I know there are people from all walks of life here including various religions, Agnostics and Athiests. I am not trying to force anyone to believe as I do, nor do I want to offend anyone. This is just the story of what I have experienced in my life and my experiences with becoming a Christian to being transgender. I’m 65 years old.
At a very young age I found myself wanting to be like my little sister. I was raised as Catholic and attended Catholic grade school. At around age 8 or 9 I found a neighbor in a pool of blood from suicide. I had nightmares for quite awhile and also took pills for some time after. We moved the summer after grade school and I went to a public high school.
During puberty I experienced what I now believe was gender dysphoria. It was not in anyone’s vocabulary then and I had no one I could ask. There was also no Internet. I struggled for quite some time with it. I was pretty much asexual. One of my uncles made fun of me as a teenager for NOT chasing skirts like his sons did. At 18, someone gave me a book written by Hal Lindsey in 1963. It blew up my world.
The book was about bible prophecy. I got my dad’s Catholic bible and realized it said pretty much what Hal Lindsey said it did. I soon left the church because I realized they were not telling me the truth and I concentrated on other things. I did wonder what the truth was.
I received an Associates degree in Electronics and got a job at a very small company that supplied Whirlpool. I quickly moved up to shift supervisor and worked nights. I had a couple of what I called Holy Rollers that worked under me. They talked me into going to their church and watch a movie that was a precursor to the Left Behind movies. Other people I worked with knew that I was searching for meaning in my life and got me to visit their churches also. All the while I didn’t fit anywhere. I tried partying with some other people. I was always trying to find a way to fit in.
One of the people I worked with set me up on a date with his sister. It was on again, off again, on again. I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I wondered if I was bi sexual because I started having all kinds of things going through my mind, but not really comfortable with any of it.
One night after partying I lost control of my pickup. I was sliding sideways toward the side of a bridge with the front end hanging down in the ditch. I can’t explain how, but it was like something pushed my pickup up out of the ditch and lined it back up on the road. I did nothing to cause it, and at the time was left amazed.
I was heading toward depression. Nothing made me feel good, not the drinking or the religious people. One night just before I turned 25, I was in the office at work with no one around. I started praying to God for answers. I offered myself and the rest of my life to Jesus to do with whatever He wanted. I told Him if He wanted to take control and make me His robot, I was willing. Jeremiah 29:13 says “those who earnestly seek Him with all their heart will find Him” I got saved that night and walked from darkness to light. I went from depression to joy. I finally understood what Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3. I was saved by Grace through faith as it says in Ephesians 2:8-9. I did NOT get saved in a church nor was I told what to say.
When I opened a bible again to try to figure out what had happened to me it seemed to come alive to me. It all started to make sense.
Very soon after this I got back together with my one and only girl friend. I prayed to God for direction. I then asked her to marry me.
During one of my previous parties with the drinking friends I had a bad experience at trying to have sex with someone else when we were both a little drunk. This experience caused me to marry my wife with no expectations for sex. I don’t think many guys think that way. I felt that if what I experienced the first time was what it was like, I didn’t need it. I just wanted companionship and LOVE.
I talked to a priest from the Church I had previously attended. I asked him to marry us in order to make my Catholic family happy. I became uncomfortable with the things the Priest was telling me, so I talked to a coworker and he got his preacher to marry us. It was a United Church of Christ.
My wife was afraid of sex because of things her family told her growing up. Since I didn’t think I wanted it either, we did without for awhile. Seem abnormal? When we finally became intimate and I felt the closeness for two becoming one, I let the male hormones take over. Not sure if I experienced it like the normal male, but WOW! We ended up with two beautiful children.
I bought seven different versions of the bible because I couldn’t figure why there were so many religions. I studied and compared them to the point my wife was getting upset over the amount of time I spent doing it. Somehow I managed to get her saved as well. I realized the bibles all said the same thing. Different churches were either leaving out things or only talking about things they considered important, like I experienced in the Roman Catholic Church.
I am by nature an introvert and for awhile I was afraid to talk to anybody about what I had experienced. One of my coworkers gave me a cassette tape that had an old song on it called “Sorry I never knew you.” Hearing it made me get beyond the shyness and made me want to tell everyone. I didn’t realize it at the time, but most people around me had already noticed something had changed me before I even told them.
