The John-Henry Westen Show - June 10, 2021


He lived as a woman, then found happiness and truth in Jesus Christ

Topics
gender dysphoria gender dysphoria love and parenting teenagers censorship
Hosted by
John-Henry Westen
Mentioned
Billy Burley Rachel Jesus Christ Lou Gehrig Parler Adam
Blood clots： Nurse tells of her dad's death after COVID injection Trump was right. It’s all about China

Episode Stats


Length

26 minutes

Words per minute

150.81

Word count

3,991

Sentence count

296

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Billy Burley is a man who has undergone sex change therapy, as they call it, and has come back from it with a story to tell. This is going to be an important story for many of you who have relatives or who are yourself confused about sexuality, experience what doctors sometimes call "gender dysphoria," and how we're dealing with it in society.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.180 Hello and welcome to this episode of the John Henry Weston Show. We have something very interesting today, a conversation with a man who has undergone sex change therapy, as they call it, and come back from it and has his story to tell.
00:00:17.060 This is going to be an important story for many of you who have relatives or who are yourselves confused about sexuality, experience what doctors sometimes call gender dysphoria, and how we're dealing with it in society. You're going to want to stay tuned.
00:00:47.060 Let's begin, as we always do, with the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
00:00:59.940 Billy Burley, welcome to the program.
00:01:02.220 Thank you for having me today.
00:01:03.480 I want to thank you for your courage in speaking out. And why don't you start by telling us your story?
00:01:10.640 It all started when I was in the first grade, to be honest with you. I was in the schoolyard. And before school gathered, I was looking around at the other kids. And I had this thought that came into my mind. God made a mistake. I'm a girl.
00:01:27.640 And that's exactly the way it came through. And that thought was very intrusive. Every time I had quiet time, or at night, when I was getting ready to go to bed, though I didn't intentionally want to think that thought, that thought came into my mind.
00:01:41.240 I tried to push it away. And then, as I got older, in the sixth grade, I was sexually abused. So, that contributed to the mental difficulties that I was having at the time.
00:01:58.520 When I was a kid, I was very skinny. I had learning difficulties. I had a speech impediment. I was not coordinated. So, I didn't seem to fit in with the boys. I seemed to fit in with the girls.
00:02:11.240 More so, more so than with the kids my age, boys my age. So, we'll progress and we'll skip into college. I tried to cope with my mental difficulties by getting into swimming and working out, exercising.
00:02:28.640 And I discovered that if I can move the difficulties, the hurt that I was feeling from my head into my body by running, swimming really hard, getting really out of breath.
00:02:41.160 Then, then the endorphins would come. It helped me to cope.
00:02:47.740 But then, I fell in love when I was in college. And love is a very, very powerful emotion. And at that time, the door on my emotional closet blew off the hinges.
00:02:57.000 And I had to seek therapy. And my sister helped me find a sexuality therapist. I shared with her what was going on and that I wanted to be better. I wanted to be a male. I wanted to overcome these problems and just be normal.
00:03:12.820 So, that started a long journey of seeing somebody talking about my problems and trying to work through them.
00:03:22.160 I went to therapy for about five years. Right at the beginning of therapy, I did have a girlfriend who I fell in love with.
00:03:29.680 I shared with her my difficulties and planned to break up with her. But she shared with me that she loved me. She wanted to be with me. And that if I was addressing these issues, she wanted to stay with me.
00:03:42.140 But she didn't want to travel that road with me. I was mad enough, big enough. I thought I could do it on my own. I was wrong.
00:03:49.220 So, we did get married. And about three years after that, we divorced. And then after we divorced, I was still in therapy, not making any headway.
00:04:01.280 At the same time, I was a student at LSU in engineering. So, I knew how to do some research. So, I started researching what transgenderism was,
00:04:11.660 how somebody got transgenderism, gender dysphoria, and what were the treatments.
