Transgender issues, Christianity, Culture and Married Life

Beliefs and Self Denial

2012-01-24T22:17:00.000-07:00

I've been contemplating my past this week and I've thought a lot about how I used to constantly deny how I felt about things, not just to others, but to myself as well.

After thinking about it I've realized that I have still been denying many things about my thoughts, feelings and desires.

I asked myself the question: why is it hard to admit the truth about how I feel about things? I've realized the reason: it is hard because of what I believe is right and what I believe is wrong.

It is difficult and often contrary to human nature to admit to ones self that we are doing something wrong in our own eyes. It seems we can not be at peace with ourselves if we do not either stop doing what we see to be as wrong or change what we believe is wrong.

I find that the reason why I spent so much time denying my feelings is because I held a set of beliefs that constantly put me at odds with my own character. These beliefs were founded on scriptural passages and the corresponding cultural interpretations of them and the beliefs and traditions of my church.

Here is a list of several of these beliefs:

It is sin for men to wear women's clothing (Deuteronomy 22:5).
It is sin for men to have long hair (1 Corinthians 11: 14).
God created us male and female and we had our birth gender as spirits before our birth (Genesis 1: 27, Jeremiah 1: 5).
It is sin for men to act like women in any way because women and men have distinct and separate roles (1 Timothy 2:11-15, 1 Peter 3:1-7, 1 Corinthians 14:33-38, 1 Corinthians 11:3-16. etc.).
It is sin to alter one's genitalia (23: 1).

Yet at the same time I held these contradicting desires:

I want to dress like a woman.
I want long hair.
The person I see myself as in my mind is primarily female.
I have many naturally feminine desires, tenancies and qualities. My likes, dislikes, behaviors and the way I think are more stereotypically female than male.
I want to have a sex change and be a woman.

How could I admit to myself that I wanted these things when I believed it was sin? How could I want to sin if I love God with all my heart and desire to follow him? I just could not admit these things about myself because I wanted to be a righteous follower of God and having these desires and qualities made me a sinner--and I did not want to be a sinner.

I wonder how often all of us refuse to be honest about our desires, feelings and even actions because they are contrary to our belief systems.

After much soul searching I have changed my belief system somewhat

It is okay for men to wear women's clothes as long as they are modest and are not worn to arouse one's self inappropriately. (This is based on the fact that the scripture in Deuteronomy is given in part of the law of Moses that outlines many principles which are no longer observed because of their lack of utility and the fulfillment of the law in Christ. I figure since we can wear fabric blends now (prohibited in the next few verses )then why should we adhere to this law? Also, God told me himself that he doesn't really care about it).
It is okay for men to have long hair if they want to (this is based on the fact that many men in scripture were praised for having long hair: Judges 16:17, 2 Kings 1:8, 2 Samuel 14:25-26, Leviticus 19:27, John the Baptist and Jesus even had long hair according to tradition).
There is absolutely nothing wrong with men acting in stereotypically feminine ways and doing stereotypically feminine things so long as those things are wholesome and decent. (I don't really have any particular scripture to back this up, but here's an example that lead me to believe this: think about the qualities Jesus had and compare them to the stereotypical male of our day. They don't line up so well. Jesus had long hair. He wore dresses. He spent every moment of his life in compassionate service to others. He is gentle. He is kind. He is loving. He loves teaching, helping, and blessing little children. He is forgiving. He was an extremely social person and spent a lot of time attending social events and talking with others. He sacrificed His life for His loves ones (us). Jesus was a really touchy-feely person. Yeah these are all great qualities for men to have, but they are more stereotypically feminine in the US culture today.
Okay so have my beliefs changed about that last point. Well, I'll probably need more than a bullet point to explain that.

So ever since I can remember I have not felt good at all about being male. It has never felt right at all to me. I remember having nightmares about my penis as a small child. When I first heard of SRS (sex change surgery) I was about the age of six, and ever since then I wished I could have it. I didn't have any dolls as a child, but I did have stuffed animals and I gave them names and dressed them in my old clothes an played with them like dolls. I remember acting out countless scenarios with them--living my life through them in a way--and several of those scenarios included one of my stuffed animals ending up having a sex change.

At an early age I learned to try to hide my feminine tenancies because of the ridicule I had received from just trying to be myself really. And as I grew up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I quickly realized that boys had to do things a certain way and girls had to do things a certain way and that was that. I learned that gender is an eternal thing--which meant that I was a boy before I was born and that I'm stuck being male for the rest of eternity. Later I learned that if a member of my church does have a sex change they are excommunicated. Inherent in all of this is the belief that changing one's sex is an abominable sin. How would it be possible for me to believe otherwise.

Throughout my entire life I have tried to convince myself that I don't want SRS--that I don't want to be a woman. But no matter how hard I try--no matter how hard I pray, fast, study, serve other, etc. I can't seem to get rid of this desire. I can't seem to ever feel right about being male.

The policies and doctrines of my church still indicate to me fairly clearly that it is not something God approves of.

At this point I hate to finally say it. I've always felt this way. I'm just being honest with myself now. I wish God didn't mind. I wish my church didn't mind. I wish I could finally find some way to be at peace with my body at least in this life. I wish I could feel good about getting a sex change without feeling rejected by my family, my colleagues, my church and my God. But I can't.

I don't know how I'm going to handle dealing with my life right now. I don't know how I can deal with being a man for eternity. I've always been female in my mind. Is the person I see myself as going to magically change when I die? And somehow Jesus is going to just make me okay with being a man and if that is the case who will I be then--will I be someone I never even knew in this life? I don't want to be someone else and I don't see any solution to this.

It seams no matter where I end up after this life I will end up in hell. How can I be in heaven if I can never be myself? How can I ever be in heaven if I am stuck being a man forever.

I hate to think this way. I really do, but were is the answer to my dilemma?

I don't want to be a sinner. I don't want to be evil. I don't want to lose my loved ones, and I don't want to go to hell. I want to serve God and love Him with all my heart, might, mind and strength. But I just want to be and feel like a whole person.

The God of the Old Testament vs the God of the New

2012-01-10T22:17:00.001-07:00

Something I've been thinking about lately is the sharp contrast between the law of Moses and the doctrines and teachings of Jesus Christ.

In reading the Old and New Testaments it's clear that the descriptions of and the commandments from God in the Old Testament sometimes seem kind of... well how to I put this--ruthless and unloving. Whereas the teachings of Jesus are loving, compassionate, and merciful, yet also just.

Let's look at a few examples:

Leviticus 20

9 ¶For every one that ^acurseth his ^bfather or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his ^cblood shall be upon him.

(Oh how many teenagers would not survive this law in today's world.)

10 ¶And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his ^aneighbour’s wife, the ^badulterer and the ^cadulteress shall surely be put to ^ddeath.

(Yet, Jesus did not condemn the adulteress to death--neither did he condone her sin, yet he was merciful)

17 And if a man shall take his sister, his father’s daughter, or his mother’s daughter, and see her ^anakedness, and she see his nakedness; it is a ^bwicked thing; and they shall be ^ccut off in the sight of their people: he hath uncovered his sister’s nakedness; he shall bear his iniquity.

(Um,did this not apply in the days of Adam and Eve....)

18 And if a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her nakedness; he hath discovered her fountain, and she hath uncovered the fountain of her blood: and both of them shall be cut off from among their people.

(Not sure if I'm reading this one right, but it sure seems to be a heavy penalty for making love with your wife when she's having a period)

And of course this chapter is also famous with the Wesboro Baptist Church (I don't even want to try to understand what motivates those guys) for condemning homosexuals to death.

Then there are the countless examples where God commands 'His' people to go out and slaughter thousands of people in other nations.

I have a hard time seeing how these things all mesh with the teachings of Jesus--Here's why--because they don't!

I came to realize that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are the same God. Why the difference then?

It's simple the people of the Old Testament simply didn't know God very well for the most part, and the people of the New Testament that wrote at least knew God much better because he was with them.

The 12 tribes in the Old Testament were composed mainly of wicked people and they refused to keep the original commandments that Moses delivered them from God. So Moses had to give them a lesser law--a carnal law--even a somewhat devilish law. In other words the people were really wicked and they refused to live God's commandments so God gave them commandments that would help them be less wicked (wicked still yes because their hearts were not right, but less wicked). God was helping them improve so they could gradually get to the point that they could actually live his law. He was asking them to be less idolatrous, less murderous, less thieving, etc. than they were at present.

With this in mind I think we need to realize that the aim of much of the law as outlined in the Old Testament was to help the people be less wicked. That should not be our goal today. Today we know Christ through the New Testament and also the Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants. We have so many witnesses of his teachings. We can learn of his goodness, love, long-suffering, mercy, justice, compassion and atonement. There is no need to attempt to live a lesser law that does not match up to the statutes of God when we have free access to God's higher law.

I am not saying that we should ever use love as an accuse to accept sin (we should not), but we should never use scripture as an excuse to spread doctrines of hate. We need to take things in their proper context.

A decent article about transgender christians

2012-01-10T21:20:00.001-07:00

I just read through this article

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/sexandgender/1803/transgender_and_christian%3A_finding_identity

about transgender Christians. Of course I didn't agree with all the views presented in it, but I thought it was really good how it talked about focusing on our spirituality.

So we started reading the Twilight series....

2012-01-10T19:34:00.000-07:00

So a few months ago I decided to read Twilight. Well, I heard it was a 'girly' book and all my life I had resisted reading 'girly' books and never really read much. Well, I figured I would read it and my wife decided to read it with me. I've always found vampire stories highly entertaining.

Well, we really loved the first book except for a few things-:

having a boy vampire stay over night in an under-aged girls room without her father knowing was a little sketchy...at best.
Bell was kind of annoying in that she really seemed quite aimless.
The whole Bella wants to be a vampire and Edward's aversion to that was kind of annoying.

But over all the book was highly entertaining and in many ways I felt like I could relate to both characters Bell and Edward.

My wife and I watched the movie after reading the book and we liked how the adapted it. I have to admit though, the part where Edward was climbing the tree with Bella on his back looked really goofy.

As far as New Moon goes, well the bit about Jacob being a werewolf was cool and it was cool how her and Jake finally became friends, but it really stunk how Edward just up and left her. It was so depressing to the degree of being extremely annoying that Bella was basically just trying to do stuff to get killed because her life was so useless without Edward.

Anyway, I found New Moon just really depressing, and Bella and Edward getting back together in the end just didn't fix that for me and here's why:

Jacob actually did a lot more to merit Bella's love and friendship than Edward ever dreamed of doing, but in the end when her 'perfect' Edward comes back she just outright dumps Jake and tells him that Edward will always be #1 to her. Granted Jake is kind of annoying sometimes--Bella is really a jerk to him, how she uses he all the time. Oh, and Bella's aversion to marriage is just plain nonsensical--what does she want, an eternal boyfriend or something?

Anyway, to sum up New Moon I'll just say it was painful, but still somewhat entertaining, and I think the movie was better than the book.

So, my wife and I started reading Eclipse with the hope that it would eventually get at least as good as the first book again, but no it got worse. Edward just got more annoying and that whole part about them licking each other's lips (basically) just made me sick. You know, you can argue all you want about whether or not the stuff they do in that book is appropriate or not for unwed people--I don't want to get into that I just want to say--I don't want to read about people doing that whether they are married or not.

