What drew you initially into studying theology of the body, and what do you find most compelling about it?

What I find most compelling about it is the fact that it argues kind of from the inside out rather than the outside in.

It doesn't feel like you're being given a list of prohibitions and rules.

I liked as you were introducing the subject of how this relates to the gospel that the church's teachings on human love and sexuality is good news.

It's not about obeying a bunch of rules so you don't go to hell.

It's about actually wanting heaven for the person that you love.

And so it's good news.

And how do we affirm our young people, as you said before, even those that perhaps are genuinely struggling with gender dysphoria? So what would you say to a young person who is struggling with gender dysphoria?

[laughs]

...

I'm gonna be pretty proud of my game, you know? But if I start playing some Division I college athletes, like, okay, I got a ways to go.

If you surround yourself with people who are living lives of vice, you will see their vices and you'll notice your virtues.

I'm doing pretty good compared to that.

But then if I surround myself with people living virtuous lives, I will see their virtues and my vices.

I'm like, "Well, I need to step up my game." I me- I was just talking to a friend and he said, "Hey, do you remember this guy from college?" I'm like, "Yeah, I remember him.

So do you think that anyone, even if they've been addicted for decades, let's say, to the worst pornography, can be freed?

Because it feel, it feels to me that when a person says, "Well, you know, I'm, you know, I was really meant to be a girl," or, "I really meant to be a boy," that they are in fact calling God a liar and, and saying, "Well, you know what, God, you made a mistake because you didn't create me the way I should've been created."

Yeah.

Um, no, good, good question.

I think for the person that's wrestling in that way, sometimes what's going on is a bit of a stereotype-induced dysphoria.

And what I mean by that is often, especially in Western cultures, and even Eastern ones, there can be very rigid stereotypes of what a guy is supposed to be and do, and what a girl should be like.

And if you're a woman, you have to fit that Instagram mold, and if you're a guy, you better be into drinking beer and shooting deer and watching NASCAR.

And if you don't fit into that, then you feel like, "Well, maybe I'm not really one of the guys." I remember one man emailed me who wrestles with gender dysphoria, and he said, "When I was with the men," he said, "I felt like I was mimicking the gorillas so they would not realize that I'm not part of their group." And so from that place of feeling disconnected, uh, from your own body and your male peers, or maybe you're failing to kind of ascend the social hierarchy of masculinity, feeling left behind, and, "Man, I'm just not as manly as this guy, that guy," you might start thinking, "Well, maybe that's because I wasn't supposed to be a boy, that I have the brain of a girl and the body of a boy, or the soul of a boy and the body of a woman," or, or what, what have you.

What do you think?

All right, well, let's get a response from Jason to that.

Okay.

Well, a couple things I think we need to look at is when we speak about what the church is doing, when I hear the word church, I don't simply think of the clerics, of the bishops, of the priests, of the deacons.

I think of me.

I'm the church.

Bob, you're the church.

Cy, you're the church.

Why should I not want to look at porn?