00:04:17.140 At that time, it seemed like the books were telling me that it was a birth defect. That in uterine, my mind was washed with the wrong hormones. That was the going theory.
00:04:29.660 Also, that the way that I had to deal with my problems was change my body to match my mind. At first, I believed it was hogwash.
00:04:39.040 But after about five years and not making any headway, I started to believe what I was being told, both by the books, my research, and just what I was hearing from around me.
00:04:51.140 Because I also met other transgender people at that time.
00:04:54.980 So, I told my therapist I wanted to start transitioning.
00:05:00.100 And she shared with me, she knew I would come to this decision eventually.
00:05:05.880 And it just took longer than she thought.
00:05:09.760 She gave me a note.
00:05:11.300 I started on hormone therapy and started on the road to transition.
00:05:15.880 After going on hormone therapy and presenting as female, two years later, I went through surgery.
00:05:24.800 The first surgery I went through was a two-part surgery to change my appearance from male to female.
00:05:34.060 And to legally change my identity on my documents from male to female.
00:05:39.380 Then surgery was a penal inversion, a brow shave, and an Adam's apple shave.
00:05:48.860 I was really masculine.
00:05:52.360 And so, in that surgery, coming out of that surgery, I had a significant amount of bleeding from my man-made, artificial, female genitalia.
00:06:03.440 And the way that they addressed it was they continued to put gauze in.
00:06:09.860 And they put a sandbag on my abdomen.
00:06:12.980 I received a blood transfusion and also plasma.
00:06:16.860 And my two-week stay in the hospital turned into a three-week stay.
00:06:21.080 It was awful.
00:06:22.400 It was really, really bad.
00:06:24.600 But that was only part one of the surgery or the process.
00:06:28.120 Four or five months later, I had to return for part two.
00:06:32.020 By that time, my money was dwindling.
00:06:36.900 So, I went to the second surgery on my own, by myself, and went through that and then came back from it.
00:06:46.440 On that road, I went through many other surgeries.
00:06:50.280 Because every time I was looking in the mirror, I always saw a man staring back at me.
00:06:55.860 So, I'd go through a surgery.
00:06:58.700 And if you would have asked me if I was happy and if I was doing well, I would have told you, yes, I'm doing really well.
00:07:04.800 I'm on this road to happiness.
00:07:07.380 The books told me I was going to be happy.
00:07:10.000 Everything that I read told me this is what I needed to do to find my peace, to find happiness.
00:07:16.860 And I was on this road.
00:07:19.380 But after every surgery wore off, and I kept looking in the mirror, I kept seeing a man.
00:07:26.420 And I had more problems seven years down this road than when I first started.
00:07:32.000 And at that point, I started reaching out to God.
00:07:36.000 Everything was sorted because I did get married during this process.
00:07:39.480 I got married to another female, another lady.
00:07:43.840 But at that seven-year mark, when I started to turn to God, it seems like everything just started to fall apart.
00:07:52.820 The lady I was with filed for divorce and divorced me.
00:07:58.040 And after trying everything that I could to find happiness, I was back in a pit of despair.
00:08:04.620 And I was thinking about suicide again.
00:08:10.760 So I was crying.
00:08:14.480 I was weeping.
00:08:15.300 I was just calling out to God.
00:08:16.660 And I said, God, I have done everything that I could to fix myself, to be happy.
00:08:24.360 But I turned my life over to you.
00:08:26.640 I turned myself over to you.
00:08:29.220 I turned all my problems over to you.
00:08:31.760 You have to fix this.
00:08:33.260 And it's as though I heard in my mind and in my heart these words that now I finally have some clay to work with.
00:08:42.880 One of those things started to happen after this.
00:08:45.860 Somebody invited me to a small group study at church where I went, the chapel on the campus at LSU.
00:08:54.700 I went there when I was at LSU.
00:08:56.800 I joined a small group study and had the opportunity to share a little bit about my background, the regrets that I had.
00:09:06.800 But instead of turning me away and telling me to change and then come back, they embraced me right where I was.
00:09:15.160 They loved me and they started praying for me.
