She Wanted to Be a Man From a Young Age and Lived as One for 11 Years: Why Kathy Grace Duncan Detransitioned

Virginia Allen : Sep 25, 2023
The Daily Signal

"...We formed this book of testimonies. This would've been the kind of resource banned by this legislation. We provocatively called it "CHANGED" because we really wanted to bring the point forward that people leave LGBT all the time, and you just never hear about those people. So we created this book, and that kind of became a sensation and it formed this movement that we now call CHANGED. We have a ministry side that helps equip pastors and leaders to better address the needs of those who are following Christ away from LGBT culture... Because increasingly, avenues away from LGBT culture are closing. I mean, I could go so far as to say it's becoming illegal to get help, to get support, even to hear the Gospel if you identify as LGBT..."

[DailySignal.com] As a little girl, Kathy Grace Duncan watched her father abuse her mother and vowed she would never be victimized like her mom. (Screengrab image: via CHANGED)

"I didn't have the tools to realize that my dad was abusive, my mom's a victim," Duncan says, "so, my takeaway from that was that women were weak, women were vulnerable, and women were hated."

Duncan realized she would grow up to be a woman and did not want to be "weak," so she says she "made a vow at a very early age, 'I'm going to be the man my dad is not.'"

"I was running from pain," Duncan says.

When she was 19, Duncan began to live as a man and did so for the next 11 years. When Duncan came to know Jesus as herSavior, she got involved in a local church while she was still living as a man.

Over the course of several years, Duncan journeyed with her church community and eventually made the decision to detransition.

For Duncan, it was a five year journey to go through the "detransitioning process, and that was undoing the thinking that being a woman is bad, that I'm not safe, that I'll be hated, that I'm vulnerable," she says.

Duncan, director of gender advocacy for the CHANGED Movement, joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to share her story and discuss what children struggling with gender dysphoria need most. Elizabeth Woning, co-founder of CHANGED Movement, also joins the show to explain the fight to preserve counseling and therapy that affirms and celebrates an individual's biological sex amid a struggle with their gender identity.

Listen to the podcast HERE or read the excerpts from the transcript below:

Kathy Grace Duncan: ...My childhood, the house I grew up in, it was pretty dysfunctional. My dad was emotionally and verbally abusive to my mom, and my mom was the victim.

Now, at that age, I didn't have the tools to realize that my dad was abusive, my mom's a victim. So my takeaway from that was that women were weak, women were vulnerable, and women were hated. And realizing I'm a girl, I'm going to grow up to be a woman, I don't want to do that. But yet I don't want to be that man my dad is, so I made a vow at a very early age I'm going to be the man my dad is not...

When I was 19, I became desperate. Throughout my whole childhood, that was my secret. I didn't tell anybody. And then at the age of 19, I was desperate. So I moved out of the house, changed my name, started hormones, and started living as a man...

I lived as a man for 11 years.

Virginia Allen: When did you start thinking, "OK, this isn't 'fixing it'"? Or when did you kind of begin to feel just like, "Wait a second, I'm not sure that this was what I wanted or that this is the answer"?

Kathy Grace Duncan: ...it was probably about four years before I came out of the lifestyle I started opening my heart and my life everywhere to the Lord. He had called to me and said, "Will you now?" And I said, "Yes," because there wasn't any reason why I couldn't.

And so I started following Him and looking for Him, and I was going to be everywhere where He was. And at the end of that four-year period, I [was] still serving in the church as a man.

Allen: And your community [saw] you completely as a man?

Duncan: Correct. And at the end of that, I was confronted by theChurch. They said, "Hey, we're hearing some rumors about you. We just want to know who are you? Who are you really?" And it was at that point I confessed, "I'm a woman living as a man." Which I didn't believe that before, so it was the four years of the Lord working in my heart where I came to that place. When I confessed that, I encountered the Lord. He blew into me and I realized then I have to go back to being the woman He created me to be.

Allen: That's a huge "yes" after 11 years. The Lord takes you on this four-year journey. What was that process then of detransitioning and saying again, "I'm a woman and I'm going to live and present as a woman"?

Duncan: Sure. So, there was five years that I went through the detransitioning process, and that was undoing the thinking that being a woman is bad, that I'm not safe, that I'll be hated, that I'm vulnerable. So it's undoing those things and embracing being a woman is good, and I was created on purpose for a purpose, and we have an intentional God.

And so, again, just embracing those things, figuring out that I'm safe, I'm OK, and figuring out how do I embrace being a woman and how do I cast off being a man? It's like taking off the old, putting on the new.

I have to say, the first time I ever wore a dress, I was paralyzed. I felt like I was supposed to, but I went into the women's bathroom and I couldn't come back out. I'm like, "They're going to think I'm weird."

I was [at] a fundraiser for this ministry I was a part of. And the executive director's wifecamein and she's like, "So what are you doing here?" Because I'm just sitting there. She's like, "What are you doing in here?" And I'm like, "I'm terrified. I can't go out there." She goes, "Come on and I'll go with you." And then it was, after that, I was like, "OK, this isn't quite as bad as what I first feared"... Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here

Listen to this entire podcast, or read the full transcript Here.