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8 August 2010 by kathleen.
Are you angry at God because you think He did this thing…. or didn’t do that…. or did that but not this…. et cetera? A lot of people feel that way; they have thousands of reasons for getting mad and for staying mad at God.
I was that way: mad at God. I was mad at God mostly because I was male and didn’t want to be. And because I found male sexuality to be, at best, distasteful. I hated being male, and mostly I hated it because I hated many things about the way the male organ works, and the effects it had on the rest of my body — and mind.
I was of course very brave, bragging to my friends how much I hated God. My hatred was particularly vocal after I’d had a couple of drinks. What I failed to do, however, was to confront God directly. I was doing that childish bit, where you bad-mouth somebody to what pass for your friends. Say it in the presence of that somebody? No. That would be too direct.
I started going to church again because it seemed to be a good opportunity to crossdress. A few months later I read in a book about prayer that when you are angry at God, it’s a good idea to tell Him directly. Don’t hide behind the excuse, “Well, if he’s god, he already knows what I’m thinking.” Suppose He does know: that’s still not a conversation. You need to converse.
So if you think you’re so tough, and so hard, and so powerful, try this. Sit quietly — alone, though, this is not a time to be a showboat — and sober; no television, no iPod®, no blasting music. Do not voice any words, but silently tell that S.O.B. what you think of Him. Tell Him why you’re mad. Tell Him what a jerk He’s been, and is still being. Tell Him what’s wrong with how He created everything. Tell Him what he did wrong to make your life such a piss pot.
Tell Him! Don’t hold back. Tell Him everything. Tell Him what a pile of s–t the whole Christianity thing is.
Don’t tell your friends. Don’t tell your mother. Don’t shout it to a bar full of drunks. Just do it, yourself, you to God. Get it off your chest. Take Him down a peg. He’ll be the better for it.
I got an answer when I did this. I think you will, too.
Posted in God and Transsexuals | 1 Comment »
8 July 2010 by kathleen.
A week or two before my SRS, I became aware that I was disturbed about something. I woke up one morning knowing that it was my relationship with my father that was the cause of the disturbance. My mind works like that: sometimes I suddenly know what’s bugging me.
I’ve had a lot of therapy over the years. Some of it was directed at dealing with crossdressing, but not all of it; some was just personal growth. Within the latter category, I learned to do something called chairwork, or empty-chair technique. In this instance before my surgery, I chose to put my father into a chair, and to converse with him.
My father actually died in December, 1978, so the person I spoke to was not a ghost but my own memory of my father. I sat in a chair, and spoke to an empty chair facing mine. I spoke addressing that essence of my father which lives in my own mind.
Throughout my life, I had been afraid that A Man would see me dressed as a woman, and would take violent action against me. It doesn’t take much imagination to understand that A Man is actually My Father. I wondered if my discomfort with the upcoming SRS might be related to my father.
So, I put him in the chair, and asked him about it. Then I sat in “his” chair and responded to my questions. Back and forth I went, from chair to chair, alternately taking my role and that of my father.
“His” answers were at first cautious and tentative, but over the next 15-20 minutes his answers and my questions flowed freely; tears did, too. I asked him about an incident when I was 3 or 4 years old, one day when mom put lipstick and earrings on me. He told me how angry he’d been about that. I told him, too, about my transgendered nature, and asserted that it was God’s doing, not his, that I was transsexual.
When I asked for his forgiveness, he assured me there was nothing to forgive. When I asked for his acceptance, he gave it. Then I asked for his blessing on the surgery that was to take place 10 days later. When he gave his blessing generously and unequivocally, I felt a great weight had been lifted from me.
By the time I but the chairs back in their places, I was relieved, and peaceful: he accepted me. More accurately, that part of my own mind which re-created all the things he had said/was saying/would say — that part had now become more accepting of me.
That’s when I was ready for surgery.
Posted in AutoBiog, God and Transsexuals | 1 Comment »
24 March 2010 by kathleen.
I’ve written before about God and my transition. I want to testify to the power of God in my path from John to Kathleen.
You may not be able to tell from the picture of me on the GenderSong About Us page, but I am mostly bald. I told my gender therapist early on that I could never live full time because I would have to wear a wig, and in southern Virginia it just too darned hot to wear a wig in the summer. “No way,” I said. “I could never live as a woman.”
Someone heard my protest; I choose to believe God heard it. A year or two after this assertion to my therapist, my hairdresser told me about a partial hairpiece — not a full wig, but enough to cover my bald spot. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” you say. “A hairpiece is not a sign from God.” Well, not only did the the piece cover my baldness, but the incredible part is that the color of the hairpiece is indistinguishable from my own hair.
But the hairpiece was only frosting on the cake, as it were. Because I was sure I couldn’t ever live as a woman, all I wanted was for my male part to stop bothering me by getting erect. To that end, I sought enough estrogen to override the testosterone my testicles produced.
Here’s what I think: if you want something, and what you want is in line with what God has planned for you, then what shows up may far exceed what you ever imagined. All I wanted was a little estrogen; I got a sex change! That’s why I sincerely believe that I am a God-created transsexual, and that having SRS was congruent to God’s plan for my life.
