 10, is that like fifth grade?
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: And and and you're going along.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: So, so tell us a little bit about that journey and then and then how that you ended up at the Paradox Institute.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Because and maybe just a little bit about the Paradox Institute, because I think, from what I'm seeing, you're doing some really good work.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I have to spend more time.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so growing up with it it caused a lot of like existential crisis, like I was six years old thinking about is this me forever, like what it cannot?
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Is it possible to like die and come back and start over, like in a boy's body?
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: You know a girl's body and can I?
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: so you're feeling the same thing, kind of from your mother, that right that that somehow we're sort like second class citizens and like and I I realized you know, obviously some people enjoy being female my grandmother, clearly loves it Like she's big time girly.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Girl could not be happy, yeah, but for somebody like me it was just.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: I was like I'm clearly not fitting into something, like something's not clicking.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: It must be that.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: It must be that I was just born wrong.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: And I remember my exposure to like American culture was not just at school but at home on television, and I was watching daytime TV and they were doing just the segment on body dysmorphia.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: In general there were people with anorexia, there were people who had body integrity disorder, where they felt more comfortable if they had a limb cut off or what have you, and then there were people with gender dysphoria who transitioned and I was like, oh, wow, okay, so it's not just me, like there are other people who feel like they weren't in the correct body or they're not really something's not clicking.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: And then from there I heard about something called phototherapy.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: That factored in later in my life.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: That helped women with anorexia, and therapy was kind of unconventional.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: And then in high school well, middle school I developed an eating disorder.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: I was trying to hang out with girls more and I had a friend who had an eating disorder and if I ate in front of her she would slap me like it was just really.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: It was very much like I was trying to find somewhere to belong and I just kept picking the wrong groups because I didn't really have a great foundation to start with that felt supportive.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: So it was hard to find friends who are supportive and I think that factors in a lot now with kids.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: So they may not have a strong foundation and they fall in with kids who also didn't have a strong foundation and they end up like kind of figuring it out in the wrong way.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, you're exactly right.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I was just presenting a high school retreat not long ago and I just threw out an icebreaker, you know, just to get the kids talking a little bit, you know.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: And a young girl 60s are all 16, basically 16 year old sophomores and a young girl raises her hand and I go yes, young lady, she goes, call me they.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: And I had just walked in right for an icebreaker and I said you know, I just start.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: It's not my first rodeo, and so you're trying to help these kids because you know that so many of them are coming from a hurting position, you know.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: So you have to kind of, you have to kind of go in, right, you have to if you want to.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: But you got to spend a little time unpacking that and finally, after a little time, right, and this is with the whole group, but they were a pretty tight group, you know.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: And I said you know how does how do you end up?
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: And she ended up being accepted by an LGBTQ club on in the school.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: And I said well, how did you gravitate to that?
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: And she said this kind of what you're saying there.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: She said I was just looking up for a place to fit in, for a place to be accepted.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: And then also you said you know it's not just me and you know we want to be accepted, we want to be loved, right, we know.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: And so she said the problem she had was not getting in, the problem was getting out.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: She said once she decided to move on, everybody started to attack her and stuff like that.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: So these are not easy journeys we're talking about here are they?
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: No, they're not.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: And you hear that all the time and it is very cult, like it's the love bombing, the glitter family.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Like I remember when I was in high school I was already seeing things that were like these older people saying to these teens and these kids like I'll be your mom now, like I'm your, your, your mama bear now and like we'll be your glitter family, and then it always kind of felt weird to me.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Now when you when those people that were saying that were they, were they just older peers or were they actually adults?
