#505 The Church and Gender Ideology; "Loving God's Children", with John J. Bursch

Children all the way up to their teens and into their 20s . Young people who are growing up today without any hope in a very twisted , distorted , toxic culture .

Not telling you anything you don't know already , but they've been repeatedly lied to about the very basics concerning the meaning of marriage , the family , what authentic love is , the true meaning of sex and their sexuality and so much more . This has left so many of them anxious , depressed and even hopeless , to the point of suicidal thoughts that they're having .

We meet these young people all the time . How many lives , how many souls could be saved if we were not afraid to tell them the truth . You know , the more the world deprives young people of what's true , good and beautiful , the more earnestly they will yearn for it .

Jason Everett , in a wonderful book called St John the Great , his Five Loves , says the vacuum of modern secularism is actually a fragrant invitation , an invitation for young people to rediscover the sacred . We're finding that all the time they're looking for something more .

When you proclaim the truth to them and love , and love them in the truth , and declare the gospel , you find out that their hearts are yearning for something more . Their experience of life tells them something's wrong , but they don't know what it is . They get these gender ideologies pushed on them , thinking something's wrong with them , with their bodies right .

Their minds , their bodies , their souls don't line up together . They get confused . So who's going to help them ? All you have to do is somebody , people willing to proclaim the gospel to them , proclaim the truth to them . It's beautiful the way John Paul has given us the theology of the body , the vocabulary , in order to speak to their young hearts .

Having accepted this task to proclaim the truth of the gospel through the work and the lens of St John Paul II's theology of the body , we hired a new director , someone as an executive director to take my position so that I can go out the demands on our speaking , our time for speaking , recording going out and presenting Theology of the Body , speaking to young

people , speaking to old people .

And we launched a new program , as everybody knows , called Love Ed , working with Colleen Kelly Mast , the author of Love Ed , along with St Benedict Press , who put the books together , and it's called Love Ed , and let me just see if I can get , I should have put this up on something else , but anyways , love Ed and Love Ed is really a twofold step .

It is a way for us to present to young people the theology and the science , what's happening behind , you know , in their bodies , and also the theology , the love , what is love ? We call it love head , not sex head , love head . And then the second thing is so important we bring the parents and the children together to do this .

Together we empower parents to give the talk you know and to unpack this , create it so that churches and parishes all over our country could effectively teach children about the beauty of love and sexuality within the content of our Christian faith . It's so beautiful .

Dads bring their boys , moms bring their girls at different ages , two very important times , right when they're going into puberty , say about fifth grade . So fifth grade , dad brings his son and we slowly unpack this through these five acts . It's so beautiful to see .

And during the course of this hour and a half to two hours , there's a bond that develops between the dad and the son as they start to open up to each other it's so beautiful to see so that they no longer go to the culture , they no longer go to a teacher or somebody maybe they don't even know , or their peers , asking questions about sexuality , about the

meaning and purpose of their bodies , about all these things that they're seeing , and they can go to their parents now . So we're creating a bond . So those two things again . Bring the science and the theology together . Don't do them apart . Just give them the science . They have so many questions , just tell them no , they have even more questions .

Do it together and do it as a family . It's amazing . Things happen right . So , anyways , david Avignone is our new executive director . He's coming on . He already started working with us . I'm going to be able to have more time now to go out and speak , and so feel free to reach out to us .

If we weren't able to do it in the past , we'll have more time . Today we're bringing on additional staff . With that said , too , please remember to support our apostolate . You'll find ways to do that in the show notes , and get ready . Now I'm going to bring on John Bursch . John Bursch again wrote this book Loving God's Children .

If I'm a parent that's confused . I'm going to get this book as a handbook the Church and Gender Ideology .

Then I'm going to go push this podcast , today's podcast , out to everybody I know and let everybody know that they can also watch it in video either on X or on our website , and I'll have those links in the show notes so that they know that there's answers out there and then turn them on to Love Ed and say let's get Love Ed into our parishes , into our

churches , into our communities so we could bring the family together and build up this domestic church right . A little bit before I bring John on John Bursch serves as Vice President of Appellate Advocacy for Alliance Defending Freedom ADF .

It's the largest public interest law firm in the world defending religious liberty , free speech , parental rights , marriage , family , the right to life . John has argued 12 cases in the US Supreme Court , including cases defending the Catholic Church's teaching on marriage sexuality .

He frequently speaks to groups , both religious and secular , about topics including marriage , human sexuality , the right to life , religious liberty . He's the married father of five , fourth degree knight of columbus , a three-time past president of the grand rapids legatus chapter and a member of the pro partners foundation advisory board .

