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EPISODE NOTES
In this podcast episode led by Derwin L. Gray featuring Kyla Gillespie, they explore the profound themes of identity, grace, and transformation. Derwin and Kyla emphasize their hopes for listeners to deepen their love for Jesus, embrace His love, and share that love with the world. The focus then shifts to Kyla’s powerful personal journey, beginning with her childhood in a Christian home and the complexities of grappling with her sexual identity. Kyla recounts her struggles with same-sex attraction, the impact of her parents’ divorce, and feelings of shame and guilt stemming from her inability to reconcile her faith with her experiences. As she navigated through life’s challenges, including abuse of alcohol and the search for acceptance within LGBTQ communities, she ultimately faced a significant turning point. Through her engagement with faith communities and key mentors, Kyla found herself drawn back to her identity in Christ, leading to her decision to detransition. Her story underscores the transformative power of God’s love, the importance of empathy, and the need for open, honest conversations about faith and identity. Derwin concludes with encouragement for listeners, highlighting that true transformation occurs in the church, which has the potential to impact the world profoundly.
Here are a few of the practical things you’ll learn in this episode:
- Invest Time Wisely: Prioritize activities that deepen your relationship with Jesus and enable you to share His love.
- Share Your Story: Personal testimonies can powerfully demonstrate God’s grace and inspire others.
- Seek Community Support: Engage with a church community that offers love, empathy, and biblical guidance.
- Embrace God’s Love: Remember that God’s love is unconditional and transformative, inviting you to return to Him.
- Pray and Seek Guidance: For parents and individuals facing identity struggles, pray, seek biblical resources, and have open conversations about God’s design.
- Encouragement for Parents: For parents of children experiencing gender dysphoria, the sermon advises seeking biblical resources, praying, and engaging in open conversations about God’s design and love.
- Be a Gospel Witness: Live out and share the gospel, allowing your life to reflect Christ’s transformative power.
PODCAST RESOURCES
• More from Derwin: www.derwinlgray.com and www.transformationchurch.tc/podcast
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
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• Subscribe on Amazon Music
• The Transforming the Church Podcast is part of the The ChurchLeaders Podcast Network.
CONNECT WITH DERWIN
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/derwinlgray
• Instagram: @derwinlgray
RATE, LEAVE A REVIEW, & SHARE
If you’ve been impacted by this podcast, please leave a rating and a review, and share with someone in your life.
SHOW TRANSCRIPTION
Time is like currency and you want to spend it in places where your investment gets a return. And I’m hoping and praying that as you spend your time with Transformative Church Podcast, it is an investment in three areas. One, it’s encouraging you to grow in your love for Jesus. Two, it is encouraging you to receive the love of Jesus. And three, it is empowering you to go into the world with the love of Jesus.
So what I would like for you to do is I would like for you to subscribe, I would like for you to share, I’d like for you to write a comment. Let’s bring awareness to Transforming the Church podcast. Well, today I have a special guest and I met her several years ago through my friend Preston Sprinkle. I was speaking at one of his conferences and this young woman got up to speak and I was just compelled to by her story. And her story is a story of grace.
In Ephesians 2. It talks about us being trophies of God’s grace that he can point to in eternity. And man, it’s tremendous. So I want Kyla to come on and just share her story like, how you doing? Tell us what’s happening.
Hey, so good to see you. Yeah, it was quite a few years ago that we met and I was so blown away by what you shared at the conference too. It impacted my life and so I’m just grateful that we, you know, we stayed connected and we are doing this today. Yeah. And you know what’s cool is watching your ministry grow because one of the things that I do as a leader is I watch people over time to see how their messages are growing, does their character match their message.
And so it’s amazing to see that happening in your life. So like tell us your story. So the idea is like you’ve had a big transformation in your life. So start at the beginning and tell us about that. Sure.
For those of you in the US So I grew up close to Vancouver, bc, Canada. It was called Van, it’s called Vancouver island and it’s a two hour ferry ride from downtown Vancouver. Just so you have an idea. I grew up in a Christian home. I have one older brother.
And you know, my mom and my dad really raised us in the Christian home. We were part of the church, the local church there. My dad was an usher and my mom was on the worship team. I just remember having Bible studies at our house. And so at an early age I would say that I love Jesus right away.
I don’t remember a time in my life that I didn’t love Jesus, but things were happening and, and I was born in the 80s, so I’m yes, a little bit older than some people here, but not older than me. No, I was born in 71. Okay, there you go. Closer to my brother. Yeah.