Anyway, it was about at the part where Edward comes home to meet Bella (in bed) whom he has abducted and forced to sleep in his room because he hates werewolves and then they start the smooching and licking and grossing me out stuff.... Anyway, it was at that part that I said to my wife, "Ewe gross. I don't want to read this anymore." Then we threw them all in the trash... and we did not bother watching the movie. I'm kind of disappointed because I was curious to know how things ended up...not so much for Bella and Edward I can assume that he eventually bites her and they live happily undead ever after, but I was wondering how things end up for Jacob. Oh well.

So now I say, goodbye and good riddance to Twilight and hello to Little Women. Just finished the first chapter.

I can be thankful for me!

2011-12-30T22:09:00.000-07:00

I've decided that I've been focusing too much of my attention on trying to deal with being transgender--when there is so much more to life--my life than that. I mean, yeah, it's pretty disconcerting to have a hard time not freaking out about being a guy, but I mean there are lots of great things about my life that I should really focus on.

My brother told me a while back that he was trying really hard to focus only on positive things. His determination to do so made me want to do the same--I'm not as good at it yet as he is I'm afraid.

Then, just the other day--actually it was on Christmas day I was talking a friend who was telling me about what helped her a lot to overcome depression. She said that she started making a journal of things she was thankful for and she started with things about herself and then she moved on to other things. She would write more and more things every day until she didn't have room to write what she was thankful for in her journal anymore, but she still thinks about it.

Anyway, I started doing this and I've realized that thinking about what I'm thankful for is helping me focus on positive things and its easier to be happy when you think of positive things.

So I started with what I am thankful for about myself, and after doing this I thought that every trans person would benefit greatly from this. So many of us are focused on things that we see as negative about ourselves that I think we just stop seeing the positive things.

I started with writing some things about my physical appearance that I am thankful for (I started with this because it is one of the harder things for me to deal with):

My beautiful eyes
My beautiful eyelashes
My hair (I'm so glad it hasn't all fallen out)
That I am skinny
That I'm a pretty cute guy
My nice fingernails and toenails
My nose

Then I wrote other stuff about myself that I am thankful for:

My ability to sing well
My ability to play and write music
My artistic abilities
My inellect
My social nature
My kind nature
My desire to be a kinder person every day
etc.

Then I wrote a bunch of other stuff including this one that comes to mind:

I'm thankful that I am a man because if I were not a man I would not have married my lovely wife, and I would not have my lovely children. I love them so much and for this I am grateful that I am a man.

God Makes 'Mistakes,' but Only When He Means to.

2011-12-30T21:47:00.002-07:00

I was listening to the scriptures on lds.org a few days ago somewhere in the apostles of Paul. I can't remember where, but it mentioned something about how all the creatures God has made are good for our consumption. This scripture was probably talking about the removal of the prohibition of eating certain meats as outlined in the law of Moses, but I was only half listening and my mind was completely taking things out of context when I imagined eating mosquitoes--yeah that's pretty gross.

Anyway, after that stupid thought I was thinking about how a lot of scriptures seem to talk about how everything God made is so wonderful and good for us and I got to thinking about pests, diseases, natural disasters and all that. And the old saying came into my mind again "God doesn't make mistakes."

Then I thought well what if Barack Obama had signed a bill which allowed scientists to genetically engineer deadly viruses for population control purposes--I'm sure people would view that as a mistake, but God created HIV, the flu, colds, etc. Did He make a mistake?

I mean think about it, God created a bunch of things that plague mankind--which if any man had created we would definitely view them as mistakes, but we say stuff like "God doesn't make mistakes!" to justify our lack of understanding towards the individual struggles of others.

Let's get one thing clear--God did not create this world to be a paradise full of butterflies, magic unicorns, mermaids, fairies where everything we need grows on trees and where we all sit around eating fruit while lambs play with lions and our little children in endless bliss!

Yes God did create a beautiful world with many lovely things in it, but God also created this world to be full of pains, sicknesses, trials, abnormalities and problems. This life is a testing ground to help us learn to be more like God. We need to bitter to comprehend the sweet, we need ugly things to understand beauty, we need sadness to understand happiness, we need death to understand life. God knows that we need opposition in all things to grow and learn.

So many things God has done and many things he allows to happen really do fit into man's common definition of a 'mistake.' But to God they are not mistakes, but essential pieces in an extremely well thought out plan that will guide his children to eternal life and happiness.

A mormon message that helped me feel a bit better

2011-12-18T14:39:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/user/MormonMessages#p/c/4E784EC0770935C0/1/EMwKxmTLaCs

It's what's on the outside that counts.

2011-12-18T14:11:00.000-07:00

I've just been thinking about the old saying "It's what's on the inside that counts," and I've been realizing that as far as society goes this is a load of garbage. Almost no one cares in the slightest what you are like on the inside. Pretty much everyone judges you based on how you look and how well how you look fits into how they think you should look.

If you've got a penis no one cares in the slightest how you feel on the inside--they only care about how well you match the male mold people expect you to fit into.

So I guess we need to revise the saying a bit to match how we really behave and treat each other:

"It's what's on the outside that counts to most people, but it's what's on the inside that counts to God."

1 Samuel 16

7 But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord ^aseeth not as ^bman seeth; for man looketh on the outward ^cappearance, but the ^dLord looketh on the ^eheart.

So while thinking along these lines I ran into this post by a trans person: http://transgender.livejournal.com/2212229.html

I thought it was interesting that someone told them "It's what's on the inside that counts" in an attempt to explain why they should be content with their sex. I mean most trans people (I being the only exception I know of) seem to think that they are women trapped in men's bodies (or vice versa). So if it's what's on the inside that counts then shouldn't this statement more justify their actions of transitioning? Anyway, I thought that was a really weird thing to say to a trans person.

Mostly in reading this person's post I felt really sad for them.... It's not an easy thing to go through to feel like you are living a life as someone you don't feel like you are.

God doesn't look on my outward appearance. He looks on my heart, but how does this apply to my situation.

Honestly it's not so much about what I look like. I mean, I'm not an ugly person. I've always been a good looking guy. It's more about the person I am in my head not matching up with the person I am forced to be on the outside.

I feel like the person I really am is the person I have always been in my mind, but I don't see any possible way for me to be that person. If I can't be who I am then I just have to find a way to be happy with being what I'm not, and maybe who I think I am in my head really isn't even who I am anyway, and maybe who or what I am doesn't really matter in the slightest because no one seems to care about it anyway, so why should I?

And even if somehow I could afford SRS and other costly procedures to make me look just like a woman on the outside--I would never be a woman. No matter what I do or could possibly do I could never change my past and I could never ever be the person I am on the inside no matter how much I changed my outside. What would I get from that anyway! Nothing good. I would lose my family, be kicked out of my church, lose my job and everything I care about. I would probably get so depressed that I would kill myself... and there are cheaper ways to accomplish that.

The only way I can see for me to be who I really am is to change who I really am in my mind.... I spent all of my life until recently trying to do just that and I ended up driving myself insane and I became suicidal.

I don't really see any good options, so I'll just keep doing what I've been doing--pleading to God for mercy.

Well, I'm depressed. So, I really shouldn't be typing now. So, I'll stop.

Just How Common are Trans People Anyway?

2011-12-11T09:41:00.001-07:00

I've been wondering for some time just how many people 'like' me there are out there. It seems every time I read a news article or here of something on the news or read an article online the numbers they site are completely different (by several orders of magnitude).

I usually heard something like there is about 1 transgender person in every 30,000 people. But sometimes I would here that the prominence of transsexuals was 1 in every 30,000. Again, the media confuses these terms a lot.

But then sometimes I would come across random sites that would say stuff like about 1 in every 1000 men has had a sex change. Those numbers seemed completely absurd and unbelievable to me. If 1 in ever 1000 men in the US has had a sex change then there must be a lot more than 1 in 1000 transgender people in the USA.

Anyway, after doing some digging I found this article How Frequently Does Transsexualism Occur? It's probably the best article I've found on the subject so far. They estimate that the prevalence of MtF transsexuals is about 1 in 500. Which means the prevalence of transgender people is higher than 1 in 500.

After reading this article I thought back to the one I read at that Christian website I talked about in a previous post. Where they said "Experts believe there are about 400,000 transgendered persons, less than one-half of one percent of the population, in America." And I wondered how these numbers matched up. Well the way they are stated this seems like a pretty small number.

Well even with this figure if we take the population of the United States about 307,006,550 and divide it by 400,000 we get a prevalence of about 1 in every 768 people which is way greater than the 1 in every 30,000 that I usually hear.

Then I got to thinking how I could use my own experience to test these estimates. Well, I first estimated the number of different people I have actually crossed paths with in my life and I'm pretty confident that that number is smaller than about 160,000. Meaning that I have looked at no more than 160,000 different people's faces with my own eyes. Of all the people I have encountered I have come across at least six people that I can remember that I knew were transgender (actually all of them were biological men living as women). This was before I came out about being transgendered and I made absolutely no effort to seek these people out. Which means that at least 1 in every 26,667 people I happened to see in my life was trans. Which is already greater than the estimates of 1 in every 30,000. But what about all the people I saw that I didn't know were transgender?

Supposedly the average person meets about 10,000 people in a lifetime. Since I'm not that old let's assume that I've met about half the people I'm going to meet in my life which would be about 5,000 of all the people I have actually met (meaning that I talked to them in person) how many of them did I know were transgender? Two. So thats 1 in 2500 and both of them had already either started medically transitioning or they had completed the process. Interestingly enough this exactly matches the upper estimate for the prevalence of transsexuals in the USA. If the numbers were 1 in every 30,000 the chances that I would have actually encountered over six transsexuals so far in my life would be incredibly small.

This article also makes an interesting comparision to the prevalence of transsexualism to the prevalence of other long-term conditions:

"By comparison, consider the prevalence of other long-term duration conditions that have profound impacts on people's lives. The approximate prevalence of muscular dystrophy is 1:5000, multiple sclerosis (MS) is 1:1000, cleft lip/palate is 1:1000, cerebral palsy is 1:500, blindness is 1:350, deafness is 1:250, self-reported epilepsy is 1:200, schizophrenia is about 1:100, and rheumatoid arthritis is about 1:100. All of these conditions are high on our society's radar screen and there is massive public empathy for those who suffer from them. There are large research funds available for studying and treating these conditions, and patients have welcome access to any existing medical treatments that might relieve such conditions.

Contrast those situations to intense transsexualism, which has an equally profound impact upon a person's life. This socially unpopular condition is totally off our society's radar screen, access to effective treatment is out of reach for the vast majority of sufferers, and the wider medical establishment and social welfare community are totally unaware of the relatively high prevalence (~1:500 to ~ 1:250 or more) and frequently tragic impact of the condition when simultaneously stigmatized and left untreated."

After reading this I thought of how many people I have personally encountered in my life that have had cleft lips--only two. Yet I had personally encountered six transsexuals. It seems clear to me that the prevalence of transsexuals in our society must be at least on the order of 1 in ever 1000. Which means that the prominence of transgender people must be several factors greater than that.

So what I gather from this is that being transgendered is actually a fairly common issue. It's just an issue that people don't want to talk about and making it seem more rare than it is is just another way to sweep it under the rug.

Another thing I've realize from this is that being transgendered really doesn't make us that 'special'--at least no more than a career choice. Estimates say there are about 500,000 scientists in the USA which is about 1 in every 600 people thats really close to the number of transsexuals in the USA. It's just one of the many aspects a person's life may entail.