Or look at my life in the negative: I fought being a transsexual from ages 18 to 58; I would not give in to any more than weekend crossdressing. The result was chronic depression — depression enough to hospitalize me for 6 months my senior year in college — and persistent unhappiness.
When I accepted my transsexuality and began to love myself for the perfect being God created, then all the obstacles along my journey from John to Kathleen were smoothed, somehow, without strain or effort on my part. I figuratively put one foot in front of the other, and one by one the rocks and boulders in my path were swept away. I opened my heart — softened my heart — and accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior. Then God filled my heart with love, and filled my life with what I needed to praise and glorify my God, as a woman.
Posted in AutoBiog, God and Transsexuals | 1 Comment »
10 March 2010 by kathleen.
I’ve had some health challenges since my sex reassignment surgery (SRS); despite those challenges, let no one doubt that I am immensely happy and immensely grateful to Almighty God for enabling me to have SRS.
I continue to affirm my belief that God created me transgendered, and that my decision to have SRS arose from my sincere belief that to do so was to act in accordance with God’s plan for me. My decision was for me. I do not know God’s plan for you; I cannot judge whether you conform to God’s will, or oppose it.
For each of us, ultimately, life comes down to God and me, to God and you. When we meet St. Peter at the proverbial Pearly Gates, saying “All my drinking buddies said I did the right thing” is not likely to get us very far.
Posted in AutoBiog, God and Transsexuals | 1 Comment »
19 February 2010 by kathleen.
Your mission, John, should you choose to accept it, is to become the most convincing woman you can, given the physical material (DNA, skeleton, musculature, skin texture, male pattern baldness, etc.) you were given at birth.
The purpose of this mission is known only to The Boss. However, we can tell you that as you live the life of a woman, you will
You will establish a new identity under the name “Kathleen”. In your folder, you will find a picture that suggests how you might appear in order to accomplish this mission. How you create this look will be up to you, though of course you may seek whatever help you need. We cannot reveal the amount of time allotted to you for this mission. You must live each day as if it were your last opportunity to complete this mission.
During your mission, The Boss will communicate with you as needed through the usual spiritual channels. You may wish to seek guidance regularly.
This folder will self-destruct in ……
Posted in God and Transsexuals | 1 Comment »
18 February 2010 by kathleen.
I submitted the post Yes, Christian and Transsexual last night before going to bed. I woke up this morning thinking of that I have to write just a little more.
In the second-last paragraph, I wrote
…I am not a man with a “woman inside”; nor am I a woman stuck with a man’s body. God created me transsexual: not man, not woman.
For me that statement has an important implication. As a transsexual, I am whole, not broken. If I were a man with a woman inside, I might be broken; or a woman stuck in a man’s body — I might be broken. I was not able move forward with my life until I understood that I am a transsexual.
Whether you are MtF or FtM, perhaps you, too, are a whole, complete, unbroken, transgendered person with a perfect, God-created essence; perhaps you are not a broken man; perhaps you are not a broken woman.
The story of Jesus Christ incorporates this message, that you are not broken. If you were broken… if you think you used to be in sin as a result of the famed and fabled Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden… if you are feeling guilt for what you have thought or done about being transgendered: it doesn’t matter any more. The death of Jesus on the cross nullified it - erased it - canceled it - forgave the transgression if there was one.
Whether or not you see yourself as broken, if you are unhappy, you may have to change. I had to change in ways appropriate for me; I invite you to consider whether the changes I had to make are appropriate for you.
Posted in God and Transsexuals, General FtM topics, General MtF topics | 1 Comment »
17 February 2010 by kathleen.
Does God approve of transsexuals? or doesn’t God?
For me, from ages 17 to 57 the answer was clear: God hated trans-anything. I was pig-headed and hard-hearted, for I had been schooled in the armored morality of the Roman Catholic church. I will spare the reader my vicious beliefs about the evils of transsexuality, beliefs that arose from my bitter hardness of heart.
What could have so changed my negative to positive? If you believe that Saul became Paul by the intercession of the Holy Spirit, then you can surely believe that the Holy Spirit could transform my own pre-transition trans-phobia into post-operative transsexuality.
As for God and transsexuals, however, I will not argue Scripture with you. If argument is what you need, you can find all kinds of people quoting scripture both ways on the Internet. My faith in Jesus Christ comes from my heart with only minor assistance from my head.
I had loved God in my childhood and adolescence. I abandoned God as I wrote in my post about resisting God not sin. I ripped God from my life when I perceived that God rejected me. I longed to go back to God, though I would not acknowledge the longing.
I have observed this in the bible stories: God is just, but God is not fair by any human standard of fairness. God gives to each of us a fluid set of gifts, but when compared person to person the sets are rarely equal; equivalent maybe, or equitable, but not equal. As long as I insisted on perceiving a restriction on God’s choice of gifts, I was in trouble. The belief that when it came to sex God could only count to two was a restriction my own narrow mind had placed upon God.
How arrogant of me to believe that I could restrict God. When someone presented me with the idea of an unrestricted God, I could only gasp!
