Episode 871: Candice Bithell, LDS Mother of a Transgender Son

Listen, Learn & Love Hosted by Richard Ostler

Richard Ostler

Religion & Spirituality

4.7 • 855 Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2026

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My friend Candice Bithell (married mother of three, active LDS) joins us to share her story: Candice’s backstory Bones (her transgender son) coming out at age 13/14 Parable of the Lost Coin as her spiritual lens Powerful insights into the Lost Coin Parable to support Bones Difficult experiences on Bones journey—anger, self-harm, etc… Love as the foundation of her approach to support Bones “My love is bigger than your gender” Attending Pride Events—including bringing glowsticks—powerful experience of love and acceptance Close and loving family—beautiful family love story This is one of the best podcasts we’ve done for providing insights (both doctrinally and from a parent’s perspective) into loving and supporting a transgender child. If you are looking to better understand and support the transgender people in your life, please listen and share this podcast. Thank you, Candice, for being on the podcast and all you are doing to help us all better love and support the transgender people in our lives. You have a beautiful family. Links: Candice’s Wayfare Article: https://www.wayfaremagazine.org/p/glowsticks-and-parables Candice’s Substack: https://substack.com/@cbithell

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, welcome listeners to another episode of Listen, Learn, and Love hosted by Richard Osler.
0:10.4	My guest on today's podcast, joining me from her home in Salt Lake County is my friend Candice Bithel.
0:17.5	Welcome to the podcast, Candice, and tell us how to say and spell your last name.
0:24.8	Yeah, it's Bithel. B-I-T-H-E-L-L. Okay, I'm going to call you Candice Bithel for the rest of the podcast.
0:33.5	Okay, that's fine. As you know, listeners, I try to introduce my guest pretty quickly and then get them talking.
0:39.4	But Candice is a married mother of three.
0:43.3	She has three LGBTQ kids.
0:45.9	That's three of three.
0:47.2	And she's going to talk specifically about her transgender son bones.
0:52.1	And if you're looking for content to better support the trans people in your life,
0:57.6	whether family members or church members or in society, we just said a prayer before we started
1:03.2	that what Candace shares will be helpful to you. She's active Latter-day Saint. I asked her,
1:10.5	she says, I'm actually super active.
1:13.3	She is in her 50s, I may have mentioned.
1:15.6	She's had a prior career as a corporate photographer.
1:18.3	She's now a full-time student working on writing.
1:23.2	And she is in the U of You this fall.
1:25.8	Karen Heath Penman sent me in Wayfair magazine about supporting her transgender son and using the biblical parable of the coin as a key part of that.
1:39.1	That's three or four verses or less in Luke.
1:42.6	And Candice will talk about that parable extensively.
1:46.4	It's been deeply insightful for me because I've always loved that parable, but that
1:52.1	will be a really wonderful part of the podcast.
	...

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