Uh , this is going to be a real treat for you . Uh , john not only knows the legal aspects , but he's out there on the front line speaking about this stuff . So buckle up and get ready for today's episode . I'm glad to be back with John Bursch , who wrote Loving God's Children , the Church and Gender Ideologies .

That , I believe , is going to become a handbook of sorts for parents , pastors and teachers trying to make sense of the gender ideologies that have become so pervasive in our culture today .

I want to read just a little bit from Father Robert Spitzer , who's a genius of sorts , and he said this this is , to date , the most comprehensive popular treatment available of the Catholic position on gender ideology .

John Bursch has provided an excellent guidebook , not only for clergy , teachers , medical specialists and politicians , but also for the average Catholic who is increasingly pressured to conform to the medically , psychologically and spiritually damaging popular cultural agenda psychologically and spiritually damaging popular cultural agenda .

And , as always , robert Spitzer wrote a lot there and he says a lot in a few words there , john . So welcome to the show . Thank you so much . Thanks for writing this book . I'm very excited to have you on to talk about these things .

I want to ask you just a little about that . Uh , fourth degree knight , a three-time past president of the grand rapids legatus chapter , a father of five , a member of the pro-life foundation advisory board . So so let me ask you two things . To get started , john , and thank you again for coming .

You know , you know , with with everything that you're doing , what was the impetus to really what you saw out there , that you said I got to write this book and I got to get this down ? And then if you could just touch on us , for us , you know what is it like to argue cases I mean not only one , but 12 cases in the Supreme Court .

I , you know , I find that outstanding . I , you know , I'm not a lawyer , so I couldn't even imagine what that's like .

And then there's a buzzer and the gavel starts to be hit and then the red curtains part and then the justices kind of magically appear and it's really , you know , an honor to be there , but also an intellectually rigorous jousting process In a Supreme Court argument .

On average , the justices ask about 100 questions per hour , so that's more than one question per minute , and so , unlike this format , you know , where you give me some space to say my piece , I may only have 10 to 25 seconds to get an answer out and then I'm being interrupted again . So you really need to know your stuff .

And it's just really unbelievable to me , thinking about where my legal career started , that I get to be there litigating cases today involving the most important issues to Catholics in the Catholic Church , whether that be gender ideology or pro-life positions . We just had two Supreme Court arguments in March and April involving abortion issues .

It's just amazing , and so God has really blessed me with my work and it's the work that was really the genesis for the book .

The primary areas outside of the life issues that I work on at ADF are free speech and religious liberty , and to a lesser extent are free speech and religious liberty and , to a lesser extent , parental rights , and , starting about five years or so ago , I saw a shift in the docket where gender ideology issues began to take up almost all of the space in each

one of those buckets .

So , for example , in the free speech space , we were seeing employers , particularly public employers , who were compelling their employees to use preferred pronouns or not , to speak out publicly about their religious views on gender ideology , even if that violated their deeply held faith beliefs , or to include coverage for transgender surgeries or other transgender care ,

cross-sex hormones , puberty blockers , things like that , in their policies . We started to see it in the sports landscape , where boys who identified as girls were winning all kinds of sports contests and either moving women off of the podium or excluding them from conference and state championship meets altogether because they couldn't beat the boys .

We saw it in the parental rights landscape where schools , public schools in particular counselors and teachers were helping transition kids at school and intentionally keeping it a secret from their parents and then , more recently , even refusing to allow individuals and families to become adoptive parents and foster care parents unless they were willing to sign on to the

LGBT agenda in all of its colors , including promising ahead of time that they would help their kid transition .

So , you know , I was learning about all the legal issues , but , as a Catholic , it was important for me that I understood where the church was coming from and all these things too , and so I began to study , and you know , of course , the theology of the body immediately had a huge impact on that , and I started giving presentations in churches and at Catholic

conferences and things like that . And the next thing , you know , I had people clamoring for me to write a book , and so I carved time out of my schedule to do that , and this was the result .

write an accessible book like this that I think will put some hearts to ease right here . You're really you know , it's the confidence that a parent has right to be able to stand up and advocate for their children . I'll give you a little example , john , I was doing this presentation we call Stolen Innocence , which is not a religious presentation .

It's a community awareness presentation just showing what happens to children when they're exposed to pornography in an early stage of their life . They're in this stage of innocence .

