What about the Bible Verses On ...

I've had several ideas for my next post but somehow just never seem to have the time to sit down and put any words to paper. (or whatever the equivalent is in the electronic world)  One of the verses that is most used to explain why being transgender is considered by many Christians and Christian Churches is Deuteronomy 22:5.  And I must admit that I allowed this verse to drive my thoughts on this subject matter for many years even as I struggled with my own need in this matter.  What I realized when I started to study this passage for myself (and many other Christians conviently forget also) is that there are 29 other verses in Deuteronomy 22.  No one pays any attention to the other 29 verses.  They have been discounted in modern society and the modern church, for good reason I might add.  Stoning those taken in adultery seems to have been discounted by Jesus himself.  Yet that is also a verse in Deuteronomy chapter 22. It's left asking the question, who is it that picks and chooses which verses in the Bible apply today and which ones can safely be ignored?

I've thought about this for some time and struggled with it but I realized that Jesus taught that there was something more important than taking every verse in the Bible literally.  Jesus taught us about the importance of Love, Compassion and forgiveness. He said nothing about homosexuality but said a lot about the way we treat our fellow man (or woman).  He taught that our love for God should impact our attitudes and our concerns.  He showed us what forgiveness looks like when he forgave even those that drove the nails into his hands. 

Perhaps this is the area of life that we in the Christian community need to focus on.  Just perhaps we as Christians need to focus on being kind, compassionate, to help each other in their time of need, to be more proactive in helping the poor.  Maybe, just maybe we need to spend less effort telling others about their sins and work on being more Christlike.  So often it seems to me that this is the biggest thing missing in American Christianity, Christlikeness.  Christ like love, Christ like compassion, Christ like caring for others, Christlike forgiveness of each other.


I've included a link to another blogger that put my thoughts to words so much better than I can.  rachelheldevans gluttony

A Leopard's Spots

The old proverb said, “A Leopard cannot change his spots.” There are certain things that are intrinsic to a creatures being things that they cannot change. There is nothing a Leopard can do about his spots, he can't change the color of them, the number of them or the arrangement of them. Likewise there are certain intrinsic characteristics to us as human beings that we cannot change.

Exodus international was perhaps the first and largest supporters of conversion therapy. They supported conversion therapy for both homosexuality and transgender individuals. So their recent decision to close came somewhat of a shock to me. Exodus international has stated that just like our leopard, there are somethings that are intrinsic to a person over which they have no power to change.

One of Exodus International's co-founders Michael Bussee issued an apology for his involvement in promoting orientation change through Exodus. Also apologizing were Jeremy Marks, former president of Exodus International Europe, and Darlene Bogle, the founder of Paraklete Ministries, an Exodus referral agency. The apology stated in part "Some who heard our message were compelled to try to change an integral part of themselves, bringing harm to themselves and their families." In April 2010, Bussee stated, "I never saw one of our members or other Exodus leaders or other Exodus members become heterosexual, so deep down I knew that it wasn’t true."

Coleman and Drescher argue that a preponderance of evidence demonstrates that homosexuality is not changeable. Drescher argues that "the sum of all the literature does not indicate that [reparative therapeutic techniques] are effective."

In January 2012 then- president of Exodus International Alan Chambers, during his address to a Gay Christian Network conference, stated that 99.9% of conversion therapy participants do not experience any change to their sexuality and apologized for the previous Exodus slogan "Change Is Possible"

Chambers stated that his next ministry would be different: "Our goals are to reduce fear and come alongside churches to become safe, welcoming and mutually transforming communities. What a change, someone that supported attempts to change the LBGT community is now considering helping churches to become welcoming and supportive to the LBGT communities. Some changes are possible such as this, that an organization (or a person) finally accepts the truth and allows that truth to change their attitudes and goals.

During my long struggle with being transgender I used to often read about Exodus International or hear them on some radio program. I heard several transgender individuals give their testimony about how they were cured and made well. This of course just reinforced my thoughts about how wrong this was and added to my sense of guilt. I'd hear the stories of a transgender individual that would say they were now a happy well adjusted normal person (what is normal anyhow) and I would wonder why that couldn't happen to me. I must say that it wasn't Exodus International that caused me to resist and suppress being transgender for so long, it was just one more pressure on me to conform, to change. I've written before about the years of suppression and those results.

