Choices

As I write this two events are looming in my near future. My therapist is writing my letter recommending HRT* (hormone replacement therapy) and I have a major review coming up with my boss. My denomination has already begun to question my theology. My boss has already asked me some questions about the transgender community. The truth be told last year the church asked me about my life and how has my spiritual life changed recently, they do that yearly. I wrote that God had changed my theology and that I wanted to work with the transgender community. So I guess I'm to blame, but what should a pastor be if not honest.

The last time I saw my boss, he asked if I could work with the transgender communtiy and stay in this denomination, my answer was I hoped so. There were some other questions that I sort of sidestepped. I know he had more questions but I wasn't prepared to answer them all at that time. Next month I have this review meeting coming up with my boss. The conditions of the meeting are such that I know this issue will come up again. This time I don't have the disire to sidestep the questions, nor do I think he would accept it.

So my next choice may impact a great many lives. Should I choose to continue towards transition it will effect my job, my wife, my congrigation, and my denomination and rather soon at that. I'm not saying that anything would necessarily happen next month, things move rather slowely in this denomination. But something is likely to happen this year, summer or fall at least.

There was a Star Trek movie where Spock sacrifices his life for the needs of the ship. He says, “the needs of the many always outweigh the needs of the few.” But I began to think, how exactly does this choice of mine impact others lives. Although my church and my congrigation may be shocked, in the overall scheme of things it is just a minor blip in their lives. Things will very shortly return to normal. The church will have someone to replace me in no time. So this causes me to ask, do the relitively minor needs of the many out weigh the major needs of one? Would it even be proper for me to give up what is esentially myself so that many others lives might not be inconvienced in some very small way?

There are only a few lives that may be impacted by my choices in any major way and that is my wife and family. So far the family members that I have talked to have accepted things very gracefully. I can't say that will be true about all my family members. Some of them haven't been real close in many years. I hope they can be as accepting but again since some of us aren't very close the overall impact in our lives is fairly minor. The two that my choices impact the most directly are my daughter and my wife.

My daughter, who is married and out of the house is good with this. She has passed on to me some of her clothing that she outgrew, asks me from time to time if Anita's been out and is very supportive. My wife feels the greatest impact of my choices and that through no fault of her own. She wants to continue in this ministry and I can't believe that the leadership will allow me to continue in it. She and I are still close but we acknowledge that we are moving on diverging paths. It sometimes happen that two people who love each other follow diverging paths. Some well known Christians couples of the past lived their lives largely apart. So even in Christian circles this is not entirely unknown. If I continue to persue transition. This would mean seperation, possibly divorce. Both my wife and I have asked ourselves the question, are we being selfish for wanting, I'd say needing, to do what we have been persuing. Sometimes I still question do I have the right to put her through this.

If it is always true that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few then there is only one choice I must make. Simply tell myself I was wrong, to stop my persuit of transition, stop the crossdressing and ignore this need. This meets the needs of the greatest number of people it and it would only cost me an entire life of pain, anguish, drudgery and even suicidal thoughts. With this decision life could contiue as I know it. My ministry and marriage would be intact, everyone would be happy, everyone but myslef that is. It's possible that I could convice everyone else that I was OK, that I was their idea of a good person and a dedicated christian/pastor. The problem is I would be miserable and life would once again become nearly unbearable. I've been down that road so many times before. No matter how hard I tried, how hard I prayed or how much time I spent reading my bible I've never been able to eradicate this thing out of my life, and believe me I have tried. This is me and I can't eradicate me.

So for now I will choose to continue to do what I must do. I will feel bad in some ways for the lives that this choice will impact. But mostly I will be concerned for my wife. I will pray for her and support her the best I can as I know she will me. Others may not understand, some may find fault that's OK I can live with that, it is after all my choice.

Anita

*For those not in the know HRT is the first step, other than therapy, in the process of transitioning to living as a female. For a male a Testosterone blocker is used and a female sex hormone is given. Eventually breasts begin to develop, the skin gets softer, muscle mass is reduced, some fat deposits are relocated and male pattern baldness may be arrested.

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