It's such a beautiful time for them to learn and discover life , what that does to them , and all we were doing is exposing the books that were in their elementary schools and in their high schools actual books and so we were . After that presentation , some people , some activists , were in there . Like any large audience , you're going to have an activist or two .

They heard about this and they came on purpose , we got to identify them as they walked in . Well , anyways , they left and they complained to the library and they canceled our future meetings . They canceled us and they took away our ability ability to . We were banned from the library , basically , and um , and so we asked them why .

You know , we wrote a letter , asked them why , and because I said we're exposing , you know , telling parents about exposing kids to pornography . But here's what , here's what and here's why I'm .

I'm asking this uh , I find over and over again that they wrap these gender ideologies as kind of a veneer , almost as a cover , and then underneath that there's so much pornography and so many things .

And what we found through the John Paul II Renewal Center that I'm associated with , john , is that as we were speaking to children young children , you know elementary about , you know theology of the body and chastity talks , there was an anxiety and a depression there that was palpable and they wanted to talk about this .

They were so confused and you could see what was happening to them . I mean , there's a real harmful effect on these children and again , I'll throw it back in your court , but it's amazing how they want to push you back right now , and there's something evil about all this , john , but I'll let you take it where you want right now .

And the books that you were highlighting in the library they're unbelievable .

But where the infestation , I think , is the worst , where it's really toxic , is with the smartphones and the social media , and every Catholic parent needs to seriously consider whether their child even needs a smartphone before age 16 , and whether they've got access to a computer that the parents don't supervise , whether they have social media accounts In our family we

didn't allow those until the kids turned 18 and were going to college and it's because there is a pervasive amount of content on TikTok and on Instagram and other places that are all pushing the LGBT agenda generally , but the trans agenda in particular .

And then it doesn't even stop with the social media , because if you're not careful , the regular media that your kids consume will have it too .

As I talk about in the book , just a couple of years ago , during this month , june , you know , which is officially Pride Month in the United States , there was an episode on Blue's Clues , and if you're not a parent with a young child , you don't know that Blue's Clues is kind of this combination cartoon and live action show that's targeted for three , four and

five year olds , and so 20 years ago , when our kids were little , sometimes we let them watch Blue's Clues . So three years ago in June , during Pride Month , they had a pride parade on Blue's Clues and every single float in the parade it was the Ansco marching one by one was the tune .

Each float highlighted a different aspect of LGBT culture , and one of the floats there was a family of beavers and there was a young girl beaver who had tape over her breasts where they had been removed .

She had had a mastectomy and , in case there was any doubt about that , someone asked the show's producers were you really showing kids a young girl who had had her breasts removed to promote gender ideology ? And they said yes .

So if you were throwing a load of laundry in or you were making dinner and your four-year-old was watching Blue's Clues , that was the propaganda that they were being exposed to , and so , as parents , it's crucial that we know what these issues are about and that we be cognizant of the way culture is trying to influence our kids , because at the very youngest age

as possible , they're being influenced in the worst possible ways to adopt transgender mentalities .

attraction , all these different things , but that's a different issue , I think , compared to a lot of these people , like you said , that are producing these shows .

The people in power , you know , in our government and also in corporations , even in some churches now that have we just heard about the United Methodist Church , you know going , you know adopting a LGBTQ platform Do they really believe in these gender ideologies ?

You mentioned the school systems and we're in Illinois , so this is the belly of the beast too , here , and they're pushing the national sex ed standards , comprehensive sex ed standards .

Some people call them on our kids and doing exactly what you said at a very early age exposing them and asking them questions about their gender , in kindergarten already and sometimes even preschool .

The firms and I won't name those because you're an attorney and I don't want you to have to answer too many questions here on this thing and get you into any more litigation than you need to , but these firms .

So often when I'm speaking to parents and they're asking me questions , I don't think these corporations and not everybody in the government believes in all these ideologies , but there's something nefarious behind that . Do you want to comment on that at all , or would you rather stay away from ?

First , in the first bucket and these are going to be the people who are most into believing the truth of gender ideology are they would have to admit that they allowed the worst possible thing to happen to their child and to mutilate their sexual organs and so , no matter what evidence you present them with , they're going to have a very difficult time walking away

from that belief that they have . So that's one bucket . In another bucket you've got the power players who make money and get power and influence from pushing these issues , and that's the major corporations . There's one political party that is really pushing these issues right now . It happens to control the White House , so that's a whole nother bucket .

And then you have this third bucket , and I think it's the biggest one , and these are the school boards and the teachers and others who are sold on this ideology . And I think it's because they don't know any better .