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: No, like we're talking at least college aged and then onward.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Typically, I would say older than 25 is where you hear most of it, and it's usually like the men who are presenting as women will say, the trans women, the trans identified men, and they seem to be the more aggressive types when it comes to that sort of thing.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: We see now that they are sending kids hormones in the mail and things like that, which isn't good.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: So so yeah, it's, it's scary.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: It's scary Like you could be in the next room and your kid is talking to people online.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: So, and I, I raised two teenagers, my brother, my sister.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: We have huge age gaps, so I was 15 when my brother was born.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: And.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: I was nine when my sister was born, so, like again, that was part of the socialization.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: As being a female, my family was okay, well, you're a female, so you will raise babies.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: So they just kind of handed them off to me a lot, which is crazy, because I look back at photos now and I'm like so tiny, holding this baby's like half my size, yes, but I don't remember that.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: I just remember changing diapers and things like that and and again, it was just part of the tapestry of my life.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: I just don't recall it ever being weird.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: It was just what I did, and looking back on it now is like I was growing up.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, were you ever and don't answer anything personal if you don't want to Did you ever go on puberty blockers or did you ever get that?
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Far or did you were you able to deal with that.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: So I just managed it as best I could.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: I learned from an early age I couldn't be honest with my family, so a lot of my you could not be sent to the agency.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: I could not be no, okay.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: So a lot of my inner turmoil and things I processed on my own as best I could and then I just found other ways to deal with it.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Oddly enough, again, television was kind of 90s kids TV was great because it showed me girls can be Tom boys and burn around and play with boys.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: It's fine.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: And there was a Batman series on at the time and I joke a lot that that was my father figure.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: I had a terrible father figure but Batman was really stepping it up at the time.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Okay yeah, Teaching me some good lessons about personal responsibility and helping others and stuff.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Isn't it something?
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that really, really shaped me Like I'll go back and show people like, oh, there's a great Batman episode about this, actually.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Isn't it something that's beautiful, yeah, well now.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you this, because I have seven grandkids sent to you, so I'm going to ask you a little advice, because you know, this is really something, because they're one of my grandsons.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Just, these little guys, right, they love Paw Patrol.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Oh gosh, watch this.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: And now I just saw an article that they're actually introducing.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: So let me ask you this so, from the 90s to today, if you were a young girl today, right, and now you're watching what's going on today, so they're affirming you in these.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: So so what might you find today?
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Right that would that have helped, or you know?
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, like you don't see Batman anymore.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: No, well like.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: It's weird because we've seen this deconstruction of strong male role models and we've seen this hyper fixation on stereotypes.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: And it's really strange because it's the opposite of what one would consider progressive, just the enforcement that if you like pink, you're a girl, if you like blue, you're a boy, but boys are allowed to be too masculine.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Now Don't go crazy, because that's toxic masculinity.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: And it's really strange.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: It's become this perversion of healthy sex roles and presentation and stuff like that, and personal responsibility is just thrown out the window.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I feel like I deal a lot with and I love to get your opinion on this.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: And look at, I'm taking you off base here a little bit, so so sorry if I'm doing this to you, but this is very helpful because of the young people I deal with and when I say deal with, I, you know I spent time on high school retreats and even some grades will things.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: And what we're doing, cynthia, is unpacking the beauty of our sexuality.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: And so here's my question for you, because we started a new program here at the John Paul to Renewal Center and what it is is helping parents give this, the, this talk to their children to be open.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: So tell me about that, how, because you said you, you couldn't go to your family, you didn't feel comfortable, at least.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: And how?
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: How would that family look to make you feel comfortable?
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: In other words, is it, could they have been more open or what?
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: What would parents do?
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: And you know, what would the perfect parents to you be able to do?
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Would you be able to discuss this in a way that you could be open?
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: And yet your grandmother, which she had been open, you know at some point.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: you know because it sounds like she was giving you some pretty kind of bad advice in the beginning, right, yeah, you know and who did anybody ever talk to you about the beauty of our creation or the beauty of our sexuality, so that you don't have to be ashamed of it?
