Episode 777: Ben Bernards, LDS Father of Two Transgender Daughters

Listen, Learn & Love Hosted by Richard Ostler

Richard Ostler

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 839 Ratings

🗓️ 13 September 2024

⏱️ 101 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My friend Ben Bernards (lives in Sacramento, RM, current Bishopric member, author, podcaster, EFY speaker, early 40s) joins us to share their family story. This story started with three children — a daughter and then two sons — but now continues with 3 daughters, as both of their sons are transgender. Ben talks about how he and his wife Megan are navigating this road to support their transgender and cisgender children, with powerful insights for anyone looking to support someone who is transgender Ben shares deeply spiritual experiences and powerful insights when each daughter came out at different stages in their lives, and the surprising feelings of calm and peace they felt each time. Ben talks about their goal to preserve the family relationships and walk with their transgender daughters—and also deeply spiritual experiences on how much our Heavenly Parents love Ben’s daughters—and how everyone is created in their image. Ben talks about how being “safe person” for them gave them courage to come out, when they were scared to do so. Ben talks about open ended questions like “how long have you felt this way” and “how best can I support you” to keep the conversation going. Ben also talks about grief/loss of changing family expectations—including the lives he once imagined as a father of two sons. Ben talks about the need for community of other LDS parents with transgender children. Ben continues with how the recent handbook changes (Aug 2024) negatively impact transgender Latter-day Saints and how the “border drawn in a new location and how his transgender daughters are now outside”. My heart aches as I see the painful impact of these handbook changes on LDS families with transgender members. Thank you, Ben (and your whole family), for sharing your story. It is a beautiful family love story. Thank you for giving all insights on how to better understand, see, and support our transgender/non-binary friends. Honored to have you on the podcast. Links: Dr Julia Bernards Episode 664: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-664-dr-julia-bernards-byu-dissertation-on-transgender/id1347971725?i=1000619444998 Gallup Poll on LGBTQ+ identification by generation: https://news.gallup.com/poll/611864/lgbtq-identification.aspx Poll at BYU finding 13% of population were queer: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigham_Young_University_LGBT_history#cite_note-Survey-3

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, welcome listeners to another episode of Listen, Learn, and Love, hosted by Richard Osler.
0:08.9	My guest on today's podcast, joining us from his home and near Sacramento, California, is my friend Ben Bernards.
0:17.8	Welcome to the podcast, Ben.
0:20.1	Hey, good morning.
0:21.1	Thanks for having, Richard.
0:22.0	So glad to be here.
0:23.0	Tell us how to spell and say your last name because I think I slightly botched it.
0:27.2	It's totally fine.
0:28.2	It's Bernard's, B-E-R-N-A-R-D-S, like the big hairy dogs, but we are plural.
0:33.9	There you go, listeners.
0:35.2	I love that.
0:36.2	Just a little background on Ben.
0:37.8	Ben's in his early 40s.
0:39.3	He grew up in Alpine.
0:41.9	He's a married father of three.
0:44.0	He works for Apple.
0:45.8	As a project manager, he served a French-speaking mission in the Fiji Islands.
0:51.0	We could do a podcast about working for Apple.
0:53.4	We could do a podcast about serving on the Fiji Islands, but we're probably not going to do a podcast on either of those.
0:59.0	He currently serves as a bishopric member.
1:01.5	He's done a lot in our faith community.
1:03.6	He's been an EFY counselor.
	...

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