When they go to a public schools conference , what they're told is you have to have these policies affirming kids and you have to keep it a secret from the parents if you don't think that they're going to go along , because that's child abuse and neglect .

And the driving thing that they're being told is that if you don't affirm and help these kids transition , they'll commit suicide and die .

And , as I hope we'll talk about you know in detail , the science shows that's not true , that that's a lie , but that lie is the one that's being pushed , and unless you have someone exposed to the kind of information that's in the book , that shows that there's another story to this and in fact the best medical evidence in the world runs contrary to the messages

that are being sold to the teachers and the corporate ad executives and things like that . People just don't know any better . And so , as Catholics I mean , it's just as true for gender ideology as it is for any other teaching of the Catholic church , including the existence of Jesus Christ himself .

You have to be catechized first , and then you have to go into the world and have the courage to proclaim that message to other people , and the more that we do that , the more we're going to be able to push back on this type .

But there are people out there and you say , because people are getting hurt . You know , at the John Paul II Renewal Center we have the breath that we've been speaking to young people too , while we're out speaking to older people about these issues .

So we see the damage that's being done and , of course , we see the damage being done in marriages and families and the divisive nature of these ideologies to pull parents and kids away from each other . You start out in the book laying this foundation so well .

I thought about a quote from St Teresa of Benedicta when John Paul II had his canonization for Edith Stein and he quoted her , and you know she was going to go to the gas chamber at some point , you know , but she was a Jewish convert to Catholicism . You know she was a seeker . You know a philosopher , a seeker .

She gets to the point and you know , before she goes to the gas chamber , she says do not accept anything as the truth if it lacks love and do not accept anything as love which lacks the truth . One without the other becomes a destructive lie . And I think that's a summation of a foundation for your book , because you make this so clear .

You talk about objective truth . What is the truth ? Can you really become a man or a woman ? I mean , that's a good question to start with , right , what is the truth ? And then you add in here and this is Catholic teaching , right , do it in love .

Do it in love knowing that we came into a broken world , we're all broken people , we're all sinners and we all know that , at the end of the day , let's talk about the truth and let's do it in love , right , and that's the only way to handle this .

And then so if you could speak on those two things the objective truth , the importance of that , and because we're setting a base right underneath us , because if we don't do that , john , it just becomes all these opinions floating around and you don't get anywhere If you don't start with the truth , if you don't do it in love , and then maybe you can go into

exactly what we were talking about . What does the science really say about all this ? So we have some real knowledge and some meat to that .

what truth and love are , you can't even have a discussion about the big questions in life what is a man and a woman ? What is the sex nature of the human body for what is the meaning of life and is it worth protecting ? What does it mean to have human dignity ? You can't ask those questions unless you understand truth and love .

So just briefly , in our modern culture , among young people in particular , they've rejected any notion of an objective truth For our teenagers and our college students about 90% of them they ascribe to moral relativism where there is no objective truth . What's true for you is true for you .

What's true for me is true for me , and it reduces everything to just a matter of opinion , because we can't ever agree on anything that's universally true for everyone . And modern Americans love this kind of relativism because it's very nonjudgmental of this kind of relativism because it's very non-judgmental .

So if I'm at work and there's someone else who's spouting a pro-abortion ideology , I don't need to confront them because , well , protecting life is a truth for me , it doesn't have to be for them , and so I don't need to engage in that conversation .

So it's a polite way to step out and say I'm not going to engage , but we all know that there is an objective truth . It's created by God and he gave us the intellect so that we can rationalize what that truth is . And the church has been doing that for 2000 years .

You know , starting with the words of Jesus , but using everything in the Bible to reveal truths about the human person . And you know theology of the body get case in point there and so we have to agree that there is a truth that can be discerned before we start the conversation .

Love is a concept that's even more perverted in modern culture from movies and TV shows and novels . You know , this notion that love is just a feeling is pervasive . Everyone thinks that it's how I feel . You know if you've ever watched one of those dating shows . Well , do I have a connection with someone ?

How do they make me feel I feel really good when I'm with them ? This must be love . That's not love at all . The Catholic Church and the catechism teaches us that love is willing , the good of the other . So it's not a feeling , it's an action , and we choose to do it , and it's one that's not tied to what the other person wants .

It's tied to what's best for them , and as parents we intuitively understand this putting the love and the truth together .

If my child wants to touch a hot stove and they really want to do it they say it's going to make me so happy to do that we still won't let them because , one , we know an objective truth that a hot stove will burn them and severely hurt them .

