Hello friends, welcome to the Theologinara podcast slash YouTube channel and this is part three of our ongoing series on the diversity of trans and this series again is surrounding the the release of my book embodied transgender identities the church and what the Bible has to say and as part of the release of this book I'm doing a series of talks with people who are either trans used to be trans or

in some way involved in the trans conversation and the emphasis in the series is on the diversity of this conversation if you've met one trans person you've met one trans person and in this show we are going to meet another trans person or formally identified as trans person Kyla Gillespie Kyla has been a good friend for the last few years and just has a remarkable story Kyla a born female and experienced severe gender dysphoria from an early age ended up trans

transitioning several years ago and detransitioning back to female three years ago and she talks a lot about that journey and what I love about Kyla is she is one of the most gospel centered clinging to Jesus kind of persons that I've ever met so I'm excited for you to hear her story and the ensuing conversation that we engage in if you would like to support this show you can go to patreon.com forward slash Theologinara or just check out the links in the show notes and become part of the Patreon

Theologinara patreon community if you do so desire so without further ado let's welcome to the show the one that will be Kyla Gillespie

I'm here with my friend Kyla Kyla how are you doing these days good thank you I'm grateful to be here I'm excited

well I'm so excited to have you on the podcast I mean we've known each other for a few years now I mean from the distance largely but I've shown up at conferences here and there and I keep roping you into different things and I'm going to keep as much as you're willing to be roped into stuff I've just been

I mean in more and more like I mean you know I met you I think it was three years ago and you were going through a lot of changes in life which are going to get into but man I've seen you just really grow into I would say specifically you're speaking ability the last time you shared well the Q conference but I was kind of short but then that

well you're ago as a year ago this month I think up in Canada right yeah I mean when you are telling your story and just talking about the gospel and Jesus and everything it was so it was just so good so I want my audience to experience a bit of who you are so I know you've told your story quite a bit but would love for you to yeah tell your story and then let us get to know who Kyla is

thank you and it was about three years that I met you I was just in the middle of detransitioning so yeah I'll share my story I'm excited for this so we'll go back pretty much to my childhood so at the age of about as I remember it about five years old I could I could remember feeling different I remember feeling gender dysphoria and same sex attraction

so to speak of course at that age I didn't know what those things were I was just really struggling internally I grew up in a Christian home and I played hockey I started playing hockey when I was five

so I played with all the boys and I just thought I was one of them that's kind of when the dysphoria started to morph into something a little bit different

so as I got older I started to realize that I had to change in different dressing room than the boys and I didn't feel different and I remember you know wanting to be like my brother and my cousin and so for me I just yeah I was a tomboy I loved sports I played hockey I played softball I played every sport imaginable

and as I was growing up I remember just in youth group in my preteens you know having same sex friendships but really struggling because I didn't understand why I was attracted to these women

these girls and you know growing up in a Christian home I knew the Bible I knew a lot about sin and in the Bible that's what we were taught

that that that was a sin and so I wrestled a lot in my teen teen years and I didn't really feel like I had anyone to talk to and that was really difficult for me

because at that time it wasn't talked about at all and so as I moved into my teens about I think 14 or 15 years old

there was a big moment in my life where my parents came out to us and said that they were getting

divorced and for my family that was really difficult and you know my dad was one of my biggest fans he would come to all my hockey games and he supported me

and through that time when they separated I had to make a choice who I was going to live with

and that was really difficult because I loved my mom and I loved my dad and I chose to live with my mom

and probably own like in that first year at about 15 years old my mom met a non-believer

and ended up getting married to him and my dad was going through a really hard time at that time

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