Expectations

Recently someone told me that I kinda had a 70's air about me. I guess there is some truth about that but if they only knew the whole of it. In the mid 90's when I got married my wife was managing a second hand thrift store. At the time I had been wearing a few shirts that I really loved but they were throwbacks to the 70's no doubt about it. My wife had decided that I was out of style. Now that was something that I had heard before. But now that I was married my wife decided that it was time to do something about it. She took my shirts a few slacks and a couple of other items of mine to the shop and sold them in the vintage section. The store made a boat load of money off of my things. My wife explained that there was great interest in vintage things among young people. They bought my things to wear them. I guess that I should feel proud that they wanted to wear the things I had been wearing but that's just it, I had been wearing them. My wife complained that they wore them to be nostalgic I just wore them. Even after all these years I still fail to see the difference. She tells me to get over it.

But this got me to thinking about just how much we allow others expectations to determine what we do, what we wear and who we are. In short we allow other people to live our life for us and we don't even recognize it. Now in some ways this is a good idea. To excel in school or work because our parents or peers expect it is good. To be a good law abiding citizen because it's expected is good for you and society. Sometimes others expectations of us can cause us to be a better person than we would have been on our own. This I would agree can be a good thing.

But there are many instances where this may be a detriment to our lives. This is something I've had to face in my own life and learn the hard way. Barbara Mandrell, a country singer, had a song a good many years ago that said, “I was country when country wasn't cool.” I identify with that song because that was me. In junior high school I was into country music and I can tell you that it wasn't cool there. I stood out like a sore thumb and got lots of ribbing about it. But it was me, it was what spoke to me it was what I liked. Even at that young age I wouldn't allow others ideas to live my life. A few years down the road bluegrass music started to attract me. Later still when I got into the ministry things changed. As a Christian and a minister it's only proper that I begin to listen to Christian music. My old loves of country and bluegrass music were forgotten and I was listening to Christian music. Mostly contemporary Christian music because that's what the radio stations were playing. I reasoned, I'm a Christian, a pastor it's only proper, it's what's expected, it's the Christian thing to do.

A little later I came to the dark time of my life. For a couple of years I was dead. Dead emotionally and dead spiritually. It was a dangerous period of time. I've written about it before. My wife threatened divorce unless I sought therapy, reluctantly I consented. For a while nothing seemed to be happening. The therapist threatened to reduce our sessions. Then one morning while I was getting ready for work and listening to a Christian radio station, as I always did, something clicked in me. I stood there and said out loud, “why am I listening to this, I hate this style of music, I always have hated this style of music, why do I listen to this every single day?” This was the beginning for me, the point where healing could start.

Whether people expected me to be a certain way or whether I just thought people were expecting it, living to their expectations was quite literally killing me. I had to begin being true to myself again. I had to listen to the music that moved me. Do the things that were special to me and spoke to me. There are many area's of my life that I had to take back and be true to myself.

For a crossdresser, transgender, transsexual this can be a critical issue. Our society has very clear ideas about gender roles. Those that dare transgress those roles may be vilified and called any thing from a pervert to an abomination. Those that have a personality that needs approval of others or live up-to the expectations of others will have a much harder time than those who like myself have bucked those expectations all our lives. I needed to be reminded of my youth and return to that mindset before I would be prepared to finally deal with being a transgender individual. I had to get past living up-to what I believed others expected of me. I am transgender, transsexual afflicted with GID. I will be misunderstood by many who know me, perhaps vilified by some and shunned by others. I am now OK with that. I have found a measure of mental healing and am better spiritually than ever in my life. I was country when country wasn't cool. I can be transgender when being transgender isn't cool.

But I still don't understand why I couldn't wear those shirts when others would wear them to be nostalgic

Anita

Compassion?