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: And yet you understand it enough to say, wow, there's something beautiful going on here.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: No, like I really did not have that at all.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: My grandmother went about it in a way that it was heavily demonized and she told me that men only want one thing, and so did boys and to never be alone with any male ever, because they only wanted to grab and broke me and attack me, and and she kind of protects you there, cynthia, or, or these that was her way and to be honest, I mean that ended up happening, like I did have a rape.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: That happened when I was 13.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: And then, it's.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: I've moved past it, thankfully, and done therapy.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Like that, I mean those things and then my father went on to when I was to be in my teens like this it was not good at all and it really just hammered in like oh my God, female is horrible, it's awful.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: I want to escape this so badly.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: So you're getting that signal, that hey you know what this was true when I you know they really are out to get us and yeah, and it was confusing because boys had always been my friends.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: So it was really this struggle I had to go through of like finding my place and finding my people and and I realized it's it's not boys and girls and because I had the girls, like I said, that I didn't fit in with that made fun of me, that bullied me, that we're not great either.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: It's not about boys and girls, just people can be bad.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter what, what sex they are, and people can be good.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: I've met some amazing people, especially after getting into this whole discourse.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: I have made some of the best friends I've ever had my life.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: You're just really good.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: I got goosebumps when you said that, because because you're right there are really good people in the world and and this is a battle you kind of allude to this and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but this, this is a battle between good and evil.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: You know when you stepped into a story.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: You know what I often tell young people when I just first met them and this is a lot of times in a group setting.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: And.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I'll just just throw it out to them just to get them thinking.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Cynthia, I'll say anybody before I get started.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Did anybody in this room create the universe?
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: No, nobody.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Anybody create the big story that we can, you know, put the stars in the skies and separate the land from the?
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: No, nobody.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: We came into a story, all of us came into a story at one time, and now, together, let's figure out what that story is all about, and and we try to back into what we're talking about here, cynthia we're trying to back into a foundation like who are we as human beings, you know?
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: And you need mentors for that.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: I think, when you're young or at least a proper education, right?
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Somebody there that's gonna just be honest with you and man, they're getting hard to find in this culture.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: I, like my family, was Jehovah's Witness and it caused me to really reject religion for a long time, because I betcha.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: It is kind of a crazy Great, kind of a crazy belief system, again mostly because of the people, I think.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: So did you grow up?
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: How did you grow up with you?
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Did you grow up in a church or Kind of.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: I grew up going to church but I was never baptized, so okay, I'm myself part of the church, necessarily.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes and again.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Even if they took you to church and they're telling you all this stuff, you're thinking right, I don't.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Who needs this?
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Chosen ones can get into heaven.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: And if you break any of these rules, yeah, and if that's what?
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: they're like maybe I don't need anything.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: You know I've had, I've spoken to a lot of young women and my wife went through a lot of this stuff and and and it.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: You know she grew up with a father that was an alcoholic and different things right.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah and at the end, you know, you start to talk to about God and and I think you know God, the father Especially, you think well, if he's anything like my father, I don't know if I need to talk to this guy, right?
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like it can be really hard to reconcile sometimes, but ultimately it is.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: It comes down to people being Good or bad to each other and going through our journeys and trying to do the best we can and survive and help each other and and Try to push back against this evil and this corruption that takes over people and and that gets perpetuated and things and it's.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: It's crazy that it's just gotten to this point where it's institutional.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: That's part of my article is it was allowed to happen because it became Institutional.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: I firmly believe that I.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: I think if this was still just fringe people trying to spread it, it wouldn't have been so successful.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: But because a bunch of people stood around and Legislated it and allowed it and they laid that that brickwork of of, just well, it's allowed in the law, woman can now be a social world.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: And Then, well, what's a social world?
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: That's different by culture, that's different in time, so that's malleable.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: So now, sex in the law is malleable.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Now it can be anything.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: So now it's not a descriptor.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: So now, because it's malleable in the law, well, why isn't it malleable in biology?
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: Look at you, know these different species.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: So it's not quite the same as it is in humans.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: It doesn't present quite the same way.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: So Now we've got a maybe rethink about it in terms of our own biology and medicine and everything else, and it's causing so much harm.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: It because we're not looking at it realistically, we're not looking at it With the evidence that we have, like, the evidence that we have is you can't change sex in humans and statistically, on average, these sex differences are important in culture and in society.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: So it's, it's weird that we've gotten to this point.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: I really do think that whole the whole thing is because we've legislated that people can change sex.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what you know what happens is when you legally do that and then it gets pushed in, like you said, in in your article, into the institutions and then, and then, when we start to push this down to young people, you know, when I start to see, I'm in Illinois and Illinois I call it the belly of the beast here, you know, we have what's called.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you're familiar with the national sex bed standards, but the national sex bed standards are put together by a fairly nefarious group and in Illinois we were the first to adopt them last year into our school systems.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: And what they're doing is they're pushing Cynthia, this, the gender ideologies down.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: And you know, and I tell people when I'm speaking to adults.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: I said look at you know, at the end of the day we're all free to make our own decisions.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: I said, really, what I'm here to do is is to really Protect and to push back against stolen innocence.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: I said I just don't want to see young children Like, like you were hurt in any way and and and not by anybody.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: If we could help it right, not not?