Just like the leaders of Exodus I had to come to the truth that there is something intrinsic to who I am that I cannot change. It didn't come overnight nor easily but I was finally able to come to terms with the female in me and work with it instead of against it. For in working against it I was working against myself. Now as I work with my nature and make allowance for it I find a closeness and a dependability on God that I never had before.

Of course you know that there are a number of organizations that have made there disappointment with Exodus International clear. I read the response of an Exodus spin off claim that Exodus International lost their focus and their God given purpose. I can imagine that there are individuals from my former Christian circles that believe the same about me. Some might even believe that I've left Christianity altogether. I have started attending a different church because of my situation today. Not long ago I read what someone stated about the church I've been attending, that they “have left the clear teaching of the Bible.” (I would like to state for the record that what that usually means is the clear teaching of the Bible according to the interpretation of their favorite religious figure.) I liked the response of a member who said that they stand for being Christ-ian. What I've learned is that being Christian does not necessarily mean being christ-like. I've long stated that sometimes childlikeness is the most missing thing in the church today. It is this Christ-likeness that has enabled me to finally come to terms with being transgender and being a Christian. I spent most of my Bible reading time in the four gospels, I want to know Christ, what he was like, how would he respond, how did he love?

There are many voices in Christian circles that will tell us how we've lost our focus, lost our purpose and left the clear teaching of the Bible. But it comes to my mind that the church of the day and good church going people of the day were convinced that Jesus was evil itself. The more things change the more they stay the same.

The Dangers of Being Transgender

Last month a friend of mine, a transgender girl, a member of one of my support groups was walking home after attending an event just two blocks from her home. She was stopped by four guys, I intentionally won't call them men, with less that honorable intentions. Verbal abuse began the encounter which soon degraded to physical violence. Fortunately for her, in her previous life, she had some martial arts training which she was forced to use. She wound up in the hospital overnight along with two of her assailants, one of whom spent two weeks there. Personally I'm glad that she had that training perhaps it kept her from becoming yet another victim of Transgender murder. This summer a transgender girl was murdered near here in Rochester, New York. That's to close to home for me. Yes even here in America it seems that it is open season on transgender individuals.

Each fall Spectrum of WNY hosts a transgender day of remembrance where a memorial is held for all the transgender individuals murdered during the last year. Each individual name read off, this usually amounts to several hundred from around the world. One report that I read stated that in 2012 at least 265 transgenered individuals were murdered. It's estimated that around the world five transgendered persons are murdered. Admittedly there are some countries that are over represented on this list. But the sad truth is that far too many of the murders are from right here in the good old USA. The Inter American Commission on Human Rights states that transgender murders are 50% higher in Canada, the USA and South America than that of lesbian and gay murders.

In November of 2008 Teisha Green was murdered in Syracuse, New York by Dwight DeLee. He shot her as she sat in a car and said loud enough for those around to hear, “this country doesn't need any more fags.” He was convicted of manslaughter as a hate crime and sentenced to 25 years in prison. His guilt was never in question. It was daylight, there were witnesses to his actions and his words. Yet last month he was released from prison having served only four years of his sentence. His conviction was overturned on a technicality. Apparently someone somewhere was convinced that the judges instructions to the jury were not clear enough. He was guilty of a hate crime, that much is clear. His guilt was never in question yet today he walks a free man. What kind of justice is that I ask?

And as if murder and violence isn't enough for us to worry about. Recently the Huffington Post ran a report about Paola a student at Albany. Paola moved to Albany from Puerto Rico and became a student in collage there. Paola shared an apartment with a couple of other roommates. Once the roommates found out that Paola was transgender they harassed her. The harassment eventually turned to threats of physical violence. Paola turned to the landlord for assistance and was promptly given 30 days to vacate. I wish I could say that these are only isolated cases but they are all to common.

Year after year we sit and watch as states and even the federal government pass laws giving minority groups equal protection under the law. African Americans, gays and lesbians have been recognized as minorities that deserve protection. Yet routinely any reference to transgender protections have been stripped from all such measures. Ten years ago a bill was introduced in Albany that would give a measure of legal protection to us transgendered individuals. For six years the New York Assembly has pases this measure known as GENDA (Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act) yet for those same six years the state Senate has refused to pass the measure. And this even as several cities in the state pass similar measures.

