If you read many stories of
transgendered individuals you realize that after awhile these stories
begin to sound so much alike. It seems that we transgendered
individuals share very similar experiences. The particular details
change but the overall experiences are similar. This is especially
true of those of us that grew up long before the age of the Internet.
It was a different society then.
Society was far less accepting of any LBGT issues than today. Men
were sometimes arrested for impersonating women and even most
therapists weren't much help. Of course if you were seeing a
therapist for any issue you kept it secret. Before the information
age came to be it was close to impossible to find information about
being transgendered. We grew up in a vacuum. We knew something was
wrong with us and often believed we were odd, abnormal.
What is most amazing to me is how so
many of us survived to middle age. There is a lot of information
today about the high rate of suicide amongst transgendered
individuals. But it wasn't even an issue a few decades ago. Such
was the ignorance of the day. Today, I wonder how many of the
suicides that I knew of or heard about were transgender related. We
will never know.
Growing up transgendered, never easy,
was far more difficult in that society. It was perhaps made somewhat
more difficult for me growing up in a very conservative church.
Adding to the difficulties of being transgendered was the guilt and
shame I experienced from participating in something that was clearly
an abomination to God. I was so strongly attracted to all things
feminine not in a sexual way. I so wanted, even needed, to make
pretty things a part of my life. It was so wrong. No matter what I
tried I just couldn't get victory over this horrible sin. I tried
praying harder, reading my Bible more. I tried vows, I tried will
power. I tried more praying. I struggled so hard to suppress and
subdue this thing in my life, yet there was nothing but failure.
I became very introverted, withdrawn,
friendless and lonely. Not since High School have I had what could be
called a close friend. There were people I would talk to but not
what I would call close friends, Life consisted of one dreary day
followed by another dreary day. Even my Christian faith was
drudgery. And it didn't improve even when I became an ordained
minister. No-one knew the real me. The years of suppression and
struggle took its toll. Eventually I became emotionally dead.
Nothing moved me, nothing touched me. I was daily going through the
motions of life and ministry that's all it was, going through the
motions.
I found pornography would give me a few
moments of passion, but nothing could ultimately bring what was dead
in me back to life. I realize now that I was in a very dangerous
place. Had this gone on much longer It's likely that I would have
either committed suicide or become a mass murderer and I can't
honestly say which it would have been. I have God and my wife to
thank that neither became my reality.
Finally after finding my stash of
woman's clothing yet one more time, some of the pornography and
knowing something was wrong, my wife had had enough. She gave the
ultimatum either start counceling or she was gone. She actually
started to make plans to back up her demands. Now being
conservative Christians my family had always believed that God
was enough. I had always resisted the idea of counceling before. I
still believed that I just wasn't committed enough to God. (like that
had worked so well up to this time) This time I relented and told her I would seek
counceling. I guess that I had enough of my life as well. My wife
made some phone calls and found a counselor that could get me in
pretty quickly. God had his hand in it as well as he turned out to
be a well versed Christian man. Many Christian counselors let their
faith color their therapy but he is truly interested in helping his
patient become whole again.
I was about two years into therapy that
I finally realized that this cross-dressing, this transgender issue
was not an addiction nor a horrific sin that I needed to figure out
how to eradicate. It is a vital component of my core being, I am
transgender, I didn't ask for it, I didn't choose it. I spent
decades trying to overcome it and suppress it. Finally I had to
admit it, not only am I transgender I am a transsexual. I told my
therapist and then my wife. That was a tough day. She was expecting
that I was getting help to overcome it now I had to tell her there
was a real possibility that I would need to transition and live live
as a female. That has become my reality as I now have a gender
therapist and am working towards transition in the near future.
It took a little work but I have
finally reconciled my faith and my gender issues. I will write more
about that in the future. God is more real to me than ever before in
my life. He is so good and full of mercy, he's given me a new lease
on life. It's becoming more apparent every day that someday soon I
will need to leave the church I have been a member of all my life, as
my theology and understanding of God is diverging from theirs. That
and they're not tolerant of the LGBT community. I can't imagine they
will be happy with my transition.
(John 10:10 KJV) The thief cometh
not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that
they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
I'd been active in the church all my
life and always attempted to do what was right. But it was only late
in middle age, and only after accepting who I am that I have started
to find the abundant life the scriptures told me about.
God Bless
Anita