00:09:17.160 Another opportunity came up for me to join a small group on Wednesday nights at somebody's home.
00:09:31.120 At first, I rejected the opportunity.
00:09:34.920 I didn't want to press my luck.
00:09:37.120 But the voice inside of me told me that, Billy, you need to go to this group.
00:09:43.040 I accepted the offer.
00:09:45.040 And my first time there, they were just starting a new study on spiritual warfare.
00:09:48.720 I knew nothing about spiritual warfare at that point.
00:09:52.680 But then I started to learn that we're in spiritual battles, both with the flesh, with the world, and with the adversary.
00:10:01.240 John 10.10 says that the adversary comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
00:10:05.100 But Jesus came, past tense, he came to give life and to give it abundantly.
00:10:10.220 I started to learn so much about the battles that I was in and about the provisions Jesus had already given us to stand in these battles.
00:10:20.840 And I just started to grow.
00:10:23.580 And then I had the thought that I needed to change my outward appearance, my documentation, and everything back to mail.
00:10:31.100 So I started back on this road of changing everything.
00:10:36.340 The initial road, John Henry, the initial road was so difficult.
00:10:40.800 I lost my job.
00:10:42.500 I didn't have the support of many people.
00:10:45.200 But on this second road, going back to my birth gender, it was wonderful.
00:10:50.340 I had the support of my employer and where I was working, actually at NASA at the time.
00:10:58.060 And then it was easy.
00:11:03.100 I had the support of friends.
00:11:04.700 I had the support of the doctors who was helping me with my hormones.
00:11:10.220 My body wasn't producing any, so I needed help there.
00:11:14.340 God made a way for me to come back.
00:11:18.040 And a little bit later, I met this beautiful lady.
00:11:21.660 Her name is Rachel.
00:11:22.560 And we do triathlons.
00:11:26.620 I was part of Fellowship of Christian Athletes Endurance.
00:11:30.340 And we met through this organization.
00:11:35.240 We did triathlons.
00:11:36.820 We had common interests.
00:11:38.040 We enjoyed hiking, so we had common interests.
00:11:40.940 We became friends.
00:11:42.340 I shared my story with her.
00:11:43.760 And after sharing with her, she's like, you know, that is great, but let's just be friends.
00:11:50.680 I'm like, that's great.
00:11:51.920 So then we started to go hiking and doing things together.
00:11:55.440 And one day, I was sitting on a bench.
00:11:57.820 She put her head on my shoulders.
00:11:59.760 And I knew at that point, you know, maybe our relationship is changing.
00:12:05.240 So I started to pursue her in a romantic way.
00:12:08.840 And eventually, I proposed.
00:12:11.960 And she said yes.
00:12:13.420 Rachel and I have been married for 10 years, a little over 10 years now.
00:12:17.920 I have two beautiful stepdaughters that I consider that they are my daughters.
00:12:23.580 Unfortunately, their father passed away of Lou Gehrig's disease many, many, many years ago.
00:12:31.980 So they're my daughters.
00:12:33.620 And I treat them as such.
00:12:36.180 And we just have a wonderful, loving relationship.
00:12:40.920 Jesus is our God.
00:12:43.560 And he's also part of our marriage, a court of three.
00:12:48.100 And that's what sustains us.
00:12:50.740 And that's where I am today.
00:12:52.500 What a journey.
00:12:54.000 And it's such a beautiful journey in the end, praise God.
00:12:57.920 Your situation, when you were, you know, told by the therapists initially to go for it,
00:13:06.620 were you warned of the, you know, the consequences of the surgery and of these things?
00:13:14.160 Did you realize when you were getting into it or going down the road in the first place
00:13:17.700 that the surgery would be so difficult and rather scary and horrific even?
00:13:24.320 No, I did not.
00:13:26.660 Because even though I had the letters that were required for my therapist to take to the doctor
00:13:32.280 that gave him the okay to proceed, I had to do my own research up front.
00:13:37.360 The therapist didn't tell me where to go or what to get.
00:13:40.240 Because at that time, there were a couple of different procedures that could be done.
00:13:44.920 And there were a couple of different doctors doing that.
00:13:47.700 So I did my research as to what this doctor was doing and the comments that his patients
00:13:53.940 were giving.
00:13:55.740 And so I made a choice.
00:13:58.640 I did some research and I made a choice as far as the procedures.