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: my you know, and and these become complex issues because sometimes, like you said, it's coming organically within your own family, even.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Right but we cannot help that, and we can't even help families if we allow children.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: In other words, if you left your home, whether it's it's good or bad, you know, dysfunctional or not dysfunctional, we all have some dysfunction in this right.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: But then we go into an education system where again, these kids should be having fun, be joyful, and instead we, we bring these ideologies down.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: And you know, and you called it and I agree totally in your article.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: You know, this queer theory right, and queer theory is just disrupting everything that it means to be a human being.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: You know yes and and.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, what's really sad about it is it's causing more angst.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: We see more bullying, we see we see more kids that are lonely.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: We you know this is not helping in any way.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: No, and it's.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Having had these thoughts and these issues growing up, why on earth would anyone think it was helpful to induce them in a child?
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: By looking at a child who has never thought of these things and saying, well, maybe you were born wrong, maybe you were born in the wrong body, what do you like, what do you like to play with?
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that means you might have been born in the wrong body.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: You should go home and think about that Like that's horrible.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: That is horrible.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: And it starts to plant this seed of well, maybe my family lied to me.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: Like maybe everything I knew at home is wrong and a lie, because here's this stranger at school telling me that everything I knew growing up is different, that man and woman are different than what I thought.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Mommy and daddy didn't tell me that.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Like, it's very insidious.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: It's doing so many things in one go, like in one fell swoop.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: It's undermining your foundation that you got at home.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: It's undermining male and female and it's undermining a child's sense of self.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: And it's doing it at a time where you're going through puberty already and your body is changing.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: And here's what we're trying to do in this program that was called.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: It's called Love Ed, by the way, it's not our program, it's not called Sex Ed, it's called Love Ed, which really got me interested in your work and the Paradox Institute, because you have to present the science too.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: You know, I see sex education without the love story in it.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: In other words, what does that lead to?
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Because I see too many young people that think sex now is this.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: It's really meaningless.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: It becomes a feeling.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Even my own sex becomes a feeling.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: And we further reduce that pursuit of love down to an act, down to sex.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: And young people today, sometimes they're having sex thinking they'll find love there, and all this is being told to them when they're going through bodily changes and they're uncomfortable anyways.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: And now I say, cynthia, if you're a little uncomfortable, well, who's not?
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: I've never spoken to especially to a woman that wasn't a little uncomfortable during puberty right.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Well, I heard this.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: I wish I remembered who said it first so I could give them credit.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: But this is all happening to these kids, like you're telling them they're in the wrong body and all of these things before they've even had a chance to live in their body really.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Like you're a child and that's one way of living in your body and then suddenly it's starting to change and you're becoming an adult and that's an inevitability for everybody.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Everybody's going to become an adult.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Whether you were puberty blocked or what have you, you will become an adult.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: And so, before you've even had a chance to live as an adult and experience adulthood, or even really experience being a teenager and puberty or anything, they're wanting you to think about permanence.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Again, it goes back to when I was a kid.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Permanence like the rest of your life.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: How do you wanna live the rest of your life before you've ever had a chance to experience life really?
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Because what life experience you have at 12?
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: So it's like you're still living at home.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: You're going through a lot.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: There's Anx, there's your friends, there's school, there's your parents.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: You still don't really know where to go in life or what you wanna do or anything.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: So it is totally absurd and so toxic to then make kids think that this is the decision you have to make right now Because if you don't, it could be a death sentence.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: It's nuts.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: It is so toxic.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: And they're telling parents the same thing, right?