And two , because we want what's best for them , we'll deny them the one thing that they desire and ask for the most , because that's what's best for them , that's what keeps them safe , that's what protects them .

And so , as we enter into these conversations with families and school boards and employers about gender ideology , we always need to approach it with both of those things what's willing , the best for others , but also what does the objective truth have to say about this subject ? And so if we get those right , then everything else can flow from that .

I come in with a team , some younger people , and we come in with a team , and I just threw out a couple icebreakers and a young girl raises her hand and I said yes , and and come in with a team , and and uh . And I just threw out a couple of icebreakers , and , and a young girl raises her hand and I said yes , young lady .

And she said call me they . I mean right off the bat , you know . And I go okay , holy spirit , you want to start this thing early , don't you ? And um , and I looked over at her and she looked very sincere . You know this sincere girl . And I said why do you want me to call you they ?

And and , just to cut kind of to the chase , she said you know , some days I wake up like this and she's gender neutral Uh , and and , uh , and and and so , uh , you know , non-binary , et cetera , et cetera , she said . But she said some days I wake up , feeling , feeling , you get back to your feeling , feeling like a boy , Some days I feel like a girl .

And I just stopped her for a second , you know . And I said you know , I'm a simple guy . I said I just walked in , I don't even know your names . Now I got to learn all your pronouns . I said it's going to be too much for me . So , just for now , just for now , this is a Catholic school . Now , right , they don't let me in the public schools .

I said , just for now , consider this , and if you don't like it we'll go to plan B . Just for now , can I call you a beloved child of God ? And she thought about it just for a second . And then she nodded her head and I pointed to the person next to her . I said how about you ? Can I call you a beloved child of God ?

And then I picked on a couple more and I said me too . We all have a common heritage . We're all brothers and sisters in this room . So let's take a deep breath . And just for now , let's go beneath the surface , and my point being this she reminded me and I told her some diving stories . I'm a diver , you know .

And I said you know , we all live in this moral relativism , and what happens to your hearts , young people , and all of us ? I said , you know , we get bobbled around by the spirit of the age , and it's not until you go deep , right . So I said , why don't we all just go into prayer ?

I said , you know , do you guys just want to settle down a little bit and get rid of some of that anxiety ? And blah , blah , blah . And they all said yes , I had no problem with that . I mean , they all closed their eyes . We took it down to prayer , john , it was the most beautiful thing .

And by the end of this retreat , it was unbelievable , the change that came over that girl , because nobody had explained what you're talking about given the truth in love and love them in the truth . So those words that you said were so important . Because we know this as human beings , don't we , john , in our hearts ?

Our hearts were created for the truth and we wonder why do we have to speak the truth ? Well , because , because we're much better off in our own lives when we do that , right .

And if we can get that portion of our identity right , you know that . You know , I'm not non-binary , I'm not transgender , I'm not gay , I'm not a smoker , I'm not a pornography consumer . None of those defines who I am .

Those are merely actions that I may have chosen in the past , but I'm free to choose something else , because my identity is as a son or daughter of Christ . Once you get that , then we can have all kinds of conversations , because the foundation has been laid .

And so once they realized , wow , yeah , love has feelings , john Paul would talk about this raw material for love . Yeah , it might be love , it might be the raw material for love , but it's not love yet you don't even know the person , right ? And then what do we do ? We sexualize these things , and these kids are taught to do this right , absolutely .

And so when you're taught to sexualize it John Paul said it , and it's just so true we sabotage our chance to actually find authentic love . We sabotage it . So , these young girls , these young boys , do you really seek true , authentic love , right ? Or are you just using one another ? And let's just speak the truth here , and I'll tell you what .

Those conversations are very productive and your book again gives the parents the confidence and the vocabulary to speak that , john , and I want to pick up on your sabotage point real quick because early on you were talking about the pornography discussion that you were having with folks at the library .

You know , we know that when the kids get sucked into pornography and masturbation , that it's a turning inward , it's a selfishness that prevents you from being able to turn outward , and true love for the person you know , it's sabotaging their ability to love . And it's the same thing with the gender ideology you know .

Physically , obviously , if you're taking cross-sex hormones and then you have the surgery , you lose your sexual function and your reproductive capacity . So , to the extent that you ever want to engage in the sexual act with a future spouse , you're preventing yourself from doing that . You're sabotaging your body .

But even from an emotional , personal state , when you're broadcasting to the world an identity that doesn't represent who you truly are that is just , instead , your subjective choice about what you want to portray then that sabotages your ability to have loving , meaningful relationships with other people .

