For years I tried to explain to "Normal" people what it is like to be a transsexual, with little to no success. How can anyone undestand what life is like living in a body that is the wrong sex, except by living the life that we must live? It is a hard life often filled with pain and rejection. I know and understand their life because I must live it too!
I hid the truth from everyone for many years, I knew I was a girl, but my body looked like a boy's. If I had said one word or allowed myself to be seen acting like the girl that I was, the children would have made life unbearable for me. So I built walls, trying to protect myself from being hurt, but my walls became a prison. I lived in a rural county of northern Calif. and it was not acceptable to be anything that did not agree with their ideas about what a "Normal girl or boy" was supposed to be.
My family has been Christians for generations on both sides, with very conservative beliefs. Most of them would have rejected the idea instantly and called me a homosexual if I had told them I was a girl. They would have rejected me and claimed that I was going to spend eternity in "The Lake Of Fire". So I kept my mouth shut, and tried as hard as I could to act like a boy. I was not a boy, I could not think or feel like a boy; but I could dress like one and almost act like one if I kept my thoughts, feelings and emotions buried deep inside.
A girl cannot keep all of her feelings and emotions hidden deep in her soul without it causing serious problems. If I was not going to let anyone see all of the good things that made me the little girl I really was, then I had to replace them with something else. I was already upset because all of the other girls were able to look, act and feel like girls while i was forced to be a boy. What I did, I did without hardly thinking about is. I turned all of the love and happiness that I knew as a little girl, into a hate and anger that was directed toward everyone and everything.
I became a very cold and hard-hearted girl living in a boy's body. I try not to go into these years too deeply because it would turn into a book, and because they are too full of pain, hate and evil deeds done by me and to me. A few things I should mention: I was sexually molested for three years, my house burned down, my parents got divorced, and I began smoking pot and cigarettes. One good thing worth mentioning, I accepted Christ when I was 10 yrs. old.
High school was a time of just trying to get by, it was spent with a few close friends and was filled with drugs. Christ had a very minor role in my life, if someone asked, I told them about Jesus, but that was rare. I was still trying to be a sexless male so there were not many girls who were even willing to be my friend. It was the "Girls" that I longed to be with, but they wanted nothing to do with a sister in a male body. So I used drugs to hide the truth and to buy friends. As long as I had drugs, I had "Friends". As long as I had drugs, I could hide the pain and hate that filled my soul like a cancer eating away what little feelings I had left.
Life didn't change much over the years, school turned into a job and my bicycle into a car. I was trapped in a prison I had made for myself, no windows, no doors, no escape! Of course I had forgotten about the power of the Holy Spirit. First he allowed me to get sick, it lasted a full month and I droped to 100lbs. The Doctors had no idea what was wrong with me. I recovered during the second month without the Doctor's help. During those 60 days, I spent sitting in my house, I turned back to God and then began attending Jamestown Assembly Of God.
He had me back in church, but it took another five years to break down my walls and get me off drugs. At first this sounds good, but it left me with nothing, my walls were gone and so were my drugs. The Holy Spirit would normally give me the protection I needed, but there was still more changes to be made. He had me back in church, free of drugs, and my walls were broken down; but that was not good enough for the Holy Spirit.
For twenty years I had been pretending to be asexual, he had chosen this time to force me to admit the truth, first to myself and then to family and friends. Admitting to myself that I was a woman in spirit and soul, and that I needed my body changed so I could live in peace as a complete woman was not too hard. But I knew that if I spoke one word of this to anyone, I could never turn back. I stood there and fought with the Lord for at least two months loosing a lot of sleep and often going days without eating anything. In the end he won!
Since I had been writing a lot for several years, and it had always been hard for me to talk about anything that might cause me to have open my spirit and soul, I began writing letters to a few close friends I thought might understand. No matter how much I talked and wrote, no one was able to understand or willing to accept me for the woman that I am. I do have a few friends and my brother who will stand by me, but they don't accept me as a woman.
Life was very hard, I didn't have any work and my car was broken down. By this time I had lost everything and would have been homeless, if my family didn't have property I was able to live on. It was a daily battle not to put an end to my life. A couple weeks ago ( 10/15/98 ), a friend helped me raise the money to get on the inter-net using web-tv. I found two groups which I think were the difference between life and death for me: Emergence and T.G.Christians. Both of these groups are full of loving Christian sisters, they are all beautiful Ladies! If it wasn't for these Gentlewomen, I wouldn't be writing this now. Thank-you my sisters, you are the one who pulled me back from the edge!
I was told years ago that there was a new group of people I would be sent to, where I would do things I had never done before, and that these folks were in the same place I was. My T.G. sisters, I believe you are that group. Only time will tell if i am right, but for the first time in my life I have found people who know, love and understand me.