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, again, I think most of us at least our audience here, Cynthia is familiar with isn't it better for you to have a son right there used to be a girl.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Isn't it better for you to have a son as a child than a dead child?
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: And how sad is that to tell parents that, who are trying to do their best, and then they get bad advice too.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: And man alive, and this isn't just one or two people anymore.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I mean this is starting to really pervade the culture.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: And then we get.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: My question to you would be this I mean there are people behind this pushing this down and you wonder what their intentions are.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: So, in other words, I might be confused and have to work through a lot of different issues, but it seems that the educators right, and we know this has been coming down for a long time in our education system, from the universities, the high schools and now, unfortunately, into grade schools, pushing these gender ideologies on our children that we're talking about here.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: But there's a power behind this, because this is going worldwide, cynthia.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: I mean that's why, when I come back to this sometimes I think, man, this is just a battle between good and evil, because how pervasive, you know it's like we're all.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: We all got this.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: It's been bubbling for 60, 70 years to the sexual revolution, but now all of a sudden, since COVID I think COVID was a catalyst for a lot of bad things and it didn't create it.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: It was like putting your foot on the gas somehow right, yeah, yeah.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Well, it separated us, it isolated us and it separated us.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: And when we are alone and we're frightened, that's the best way for fear and evil to just come in, whisper in your ear and start praying on those insecurities and everything, make you start thinking and feeling things that you wouldn't normally, and it can make.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: It can make people really angry, it can make people really pious in certain ways, like it really.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: I read a book once where the one of the opening phrases was fear is a liar and and it really can be, because it just snowballs into this whole thing and it can really really easily manipulate somebody.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Yes, well, I'll tell you what.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: If you want to read some scripture on that not saying that that you would, but it, but it would it would be very interesting for you, I think so.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: In the Gospel of John, chapter eight, it Christ calls Satan a liar and the father of lies, and and then later on we'll speak about the truth, and only the truth will set you free.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Only the truth will set you free.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: And so we're in a world now and you write about this.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Really, it's, it's, it's, it's underneath everything you're writing here in your article.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: We have to speak the truth, Because if we don't speak the truth in love and you got to speak love in the truth and anything else is a destructive lie.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: Basically, is what what the gospel would say there?
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: And that's basically what you, what you just said.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: You know, if we don't speak the truth to young people and the beauty, you got to speak, the beauty of love, right?
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: So everything that's true, everything that's good and everything that's beautiful, especially the beauty of love.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: And I think that's where this, these distortions, come in.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: They're trying to get to young hearts and they can put you on a journey, like you said that, and you've been on this journey, so you know this a journey of a lifetime that can really you can bring those scars through for forever, right?
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and again, that can be generational and get passed down.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, I can.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: I worry about that a lot.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: But then I remember teens are very rebellious, hoping that teens are gonna be like, oh, that's too mainstream.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: I agree At some point.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: I, yeah, I agree.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: In fact, I'm seeing it now.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: I'm seeing you know groups, even in high schools, being formed that are they're saying you know there must be a better way.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Right, there's got to be a better way, and I hope that's true.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: So, as we start to wind down here and thank you for sharing your story, I want to ask you you know you had a baby and you said something.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: And again, I know I I I mentioned it to you maybe right before we came out here.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm stalking you, but, but I'm on, I'm on your website and everybody should go to that.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: We'll put it in show notes and I want to make sure that you, you give us a minute or two on the, the Paradox Institute, and tell us about the work that you're doing there, because, as I see some of the things that that you're illustrating, communicating and writing about, and and Zachary is doing some really good videos and different things on, I think it really will help young people and older people and educators to clarify some of these terms and not to you write it in your article and not to allow this ideology to steal our language.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: You know, just to take us into these weird language things and start, and pretty soon.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: We can't.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: I see a lot of people was the battle.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, yes, Talk about that for a second, you're exactly right, it is.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: It is you did read scripture.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Do you know that you did?
