The McGrath Institute for Church Life (MICL) announces the release of The Gender Accompaniment Project (GAP), a ten-part, documentary-style series featuring the stories of Christians who experience a sense of discordance with their gender (termed “gender discordance” or GD). Developed by MICL professor Abigail Favale, Ph.D., bestselling author of The Genesis of Gender, this podcast has a clear formational purpose: to articulate a Catholic Christian understanding of gender while creating space for listeners to encounter faithful Christians who experience GD and hear how God is at work in their lives.
Blending personal testimonies with thoughtful commentary from experts in theology, psychology, and medicine, GAP illuminates forms of accompaniment rooted in Christian anthropology, and models how to speak about gender with both compassion and depth, resisting fear-driven polarization and rhetoric. Each episode offers a concrete approach to being genuinely receptive to the person while remaining grounded in the Church’s teaching.
“The general perspective of the podcast is to think with the Church on these issues, while also acknowledging the real pastoral complexities that exist,” says John C. Cavadini, Ph.D., McGrath-Cavadini Director of the McGrath Institute for Church Life. “The stories invite a posture of encounter and accompaniment, a way of receiving someone’s story and walking with them along the path of discipleship and deeper into the life of faith.”
Reflecting on her hopes for listeners, Favale emphasizes both clarity and compassion. “My hope is that people who listen will come away with a clearer understanding of what the Church teaches about gender, but also with a deeper compassion for the complexity of people’s lives and for the stories of those wrestling with these questions,” she says.
Favale adds, “So many people are exhausted by the heat of the rhetoric and the ‘us versus them’ framing. I think people are longing for something that is both faithful and loving, and that’s what we’re offering with this podcast.”