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.

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.

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