What we have to go through in life isn't what makes us special--what makes us special are the things that we do that we don't have to do.

What if?

2011-12-09T12:04:00.001-07:00

I think about this a lot, but I figured I would explore this thought a little more. What if being transgendered wasn't a social taboo? What if being trans didn't automatically make people consider you a freak?

Imagine for a moment a world where there are just as many trans people as there are now, but people treated each other with love and respect no matter how they felt about things. What if in this world it was perfectly acceptable for some men to be feminine and some women to be masculine in all the stereotypical aspects?

Would the very absence of the current social pressures to hate, reject, ridicule and despise change how we treat others, how we see others, and how we see ourselves?

If the feelings and behavior of a trans person were perfectly acceptable to society would a trans person feel so pressured into spending thousands of dollars for costly procedures and surgeries?

Certainly transgendered people would still struggle with the emotional and mental turmoil associated with hormonal issues (I don't see how even societies behavior could change that at all), but I think if we didn't have so many examples of bias around us we would all see each other and ourselves differently.

But we don't live in an unbiased world where people love each other no matter what. However, we all have access to an unbiased God who loves each one of us no matter what. He loves us so much and if we allow Him to show us how much he loves us we will see ourselves and the world around us differently.

Christians who try to be compassionate towards trans people

2011-12-08T15:27:00.001-07:00

So I've done a couple searches about transgender people and christianity and I find that the least bias articles tend to be like the one I ran into today at christianitytoday.com. The article basically went about talking about what being trans means and ended with 'success' stories of people getting over it. But do articles like this really help give transgender people hope?

First off I've noticed a trend in these articles--many of the people that 'get over' being trans actually never were transgendered in the first place--rather they were abused. One of the guys in this article had parents who constantly told him they wished we was a girl and his mom forced him to wear dresses. He ended up hating himself because he was a man so much he almost got a sex change (he decided not to a the last minute), but was this guy really transgendered if he was sexually abused like this by his parents?

Actually, I've come across a lot of stories like this and it makes me wonder who should actually be classified as transgendered. I mean lots of boys want to dress up like girls and this article makes a good point that diagnosing a child as transgendered can be extremely dangerous because for many children it is just a phase. From what I've read most kids grow out of gender related phases like this after puberty

Anyway, back to what I was trying to talk about. It seems that there is a definite difference between someone who was sexually abused into thinking they are no good as being their gender and that they should change and someone who has great parents and a wonderful upbringing who has always felt disphoria with regard to their gender (not that anyone could survive life without having some issues with their parents) .

Anyway, I think articles like this can be a little dangerous because they could lead transgendered Christians to feel like if they just have enough faith they can and will eventually get over it.... Which can be like telling someone who is paralyzed that if they just have enough faith God will heal them. No matter how much faith you have some things aren't going to happen because some things are not God's will.

Again this article supports the common notions that trans people must join forces with one of the two extremes.

Why can't we just learn to love who we are without trying to change any part of that? I'm trying to figure that one out.

We are Commanded to Love Everyone

2011-12-04T21:04:00.001-07:00

A good friend of mine just sent me a link to a great article about loving everyone despite their differences. It's entitled I'm Christian, unless you're gay, but it's not really about homosexuality it's about loving everyone regardless of what we believe is sin.

It's probably the best written article I've read online about the subject and I found it inspiring me to treat everyone with greater love. Anyway, check it out and if you are a person with feeling you will not regret reading it.

Why did I start hating being a man in the first place?

2011-12-04T13:22:00.001-07:00

A while ago I made a post entitled Why did I want to be a girl in the first place? where I attempted to explore some of the possible causes for my female mental gender identity. I've been thinking a lot about what my counselor has been saying. She keeps saying that she sees that somehow I've associated female things as being good and male things as being bad, and she wants to track down why I associate maleness with being bad. That never really seemed to match up to me even though I had some poor examples of maleness in my life that would seem to justify my hating my maleness with not wanting to grow up to be like them.

Recently, I've realized how to put together the right order of how these things have played out in my mind. Before it was not clear, but it is very clear now. My desire to be female has nothing to do with me hating being a man. My transgender characteristics did not come as a consequence of me hating my maleness, but my hating my maleness came as a consequence of my transgender issues.

It's funny, but I've always known this, but I just wasn't able to accept it before--I wasn't able to accept me before. I was always searching for a way to fix myself. I kept believing that my being trans was because there was something wrong with me, now I realize that it's the exact opposite, the things that were wrong with me were a result of me being trans.

I've always felt uncomfortable with being a boy in some way or another, but I didn't hate it (dislike things about it yes, but hate no) until I started into my teenage years--in fact I think I even liked some things about it before my teenage years.

So what lead to me hating being male? Who I was lead to it--nearly every bit of who I was and who I am.

I don't mean to sound conceited, but I was a really cute little boy and my mom dressed me up in really cute clothes. My cuteness however did not match the stereotypical standard for male cuteness and older kids at school would ask me in a mocking tone "Are you a boy or a girl?"

At an early age I realized that the things I loved to do were 'girl' things. Things 'girls do' not things 'boys do.' I couldn't were dresses or dress pretty at all because I wasn't a girl. I loved to play with Barbie dolls with my friends that were girls, but when people found out they made fun of me because 'girls like to play with Barbies.'

I had a beautiful voice when I was a kid and I loved to sing, but people would make fun of me (even my own brothers) and say "you sound like a girl!"

People would see my fingernails and say, "You have girl fingernails!" I remember getting so upset that people kept telling me that that I clipped them so short my finger tips bled... but it didn't matter how short I clipped them they still told me I had "girl fingernails."

People often told me that if I had long hair I would look like a girl. I remember when my mother and sister were looking through an old photo album they stumbled across a picture of my mother when she was about 12 (the same age I was at the time). I sister pushed my bangs back out of my face and said, "You look exactly like her" and I did.

My childhood friends were mostly girls, but they abandoned me because I wasn't a girl (yeah, one of them even told me that directly after she got a new friend that was a girl) and I guess at that age girls played with girls and boys played with boys.... I didn't much like playing with most boys and I didn't much like how or what most boys wanted to play, but I was forced to either play with them or have no friends.

All my life people have told me that I have "girl hands" people have told me that I was skinny "like a girl." That I threw "like a girl" that I talked, looked at my fingernails, played sports, etc. "like a girl." or "You have girl eyelashes" or "You have girl eyes."

Nearly every time people said 'boys are like this girls are like that' the boy stereotype was so far from the truth if applied to me but the girl stereotype was right on.

My previous post was completely off target--I didn't want to be a girl! I wanted to be me, but no one would let me be me because I wasn't a girl! I couldn't be myself because I was a boy.

I hated it when people told me "you do [this or that] like a girl" or "boys don't do [this or that thing you want to do] only girls do that" or 'you shouldn't look like the way you do because only girls look like that' or 'you shouldn't talk the way you do because only girls talk like that' or 'you shouldn't eat so politely like you do because girls eat like that', and I couldn't even cry or express my feelings because even doing so meant that I cried 'like a girl' and the list goes on! People even made fun of the way I used the toilet... I didn't know you could pee in a urinal wrong, but people even made fun of me for that! I eventually abandoned using urinals whenever a stall was available because I became way to self conscious to pee where anyone could see me doing it... yeah and people even made fun of me for that. I didn't want to be a girl I just wanted to be me! I JUST WANTED TO BE MYSELF!

But I learned to hate myself. I didn't want people to think that I was 'like a girl' so I studied up and did everything I could do to 'pass' as a guy. Not only did I clip my fingernails so short my fingers bled, I cut my hair really short, I wore baggy clothes (even though I've always hated baggy clothes), even before my voice changed I started speaking in an unnaturally low voice and I mumbled so people wouldn't say I sounded like a girl anymore. Every time I heard someone say 'girls do this thing like that and boys do this things like this.' I would consciously try to do the thing in the 'boy' way.

I remember I started walking kind of like a duck waddling back and forth with my feet out turned because I was afraid people would say I walked like a girl. I remember changing things as stupid as how I looked at my fingernails. I even pretended to like hard rock music for a while because I was sick of my friends making fun of the 'girly' music I liked to listen to.

I remember one time at a church service project one of the kids in my church was talking with some other boys about whether any of us would make good looking girls. He went through each of them and concluded that they would all be ugly girls then last of all he said that I would make a good looking girl, but my voice was all wrong (this was both after my voice changed and after I decided to speak in a very unnaturally low tone).

I hated the fact that I couldn't be me without being made fun of because I was a boy, but if I was a girl I could be everything I wanted to be, I could be everything I was, I could do everything I liked to do, and I could even be how I looked (post puberty anyway) without anyone thinking twice about it.

I started to hate being a man because in my mind being a man meant I had to strip myself of all my feminine qualities, but without these qualities I was left to be an empty shell. I felt like I had to kill the 'girl inside me' and replace her with a 'man' that was how a 'man should be' but I never really had a good idea of what a 'man should be' anyway. So I did my best to construct a fake person--a 'manly' person and I found the few things that were manly that I liked enough to pretend that they were an integral part of my life and I made them my life--computers, electronics, and science.

How could I love being something I wasn't? I wasn't 'a man' by societies definition--everything about my life told me that I wasn't what they told me a man was. I didn't like anything about being how a man 'should' be and I hated that if I was 'a man' I couldn't be myself--so how could I not hate being a man? You can never love being something you are not.

I hated myself not because of my maleness (as my counselor thought) but I hated myself because of my femaleness--and I could not be myself because I was male. How would it have been even remotely possible for me to love the social construct of the male gender if it was the very thing that was ruining my life and making me hate being myself?

I don't know exactly how I survived that dark depressing time of my life where I hated myself, but during that time I learned to build a wall in my brain and I put all my feminine qualities on the other side of that wall and lived an empty shell of a life trying to fill the emptiness with godly things--with scriptures, prayers, missionary work, and service.

Now I realize that God does not want us to strip ourselves of our good wholesome characteristics whether they be 'male' or 'female' and just serve him as empty vessels--It's not that God wants us to rid ourselves of personality and character, but he wants us to serve him as filled vessels--vessels filled with personality, character, uniqueness and love. God doesn't care about stereotypes and I firmly believe that God possesses all good characteristics whether they be thought of in our culture as masculine or feminine--if it is good it is of God.

I now realize that I have to accept myself even if no one else does. I have to be myself even if no one else things I should be. I'm learning to love my naturally feminine qualities and I'm learning that I never should have let the world convince me to hate myself because of them.

It still hurts when people make fun of me, but it is better to be hurt by someone else that it is to be hurt by yourself--and I'm not going to hurt myself anymore.

Coming Out to the Family

2011-12-02T16:50:00.001-07:00

A small section of Mariah Carey's 12,000 square foot closet... and I thought I had problems ; )

So I recently told my family about me being trans and I must say things didn't go at all how I expected--they went a lot better. I've heard so many accounts of people being disowned, ostracized, shamed and criticized by family members and friends for coming out about being trans to their families. So I expected at least some of this to take place, but I decided that it didn't matter as much what people thought of me as it matters what I think of myself and I was tired of putting on an act in front of people--I was tired of pretending not to have the feminine qualities I do. I was tired of pretending that I was content being a 'normal' male.

Anyway, I'm the type of person that generally rarely gets to make the point I try to make in a verbal conversation so I reasoned that a letter would be the best way of telling people about being trans.