And Pope Francis has talked about this beautifully in this very context , where he said , when we don't live out who we are authentically being true to who God made us to be and accepting , he said , when we don't live out who we are authentically being true to who God made us to be and accepting that gift that we completely rupture our ability to enter into

genuine relationships with other people . And so , like many of our modern ideologies , all of these sabotage our ability to engage in the type of relationships that we really want , the kind that God inscribed on our heart and that he wants us to have for our everlasting happiness .

You know , the Father who pours himself out into the Son and the Son receives that , and it's so beautiful and profound . It comes out in the form of a person , right , we call that person the Holy Spirit .

When I first got this , john , my wife was delivering our first child many years ago and reflecting on it later on through John Paul's lens of his theology of the body , and I said , whoa , when they handed me that child . I said , nine months before that my wife and I right , I poured my love out to my wife .

My wife received that love and it was so beautiful and profound that it came out in the form of this person . We call this person a Jessica , a child . And this is the tiny created reflection , right , of Trinitarian love , the love that we were created to bring into this world and make visible . We do it through our bodies .

So I'm just reiterating what you said , maybe from just another angle . You said it so well and just now , just a little visual on that that we were actually created to bring love into the world , and if we don't do that , it doesn't get in , does it ? And the opposite of love , john Paul would say , is not hatred , at least it's not initially .

It's using somebody . So instead of pouring yourself out , I'm grasping and taking . It's called lust , right Selfishness . You already said all those things , and this is why what we're talking about is so important , isn't it ? We're fulfilling the very meaning of our lives and our existence . Who are people of love ?

That's an icon of the Trinity itself . That's how we were designed , that's the call that we have , and we find our greatest fulfillment when we are able to participate with God in the co-creation of new life . It's , it's absolutely astounding .

And yet all of this gender ideology that's being pushed on young people across our country cuts off the ability for any of that to happen right at the start , because without the complementariness of male and female bodies , you can't have that exchange of love that you and Pope John Paul II talk so beautifully about .

You know what is the truth when we tell young people , john , that they really can't transition , like you said , those parents earlier , you know we hear about suicide . If I don't do it , it's going to be suicidal .

But you point out in the book and , and , and those psychologists and the psychiatrists that I speak to , they they'll say the same thing , you know . They'll say , jack , you know the suicidal rates don't go down after these transitions .

And they say the sad thing is , at least before you had a , an intact body , a little person's body , intact , right , even though they were confused , they were , they were intact . Now you've you've , you know , irreparably in , in many cases , put them on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and then mutilated their bodies .

You've actually rendered them sterile in some cases , but certainly you've changed their actual physiology . You know , and so you know . You bring out the science so well in this book and and this book and also the truth on that . So maybe we could touch on that a little bit .

And I want to separate into two camps , you know , kind of the young person gender ideology movement .

In one camp you really have more of a social movement where kids you know are looking for friendship and positive affirmation and things like that and so , even though they don't have clinical dysphoria , they're choosing a lifestyle that they think will make them happy .

And and if you leave them , if you don't do this , if we don't present them with the truth about that , they think their change is abnormal because they hear in the school , right in the , in these , in these national sex ed standards if you're uncomfortable with your body and who isn't to your point of puberty right , I was and if nobody explains this to you ,

you think , well , well , maybe I am in the wrong body and see you could see a little innocent person being taken right Like you know , thrown to the wolves out there in this culture , I almost smile .

I do smile because it's so nuts that I almost sometimes I got to smile , john , just to get through the day at some of this stuff , right , but what we're doing makes me feel so good because you're shedding light on all these issues . It's beautiful .

Now this sounds maybe a foreign concept to many people , but there are lots of dysphoria , and this isn't the only one . The most common one that many people have had at least a family member experience has to do with anorexia .

You know , and at one point , going back to the importance of dealing with this issue with love and compassion , you know , and truth , you would never tell your anorexic daughter yeah , if you feel that you're too fat , you should eat less , and we'll even pay for the surgery to reduce your stomach size so that you'll eat less .

That would be the most cruel , horrible thing that you could do . Instead , what we want to do is help them align their mind with the objective truth of their body . So these kids who are experiencing the gender dysphoria they do have a suicide rate that's about 12 times higher than the general population .

They need love , compassion , counseling , certainly , but accompaniment at every step of the way . We have to take that seriously . We can't just push it to the side as though that's something that's going to go away because , it needs to be treated , just like anorexia needs to be treated .