Is it not enough that I have suffered for decades, that I've risked family, friendships and personal relationships. The actions of the country I love and my state seem to be saying that anything goes as far as I'm concerned. Violence and even my murder will be treated lightly. That I can be denied medical assistance or given substandard care. I've already lost one job, home and pension, I've lost my church, my wife and I now live apart. Yet it's perfectly OK for my current employer to fire me for no other reason than I'm transgender. The apartment manager where I live now can tell me to vacate for no better reason than I regularly dress as a female. But I am transgender, I cross gender boundaries, why should I expect to be treated as a human being.

Anita

Living the Dream

Transsexualism has seen a bit of media attention in recent years. It seems every TV talk show has had a special on this issue. Several movies and documentaries have seen the light of day as of late. Largely the attention has been on young children or teens that have always known and felt that they were born in the wrong body. There seems to be increasing support and sympathy for these young people yet at the same time there is some controversy about starting them on ant-androgens to delay the onset of puberty. Going this route as many advantages for the true transsexual individuals and can make it vastly easier for their transition to their true gender. But I understand for the majority of us this realization of our true nature sets in our teens. This is true of myself I was in my teens when this realization took hold of me and when it did it hit me hard.

I clearly remember a time in my teen years wondering what was wrong with me. There were many times I would take long walks wondering what was wrong, what was different about me. For several years this continued. I never mentioned it to anyone and there was no one for me to talk to. Then one day I came across an article about someone that had undergone gender reassignment surgery. It was like the smashing of a wall the blinders were removed, I could see. I've never been the same since that moment. It hit me like a load of bricks. Years of pressure to conform, to live up to societies expectations of what a boy should be were suddenly undone. In an instant my true nature had finally been revealed. While all my friends and family were making fun of this individual I knew I would have given anything to have been born female or to become female. In all the decades since that moment this desire, this dream for lack of a better word, has never lessened nor abated one bit.

I began to seek out short articles and stories of others that had gone the same route. Or at least I did so when no one else was around to see me doing so. This idea of transcending ones birth gender was not very well accepted in those days. I would dream about being female, presenting as female, living as female. Yet I knew I could never do so. No one around me would accept it and I believed I didn't have the body for it. I could never pass as female. I would never be female. I told myself that it could never be. So I settled for the fact that I could, at best, only be a guy in a dress. So for many years whenever I had the opportunity and when no one was around I would dress in female clothes and dream of being female. It was my last thought each night before I went to sleep and my first thought in the morning. It was my dream. Yet for so many years, decades even, I never mentioned a word to anyone else. It was my private dream and my private hell.

I also believed it when others would say that doing this was wrong and a great sin. This led me to try, on many occasions, to exterminate this thing from my life. But no matter how hard I tried the dream refused to die, it was always there taunting me whenever I was alone. I would stop cross-dressing and get rid of everything yet the dream refused to die. The longer I refused to do it the more intense the dream would become until at some point the pressure would become over powering and I had to indulge once again. I was locked into a pattern of indulgence and guilt, purging and rejection. Every passing year this battle wore on me slowly taking me down a black hole in my life. I was slowly sinking into hell. For when one tries so hard to eradicate a dream as powerful as one's true nature it's bound to have consequences. And through all this the dream refused to die.

In recent years I realized I had to come to a decision. I could either continue to fight this dream and ultimately be destroyed doing so or begin to embrace it. I didn't want to be destroyed, I no longer wanted to live in my private hell. It is time to embrace the dream. I have been, slowly working towards becoming the female I've always needed to be. The more time I spend as Anita the better I get at being female and the better I feel. As Anita I feel most like me. I am starting to live the dream, the dream of a life time. I was not born female but perhaps I can at least live as female after all.

Living this dream has been costly. I've lost my ministry, my church, my pension and my home. My wife and I have separated. It remains to be seen how much more living the dream will cost me in money, friends, family and perhaps other jobs. I've had to find a new church that can embrace Anita even as I've had to learn to embrace Anita. Yes living the dream can be costly. Is it worth it?

A resounding YES. I'm living the dream of a lifetime. I only wish I had begun to live the dream long ago. But perhaps I needed to go through the hell that I did so that I would know the value living the dream, living my true nature really is. I do pray that others may learn the value of living their true nature without having to go through the hell I did. Perhaps I can be of some help. Perhaps my story can help someone else come to terms with their true nature.