In the letter I basically told my family about how I've always felt about my gender and how I fell into deep depression because of it and my struggles to get out of that depression. I told them that I had always seen myself as female in my mind but I also told them that I had absolutely no desire to leave my family (for some reason people think that if you're trans then your marriage is over once you let people know). I told them that I loved my church and religion with all my heart and that my being trans does not change my willingness to live by God's commandments. I also told them that I had no intention of having SRS (I'm sure if this was my intention the results would have been different for some of my family members).

Anyway, I was surprised that everyone in my family responded with so much love and understanding. No one said anything unkind. All the responses I got were loving and understanding.

I'm still a bit nervous when I'm around my more conservative family members... so far they have been treating me exactly how they've always treated me. It just seems very anticlimactic... it's almost like I never even said anything in the first place.

Anyway, it feels good not to have to feel like I'm hiding anymore when I'm around my family.

I haven't told anyone where I work and I don't know if I will... but I'm finally to the point where if someone asked me if I was trans at work then I would tell them openly, but I see no need to go around publicizing it to them if they can't tell just from knowing me.

What I Think About Transsexuals

2011-11-28T21:00:00.001-07:00

I've been thinking, and I've realized that a person reading my blog could very easily get confused about what I think about transsexuals because I've never really stated that directly. I realize that there are various definitions of transsexuals (and I guess even I fit some of the definitions out there) but in this post I'm referring to those who are seeking or have had SRS. So I've decided to just write down exactly what I think about transsexuals.

Transsexuals are children of God.

God loves transsexuals just like he loves all of his children.

People do things for different reasons obviously, but I understand why transsexuals become transsexuals.

It really takes a lot of work, money, time, endurance of pain and hardship to become a transsexual and I would say that it would be really hard to go through all that for a frivolous reason which is proof enough that the reason is not frivolous.

I do not believe that having SRS is the goal God wants any of us to try to attain to, but I would not call someone a sinner for becoming or being a transsexual. I believe that ultimately only Jesus Christ has the ability to judge someone that goes through something like this because he is the only one that truly knows our hearts, pains, and sorrows.

2 Nephi

41 O then, my beloved brethren, ^acome unto the Lord, the Holy One. Remember that his paths are righteous. Behold, the ^bway for man is ^cnarrow, but it lieth in a straight course before him, and the keeper of the ^dgate is the Holy One of Israel; and he employeth no servant there; and there is none other way save it be by the gate; for he cannot be deceived, for the Lord God is his name.

So to sum it all up transsexuals are people too just like everyone else and we should be nice to everyone. We should love everyone and we should treat everyone like the children of God that they are. And if we don't agree with what other people are doing with their lives then we need to get over any nasty feelings we have and treat each other with the love and respect God has commanded us to treat each other with.

I'm of the belief that most people (with the exception of the criminally insane and the morally depraved, and those who sell their souls to the devil) are inherently good and they try their hardest to do what they believe is right--and I believe that that is exactly what the majority of transsexuals are doing and I have absolutely no negative feelings towards them.

What would I do if I didn't believe in my religion?

2011-11-28T17:17:00.001-07:00

This is something I forced myself to consider recently. Well, this is what would have happened to me if I didn't believe in my religion.

When I was a teenager instead of letting myself get all depressed--nearing the point of being suicidal I would have done the following:

1. Find a way to get away from home as soon as possible--I would have even run away if no other options presented themselves.
2. Find a way to transition to living full time as a woman as soon as possible, and if I couldn't find a way to do that I would have probably tried to drown my sorrows in drugs and alcohol and if that didn't work I would have tried to kill myself until I succeeded.

How could I possibly know that I would have done this without my religion? I know because at a point in my life--when I was about 17 this was my plan even though I had my religion and only one thing kept me from carrying it out: God gave me a vision. He told me of the family I would have (my wife and children) and he showed me the love and happiness we would find in each other--if I did NOT carry out my plan.

I didn't carry out my plan and I found the family God showed me and the joy we have in each other is greater than anything I could have imagined.

But did all that change how I feel about my gender? Did it change who I see myself as in my mind? No, it didn't. What changed wasn't who I am or how I feel, but what I did in life.

Life isn't about how we feel or what we want--life is about what we do and why we do it.

I am so grateful for my religion. Jesus Christ has saved my life and my soul on numerous occasions. And I pray to God daily for those who suffer as I suffered that he will show them the love he has shown me--a love that will save them from an awful hell, as the one I would now be in if it weren't for God's love.

My wishy-washyness and other stuff

2011-11-28T17:04:00.001-07:00

I was just thinking that to a reader of my blog posts it might seem that I'm kind of a wishy-washy person. Well, something you have to realize is that my view point on things changes as time goes on because I'm trying to figure something out:

I'm trying to figure out how I can live a happy life while living my religion completely and being transgendered at the same time.

This blog is more of my quest for finding a middle way (a balanced path that is) between the two approaches that are usually presented for trans people (trying to get over being trans and trying to live as the other sex).

I'm trying to find a balance between my male and female identities. I'm trying to accept all of who I am without abandoning any of it.

Since I'm the only person I have ever met or heard of that has taken this approach to dealing with being transgendered I'm pretty much left to myself and my communion with God to figure out a plan for dealing with this. So, it is reasonable to suppose that my ideas would change over time--especially if something I try or think of just doesn't work.

Anyway, I think I may have already said that in an earlier post, but I can't remember and I'm too tired to through my posts to figure out if I did say it or not.

Trans bashing blogger who claims to be christian (updated)

2011-11-27T16:59:00.001-07:00

I posted the following comment on this blog post http://reasonablechristian.blogspot.com/2007/04/transgender-myth.html
As usual I found that both the poster and the commentators were bias towards one of the two camps:

1. Trans people should just get over it and be normal because God said so (or at least I said that He said so).
2. Trans people should just get sex changes and do everything they can do to fit into the stereotypes of their desired gender.

I just couldn't resist posting a comment. It was kind of long so I figured I'd post it to my blog too.

So the blog author never allowed my comment to be posted probably because he wants the argument to seem highly one sided, and my position is clearly not one-sided. After reading his other comments I've realized that be believes that we are all predestined to go to heaven or hell (apparently he believes God made all trans people to go straight to hell in the first place). I don't know how anyone could possibly believe this garbage!

After I originally posted this comment to my blog it was brought to my attention that there were several points I made in this post that could be and were easily misunderstood so I have added a few things in brackets [ ] to clarify some of the things I've said. I apologize for the poorly worded way I originally wrote this, but I hope the new clarifications explain better what I was trying to say in this comment. It's probably just as well that he never posted it to his blog since it was originally so poorly written.

Anyway here is my comment:

--------------------------------------------------------------------

I must say, I found most of the comments on this blog disheartening and unrepresentative of the love and compassion that should exist in the Christian soul.

As for the actual post. I read and watched that Barbara Walters special on transgendered kids too, and I found it quit disturbing how they were handling it. I believe that encouraging a person whether transgendered or not to try to pass as the opposite sex is encouraging us to break one of God's greatest commandments "Thou shalt not lie" [the lie I am referring to is telling a child they are a different sex from their biological sex--this is scientifically untrue in every sense and is therefore a lie].
A biological male/female who tries to pass as a [biological] female/male is not being honest with themselves or with others [notice that I am talking about biological sex--not gender. I am not saying that if a trans person dresses and lives as the opposite gender we are lying. I am saying that if we try to convince ourselves that we are the sex opposite to our biological sex and if we don't come to terms with the fact that we are and always will be transgendered no matter how much we look like the opposite sex then we are not being honest with ourselves].

Having said this, I completely understand why a transgendered person would desire to live as the opposite gender from their birth sex. I understand that because I am transgendered [and I have that desire as well].

Having said that, I need to clarify that being transgendered and being transsexual are not the same thing (as suggested in this post and in these comments. A lot of transgendered people don't actually have SRS (a sex change) and a lot of them don't try to pass as the opposite gender either nor do they want to [not saying that those that do this are in the wrong].

Many transgendered people are simply seeking a way to be themselves and fit into a society where almost every aspect of our lives seems to be tied to what our sex is (our careers, our hobbies, the clothes we can and can't wear, our friends and relationships, our hair styles and how we groom ourselves, even the way we walk and talk, and things as simple as the pronouns we use).

Yes being transgendered is [considered] a psychological/psychiatric condition [though I believe there is more to it than that], but so is being schizophrenic, autistim, ADHD, dyslexia, some speech impediments, depression, anxiety, and the list goes on. But you can't simply discount it and say because it's a psychological issue then people can just get over it at the drop of a hat. In fact they may never be able to 'get over it' in the sense that they will just be able to be 'normal' like everyone else. [An implication that I made here that I must have forgotten to actually type is that trans people need medical treatment and counseling. You can't just expect a trans person to just decide to be 'normal' just like you can't expect someone with dyslexia to just start thinking 'normally'. I find it interesting that the author of this blog confides in the medical system's diagnosis of being transgender as a psychiatric condition yet he completely discounts the treatment currently accepted by the same medical professionals (i.e. counseling, HRT, SRS, etc).]

People seem to have the idea that people are trans because they want to be, but all of the trans people I have actually talked to really would rather not be trans they would rather just be a normal male or female. It's not that they're men that just want to be women (or vise versa) in order to gratify their lusts just like a schizophrenic doesn't want to hear voices in his head in order to entertain himself.

The fact of the matter is a true trans person has a disjoint between the gender and sex they see themselves as in their mind and the gender and sex they are in reality.

This is a problem that if gone untreated leads to depression and often suicide.

The world has a two way approach to treating trans people:

1. Force them to learn to love being and living according to the socially defined gender stereotypes that match their birth gender.

2. Force them to learn to love being and living according to the socially defined gender stereotypes that match their desired gender.

Neither one of these 'treatments' can or will ever satisfy the disjoint between the mind and the body.

I believe the solution is to recognize that there are two types of gender:

1. Culturally defined gender norms.

2. Heaven ordained gender roles.

Culturally defined gender norms vary widely from country to country and thus are only important in that by abiding them we can live without being labeled as freaks. But I will put this bluntly--God doen't care in the slightest about these. If a man wears a dress and has long hair--God doesn't care--Didn't Jesus have long hair and wear what would now be classified by Americans as a dress?

What God does care about is that we fulfill our gender roles that He has defined: Men should be husbands and fathers and should take care of their families. Women should be wives and mothers and take care of their families. [I recognize that it's not possible nor sensible for everyone to have children, but what I am saying is that the divine nature of our gender is related to our family relationships. Our family relationships and how we treat others in them is what matters to God (as far as our gender is concerned) and our sex naturally determines aspects of those relationships]. The rest is just a bunch of culturally defined garbage that God doesn't care in the slightest about.

If a little boy wants to wear a dress we should never tell him "Oh you can only wear a dress if you are a girl!" This will make a little boy who wants to wear dresses feel like there is something wrong with him and his gender. [So we shouldn't imply to a boy that if we got a sex change then it would be alright to wear dresses and do girly things, but it's not if he doesn't. Another thing I really should have added is that we shouldn't just let little boys wear dresses without warning them about the social implications and consequences of doing so. It would probably be wise to explain to them that in our society people don't generally approve of boys wearing dresses even though there is really nothing wrong with it--people just have a hard time handling seeing other people do things that are different from the way people usually do them].