But , the medical evidence shows best long-term studies in the world that for those who have gone through a complete transition , so they had the surgery , that they have a suicide rate that's 19 times the general population , higher rates of suicidal death , higher rates of medical problems across the board because of the transition , but also higher incidences of mental

health problems . And so affirming and a transition is not a panacea . And so what we see in Europe where a lot of this , this care , if you want to call it that , put that in air quotes was pioneered much earlier than the United States , is that they're all pulling back UK , finland , sweden , denmark .

They're closing down the gender transformation clinics because not only is that the surgery harmful , but the cross-sex hormones and the puberty blockers are harmful for them too , and my book was published last fall , and almost every month since then there's been a new study recognizing how harmful all of these treatments are for young people , that the puberty blockers

cause all kinds of physical difficulties . The doctors in the United States will say well , it's just a pause button , you can always unpause it later . That's not true . It'll lead to loss of bone density , muscular developmental problems , psychosexual problems as well as problems with sexual physical development , all those things , the cross-sex hormones .

It's even worse , you know , including heart issues and other mental health problems . So sometimes a Catholic will say to me well , shouldn't I at least use the preferred pronoun , like that young woman who was asking you to call her they at your presentation ?

Well , even the science at the outset shows us that roughly 80 to 95% of kids who have clinical diagnosed dysphoria will naturally desist and align their mind with their bodies if they're just left on their own .

It's called basically talk therapy , you know it is , and reiterate what you just said about the amount of kids , that if you walk with them , maybe you know some counseling , et cetera , et cetera , from somebody that actually you know is there and loves them in the truth , you know . Go through that stat again , will you please ?

So even at the very outset , you know when you're asked , will you call me they . Or you know boy , will you call me she . You're setting them down a path . There's a fork in the road there and one is likely to lead to no problems and the rest of their life they'll be able to carry on just like everybody else and the other .

A lifetime of medical intervention , hardship , high suicide rates , mental health problems . So even at the get-go , if we want to love , in truth we cannot accept the affirmation . We just can't because it's condemning our kids .

You know that the school said that they have to use , uh , you know , a pronoun . You know , if a kid , if a child , uh , you know , wants them to use a preferred pronoun , that they , they are tasked to use this , you know , and they don't want to do that .

And they say because , um , we think we're going to harm those children If we do is , is there an answer for those ? I mean , there's a lot of things going on there , right With with , you know , do I need the job ? Or you know what , what's going to happen ? Do I do ? Because people actually get fired over this kind of stuff .

But , on the other hand , let's just focus more on , say , a parent relationship with a child . Maybe even would be a better analogy , you know , should I use that pronoun , you know ?

Or like this child , this young person that confronted me right away with this answer in this question , what would be the harm then if I just went along with the , with the uh , with , with the pronoun , and I , you know , and everybody I talked to says the same thing that you do the psychologist , the psychiatrist when a child , when the young person , uh adopts

or uh assumes this identity , they tend to live out of that identity , right ? That label that we put on them and that puts them down that path , right ? And so I'm going to throw this back in your hand . What's the best way for parents , teachers ? Is there a best way to handle it ? And how would you do it ? How would you do it yourself ?

Well , why is it say it's a young boy , that you say that you're a girl and start to explore that ? And as you ask questions , you know parts of that story will start to not make sense . Hopefully to them , you know parts of that , that story will start to not make sense . Hopefully to them , you know , but certainly to you .

So , well , you know , I like to play with with dolls and I like dance and things like that , so I must be a girl . Well , you know , I know lots of boys that like dance and like to play with dolls , but they're still boys . So why do you think that , because you like those things , you're a girl ? Well , you know , I just feel like that .

Well , if you felt other things , does that necessarily make those feelings true ? I mean , what if you felt that you were a tree or you were a horse ?

So then you start talking about some body stuff . What do you think that would do to your body if we changed it so it looked like a girl ? Do you think that would have any implications ?

So these questions cause them to start thinking about things , and then it's so critical that , as quickly as possible , you get them into a good Orthodox Catholic counselor , because if they're experiencing dysphoria , this is going to be a long journey , just like it is for your daughter with anorexia .

That's not a one-time conversation , that's a years-long process , sometimes a lifelong process , and you need to have a counselor who's in your corner , who's going to continue to help them work through these issues and talk about them from the church's perspective , not from a culture perspective , and so that's how we have to approach these kids .

Again , just don't forget to ask questions , right , because we're trying to respond without knowing . You know , there's so many young people out there that have been exposed to pornography that you don't know about , that have maybe even been sexually abused in some way or another . We don't know about that .