The other day someone on a support site I visit stated that it is possible to overcome the “addiction” of cross-dressing and GID. They said they wanted to give us all hope that this doesn't have to be a lifetime affliction, we can overcome it. So I did a search and found several websites and blogs that supposedly documented persons overcoming these “addictions.” These sites all claimed that it was in fact an addiction and as such could be treated. You need to want it to bad enough and must be willing to put forth the effort necessary. They sound so convincing, so hopeful. They carry testimonials of those that have overcome. It's all so enticing, so convincing it made me think for just a moment that maybe I should look into this further, that maybe I should try yet again. But just for a moment, I've been down that road so many times before and to be honest about it, it didn't do me any good in fact it came close to destroying me.

Now I didn't check out every website and blog out there that claims you can overcome cross-dressing and GID but I did notice a few things about the few I did check out. First thing I did notice is that they all played on our fear that we must be committing some horrible sin. Oh yes, all of them that I saw were Christian based. You are acting against the will of God, you are sinning and as long as you are sinning there is no hope for you. Playing on our fears as Christians is nothing new, I guess the church has been doing that for centuries. The problem is that it's all according to their interpretation of some scripture passage often taken out of context, but of course they are always right.

Another thing I noticed was that it is implied in these websites that if your not experiencing victory over your cross-dressing or GID that you do not have enough faith in God, that you haven't given it fully to God's control. It was stated many, many times that God will heal the hurts, God will help you have the strength to resist temptation, God will see you through. This seems to be just another variation on what some have called the health and wealth gospel. The general idea seems to be that God wants to heal you of all your ills. If you are sick and your not getting well then you don't have enough faith. My wife hears this fairly often from good meaning Christians. She has had diabetics for several years now and is insulin dependent. From time to time some one will say to her God can heal you, you just need to have faith. She will often say to me afterwards if he really wants to heal me why doesn't he tell me.

Overall there doesn't seem to be a lot of information available about overcoming this “addiction.” Even the blogs that state they are documenting their process seem to have little actual information about what is being done and how it is going. And I didn't find any information that I could say was of good quality, all of it was suspect in some way.

One blogger stated that perhaps the reason there wasn't more on-line about successful overcoming of these conditions is because its so difficult to talk about it or allow oneself to think about anything dealing with cross-dressing if you are going to be successful. From personal experience I can say he may have a point but there is another possibility.

In December one person started a blog. He made one post where he said he was going to document his efforts to overcoming his addiction to cross-dressing. He had found a 12 step program that he was starting to attend. This is now February and he hasn't made another post even though many have asked him to. Oh I forgot, his one and only post was in December 2008, he hasn't been heard of since.

Now I don't know why he never made another post but I do know that the incidence of suicide among the trans-gender community is perhaps the highest of any group, the latest estimate is forty six percent of trans-gendered persons will attempt suicide and nearly all of us have though about it.

I've spent a lifetime dealing with being trans-gender and a Christian. I spent many years seeing it as my addiction, something I must overcome. I've fought this thing, suppressed it, denied it, tried not to think about it. I was even successful in overcoming it for a couple of years several different times. But it was always there, the harder I fought it, the longer I would go without it the worse it would come back. I personally know one person that went fifteen years without it but as they say, it came back with a vengeance.

In spite of what some of these websites claim it is not an addiction, it is not a learned behavior, it is not because one of my parents was distant. It goes to the heart of who I am, what I am, what I'm about. To deny being trans-gender is to deny me. The result was that it nearly destroyed me. It made me dead inside and if I hadn't started therapy it's very likely that I would have been one of those forty six percent. Things are better now but I still have days. It's tough trying to walk a line where you have to be something most of the time that you really aren't at heart. When you have to pretend to be the person everyone else expects you to be.

This is where my greatest concern lies. These Christian groups, websites and blogger's in their zeal to save the world maybe causing great harm and pain to the individual. They may not be aware of it but they may in fact be driving some to suicide. Some are already struggling with something they don't understand and can't control. Then some Christian in authority condemns their actions as sinful. I understand, I've been there myself. This creates an enormous amount of stress in your life. In time that stress may lead some to suicide others simply leave the church. The end result is the opposite of what we would want to accomplish.