All people possess a desire in themselves to be beautiful and attractive. It is a good and natural desire that should never lead anyone to believe that we need to go around chopping people's privates off! [In this statement I am not condemning those that have SRS I am saying that when someone is trans our society generally expects them to have SRS so they 'blend in' and I don't believe that any trans person should be expected to go through SRS to be excepted by our society]

I believe that both of the standard treatments for trans people are the wrong way to go [what I meant to say is the standard ways trans people are treated or expected to behave--forcing them into a stereotypical gender mold] and that the correct treatment is to help trans people to love who they are--every bit of who they are. What I mean by that is that trans people need to see how much God really loves them and learn to have that same love for themselves and for others.

I believe that trans people can find happiness in accepting every bit of themselves. What do I mean by this: [Let me site my own experience as an example of a possibility:] I see myself as a woman in my mind--I always have, but I am a man and I know through divine inspiration that my spirit is also male [not saying that everyone should believe the same thing--this is my experience not yours].

For years I tried so hard to exercise the female identity from my head. I fasted every chance I got and studies the Holy Scriptures for years. I prayed and pleaded to God countless times every day asking him to change my mind and make me normal. I sought help from my church leaders, from counselors and a psychiatrist. But no matter how much I pleaded with God he would not remove my 'thorn in the flesh.’

Then one day as I cried to God on my knees asking him to give me a new mind (a male mind) He said something I did not expect. He told me through His Spirit, “I love you just the way you are. Why can’t you do the same?” It was then that I started to realize that I could find happiness by being myself--all of myself. I could find happiness by accepting the female identity in my mind and excepting my male identity as well.

No matter how hard I tried to kill my female identity she would not die.

But now I realize that God did not want her to die. He made her a part of me for a reason. God gave me this “thorn in my flesh” to teach me compassion, love, and understanding towards others. He has taught me to be humble, to be slow to judge and quick to listen.

I’m not saying this approach will work for everyone, but finding a balance between male and female gender norms [actually this really isn't what I'm doing--I totally said that wrong. It's more like I'm trying to be the feminine person I see myself as in my mind as much as I can be without rejecting my inherent maleness] and living according to the commandments and moral statutes of God is working well for me, and I believe that keeping God’s commandments will lead everyone to happiness in this life and the life to come.

Serenity Prayer Revised

2011-11-25T10:29:00.001-07:00

The well known Serenity Prayer goes:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

My brother told me how he revised it to fit the way he sees things. It went something like this:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and change the things I cannot accept.

I like my brother's revised prayer better. It sounds more hopeful and enthusiastic.

Stay Focused

2011-11-25T10:11:00.001-07:00

Focus on things as they are, not on how you would like them to be.
Focus on what you can do, not what you can't do.
Focus on who you can be, not who you can't be.
Focus on who you are, not on who you are not,

We can find happiness no matter what our circumstances.

2011-11-25T09:54:00.001-07:00

Sometimes it's tempting to think:

I could be happy if I weren't going bald.
I could be happy if I didn't have facial hair.
I could be happy if I were prettier.
I could be happy if I were a woman.

But the truth is none of these things bring true happiness, and if I can't be happy with myself how I am now then I never can be.

I have realized that happiness comes from two main things (which are really one and the same).

Living the Gospel of Jesus Christ
Being true to yourself--being who you really are and who you really want to be without any false pretenses--being honest with yourself and others in all you do.

I believe that no one can find true happiness without these two things and that everyone can find it with them.

What else this means is that true happiness is completely independent of our situations in life--no matter what you have to go through or endure you can do these two things.

I was thinking about all the people I know who have had to suffer extreme physical disabilities. Yet, these people were the happiest people I've known in my life.

I've met people who lived in squalid impoverished circumstances who had basically nothing, but they were extremely happy people--some of the happiest I've met in my life.

Happiness does not depend on your circumstances and it doesn't depend on spending $10,000+ to get a sex change and cosmetic surgery to make you look how you want to look. Through the gospel and being true to yourself you can be happy right now!

If we keep looking for material or temporal keys to our happiness we will never find it--I guarantee that.

So, yeah. I still don't want to go bald and I still want to laser away my facial hair, and I wouldn't mind being prettier, but I'm feeling really good about my life right now and no matter what happens I believe I can still find happiness in being me and in living the gospel--that's what I'm doing now and I'm loving life!

The Ten Commandments (revised for my situation)

2011-11-13T11:17:00.001-07:00

1 And God spake all these words, saying,

2 I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee to the land of Utah, out of the house of bondage (i.e. living with your parents).

3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

4 Thou shalt not make thyself to be any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is on the cover of Seventeen Magazine, or that is in it's pages beneath, or that is in the water in Sports Illustrated Swim Suit Addition. Instead thou shalt be thine own self:

5 Thou shalt not look at thyself in the mirror too long, nor serve thine own lusts: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

6 And shewing mercy unto all of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

7 Thou shalt not forsake the Lord thy God in pursiute of that which is vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that forsaketh his name.

8 Remember thy family, to keep it holy.

9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work for their sake:

10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, but shalt spend thy time with thy son, and thy daughter, and thy wife, and in helping the stranger that is within thy neighbourhood:

11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore if I the Lord laybored so much for your welfare thou shalt do the same and find rest on the sabath with thine loved ones.

12 ¶Honour thy father and thy mother despite thine tramatic childhood experiences: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

13 Thou shalt not kill thyself.

14 Thou shalt not look upon a woman to lust after being pretty like her.

15 Thou shalt not steal the opportunity away from thy family of having a good husband and father.

16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thyself and pretend that thou art content with lying about thine feelings.

17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s beauty, nor shalt thou covet being as sexy as thy neighbour’s wife, nor her maidservant, nor her breasts, nor her ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

Being Transgendered is Never an Excuse for Sin!

2011-11-13T10:51:00.001-07:00

Sin has no excuse. What is sin? Sin is nothing more than knowing the will of God and not doing it.

I just read a blog that totally ticked me off. Why? Because this transgendered person was married and having inappropriate relationships with some guy, and using being transgendered as an excuse for their infidelity.

I mean what's the difference really between a man leaving his wife for another woman and a transgender person leaving his wife for a man?

Jesus Christ make it clear that even the thought of adultery is abominable in the sight of God:

Matthew 5

28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

His audience was composed of men, but it would be appropriate to generalize this scripture and replace the word 'woman' with 'anyone other than your spouse.'

I don't care if you are attracted to men and your wife doesn't satisfy your 'needs' or whatever, you agreed to be her spouse and you had better be faithful to her so long as you are her spouse. Being unfaithful to your spouse is sin and using being transgendered to excuse sin is EVIL in every sense of the word!

Your sins are on your heads and it's your problem, but all I saying is you give transgender people a bad name when you use being transgendered to excuse sin.

This isn't the first time I've come across this. From searching the Internet alone, I've seen people use being transgendered to excuse many sins including the following:

Lust
Coveting
Envy
Vanity
Lying
Idolatry (abandoning God for earthly things)
Abandoning family
Shirking responsibilities
Adultery
Fornication
Prostitution
Pornography
Sexual fetishes
Sexual abuse
Murder

Most transgendered people that I have come across are really great people, but unfortunately it's the trans-woman that kills their wife that makes the news headlines. Using any earthly struggle as an excuse for sin is so wrong and it gives everyone else that struggles with those things a bad name. So just stop being sinners, repent through Jesus Christ and keep God's commandments!

And STOP BLAMING YOUR SINS ON BEING TRANS!!!

I need to stop the hate (all of the hate)

2011-11-13T08:48:00.001-07:00

So I recently came out to my family and told them about my struggle with my gender. I was surprised to find that they were all so loving and compassionate. I didn't get one negative response. However, one of them said something that profoundly changed my outlook on my current situation. I'm not at liberty to disclose what it was, but I will say simply that it lead me to understand that there is never any good reason to hate any part of yourself.

There is no good reason to hate my maleness. There is no good reason for me to hate being a man--hate is never a good thing and I have to stop hating this part of me no matter how difficult that may be. I am a man and I have to learn to move past beating myself up because of it.

Now, in the past I learned to hate my feminine characteristics and desires and I came to realize shortly before creating this blog that I should not hate myself because of my feminine attributes that don't match societies standards, but I should learn to love that part of me or rather stop learning to hate that part of me and embrace it.

Now I realize that I can and must learn to love my maleness as well. No, I'm not planning on learning to love societies definition of maleness or masculinity--I loath the American male stereotypes--most of which are negative and designed to lead men to abasing themselves because the American society basically portrayes men as scum in an attempt to balance out how they dominated women in the past before the women's rights movement.

I think I'm finally understanding the yin yang analogy my counselor was relating to my situation. In order to find balance, peace and joy in my life I have to learn to love both my male and female sides and love them both just as much. I can't consider one negative and the other positive or it will lead me to hating myself and never being fulfilled in my desires.

So, my plan is to be myself--all of myself and to learn how to love who I am by concentrating on the welfare of others.

Jesus has to be right--he is God after all:

Matthew 16
25 ^aFor whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will ^blose his life for my sake shall ^cfind it.

The key in learning to love who we are and learning who we really are and being who we really are must be to forget about who and we are, just being who we are, and go to work sharing God's love with those around us through compassionately serving them.

I love my family so much and I am so grateful for their love for me, and I am grateful to my God that he has helped me so much through them.

Why did I want to be a girl in the first place?

2011-11-06T15:26:00.000-07:00

Just a note: The post you are about to read is just me thinking through things that I've thought may have been factors in my being trans or factors others have mentioned. Mostly I'm ruling out things trying to get to the root cause. Anyway, if you're going to read this then please read the whole thing or it won't make sense.

For years I've been asking myself the question "Why do you want to be a girl anyway?" I guess I could also rephrase this question as "Why do I feel like I am or should be female?"

So I think about this a lot. I mean, it makes sense to think about why a biological male would have problems with his maleness, and want to be a biological female. I mean, something just doesn't sound natural about that. Something must have gone wrong with my head somewhere or something.

I've talked a lot to my counselor about the subject and she seems to think that I believe that there is something wrong or bad about being male. Maybe I have something against men in general.... but I don't think I do, maybe I do a little bit. Maybe I feel bad about being a man because of my dad or because of lack of good male influences in my life, but I don't know about that. I've had a lot of good male influences in my life--like my older brothers, home teachers and church leaders.

I have to admit that I really don't like being male, and I never really have. I've always felt really self conscious and uncomfortable with everything I had to do in life that was associated with being male. Honestly, I've even always hated peeing standing up, especially in urinals in public restrooms.

Yeah, so I definitely have an issue with loathing my maleness. It's not as bad as it used to be before I admitted that I was trans. That's the funny thing about it. Before admitting that I absolutely hated being a man, I absolutely hated being a man a lot more than I do now.

Anyway, so there's the feeling like there's something wrong about me being male. I'm not really sure why I feel that way but here are some factors that definately have influenced it:

My dad (he's easy to blame, but I wonder how much of this is really his 'fault')
Feeling physically uncomfortable with my male parts. To describe how I've always felt about my male parts just imagine what it would be like to have a rock stuck inside your shoe that you would have to walk on for the rest of your life. Having chronic orchialgia for over 15 years doesn't help with that, but it was really bad even before that started.
I really hate most things that are stereotypically male, and I hate being associated with them.
There are a bunch of other reasons that I don't want to spend time getting in to.

Okay so I've talked about hating being a man and some possible reasons for that, but that doesn't really answer the question why I have always wanted to be female.