Anita

Technology

OK, it's been a while since I posted anything here, no I didn't drop off the face of the world. It's been a very busy time. Finding new employment, new living arrangements, new furniture, transportation and such has kept me busy. In short I've had to make a new life for myself. With all this going on posting here has not been a priority of mine. Having a disagreement with the only phone and internet service in my apartment complex has kept me off the world wide web which contributed to my absence here.

I consider myself very fortunate that when I was finally ready to face the reality of my true nature that transgender support groups could be found nearby. Being part of these support groups has been invaluable to me and so I suspect to all that are part of those groups. In these groups I finally knew that was not alone, that there are others who understand and can accept me for who I was. These groups played a part in helping me to finally find wholeness in my life, a wholeness I had never know.

This is not true for everyone though. There are many crossdressers, transgender, transsexuals that live in places where they simply cannot get to a support group meeting. They are alone, perhaps misunderstood, and with no support. This is a dangerous situation and perhaps contributes to the high suicide rate among this community.

Technology has come a long ways in the years since I was a child. Much of it for the good some not so much. The Internet has perhaps the greatest potential for good and for bad as any of our modern technologies. Much has been made in recent years of the ways some misuse the Internet but there can be many benefits to it also. Even though I have had the support of local transgender groups I have greatly missed the support I have found in a couple of on-line support sites. For me these on-line support groups have been greatly needed and missed while I was off-line. For those that have no local support they can literally be the difference between life and death.

I understand what it's like trying to deal with something you don't understand when you have no support, no one to talk to. In my younger days I had heard about the condition but knew nothing about it. Knew nothing about how to deal with it, or how one went about transitioning let alone how to start the process of gender reassignment. There was no real information available at the time. Few therapist knew much about it either and going to one then was likely to get you time in an institution and shock therapy.

I for one am grateful for the Internet I must say however that for many years I fell prey to the seedier side of it. But when I was finally ready to deal with my real issue the information I needed was there. I found all of the local support groups that I've attended there. I found my current therapist on-line The hope I gained, much of the support I have depended on has been on-line and I missed it.

Technology has enslaved us in many ways. It also has great potential for harm, harm to this nation and harm to the individual. Yet technology can be of great benefit. Sometimes I envy the young people today. The young transgendered individuals don't have to spend years of confusion and ignorance because of the Internet I pray they don't have as difficult time growing up as I did.

Anita

Update

OK, No I didn't fall off the face of the earth nor have I lost interest in this blog. I've been busy. (now you've heard this a time or two before I'd bet) One would expect that a person who's not currently working would have more time available but that doesn't seem to be reality. There's just so much to do.

In way of update, I started HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) in April, a T blocker and currently a low dose of E. The only difference I noticed in first few days was night sweats. This really isn't normal for me as I'm most often cold at night. I have multiple blankets on and even a heated bed pad, night sweats were a new experience for me. This experience I'm glad to say has come and gone. (at least for now) Another side effect of HRT that I had read about was breast tenderness. I hadn't really noticed that until the other day. I was bringing some packages into the house when my grip on the screen door slipped and it closed on me hitting me squarely in the breast, yep sure is tender! Another, and more welcome, change has been a stabilization of my moods. The anxiety and depression that at times could be almost overwhelming appear to be gone. O, I have moments when I am down a little but not the days nor as deep as the depression I used to experience. This is most a most welcome change, it almost feels like getting a new lease on life.

However as expected my position, my ministry in the church is now over. I wrote previously about the review that I had coming up. After a great amount of thought, prayer and no little anxiety I knew that there was really only one course for me. Should I put this issue away, fight it and deny it again, never have anything to do with female type things again. Should I continue as I was, cross-dressing when possible hiding even then hoping never to run into anyone that knew me, staying closeted as it were. Or should I continue the path I was on, leading to HRT and ultimately to transition to living as a female. Decades of experience has finally proven to me that the first, denying it, was never going to work out. It never has and ultimately it nearly destroyed me, I cannot allow that to happen again. To continue in hiding as it were, to be out and about when possible as Anita yet letting no one know hoping no-one would recognize me was taking its toll on both me and my wife. My wife said that it was the hiding and the secrets that seemed to be sinful to her and I can't say she is wrong. At any rate how realistic would this path be. How long before the stress took a great toll on us. It would have been a risky course of action that held risk for an embarrassing situation to arise for the ministry. Not to mention leaving me in a state of confusion with the resulting depression. In the end there really was only one choice. My health, indeed even life itself, needed to pursue HRT and ultimately transition to life as a female. For the sake of my Christianity, my ministry and even my church I also needed to tell the truth about the path that lay ahead for me. I knew what it meant for my ministry and my job but sometimes one must be willing to pay the price for truth.