As someone that has also spent their life studying the Bible I have to wonder how would my Christ respond to a community that has a sixty four percent attempted suicide? How would Christ respond to a community in so much pain? Christ was compassionate to those who were hurting and confused. Read how many times it's recorded that he had compassion on them. I have experienced the pain of living with GID and as Christian I must share in Christ's compassion for others that are hurting.

(Mark 6:34 KJV) And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things.

God bless

Anita

Epiphany

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Today I read the story about Megan Phelps-Roper. For those not in the know, not long ago she was considered one of the future leaders of the Westboro Baptist Church. A while ago a blog comment by a Jewish man (another of their hated groups) about Jesus started her thinking. It was one of those life changing moments an epiphany a small thing that snowballed.  She has left Westboro and was seen attending a church that bills itself as accepting of all lifestyles.

My epiphany moment came, at all places, at a church holiness seminar. I have grown up in an evangelical/fundamentalist church. Once a year for many decades they have held a holiness seminar for a few select individuals from across the nation. As a young person it was always somewhat of a dream but one I always knew was unobtainable. I could never rise to the point where I would be asked to attend this event. Yet as fate would have it in the summer of 2011 I was asked to attend.

Ten days in Chicago not far from lakeshore drive learning about the holiness of God, what it means for us, how to make it personal and playing tourist. It was great for a few days, I knew a couple of the instructors, a few of the participants and got to know others. I enjoyed the free time to get around the city. I've always enjoyed exploring new places and new cities. The only real task I had was to run the sound system and power point projector for the meetings held in the chapel. Which was OK with me I also enjoy running sound systems.

Every year it seems the weekend of the seminar is the same weekend of the Chicago Pride Parade which also happens to go past the two sides of facility where it is held. The city actually closes about five blocks for the weekend. The parade itself takes about three hours to pass by, of course this is followed by a big festival. I found it to be an exciting time. Unfortunately I was there with an evangelical/fundamentalist church at one of their facilities. One that has made public statements about homosexuality being a sin. They are not open and affirming.

Of course there was a prayer meeting the night before the parade. Now it wasn't supposed to be all about the pride event but it does seem kind of convenient. Anyway as you might already guess many maybe most of the prayers had to do with the parade. Now maybe it was because I was already dealing (or not dealing as the case was) with being trans but I found most of the prayers to be very offensive to me. There was not the love or compassion that Jesus showed to others. You can talk about hate the sin, love the sinner but I didn't hear much evidence of love in many of those prayers. For the first time in my life I was ashamed to be a part of the ministry. I nearly walked out of this required meeting but I let the fact that I was running the sound system keep me there, a decision I regret today. I guess that was the first epiphany moment for me. That night started a chain of events that leads me to where I am today.

During the time of the parade they of course scheduled meditation time for the same time that the parade was going by. They told us to use our i-pod, or headphones anything so that we could ignore the parade. Something seemed fundamentally wrong to me. Here we were a group of Christian pastors, at a seminar to learn to be filled with the spirit of God; A large crowd just outside the walls that we are supposed to consider sinners and the best that our leaders had to offer us was to ignore them. The whole thing bothered me so much that that evening after classes were done I HAD to go out into the fenced off streets and walk around with the festival goers. My first experience with the LBGT community, I didn't interact with anyone but something had changed in me. That night on those streets I prayed how can I deal with this, how can I deal with them, where do I go from here. I knew I would never see this community as the horrible condemned sinners that I had always heard they were.

The whole time I was walking about the festival area I kept thinking about how Jesus was constantly hanging out with those that the church of his day had considered unredeemable sinners. Not only did he go to their homes he ate meals there and went to some of their parties. In fact he was so well known for hanging out with prostitutes and corrupt tax collectors that church leaders considered him the chief of sinners, Satan himself. I had a picture in my mind of Jesus at the pride parade, perhaps marching in it, hugging people and telling them they were special to him and loved by him.