Well, maybe I hated being male so much that I wanted to be the alternative--female, but I'm not sure that I felt that way. That doesn't really seem to match up.

Maybe, I want to be female because women are attractive to me and I want to feel attractive too? I have to admit it has always been difficult for me to see men as attractive and I have always seen women as very attractive people (speaking in the nonsexual sense). I've never really seen myself as being an attractive male in the eyes of others. No one ever said I was except for my mother until after I was about 22 years old. Honestly, it really surprised me that people would ever find me attractive, but recently I've come to realize that in other people's eyes I'm actually quite an attractive man. But I never saw that. I hated looking at myself in the mirror, but why? It wasn't because I thought I was ugly, I actually thought I was a cute boy (I just didn't really think anyone else thought that). It was because I was a boy in the mirror, but that isn't what I wanted to be. Maybe somehow it got stuck in my head that I would be more attractive to others if I were a girl? But that doesn't make sense either because I wanted to be a girl before I could even remember thinking about being attractive to others.

The first time I remember wishing I was a girl was right after I realized that I wasn't one. I was about four years old and my sisters dressed me up in a pretty yellow dress with a pretty, curly, long-haired wig. You know, linguistically speaking if someone asked me if I were a boy or a girl I probably would have said I was a boy, but I'm pretty sure I really had no idea what it meant to be a boy. I think I thought being a boy just meant that you had short hair and didn't wear dresses. So, when they let me dress up in girl clothes. I got to wear dresses and I had long hair so I assumed that I was now a girl--and I was so excited that I was finally a girl. In that moment I'm sure that if someone asked me if I were a boy or a girl I would have said excitedly that I was a girl. In fact after they dressed me up I remember excitedly telling my brothers that I was a girl. They made fun of me and I didn't understand why. Not long after that I remember asking my sisters if they would dress me up again and they said, "No, you're a boy. Boys don't wear dresses!" They laughed and laughed about it, and my brothers laughed at me too.

I didn't understand it; why did being a boy mean I couldn't be a girl anymore? Thinking back, this is the first time I remember hating being a boy--because being a boy didn't just mean I had short hair, it now meant that I couldn't be a girl.

I remember feeling uncomfortable with my male parts ever since I can remember being aware that I had them, but when I was about 5 or 6 I remember seeing my friends little sister naked after she took a bath. I remember taking a bath with one of my older sisters once, but this is the first time I remember recognizing that something was different between my body and the female body. I had something that she didn't and she had something I didn't. I remember feeling really disturbed by this realization. It was then that I realized what it was that made me a boy.... it was that little thing I had always felt uncomfortable about.

I know I'm repeating a lot of stuff I've already said in my previous posts, but my main purpose of this post is to try to help me figure something out. So far I've figured this out:

My discontent with being male is something I possessed before the age of 4 and that's about the earliest age I have meaningful memories from.

My desire to be female started as soon as I realized what being male and female meant.

My desire to be female started before I ever recall having negative feelings for my father, or for any other man. I don't remember even thinking about him much, but I actually remember being really happy whenever I saw him (which was not very often), but I really liked him.

This eliminates these possible causes for my originally wanting to be female:

because of a perverse sexual urge/addiction/fetish
to avoid being associated with male stereotypes
dislike for my male role models
a desire to look and feel attractive
because of being attracted to boys/men (that was never an issue)
to avoid male roles and responsibilities

So I asked myself the question "Is it possible that all this just started with me wanting to wear dresses and not being able to?" Maybe that is a huge part of it. I mean in our culture you really can't get away with wearing a dress unless you are female, and I really have always wanted to wear them. Is it possible that if boys could wear dresses then I wouldn't have had any problems at all? That really seems too simple, and I don't think it explains the way I've always felt about myself. I always saw myself as growing up to be a woman and as long as I can remember I've felt discontent with my male parts and this doesn't seem to be tied to me wanting to wear dresses. I must admit that I bet I wouldn't have had as many problems if it wasn't a big deal for boys to wear dresses--that would have saved me from the traumatic embarrassment I experienced.

The only possibilities I can think of that remain for me originally wanting to be female or feeling that I was or should be are:

My brain development in utero
My brain development as an infant or early childhood (before I can remember much)

The only thing I'm aware of that would have influenced the way I saw my gender as an infant or toddler was that my mother was my only parent. My mother was my role model. Perhaps the absence of a father in my life at such an early age led to the absence of the development of a male identity in my own mind. Again, I'm back to blaming my dad because it's easy, but what about all the transgender people that had two parents that were active in rearing them?

So I guess the only cause I have not eliminated that I am aware of is my dad's absence, which means that either my being trans is caused by that or it is caused by something that I am not aware of--something I can't remember, or a collection of environmental or chemical factors that I couldn't possibly be aware of.

So I guess I can only conclude that I don't know why I wanted to be a girl in the first place, and there's no way I ever can know that. So maybe I'll finally just stop asking myself that question.

What I can conclude is that my being transgendered is not really anyone's fault and that I really need to get over the negative feelings I have about it and just learn to be happy being me. I really need to stop seeing myself as being a problem or being broken or messed up and just see myself as being me and I need to appreciate the fact that I'm different and find some balance between my female and male sides.

To be ashamed or not to be ashamed? That is the question.

2011-11-03T16:54:00.000-06:00

I think I just realized something today, and now that I think about it, it seems kind of obvious. I can't be happy doing anything I'm ashamed of. It seems so simple and so obvious that if we are ashamed of our actions we can't be happy if we do those things.

So I've figured out that part of the key to finding happiness in being male must be ridding my life of shame. I think it must be part of the key to finding happiness in all of our lives no matter what our situation. Here's what we have to do:

Either

1. Eliminate things we do that we are ashamed of from our lives.

or

2. Stop being ashamed of what we do.

So how do we know which one of these things is best for a particular thing about us?

First ask yourself the question "Is this something I really should be ashamed of?" If the answer is yes then do choice number 1. If the answer is no then choose choice number 2.

So how do we know if we should be ashamed of our actions? Well, how do they measure up to the teachings of the Gospel? I'll let you decide that with your own moral compass.

I believe I've eliminated most of the things that I should be ashamed of from my life a long time ago--the rest I'm working on. The problem is in the process I also eliminated many of the things that I was ashamed of that I shouldn't have been ashamed of from my life.

Sadly I believe that most of the things we are ashamed of in life are actually completely okay, but we tent to be ashamed because we don't seem to match up to the expectations of others.

I do not believe that anyone should be ashamed of being transgendered or having non stereotypically gender conforming behaviors or characteristics. However, I do believe that we should feel shame for any destructive behavior or feelings we may have towards ourselves or others. A transgender person should not hate themselves. You should never hate any part of yourself. Self-hatred is probably the devil's greatest tool. God commanded us to love ourselves and love our neighbor in like manner. If you hate any part of yourself, you should be ashamed of that, but let that shame lead you to get on your knees and plead to God to help you to see yourself how he sees you--He loves you more than you can imagine and he will let you know how much he loves you.

I now realize that I must work on not being ashamed of who I am as a man, despite the fact that who I am as a man more closely resembles how a woman 'should' be in the eyes of others.

I've realized that a huge part of the reason why I hate being a man is because it is so hard to not feel ashamed of how I feel inside. A huge part of why I want to be a woman is because if I were a woman I would not feel ashamed at all about my behavior and my feelings. Perhaps much of my being transgendered is my desire to not be ashamed of myself.

I definitely haven't solved the complete puzzle to my struggle with being transgendered. It certainly isn't just this simple, but I believe that learning to not be ashamed of myself (no matter how socially strange I may be) is a step in the right direction.

Finding the Good in Being Male

2011-11-02T20:42:00.000-06:00

Not sure what this happy dog has to do with anything, but it sure makes me feel better about myself.

I just had a talk with my councilor and I've realized that in order to be truly happy with myself I have to stop feeling bad about being male. I need to stop counting the ways that being a man totally sucks. I need to stop only associating the positive things about myself with my female side and stop associating all the negative things about myself with my male side. I need to start seeing that I can associate those positive aspects of myself with my physical male identity.... I'm not really sure how to do any of that, but now I've recognized that I need to. I've learned to accept my inner female identity; now I need to learn to accept my outward male identity and learn to realize that they can be one in the same.

Anyway, I kind of have a feeling that this isn't making any sense, but maybe it is. Basically I've realized that I need to learn to be ALL of me and love ALL of me. I need to learn that in order to be the person I want to be I don't have to fit into any predefined cultural gender molds--I just need to be me.

Halloween

2011-11-01T16:41:00.003-06:00

So last year I did something that I wonder about. I wonder whether or not doing what I did was a good decision or a bad one--probably a little of both. Anyway, I used last Halloween as an excuse to go as a woman in public. People who knew me were pretty surprised at how I looked. Some of them joked around about how pretty of a woman I made. I was actually really surprised at the reactions I got from people who didn't know me--they didn't even know I was dressed up for Halloween; they just thought I was a woman and they were really surprised when they found out I wasn't.

So that was the first and only time I've presented myself as a woman in public. There were definite pros and cons to this.

Pros:

I finally felt like I was more of myself in pubic (even though I was actually dressed as my wife, and she dressed up as me).
For the first time people complemented me because they thought I was pretty.
I got a feel for how 'passable' I was as a woman in the eyes of others.

Cons:

The people who knew me had no idea I'm transgendered and to them it was just a joke. Their comments made in 'good fun' actually really hurt me. It was a joke to them, but it wasn't a joke to me.
I got a feel for how 'passable' I was as a woman in the eyes of others.
I had no desire to go back to presenting as male, but had to do so due to impelling social/religious circumstances.

Overall I don't regret it, but it was definitely as painful as it was pleasurable.

This Halloween I couldn't really think of anything to dress up as so I didn't, but I was really kind of scared that people who didn't know me might think that I was dressed up. I mean I wear women's clothes and I have long hair now.... Anyway, I was just scared that someone might think I was one of those people who goes around dressing up as a woman on Halloween (like I was last year). Anyway, just another one of those irrational fears. I guess if anyone did mistake me as a guy dressed up as a woman then I didn't notice, but I don't think they did.

I think I've rambled enough in this post.

The Mirror Freaks Me Out

2011-10-30T10:53:00.001-06:00

For a cisgendered (non transgendered) person the mirror can be intimidating enough. It reminds us of all of our little flaws, all our wrinkles, and body fat. It reminds us that we are getting old and going bald.

When I was little I didn't mind looking into the mirror so much (even though I did a little bit), but as I started to go through puberty and started to change to look more masculine the mirror became my worst enemy.

Imagine waking up in the morning and looking into the mirror and seeing someone else's face looking back at you, and that someone else wasn't even the right gender. Well that's exactly how I've felt ever since puberty.

It's hard to see yourself as female in your mind then you just glance in the mirror and are reminded that you're not.

The mirror is a constant reminder to me that I am not on the outside how I see myself on the inside.

This isn't something that just transgendered people go through, but people with obesity and eating disorders go through something similar as well.

If I could just go through life without being reminded of the disparity between my mind and body then I think I would be just fine, but every time I look in the mirror, every time I feel stubble on my face, every time I see my balding head, or my hairy back, or have to touch my [you-know-what] when I use the bathroom I totally freak out! Sometimes I can deal with it, but sometimes I just fall on the floor and bawl like a baby.