00:14:03.540 But at no time did I understand all of the ramifications and difficulties.
00:14:08.600 Of course, when I signed all the documentation up front about what could go wrong, that was in there.
00:14:15.240 The difficulties, I mean, I think most doctors, when you're going into a surgery,
00:14:19.160 they don't just give you papers to sign, which are, you know, thick and long and nobody reads anyway.
00:14:24.720 But they explained to you what's going on.
00:14:28.020 Did that not happen?
00:14:29.440 That did happen.
00:14:31.200 You know, the medical community, my mental health care people, the doctors I went to,
00:14:40.320 the ones I went to, they did try to help me and care for me the best they could.
00:14:48.260 And I totally and truly believe they thought that they thought they were doing what was best in my interest.
00:14:55.000 The people that I met, they shared with me what could go wrong.
00:14:59.260 But at that point in my journey and having, being so distraught and thinking,
00:15:03.860 this is the path that I need,
00:15:06.660 I accepted all of those risks.
00:15:09.600 After going through the journey you did, what are your thoughts right now about gender dysphoria,
00:15:15.780 how to deal with it, what should people do?
00:15:19.300 There are people in this situation, and it seems an increasing number,
00:15:25.380 but we'll get to that in a minute.
00:15:26.680 But what's your message to those who might feel, you know,
00:15:30.420 they're in the wrong bodies or things like that?
00:15:32.440 You know, my heart really goes out to these people.
00:15:38.020 God always gives us choice to choose our path.
00:15:42.800 He is such a gentleman that he doesn't force himself on us or his will on us.
00:15:49.260 He says, you got to choose.
00:15:51.780 And I had people love me where I was.
00:15:56.000 And even at that point, they were giving me the option to choose.
00:15:59.140 But they knew I was diving into the Bible and exploring the truth.
00:16:03.500 I completely encourage the people that are on this journey that you have choices to make.
00:16:11.260 We're all on a journey to try to find the truth.
00:16:14.880 Keep searching for the truth.
00:16:16.900 I can tell you that I have found the real truth in Jesus.
00:16:23.460 And that if you look to him, he is a rock.
00:16:26.920 He is solid.
00:16:27.640 And he tells us things that we shouldn't do.
00:16:32.160 But he does this out of love and for our own good, just like a parent would do with a child.
00:16:38.100 So if you want to know more, dive into the Word of God.
00:16:42.340 Learn more about the spiritual battles that we're all in.
00:16:46.020 Because honestly, I had that thought when I was a child.
00:16:49.500 And it wasn't until later I learned that my situation, what was going on, and even, you know, not all of our thoughts are our thoughts.
00:17:00.960 People have difficulty with me saying this.
00:17:03.280 But there's many examples within the Bible that tells us that the adversary can inject his thoughts into our mind, as well as God inject our thoughts in our mind.
00:17:14.340 So we need to reflect on these thoughts and actually ask, is this my thought?
00:17:19.340 Is this what's best for me?
00:17:21.600 And if it's not, to reject it.
00:17:24.280 And that's what I came to in that small group study on Wednesday nights learning about spiritual warfare.
00:17:31.660 It was like I was in therapy for five years before the change and then for a great number of years after I made the change.
00:17:40.400 So about a decade in total, never once did a therapist tell me, Billy, not all of your thoughts are your thoughts.
00:17:48.480 But, you know, I embrace that thought and I own that thought that God made a mistake how I was a girl.
00:17:54.640 That did me in.
00:17:56.640 And if I would have known the truth, I could have rejected it and said, you know, I'm okay just as I am.
00:18:02.980 So I encourage those in this battle to consider this.
00:18:07.600 Today, a lot of parents are watching TV, learning, you know, there is a real push on right now to accept the whole LGBT agenda.
00:18:20.260 And the transgender agenda has become more in the forefront in the last number of years.
00:18:25.760 Such that parents who normally would have been fine raising their children might see their little boy playing with dolls or their little girl, you know, two years old playing with trucks and think, oh, maybe they should be a boy.