One result was as expected my position in the ministry is over. It happened faster than expected, this ministry can do some things quickly with the right incentive. Yet I must confess that overall the response was much better than I expected. If not supportive they appeared at least to try to understand my situation, they didn't revoke my membership or anything like that. If fact they seem to have left the door open for my continued membership after transition although they don't really yet know how to handle the situation. Truth be told it's likely that other leaders in the future may have totally different views on this matter. Yet I am grateful for the respectful manner in which this has been handled. It gives me a sense of hope for the future of the church. Maybe, just maybe there is some real Christ-likeness out there. Maybe there really are some within the churches that truly desire, and live, the compassion of Christ. Maybe there is hope for the Christian church yet, maybe not all of them but at least some of them.

Anita

Fragmented

Last week I was listening to talk radio as I was driving. I only caught part of the program but the host was expressing his opinion that our nation is more fragmented than ever before. He believes that the United States may ultimately be heading towards another civil war. Unlike the first civil war where there were two side, the north and the south, fighting for their causes. The next civil war will be more like the war in Lebanon where there are numerous factions fighting for a number of causes.

Now I don't know that I would agree about the US heading towards another civil war but he did bring up something that I have noticed. It may seem to many people that Americans seek dozens of different paths, that we have always been a fragmented society. Each of us out for ourselves or our own cause. But give us a big enough cause and we traditionally have pulled together to accomplish the impossible. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor we left political differences, religious differences and with one mind one purpose pulled together to do the job that needed to be done. When given the right incentive we became of one mind and that made us powerful.

But perhaps twenty years ago I noticed that this nation was becoming divided and fragmented. It seemed to me that we were becoming a nation of special interest. Every one out for his own cause and it seemed that no cause was big enough to bring us together as one.

Terrorist attacked this nation the day we remember as 9/11. The death they inflicted that day was greater than what Japan inflicted on Pearl Harbor. Yet still today we're discussing what should have been the appropriate response. We did what we did but it certainly wasn't with any consensus or unity of purpose.

The recent faltering of the economy is a more recent example. The political parties stand behind their firmly entrenched beliefs neither side willing to compromise to get the economy going. Meanwhile millions are still unemployed unable to find work and millions more are underemployed. The poverty level in America has reached a level never seen since the days the “Great Society” was launched. The political parties, unable to work together, have just wasted fifty years of the war on poverty. The sequester cuts were meant to be so draconian that the political parties would be forced to come together to make reasonable budget cuts. But once again there was no unity, nothing was accomplished. The military and the poor are going to pay the price for our inability to find unity of purpose. Yes indeed we are a fragmented society and as I'm involved in charity I speak from experience that it's the poor who are paying the price.

The Christian church has been divided and fragmented even longer than our society. It could well be said that society has in fact learned about being divided and fragmented from the church. It seems every time someone has a different interpretation of a scripture a new denomination is formed. One church says that the book of Revelation, in the Bible, is about the ending of the Roman government. Another one says that they are heretics because Revelation is about the second coming of Christ.

Even something that is a basic as “How to be Saved” is disputed territory. Go look on the website of a dozen different churches and you will likely find a dozen different answers to that. I've studied the scriptures for many years but I've pretty much given up reading anything from Christian web sites because I always come away confused. If I come away confused how can we expect someone who has never read the bible to learn anything.

Of course if we separate over minor differences of opinion of scripture passages you know that we will not cooperate with each other on more mundane issues. The community I recently moved from had two different pastors organizations and held two different community Thanksgiving services because even the pastors and the churches were divided and fragmented. An ecumenical service that was held in the community for something like twenty years had ended because there could not be found enough people willing to come together to plan the service.

There was a song made popular by Sonny and Cher. United we stand, Divided we fall. There is a truth in that song that somehow seems even more appropriate today than it did back then. We are allowing our differences our special interests to drive us further apart, dividing us, fragmenting us making sure that we won't work together, assuring that nothing gets accomplished. When we once again find the will to become united, to work together we will once again become great. This applies especially so for the church. Our mission is too important to let those differences continue to separate and fragment us. O' what could be accomplished when the liberal churches, evangelical churches, the catholic churches, all the churches can unite together to accomplish God's work. It is what Jesus would want.