Episode 664: Dr. Julia Bernards, BYU Dissertation on Transgender Latter-day Saints Families

Listen, Learn & Love Hosted by Richard Ostler

Richard Ostler

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 839 Ratings

🗓️ 6 July 2023

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My friend Dr. Julia Bernards (LDS married mother of 4, PhD from BYU, LMFT) joins us to talk about her 2022 BYU Dissertation called “This Whole Journey was Sacred: Latter-day Saint Parents’ Process in Coming to Accept a Transgender Child.” In her groundbreaking dissertation Julia shares the key findings of the research as well as a brief history of gender diversity, key terms to understand, perspectives on identity, grief and resiliency, and her research methodology (analyzing data from over a hundred LDS parents with a transgender child). She includes lots of quotes from parents as well as recommendations for clinicians. Julia's findings focus on the facets and stages of the family journey to love, accept and support a transgender child leading to peace and a strong family relationship. It is a journey that is not linear; it is unique to each family—but Julia frames this up in a way that provides hope, perspective, and principles to navigate this road. This is not just research for Julia as Julia and her husband Sam are parents of a transgender daughter, Emma. They bring their story as parents—combined with the research—to provide valuable insights. I was deeply moved listening to Julia. If you are a parent, local leader, or interested Latter-day Saint, I encourage you to listen to this podcast. It will help you understand and better support transgender Latter-day Saints. And if you are transgender, I believe this podcast will help you in our journey. Thank you, Julia, for your life-saving work in our community. Honored to have you on the podcast! Links: Dr. Julia Bernard’s Dissertation: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=10818&context=etd Transgender Podcasts at Listen Learn and Love (includes Episode 631 from Dave and Kimi Martin): https://listenlearnandlove.org/transgender-and-more-podcasts Ministering to LGBTQ Latter-day Saints Facebook Group www.facebook.com/groups/1433556613672143 Richard Ostler Book: Embracing LGBTQ Latter-day Saints: Deseret Book: deseretbook.com/p/listen-learn-and-love-embracing-lgbtq-latter-day-saints Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/1462135773

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome listeners to another episode of Listen, Learn, and Love hosted by Richard Osler.
0:10.1	My guest on today's podcast is Dr. Julia Bernards, who's going to talk about her dissertation.
0:17.3	She's also joined by her husband, Sam. Welcome to the podcast.
0:22.6	Thank you, Richard. This is a groundbreaking dissertation that you need to do to become a PhD.
0:28.6	And so Julie is now Dr. Julia Bernards, but this is a dissertation done at BYU.
0:36.6	I'm looking at a copy of it. It has the BYU logo on it. It's been vetted through BYU. The name of the dissertation is this whole journey was sacred. Latter-day Saints' parents process to coming to accept a transgender child. So this is kind of, this is groundbreaking. And there's lots of
0:58.0	parents that are parenting a trans child, but this is the first time at BYU that a doctoral student
1:05.1	has approached this from a research perspective. And this will be deeply helpful for you parents, as well as local leaders,
1:14.1	people that want to understand this space better. I think it'll help you if you're trans,
1:19.6	hearing some of these stories and Dr. Bernard's insights. So thank you for listening to
1:27.4	podcast listeners. The thing you can do, you can't
1:29.8	donate, but you can rate and leave a review. We haven't had a review in a couple months.
1:34.1	Those are all interesting for me on Apple. So you could Google how to do a podcast review and
1:40.7	write one up there. They help other listeners connect with the podcast and help me
1:45.1	know how the podcast is helping you. So with that, Julia, turn, I'll just kind of get you talking.
1:54.4	I think our listeners want to hear from you. You could introduce, you know, your station in life.
1:59.4	You're married. You have kids.
2:05.6	You've gone back to school for a master's and now a PhD, so you're not 25.
2:09.0	So you could share a little bit about that journey.
2:10.2	Yeah.
2:10.9	All right.
2:25.1	So, yep, Sam and I have been married 23 years now and have four kids ages 22, 2017, and 13. They're a fabulous crew.
	...

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