My reconciliation of Christian with transsexual is that the God Who makes no mistakes deliberately created me transgendered. That is, I am not a man with a “woman inside”; nor am I a woman stuck with a man’s body. God created me transsexual: not man, not woman. I will not attempt to guess why God might have done so.
Furthermore, God gave me transsexuality as a gift. I no longer reject that gift. I accept the gifts God has showered upon me. My salvation by the sacrifice of God’s only Son, Jesus, was the greatest of many gifts. Accepting my transgender was a prelude to accepting my redemption. Both are gifts from the wise and generous Creator of the universe.
Posted in God and Transsexuals | 1 Comment »
10 February 2010 by kathleen.
I wrote in Resisting Sin that I (thought I) was resisting sin by not embracing my transgender behavior. I think now that I was doing two things: refusing to acknowledge my nature, and resisting God (instead of resisting sin).
I heard my father (my God) castigating me for wearing women’s clothes. I heard my God rejecting me because I could not resist the thought of wearing a girdle. From the only point of view I could imagine, masturbation was so wrong, so evil: God surely frowned whenever I put on a pair of pantyhose.
And so I said, “You are not a god, God.” I made up reasons: “You could not have made us all the way the bible said, creating man different from the animals. We are all part of the continuum of life, from virus to human — whether You made all the diversity of the universe in a week, or whether the universe evolved over billions of years: life is continuous, and living things are biologically contiguous. That Adam and Eve story is baloney.”
That’s what I said. Boy, did I ever reject God, didn’t I, in return for God rejecting me. I abandoned God for nearly 40 years, living in spiritual vacuum, groping for the spirit I knew was there.
I now reside in a space of loving myself and loving the transsexual nature that God gave me. I was able to stop resisting sin/resisting God when I moved into that space. I could see that God had been chasing me — yes, chasing me — hounding me to accept the gifts lying before me.
Instead of accepting those gifts every time I applied lipstick or pulled on a pair of pantyhose, no, instead I had been rejecting God’s gifts by insisting to myself that I was broken, evil, and deviant.
What finally broke the pattern were the words of a woman from church, who said to me, basically,
God created me transsexual, and God doesn’t make mistakes. I am not a mistake, I am the transsexual that God created. When I dress as a woman, I am acting in accord with God’s plan for me. I am supposed to put on the appearance of the opposite sex, and when I do so I am pleasing to God.
I heard that woman’s words, and they seeped into my brain/mind/soul, into my consciousness.
It was as if a new sun appeared in the sky! There was no longer a reason to reject God; God didn’t hate or reject me; I realized that God loves me, had been loving me, wants me to experience and express the nature God created for me.
For me, that God is Jesus Christ. My belief in and love for Jesus went on to develop through my awakening spirituality. I will not judge you if your God is not Jesus. Whoever your God is, that God loves you and blessed you with transgender. You can cherish that gift, appreciate it, and love the Giver.
Posted in Loving Myself, God and Transsexuals | 1 Comment »
6 February 2010 by kathleen.
I wrote earlier about walking the edge of sexual stimulation and sin: reading the Ann Landers and Dear Abby columns because in that section of the paper there regularly appeared lingerie ads, including ads for girdles (which at the time I found particularly exciting). So, yes, I would read Ann Landers for the advice, but I would also sneak a peek at the ads on the adjacent pages.
Around age 12 it slowly began to dawn on me that an erection was sinful. So if thinking about something made my penis swell and feel real good, then thinking about that thing must be sinful. So I made up stories about whether an erect penis really feels good, or whether it really itches and I wish it would stop. The stories allowed me to focus on the negative — resisting sin — instead of acknowledging the positive feelings that were within me.
For the purposes of this essay it isn’t important whether or not what I did was sinful. What is important is that I was perceiving my behavior to be evil or deviant; I didn’t see that my behavior arose from a fundamental difference in my essential nature. The conventional belief, I think, is that, however we do our transgender thing, we do it for sexual pleasure, period. Because the pleasure so derived does not arise from hetero-sex, there must be something wrong with it; the deviance of the pleasure we get makes the pleasure itself — and us — bad. Thus, I thought I was “bad”, and that to be good I had to resist being bad.
I wanted to be a good boy; thinking of my behavior as bad enabled me to objectify and distance myself from whatever I wanted but didn’t think I should have. The reality was that at age 15 wanting to wear women’s clothes arose from my essence and not from evil behavior or even temptation to evil behavior. But instead of recognizing that, I put the desires “out there” away from me by saying the behavior was bad.
Looking back now, in my 60’s — looking back from a place of loving myself — I am confident that my interest in women’s clothes was an expression of my nature. That my interest coincided with my sexual pleasure was not coincidental, but neither was it fundamental. My interest remains fixed on the feminine even though the intensity of the sex drive has diminished. I assert, furthermore, that the interest arises from my essence, from the nature of my being: transsexual. I didn’t understand that, couldn’t comprehend it, refused to face it when I was in my teens. And so, while I thought I was resisting sin, I was in fact resisting my nature and avoiding my essence.
Posted in God and Transsexuals, General MtF topics | 1 Comment »