Sometimes these kids are crying for help , aren't they , john ? And when you're asking questions like that , we're going to learn and we're going to be able to walk with them without pushing back on them , without pushing them away from you . You know that's just such good advice you just gave . John .

We're going to start to unwind here because I know , as an attorney , you've got a million things to do . But you know , as we're going out here , give us some contact information .

I'll put the links in where they can buy the book , anything else , any other links you want in there , any other ways that if somebody had a question or wanted to reach out , I mean it's .

You know you can bill them by the hour , right , but do you have anything like that , or is it better just , hey , buy the book , take a look at that and you tell us where you want us to go with that .

The book is available through all the major booksellers , but we prefer that you go to Sophia Institute Press so that those dollars go to a wonderful Catholic publisher instead of to Amazon , which is promoting all the books . On the other side of this issue , and in the back of the book , there are a lot of resources that I recommend for parents in particular .

One is the Person and Identity Project that Mary Hassel Rice has started it's an excellent resource for all these things and actually has links to Catholic counseling associations to help you find that counselor if you need it , as well as copies of all the studies that I referenced in the book and additional ones besides and just general questions and answers and

things like that , so that's an excellent resource . Another book that I recommend is Ryan Anderson's when Harry Became Sally . It was one of the very first books to address this topic . It's not explicitly Catholic like my book is , although Ryan Anderson's when Harry Became Sally it was one of the very first books to address this topic .

It's not explicitly Catholic like my book is , although Ryan Anderson is a devout Catholic author , but it talks about it kind of from a philosophical perspective . That's very helpful .

I also recommend many in the book , many statements from bishops across the United States who have bravely spoken out on this issue , and so I would check your diocesan website and see if your bishop has a statement about gender ideology .

Many bishops not only will lay down the rules for their Catholic schools you know , for example , no using pronouns that don't align with someone's natal sex , can't be on the opposite sex sports team or their locker room or their shower or their bathroom , but they'll also talk about human anthropology in really beautiful , winsome ways , so I highly recommend that .

And there's more of those coming out all the time .

So thank you again for that .

that this is all consistent with church teaching , so that a Catholic doesn't pick up the book and have to wonder well , is this really what the church says ? Everything in there is what the church says that last chapter , which answers a lot of common questions and answers in this space .

What do I do with my child when they come home and they say they're transgender ? What do I do with my coworker ? What do I do if I'm a politician and I'm confronted with a bill that would endorse gender ideology ? If I'm a priest and someone comes to me and they want to enter RCIA and they're transgender , how do I approach that ?

You know , the whole chapter addresses those questions , but the answers for the most part are coming chapter and verse from church officials . It's not me , it's the church saying this is the path that you should follow . So those are some of the resources . I would point to the last one I wanted to mention because identity is so important .

It's not a book about gender ideology . It's actually a book about same-sex attraction . But that's . Father Michael Schmitz , the popular priest who does the Bible in a year and Catechism in a year , wrote a book called Made for Love , and it's about same-sex attraction Outstanding , and I rely on that substantially .

This will be a handbook that'll sit on your shelf , so if you're going to share it with somebody , buy two so you can keep one yourself . The second thing is help us get this podcast out . I'll put it up in audio beyond all the podcast apps plus the music apps , as always .

Plus , I'll put it up in audio beyond all the podcast apps plus the music apps , as always . Plus I'll put it up on X in video form and I'll put it on our website in video form so you can share that too . Last , you'll see on our website Love Ed , love Ed , john .

If you don't mind if I do this little plug , because Love Ed is a program that we had to help parents do exactly what you're talking about , and what it does is we bring the whole family together .

We bring dad with his little boy , we bring mom with their daughter , we give them the science and the theology at the same time , everything we're talking about here and and so important we open up the bond so that we can have a dialogue , to exactly what John Bursch was just saying Start to ask your kids questions .

So we open up this dialogue between a child and their dad . You know , a little boy and their dad , a little girl and their mom . We have the incredible . The kids will start crying . Sometimes they had so many questions , so much confusion . They didn't know they could talk to dad , they didn't know they could talk to mom , and this just opens this up .

So look at LoveEd , let us know if you have any questions , and God bless you , john . Thank you so much , sir . I really appreciate you coming on . This has been very , very helpful and enlightening . We really appreciate having you .

I'm happy to come to a presentation and make sure that everyone in the parish has a copy of the book so that we're all catechized about these important issues .