And so in the 80s and 90s, we just didn’t have any conversations around, you know, sex, sexuality, even gender at that time. And so at an early age I remember specific moments being a five year old and my parents put me in figure skating and my brother and my cousin played hockey and I really wanted to play hockey, but I think they said, thought that okay, maybe Kyla will just enjoy figure skating and we’ll move on from there. However, one fateful day on St. Patrick’s Day, I remember this production that we did and we had, they gave me a green tutu to wear and I was like, well, at five years old I’m sure I said, why? And so I begged and pleaded with my parents to put me in hockey like my older brother and my cousin.
And with some crying and begging, they finally did put me in hockey. And there was a specific moment into my season that I remember specifically being just different. And so my parents came to me and on Vancouver island we just played hockey with boys and girls. There was no like gender specific hockey teams at that time. And I remember them coming to me, sitting me down and saying, kyla, we’ve been asked that you change in a different dressing room than all your friends, all the boys.
And I was like, why? I didn’t understand. And I remember that being like a moment in my childhood. We’re not knowing anything about sexuality or gender. It just impacted me.
I felt different. And then there would be moments as I was growing up with my female gender, so I’m a biological female. And I remember in youth group being so on fire for Jesus, just loving him, telling everyone at school, public school, that I love Jesus and even singing in front of the classroom. And so you get an idea of, you know, how much I loved him. But what started to happen is I started to be attracted to the same sex around, you know, like 13, 14, 15 years old.
And for me, I had heard about homosexuality a little bit and I read about it in, you know, the Bible. But because there was no conversation, I just concluded that something must be deeply wrong with me. And not having anyone to share that with, with or not knowing anything about sexuality or gen at that time, I just suppressed it. I didn’t feel comfortable telling anyone. Can I ask you this and thank you for just your humility this is going to help so many people.
When you suppressed how you felt, what did that make you feel and how did that deal with your actions? Right, great question. I felt a lot of shame and guilt for being attracted to the same sex. I felt that I was different. And this, that was probably pivotal moments in my life where I kind of separated myself from other people and said, no, there’s something wrong with me.
And so suppressing it obviously didn’t help the situation at all. But at that time, I didn’t know how to deal with all of that. So I would say so much shame and guilt I heaped on myself. Wow. And so this is happening about age 13 now in the midst of this, you are telling people about Jesus, you love the Lord, what’s happening from a spiritual perspective and these feelings you have, I’m starting to get a distorted view.
I can see this hindsight of God’s character and what the gospel really means. I thought that I had to do a lot of works, like I had to pull myself together, stop these feelings, stop this attraction in order to follow Jesus. And so it was really difficult for me to follow him. One, I absolutely loved him and I wanted to know how to live for Christ in my female gender. I just didn’t have any avenues for how to live out my life as a follower of Christ at that age.
Wow. I, I just, I couldn’t even imagine not having anybody to talk to, anyone to pray with. So. So what happened during your high school years and moving into your college years? Yeah, so there was a pivotal moment in our family.
We were like a Quinn, quintessential perfect Christian family at the time. I remember my parents sitting me down at the age of 14 and they came to me and said, we’re getting a divorce. And I just didn’t see that coming at all. I never saw my parents fighting, arguing. This was big news to us.
But it got even more confusing at that time because not long after this, my mom met somebody and this person ended up being a non believer and she ended up marrying him about a year after their divorce. And what ended up happening is they also came to me and said, you know Kyla, you have to choose who you’re going to live with. And if you can imagine, at the age of 14, you know, I was a peacemaker. I wanted to make both my parents happy. My dad was like my hero, my biggest fan.
We did everything together, hockey wise and sports wise. And then my mom, I just love my mom. And so choosing was probably one of the most Difficult choices I had to make and not knowing who to choose, I just said, I guess I’ll live with mom. And I know that that really broke my dad’s heart because my brother is three and a half years older and he kind of already had moved out of the house. And so my dad was left, you know, by himself at that house.
And I would travel back and forth from my parents house. My mom on weekdays for the most part, and then my dad on weekends. And probably a year after that, my dad actually met someone, a Christian lady, and they ended up getting married also. But she had five kids. Wow.
So, okay, wow, that’s a lot to navigate. So let me talk about, tell us what you’re going through emotionally and spiritually as you are having to choose and what was it like at your mom’s house with a stepdad that’s a non believer. Yeah. Wow. The choice broke me.
I think I became. I was a happy kid, teenager, even while I was wrestling with my sexuality and my gender at the time. But I was pretty happy kid. You know, I loved sports, life was going well. And then when I had to choose that, I just became really angry.
I thought that it was my fault for all the pain that was going on between my parents. And I think that I felt that I even made it worse when I chose my mom over my dad. And as a child, you know, you want to make both of them happy and you want to love both of them equally, and that just wasn’t possible with the choice that was in front of me. Yeah. So I want to take a moment to pause here because I know there are listeners and many of them are married, and some of them, their marriages are not a priority.