When I started to talk to the people I worked with something would always break down, and there wasn’t a maintenance man on my shift. I was the one who always had to go fix it. I have a knack with electrical, mechanical, pneumatics, and hydraulics. It became obvious to everyone that any time I mentioned Jesus, something immediately broke down that I had to go fix.
In time, my company wanted to open another plant in an Arkansas town to supply another Whirlpool plant there. They recognized I was able to fix almost anything and get the most production of anybody there from the equipment and people. They asked me to manage the new satellite plant, so we moved there. At that time I had 2 small children.
In time we grew the business. We soon out produced the corporate plant on several different parts. After managing the Arkansas plant for 11 years and shortly before they moved my plant to Mexico to follow Whirlpool’s move, I took a job at another company to stay in Arkansas.
Not long after that I happened to watch a SyFy movie about a future time where you could pick changes you wanted done to your body. You could walk into a machine and a couple hours later you came out with those modifications.
In the movie a married woman decided she wanted to try being a man. She snuck out and did it. When her husband realized what she had done he was furious. By the end of the movie love won over and the man entered the machine to become the wife. I immediately had another bout with dysphoria. I couldn’t get it out of my mind for quite some time. I realized I wanted to trade places with my wife! I finally choked it down and moved on. I didn’t know what I was experiencing or why, but I continued to believe it was from finding my dead neighbor as a youngster. Figured it had put some kind of strange glitch in my thinking.
About 5 to 6 years ago I started reconnecting with the people from the corporate plant I got saved at through Facebook. More than one of them told me that what they saw happen to me and what I told them had changed their lives. Sometimes seeds that get planted take a little while to grow. Many were saved and two of them had become preachers. There are a lot of things about life I still don’t understand, but I know in my heart there is a God that loves us, even though some churchgoers don’t.
A lot of people that call themselves Christian don’t really understand what Christian means anymore than they understand what a transgender is. Some that truly are Christians also behave the same way. Many on this forum have been hurt by some of them. I also know that not all bigots are Christians. There are bigots from other religions as well as Atheist bigots. Bigots can come in all colors and from all backgrounds. It doesn’t make the bible any less true, or that God loves us less. I have also come to understand more about what the bible calls Eunuchs. It talks about three kinds of Eunuchs. I think one of those might explain some of this.
I first heard the term transgender a few years ago, but the way it was described, I knew that it was not who I was. It seemed to mean someone that had wild sexual urges and fantasies that changed who they were. You needed to stay away from them and definitely not let your children near them.
I have struggled for most of my life with the thoughts I had that seemed to conflict with my faith. While reading a thread written by someone on this forum a few months ago, I found out what transgender means and realized I am one.
I live completely isolated in a very conservative area. There is a gay person in the family and I have worked side by side with a couple of them. I had never met anyone I knew to be transgender in person until just recently thru another website.
Not long ago, I tried to correct someone I’ve known for over 4 decades about a comment he made toward <not allowed> and he started to get angry. I did my best to back away. Nobody deserves that type behavior.
I would take a bullet for my wife and children and don’t want to upset the life I now have. Please don’t take that wrong. I know some are struggling bad with dysphoria and have trouble avoiding full time. Mine is just more like background noise. I am working toward Zero Depth vaginoplasty, but it is just for me and no one else. I have a medical condition that could be improved or even resolved by the surgery as well.
Several weeks back I gathered up some information about studies done comparing cisgender and transgender brains and some things another transgender Christian wrote, along with a description of the Zero Depth vaginoplasty. With the consent of my wife, I spent 3 hours alone with my Pastor in a very conservative non denominational Pentecostal leaning church in the Bible belt. (I am a Board member of the church, run the audio visual for the music, and known for my knowledge of the bible) I have actually helped the Pastor himself learn more about the Bible. Before I was done, I admitted I was transgender.
I was not kicked out of the church. Quite the opposite. I thought it might go this way, but I was a little scared. We have had several conversations since. The Pastor finally seems to get it. Not all Christians are bigots, especially if they can just understand who we are. They also need to realize what Galatians says about the law and Grace. They do NOT co-exist. One scripture used a lot is Deuteronomy 22:5. The way to answer that is have them read verse 22:11. I know many of you have had quite the opposite experience and nobody deserves that!
Jesus loves you as much as me!
Hugs,
Confused1