I just want to be mentally stable--I need that and my family needs that. So far everything I've done to help my mind and body be more congruent has helped a great deal with my mental stability. Growing my hair out, wearing women's clothes and makeup, and being on HRT have helped so much, but how do I go through the rest of my life dealing with the discontinuity between my mind and body.

Sometimes I just don't know if I can handle this... and I don't know how I've handled it for so long, other than I know that God has helped me out a great deal and I pray that he will continue to do so.

What is the best thing I can do with my life?

2011-10-30T10:13:00.002-06:00

Dallin H. Oaks gave a talk a while back entitled Good, Better, Best. It's a great talk, and ever since I heard it I've been asking myself if I'm concentrating on doing the best thing.

"Even though a particular choice is more costly, its far greater value may make it the best choice of all."

-Dallin H. Oaks

With regards to my being transgendered I constantly ask myself "What is the best decision I can make?"

Would it be the best thing for me to do if I just completely abandoned my transgender self and lived life according to the social/cultural expectations people have for me? Would it be better for my wife and kids if I could just buck up and be the man everyone expects me to be? Then my wife and kids could have a normal husband and father.

No matter how hard I try to honestly consider my situation I find myself telling myself "If I could just be normal than my family would be happier."

Beating yourself over the head with your perceived inadequacies in really a bad way to go, but I find it difficult not to do.

For most of my life I tried so hard to be the man people expected me to be and that lead me to be miserable. It lead me to wanting to end my own life--in fact I was very close to doing so at one time. But for some reason I just keep telling myself that if I could just get over being transgendered and be that man then everyone would be better off.

However, after years of praying, fasting, studying the scriptures in every moment I could--pleading with God to heal me from my transgendered mind, and visiting with many different bishops and counselors--what did I get from these pleas. God simply told me "I love you the way you are. Why can't you love yourself the way you are too?"

God refused to change my brain for me. He simple told me that He loved me the way I was and that I should learn to do the same.

So after years and years I've finally realized that living to the expectations of others and becoming a puppet to social expectations is no way to find happiness no matter what our situation in life.

But I'm still lead to question what is the BEST thing I can do in my situation?

I now realize that being transgendered is part of me that's not going to go away (in this life at least) it's pretty hard wired into my brain. And I know that trying to just live my life pretending to be happy with being what everyone wants me to be is no way to be happy.

But what do I do? It seems if the entire world would be accepting of it that living my life as a woman would bring me a great deal of emotional and mental stability. But my church isn't okay with that and I believe that means that God isn't okay with that either. And even if it were okay with God it wouldn't be okay with the society in which I live. I would lose my job, my kids would be made fun of at school for the rest of their lives--and my wife would probably lose the few friends that she does have and we would all be socially ostracized for the rest of our lives.   So even though it sounds like a good mental/emotional decision the social consequences sound pretty catastrophic.

Being transgendered has helped me to realize one of my major flaws: My sense of self worth is highly dependent on how others see me.

I don't take criticism well at all. When someone makes a negative comment about me it devastates me.   I know that ideally it shouldn't be this way. I should just be able to brush it off, but when someone says something negative about me it's hard not to believe it sometimes. It's hard to not get down on myself.

So I don't feel like living my life as the stereotypical man is the BEST thing I can do and I don't feel like living my life as a woman is the BEST thing I can do either (no matter how much I just wish I could).   So I guess I'm left to try and find a happy middle ground. If the best thing is not one of the extremes it is reasonable to suppose that it must be in the middle somewhere.... But I don't know. I'm feeling kind of lost and discouraged lately. However, I still feel like God is with me and that if I trust in him he will direct my paths. I've got to have faith in that.

Not Even Normal for Being Transgendered

2011-10-26T21:12:00.001-06:00

I feel like the path I have chosen to walk is a shaky path through a murky swamp. One side of the swamp is living life as a stereotypical male, the other side is attempting to live life as a female. I don't want to fall into either side of this bog.

So, I'm not a normal man. I'm not a normal woman, and I'm not even a normal trans person.

My counselor told me that in her opinion I didn't quite fit the diagnosis for someone with gender identity disorder. I was kind of annoyed by that because I knew I definitely have gender identity issues. She said, "because people with GID want to do everything they can to change their gender, but you don't."

I told her that I did want that, but I couldn't ever do it because I knew it wasn't what God wanted me to do.

So far I'm the only trans person I've found that is taking the approach I am taking--trying to be happy living life as a feminine man (not trying to pass as a woman). So, I'm not saying that I don't want to look like women stereotypically look or even sound like women stereotypically sound or behave how women stereotypically behave, or groom myself how women stereotypically groom themselves or whatever. I'm simply saying that I am never going to even attempt to change my sex. I'm never going to go by feminine pronouns or labels. I'm never going to go in the women's bathroom. I'm never going to live my life as a woman.

Why?

Imagine this:

You are a male to female transgender person. All of your life you have felt like a woman trapped in a man's body. Like your mind is female, but your body isn't. Everything about being a man just seems so wrong for you. Everything about being a woman just feels so right. You've always seen yourself as female in your mind and your body doesn't match how you see yourself. When you look in the mirror or at pictures of yourself you feel like you are looking at someone else... or a distorted masculine form of yourself that just seems like a bad dream. You often dream of being the woman you've always seen yourself as in your mind, but when you wake up you remember the harsh reality that you aren't physically that woman--you're a man.

You are fully aware of all the medical advancements made that could make you look at feel more like that woman that you see yourself as, and you feel like you would feel so much more like yourself if you could have those procedures done and just live life as the woman you always felt you were.

Now with all this in mind. Imagine that this happens to you: God sends an angel to tell you a simple message, "Your spirit is male."

How would you feel? How would this change how you see yourself? How would this change your desire to live as a woman?

I doubt this experience is simply going to fix your brain and suddenly make you happy about being a burly masculine man, but would you still feel like living your life as a woman was the right decision if God himself told you your soul was a man?

Well, I am that transgender person. I don't feel like I should recount exactly how God relayed that message to me, but I know that my spirit is male--no matter how I feel and think and no matter what I want and the emotions and desires I have. I've known this most of my life and I've tried for over 18 years to convince myself that if I just learned to conform to the male roles and stereotypes that were expected of me and prayed hard enough then God would fix my brain and make me feel and want to be the man that I knew I was. No matter how much I prayed and fasted and studied scriptures and helped other and wend out of my way to forget myself--every moment of my life I still felt like I was a woman on the inside. I felt like I was rebelling against God just by thinking, and feeling how I thought and I felt like (and still feel like) transitioning to be a woman would be rebelling against the knowledge God gave me. It would be denying who I am, and I thought I had to stay as far away from that as I could by trying to be someone I wasn't--a masculine man.

One night I was pleading to God and I told him, "I'll let go of all of this no matter how hard it is. I'll give it all up and I'll forget myself and I'll be the man you want me to be even if I'm never going to be happy being him." And God said to me through His Spirit, "I love you for who you are now. Why can't you love yourself for who you are."

It was then that I realized that God didn't want me to torture myself because of my feelings, but He wanted me to love myself because of who I really was. He didn't want me to feel like I had to change my brain and my desire to be beautiful just because I didn't match the male stereotype.

All that time I hated myself because I couldn't fix myself and no one I went to for help could fix me. But now I realize that God made me 'broken' for a reason.

Through my gender disphoria God has taught me patience, understanding, compassion, humility, kindness, and true love.

So my goal is to just accept and be the beautiful feminine man that I am--even though I'm a woman in my brain.

So I Married a Woman and I Want to be a Woman

2011-10-25T23:08:00.002-06:00

Not a picture of me an my wife, just a random one I found online.

Yeah, I hear all the time that sexual orientation has nothing to do with gender identity, but lets just look at the numbers for a minute. According to a quick (less than 2 minute Google search) estimates of the percentage of homosexuals in the world vary from 0.7% to 25% which is at least a good indicator that the vast majority of people in the world are heterosexual. As far as sexual matters go it's clear that most women are attracted to men and most men are attracted to women. And since tons of other things about being trans seem to rely on gender stereotypes it stems to reason that men being attracted to men and women being attracted to women are actually transgendered behaviors (behaviors usually associated with the other gender).

So it seems that a true trans-woman should statistically speaking be attracted to men and a true trans-man should be attracted to women.

Anyway, what I'm saying is, even though people keep saying "sexual orientation has nothing to do with gender identity" it still seems pretty weird that I'm married to a woman and I want to be a woman. I guess the even weirder thing is that I don't want to be considered a lesbian.

Well, whenever I've told people that I'm trans one of the first questions that comes up is "So, do you like men more than women?" and of course the word 'like' is fraught with sexual implications. The answer is no, and it always has been.

I decided that I should spend some time taking an honest look at my sexual orientation. So here goes.

When I was little I was more attracted to having friends that were girls, and most of my friends were girls. I didn't like to play with boys as much because they were often interested in stuff I didn't care much about, and they made fun of me and played rough.

As I started to enter puberty my girl friends did too and they totally abandoned me, leaving me with only a few friends that were boys. I really hated a lot of the interactions I had with the boys I grew up with. My interacting with other boys usually resulted in my feeling really out of place and embarrassed, and it still does. So, I guess I've always found boys and men socially unattractive because of the many awkward out of place experiences I had to endure with them.

I'm biologically male and I was raised as a boy and all my life people expected me to marry a woman, so I guess I naturally expected that too as a consequence. I think that had I not felt these expectations of others and had I not lost all my friends that were girls and been 'forced' in to only male friendships then I would have been more inclined to imagine myself growing up to be a woman and marrying a man.

As far as physical attraction goes. I've considered this honestly, and I can recall very few experiences before seriously dating my wife where I felt sexually attracted to females. So few that I'm sure I could count them on one hand if I could remember them. Honestly, I can only think of three occasions. If I saw a picture of a beautiful woman I NEVER thought "Oh, she's hot." I thought, "Wow, I wish I were as pretty as her." Also, I can think of very few experiences in my life were I have felt sexually attracted to males. I can think of three. If I saw a picture of a totally ripped muscular man I didn't think "I wish I had muscles like him." I thought, "Gross, I'm glad I don't look like that!"

So sexual attraction was really not a factor in my decision to marry a woman. It was that I was very much socially attracted to women.

When I met my wife and started dating her, it wasn't a sexual attraction that attracted me to her it was an emotional bond. I felt like she completed me--she satisfied an emotional need I had had for so long. She filled a void in my heart and in my life. As we dated for a while and started holding hands I grew very sexually attracted to her as well as being emotionally attracted to her. She is my best friend and I love her so much. Now we have such a beautiful relationship, I wouldn't trade that for anything. She matters more than anything in this world or any other world to me.

Did you take your happy pills this morning?

2011-10-24T20:31:00.001-06:00

So, I listened to the General Relief Society Broadcast of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints (I think for the first time) this year.

There was one talk by President Uchtdorf entitled Forget Me Not that has really stayed in my mind. Especially the part where he relates Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to your lives. He said,

"So many people today are waiting for their own golden ticket—the ticket that they believe holds the key to the happiness they have always dreamed about. For some, the golden ticket may be a perfect marriage; for others, a magazine-cover home or perhaps freedom from stress or worry.

There is nothing wrong with righteous yearnings—we hope and seek after things that are “virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy.”⁴ The problem comes when we put our happiness on hold as we wait for some future event—our golden ticket—to appear."