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a Genesis.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: yeah very educated on the Bible and I started going to a meridian church recently.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: And beautiful.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: And yeah, like it's really interesting.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: The more I read about it I'm like, wow, this is not because again I fell into these groups that told me like oh, church is evil and church is this and the Bible he gave people in the Bible hates this and that, and it doesn't.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: In fact there's one commandment right and keep your thought there.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: So there's only one commandment Jesus gave us at the end.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: He said to love one another.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah he said everything can be distilled down to.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: You know, and there's two parts of that love God so that God can fill your heart full of love.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: You know, take those distortions out, forgive you for everything.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: But it's more about opening your heart up and and and bringing love into your heart, right?
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: And then he said you have to become that in the world, you have to show that love.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: It gets back to our original opener.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Here was was we, you'd be kind to people right, you'll just love them.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: even in our confusion I can be confused, you can be confused we could still treat each other well, and that's what this is about, you know yeah, that it is this stealing of language and this, this corruption of language communication.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: So that, well, who's the authority on this communication?
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: Well, they are.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: They have all the definitions, they have all this stuff.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: And if the rest of us don't know how to talk to each other, we don't know how to define anything, where do we go?
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: We go to these self self made experts you know on on this.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, the experts.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: I've seen some bad extra, you know.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: I'll just throw this out to you.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: I call you know people that PhDs in education?
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: And I don't want to throw them all under the bus, it's just the ones I'm meeting now.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Maybe it wasn't always like this, but I call PhD psychological head disorders.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: It's because you know they're just spewing, like you said, this language and I'll listen to them talk for like some, sometimes 20 minutes, and at the end I go.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know what they said.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it gets lost, like these people are trying to get us to forget that we've been successfully communicating with each other and using these terms and and we've had a very successful society and been able to help people make breakthroughs.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: Because we understood what man and woman are, because we understood the sexes and we were able to figure out that women present differently, with different diseases like heart disease and heart attacks and things like that present differently in women.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: We only know that, because we know what a woman is and we know what sexes are, and you know, we know what puberty is and that it's healthy for kids to go through puberty and it's part of the developmental process for the body.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, we, we do that, we cite our sources, we bring up these papers and all of this biology and the science and everything, and we use that to educate people.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: We put it into layman's terms for people, we make graphics.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: We actually have a pamphlet project that we started and our first one was on gender affirming care and the myths of it, and it's fully cited and it talks about look at that this morning.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: It's very good.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we have a printable version that people can print at home.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: We also ordered 3000 or no, sorry.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: We raised $3,000 to order 20,000 to send out to groups that want to distribute them and have them on hand.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: When they talk about gender ideology and we talk about all of those nasty lies that they tell you would you rather have a dead child or trans child we talk about the comorbidities that come with gender dysphoria that you know eating disorders, other psychological disorders, trauma.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: All of that factors in with these kids, with these people in general, like these adults have this too, and it's sold as well.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: If you just change your sex, then it'll all be cured, you'll finally fit in in the world, all of your problems will just melt away and and it's a lie, it's it's terrible.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, and that's coming from someone that's that's actually experienced this, so that's a big deal for you to say that.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Can you do me a favor, cynthia, because people are going to be interested in taking a look at your work.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Can you email me any contact information, including anything that you want to be put?
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: You know you want me to put in the show notes.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: It's going to be important for people to check out your work in the in the Paradise Institute and you present this in such a beautiful way.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: So you do your wonderful graphic designer yourself and and writer.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: So you can read it, you can listen to it, you can watch videos right.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: You make it really easy.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: I think you've done really an incredible job over there, and we'll have to to learn more.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Meet more with Zachary too, because it sounds like he's a real gift to to humanity at this point.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to have to try to get him on here.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: But so let me let me end with this, because we went a little long already and thank you for being generous with your time.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: You, I read this when you, when you were pregnant with your, with your child, which which is fairly new, right?
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: So the baby's how old now?
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: she's three and a half months, Okay you wrote in there was.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: It just caught my heart right when the baby was.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: I almost choke up just a little bit now because it's so, was so just touch me and it was when the baby was only 12 weeks old.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know you were pregnant only 12 weeks and you said, look at, I don't have the article in front of me.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: But you said I grew to love this child.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: And I go, wow, that's so beautiful in this crazy world we live in that this child comes into, you know, into your life and you know you haven't seen this baby yet.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: You know nothing.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: And you, you, you, you were saying in the article that touched me so much, like you were struggling, like am I ready for this?