00:18:41.720 And then go down the road of transgender hormones or at least they stop their sexual development with hormone treatment, even as young, young children. 0.98
00:18:54.760 What do you make of that?
00:18:56.460 The battle that everybody is in is so intense.
00:18:59.560 We have the media telling us that this agenda, this LGBT agenda is okay and we should embrace it.
00:19:10.180 There's a thought that's trying to be sent our way.
00:19:13.100 We have the medical profession that is saying, oh, if you identify as being in the body that you were not born into, and I don't believe God made mistakes.
00:19:24.140 He doesn't, but if you believe this, we can help you, we can help you find your happiness by giving you these hormones, these puberty blockers.
00:19:33.780 We can help you on this journey.
00:19:35.500 What I have learned on my journey is that everybody is looking for to satisfy the needs of significance, security, and acceptance.
00:19:48.040 How we find this in the world may not be real, and it's not going to satisfy us long term.
00:19:59.620 The people that are there to help us change and transition, once we get further down this road, will they be there?
00:20:06.660 Well, we still have the support.
00:20:08.940 What will go on?
00:20:11.160 The world is changing.
00:20:12.220 The support that you receive, the affirmation, very much, more than likely, and I totally believe that it will disappear.
00:20:22.120 So, there's an agenda that is being pushed.
00:20:25.620 Do not buy into it.
00:20:27.480 Look to God.
00:20:29.260 The thoughts that are being pushed to us, this is part of development, and look to God.
00:20:38.380 Your own life story is such a powerful testimony to the harm of that path, and then also, and miraculously so, the saving power of Jesus Christ.
00:20:53.320 It's an amazing story, and one I hope many people listen to and are moved by.
00:20:59.280 Just with regard to the parents feeling the, you know, pressure to go a certain way when their kids are teens and come home from school saying, you know, we should accept these things, this is all fine and good, and you're being against this, you're a Christian, there's a problem with you, you're a hater, you're a bigot.
00:21:22.660 But how would you respond to, or encourage parents to respond to their own teenagers when they come home with such thoughts?
00:21:30.560 That is a tough situation, because the information that the teenager is receiving from school, from the teachers, from so many, is saying, if you want your happiness, you have to go down this road.
00:21:42.000 I would definitely say, love your child where they are, ask them questions, and find out what's going on with them.
00:21:51.960 Also look for marked differences within your child's behavior, because with me, I was sexually abused in the sixth grade, but I didn't share that information until I was in the twelfth grade.
00:22:06.420 I didn't share it with my parents or anyone until I was in the twelfth grade.
00:22:11.440 Look for sudden shifts, sudden changes in your child's behavior, and definitely ask them questions.
00:22:20.380 To get information, it's so much better to engage and ask questions than to share information.
00:22:26.880 And then once you engage in the conversation and you start gaining more information about what's truly going on in your child's life, what are the pressures, then you can start sharing truth with them and encouraging them in another direction, but also pray.
00:22:45.880 The power of prayer is so significant.
00:22:48.220 My mom, she told me that she, in her heart, knew that the guy that sexually abused me, that was possibly sexually abusing me, but because I said nothing, she didn't ask me.
00:23:03.620 But if she would ask me, I believe I would have told her.
00:23:06.620 And so pray, ask for guidance, and don't ignore the soft voices that you have that is trying to steer you toward getting more information and toward the truth.
00:23:20.640 Billy Burley, I want to thank you on behalf of so many parents for sharing your story, for encouraging people to reach out for the truth.
00:23:29.780 It's a very hard thing to do right now, and I know that a lot of people might not be appreciative of your message, but we sure are.
00:23:38.820 May God bless you.
00:23:39.980 Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a great day.
00:23:42.420 God bless all of you, and we'll see you next time.
00:23:46.680 Hi, this is John Henry Weston, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of LifeSite News.
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