Jesus always had love for the people outside of the church, dealt with them gently and with forgiveness. It was the church that received harsh criticism and was the recipient of his anger several times. Could it be that the evangelical/fundamentalist churches of today are our modern scribe's and Pharisee's. We've become so concerned about what is sin and living a sin free life that we have forgotten to show Christlike love. We've written people off for living in sin and attempted to ignore them the best we can or we shout at them through bull-horns while holding signs decrying their life-style. The God we claim to serve went into their homes, ate meals with them, attended their parties. We were there to learn to become more like God yet the best we had to offer was to ignore them. It was all so upside down, so ridiculous. I think I told my therapist later that the whole scene was ludicrous to me.

(Rom 14:13 KJV) Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.

Ultimately it's not about what's right or wrong, what's a sin or not. I cannot judge another person on that basis, that's God's domain. I can only be responsible for my own life and my own choices and do my best to be a positive influence in the world. My faith in God must lead me to love and acceptance of all persons and to appreciate the great diversity in people. When we in the church judge another's life-style, in our arrogance we are taking upon ourselves a power that is reserved for God alone.

In August of 2012 I participated in my first ever pride parade event, and I expect the first of many. Prior to the event I had spent much time in soul searching and prayer but I came to the conclusion that for the sake of my spiritual journey and to demonstrate Christlikeness I had to do it. It was kind of a symbol of my new outlook, a symbol of non-judgment and acceptance that I owed to my God. I was with a trans-gender group of course; And while most of the group rode on the float I wanted to walk, to experience it in a little more personal manner. It was an enjoyable day and yes I did see those “Christians” shouting into bull-horns as I passed, I just smiled and waved to them. Maybe next time I'll walk up to them and talk to them about the love of Jesus Christ their God.

God Bless

Anita

Super Bowl Day

Another Super Bowl has come and gone, hallelujah! I think I heard someone say it was the 40^th, but I could be wrong. The coming of another Super Bowl always fills me with a certain amount of angst and a little bit of dread. There is a growing sense of expectation as the Super Bowl approaches. Even if your team isn't in the Super Bowl you still gain a bit of excitement. It seems the entire male population and a significant percentage of the female population expect to be watching when the Super Bowl kicks off. Seriously, who doesn't get excited at the approach of the Super Bowl, who doesn't like the Super Bowl?

I will readily admit to my ignorance of all things sports related. Oh I know what each game is played with and generally what is the goal of the game. But in most cases anything beyond that is beyond me. When someone starts talking sports I'm completely lost, the conversation is above me. I don't know who the players are what teams play what sports, who owns them or what city they're in. That's not to mention my lack of knowledge of most of the rules. That's OK or at least I'm OK with it and most of the time it seems to be OK to everyone else also.

But I've noticed a change of attitude at Super Bowl time. It seems to me that if you were born male there is an expectation that you at least are interested in the Super Bowl, know who is playing in it and you have an opinion on who should win. Having none of these creates in me a bit of anxiety. At this time of year inevitably there will be questions about who you support in the game. When I express that I neither know who is playing nor have an opinion about who should win the next response is normally, no seriously who do you like.

Last night we were having our church friends over to the house for a Super Bowl party. (my wife's idea not mine) The adults were watching the game in the family room and the teens were watching in the basement. One would be foolish to leave teens, even churched teens, completely to their own devices in another part of the house. I was making frequent trips down the stairs to keep an eye on them. Often the conversation the ensued focused upon my concept of sports..

They would not believe that I had no interest in sports, never ever did. In all honesty I was terrible in anything resembling sports when I was a child. I didn't like sports in any form and it's likely that contributed to my lack of ability. When my friends would play ball I was looking to get out of it in 5 or 10 minutes, it was so boring. In my late teens I was working for a church that was building a new facility. Just before they entered the new building I resigned. My job in the new building was to oversee the gym program. There was no way I was qualified to do that. The thought of trying to run a gym program brought me terror. They still would not accept my lack of interest in sports. They kept at it.

Most of the time this seems to be OK, but today was the Super Bowl. I've had similar experiences when the Super Bowl was near. After all who doesn't like football on Super Bowl day?

By the way I spent game time in the kitchen and dining room with a couple of the ladies it is after all just football.

Anita