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Am I psychologically ready, emotionally ready?
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: Can I do this?
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: And what a blessing that I guess it was Zachary.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Now I you know you didn't say it in an article that really just was there for you, was that good person that came into your life and so tell us a little bit about this child and look at that's all.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: I don't wanna take too much of your time here, but I see just a certain joy in your face and tell us just a little bit about that.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: I love her so much, I really do.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: What's your name?
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: Her name's Emelina and you're an Interacted May Great grandmother who was probably the strongest woman I've ever known.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: She was 104 when she passed away and really right up until the end this woman would go out and mow the lawn all by herself and dig out the trash and everything.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: She was amazing.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: Now, this is your great grandmother.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: You said yes.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: And she was the person who taught me prayer.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: It was actually a Catholic prayer.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's the our father and she was a Catholic.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: She converted to Jehovah's Witness because her husband, but a Catholic at heart.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: She was just a beautiful soul.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: She would give the shirt off her back to people.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: She really would.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: Oh sorry, and so I had to name my daughter after her.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Oh that's such a beautiful story.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: God bless you and thank you for sharing that.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: But, yeah, like I just I knew there was this little life growing on inside of me and that she depended on me.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: Even then, like, and it was, she's just this innocent baby that was growing inside of me and depending on me and she was gonna need the same love and attention and care and understanding that I did.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: That every kid does.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and thinking about her that way really helped me to like, just kind of for lack of a better term man up oh, that's so beautiful, that's so beautiful, yeah, yeah, but you know what?
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Let's use the word woman up too, because you know, that the strongest people in my life not physically strongest, but the strongest people in my life are women.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's what a terrible thing when, when we start to think of ourselves as these two sexes, and male is to dominate the woman.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Right, that's true that that happens, but Jesus would say in the beginning that was not so, this is not the way it was supposed to be, that Eve was taken from the side of Adam, and this analogy and this analogy, you know, this beautiful story of how we were created, is to show that that we're not the same but we're equal in dignity and human dignity.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: This was never supposed to be.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: This was supposed to be always a flow of love between a man and a woman, and this child that comes out mirrors the love between a man and a woman and reflects that back to you.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: That's what a child does, right, and so the real story is a beautiful one.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: You know it's we always twisted the story of that stuff, though.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: Right, it's not a battle of the sexes.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: It's supposed to be a complementary, like a complicit yeah we are two sides of the human coin and so to try and pit us against each other is damaging.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: And, yeah, it was really wonderful to embrace that, that part of myself and be a mother and I've just I've loved raising my own daughter and you know, like I said, I raised my brother and my sister and I'll raise her the same way, where she knows she can come to me and as a parent.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: I think you asked me earlier like about parenting, and the best advice I can give you is try not to react immediately, like sometimes they will tell you something and you just you're like what?
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: But?
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: but you're the best thing you can do for your kid is just listen and be patient and just try to to suppress that initial reaction so that they won't be afraid to tell you things.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Because that initial statement out of a child is not always the heart of what's on their mind, is it?
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: It's just a way to I don't know how to get this out.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: But let me begin by this and if you don't take the time to do what you just said, that is very good advice, and the reason is because there's a story within that heart that wants to get out and you have to be there and help that story get out so you really know what's on their mind, right?
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: That's just a beautiful thing to do.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I wish I would have always done that when I was a father.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: My kids are grown and you know we try to do our best, but you're right.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: Put those dang phones down and speak one another right?
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely yeah.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Cynthia, this has been one of the biggest blessings of all that and I've done over 400 of the podcast and this has just been really a blessing.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: You're a blessing.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: Please tell Zachary.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for taking my initial email when I was reaching out to see if you'd come on the show.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: God bless you.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: Thanks for taking the time.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: And goodbye everyone.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: Ubuntu Told Ook was a greatita products.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: Juved 중에Wikipedia c referee.