This really reminded me of myself and trans people in general. So often it seems we think I would be happy if I could be a woman, I would be happy if I could get hormones, hair transplants, laser hair removal, SRS, or whatever. We think I could be happy if I could pass as a woman and live a 'normal' life. I could be happy if I had a family and friends that loved me and accepted me for who I am. These things are our golden tickets, but are we putting our happiness on hold as we wait for them?

Maybe we don't need a golden ticket, maybe we don't need happy pills to be happy. Maybe we can actually find happiness in whatever our circumstances may be.

I believe we can, and I believe this happiness is found in Jesus Christ. It is found in following His example and commandments. It is found in loving others as we love ourselves and loving God before all else.

Oh this reminds me of something I thought I should mention, just so people are more aware of where I stand on things. So, I recently started HRT (taking anti-androgens, estrogen and progesterone). I thought I would mention it because the reason why I did this seems quite different from the reasons I usually hear about people doing this. It seems people usually do this primarily to physically change their bodies--I don't mind that aspect of it at all, but the reason why I started it is because I felt like testosterone was destroying my brain. That sounds kind of weird; let me try to rephrase that. I felt like my brain was constantly fighting against itself. I felt like I couldn't express my emotions--like they were stuck in me and I could only attempt to get them out through anger. I felt like I had some sort of mental block in my mind that was preventing me from being myself, from acting like myself and from thinking like myself. Anyway, I started on HRT and for the first time since I was about 12 years old I am finally starting to feel like my brain is mine again. I feel SO much better mentally, emotionally and physically. I've only been on it for about three months--I have to admit the first two weeks I had major mood swings. But now I finally mentally feel like me again. Before I felt very mentally unstable and now I finally feel stable again.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that even though I generally would advise people against SRS, I do believe that HRT can help bring mental stability to some transgender individuals.

Hypothetical Questions to Consider

2011-10-24T19:58:00.004-06:00

I've been thinking about a lot of different questions. A few I have been asked by other and the rest I have asked myself. I think these questions have helped me to really consider my transgender feelings more honestly. I'm writing these questions for Male to Female trans people because I found them easier to write that way, but it works the other way too if you just reverse the genders.

1. If you could somehow go back in time and God gave you the following options which would you chose?
     a. To be born a normal healthy baby girl without any trans issues/feelings.
     b. To be born a normal healthy baby boy without any trans issues/feelings.
     c. To be born just as you were--transgender.

2. Which would you rather be?
     a. a very physically unattractive biological woman
     b.   a biological man that looks like a very physically attractive woman

3. Which would you rather be?
     a. a man with a perfectly healthy body.
   b. a woman with a severe handicap (like missing you legs or being mentally
     disabled).

4. Which would you feel more comfortable being?
     a. a man with a full head of hair
     b. a bald woman

5. If cultural gender roles, stereotypical attitudes, and fashion trends were completely reversed for men and women would you still want to be the gender you want to be now?

6. If men didn't have much body hair but women did would you still want to be one?

7. If women had penises and men had vaginas and everything else about the sexes was unchanged would you still want to be a woman?

8. If men got to have the babies and women didn't would you still want to be one?

9. If there were no cultural difference between being a man or a woman--everything would be unisex--then would you still want to be a woman?

10. Which would you rather be?
     a. A woman with no close friends or family.
     b. A man with many close friends and family.

Anyway, just some questions I've asked myself. Hope you find these introspective questions useful.

Reconsidering the Possibilities

2011-10-23T22:49:00.000-06:00

A friend of mine recently said, "I just think that people use god to excuse their laziness. If you don't want to understand something just say god doesn't like it."

It reminded me a lot of what I was talking with my wife about yesterday. I said to her, "If something seams too freaky weird to people they just automatically seem to think it can't be possible." We were actually talking about human chimeras (people with two sets of DNA--usually from twins that merge together during the early stages of the development of the embryo).

Anyway, I asked the question--is it possible that some of these people actually have two Spirits sharing one body? Kind of like an extreme case of Siamese twins. I mentioned that I had seen a book a human Chimera wrote about feeling like he was two people in one body. My wife originally discounted the idea, and I said, "I kind of doubt it", but then I said, "It's really entirely possible and there is no doctrinal evidence to discount that possibility that I'm aware of."

Actually this conversation was kind of inspired by hearing many trans people say that they feel like they are a woman trapped in a man's body or vice versa. Originally I totally discounted this idea as a possibility
because my situation has not let me consider that a possibility in my own personal life. Also, I have heard one church leader state something to the effect that God does not put female spirits into male bodies and vice versa (I wish I could remember enough about that to find the exact quote).

But one thing I thought about recently was that several apostles have very strong opinions against evolution (Bruce R. McConkie was one of these) and the church has published several official statement on our stance on evolution, which basically say only that we are not sure exactly how God created us, but we are sure that we are his children. Here's a link to some of the official statements
http://eyring.hplx.net/Eyring/faq/evolution/trustees1992.html

There are also several apostles that have said occasional remarks against the Big Bang theory, while others have actually talked about it in conference in a very positive light and even related it to the gospel.

Brigham Young taught us that even a prophet is entitled to his opinion. Joseph Smith taught us a key to knowing what is doctrinal. He said that we would never err if we went with the majority of the 12 apostles. So what I'm saying is if an apostle says something it doesn't automatically make it church doctrine.

Anyway, as far as I can tell the idea of a female spirit being placed in a male body or vice versa is scientifically plausible considering the various inter-sexed conditions that we know exist. Why would it be possible that a male spirit could be placed into a completely phenotypically female body (as might be the case in CAIS ) but not possible for a female brain and spirit to be in a genetically and phenotypically male body?

The only official statement that I could find that addresses this issue is the Proclamation on the Family. Which talks about how gender is an eternal part of who we are, but it does not in any way discount this possibility.

One thing that I know is true is that "God is not the author of confusion" (1 Corinthians 14:33) which is enough for me to suppose that as a general rule He does not mix and match the genders of spirits with other gendered bodies.

But until an official declaration is made by the church about such a thing I can not say that the possibility is against the doctrine of my church.

Anyway, that is just a long winded way of explaining why I've realized I cannot discount the possibility even though I find it hard to accept because its freaky weird. But I guess I find myself hard to accept at times because I'm freaky weird too.

Can I be beautiful and have a beard?

2011-10-21T21:45:00.002-06:00

From a photo effects contest at worth1000.com

I'm really sick of having facial hair. I guess it was kind of interesting at first, but that wore off pretty quick. I really hate having it now and I really want to remove it permanently. I hate shaving my face so much and I hate how after I spend like 20 minutes shaving my face and getting razor burn then I still look all stubbly. It would be so nice just to have smooth skin again.

Anyway, after researching about how painful and expensive it can be to have laser and electrolysis I asked myself the question yesterday, "Could I be happy with a beard?" I mean could I see myself as being myself with a beard and could I deal with that for the rest of my life? I don't know. I'm just sick of shaving. Anyway, if Drew can still look well... sort of attractive with a beard then why not me.

Really I'm just kidding. I never plan on EVER having a beard again.

The Hardest Thing About Having a Transgender Husband

2011-10-18T21:53:00.001-06:00

The hardest thing for me about having a transgender husband is seeing the emotional struggles he goes through. Its hard to see him get so sad. I wish he could just love himself and life so much that he can just forget about himself and live life to the fullest. It is hard to see him having to deal with little reminders throughout each day of the struggles he's going through. Everyday normal things that most people take for granted are sometimes heart-wrenching for him; These things include getting ready for the day, using the bathroom, the way people interact with him, looking in the mirror, etc.

This evening I heard him wailing in the bathroom. I knocked on the door and found him on the floor crying. I wish I could make it all better for him. I wish I could take all his burdens away so he would never have to hurt again. I love him so much! I'm so grateful to have him in my life! I'm grateful for all he has done to be there for me through my struggles, to be patient with me when I haven't been so nice to him, and for all he does to take care of our family even though it requires enormous sacrifices on his part. He is such a caring, thoughtful Daddy to our children and a tender, loving husband to me.

I used to have a really hard time with the fact that he was transgender. I felt scared, confused, hurt, and angry. I'm sorry for the things I put him through in the beginning and for so long afterward. I'm so sorry that I added so much to his already huge burden. I'm so grateful that I have been able to come to understand him better, to make what he is going through a part of me too, and that we can now feel like we are truly one. Even though it feels like I have lost the image of what I always pictured my happy family to be, and even though it isn't easy, I've even realized that I am grateful for the struggles he has had to go through because they have made him a stronger, more caring, more understanding person, and it has made our love stronger and our relationship even more beautiful than I ever imagined as we have had to come to understand each other and be so close so that we can make it through these struggles together.

The Love of a Father for His Son

2011-10-15T21:33:00.002-06:00

A few nights ago I thought as I lay there in bed I thought of how my son told me he was scared of the dark and that he couldn't sleep. I told him to get over it and go to sleep.

I thought about what I said and I couldn't sleep. It was so mean of me. I thought about how scared I was of the dark when I was little. I was so scared that I begged my mother to let me leave my light on. She was always so nice to me about it. Why had I been such a jerk to my son?

I thought about how when I was little I often felt scared. I felt like I needed someone to protect me from my fears and to comfort me, and that someone was often not there. As a consequence I had a childhood fraught with nightmares. I hated sleeping because I was so scared of my dreams.

I thought again of my son and I told myself, "I want to be that person that I always wanted there to comfort me for my son. I don't want him to miss having what I could be for him."

The next night my son said, "Daddy I'm scared of the dark." I told him "It's okay to be scared of the dark. When I was little I was really scared of the dark too, but don't worry because I'm here."

I think sometimes I get so caught up in my own difficulties that I forget about how hard it was to be a kid, and how hard it is to be scared of the dark.

Thinking of how much I love my son led me to think about how I didn't have a loving relationship with my dad. There was no man in my life to show me that that it's okay to be loved by a man.

I wondered if this is one reason why some men become homosexuals. Perhaps some of them don't have that loving relationship with their fathers. They didn't have someone there to protect them, to love them, to provide for them and to care for them so they feel a void that needs to be filled.

Perhaps not, but I realized that I feel a lot like that. I've realized that one reason why I was initially attracted to my wife is because I felt that she helped fill this void. I felt like she would care for me, protect me, and comfort me when I was scared.

I'll probably keep wondering how much not having a good father-son relationship has influenced my being transgendered. I've heard several trans people who didn't have good dads deny that this had anything to do with it, but I think we all need to honestly consider the fact that it might have a lot to do with it. Family relationships are crucial in the development of the brain of a child.

"Excuse me Ma'am" and "Disgusting!"

2011-10-15T20:52:00.000-06:00

Not the woman I ran across, but the look on her face was the closest I could find to the one she gave me--her's was much worse though.

I haven't really recounted any experiences from my daily life on this blog yet, but I think this one deserves mentioning.

Yesterday I was out thrift shopping with my wife and kids to find some old clothes to sew costumes out of for out children. After finding what I needed I was just looking around at stuff with my son while my wife and daughter were looking at other stuff. I crouched over to look at a computer. "Not bad for 9 bucks" I said to myself as I heard in the distance someone shouting. "Excuse me Ma'am, could you please move? Ma'am excuse me!"

It never crossed my mind that someone could be calling out "Ma'am" and be talking to me. I turned and looked at the guy who was carnying some piece of furniture out with some other guy who worked there. When he took a second look at my wife he said "Um... I mean Sir. Oh G**, I can't believe I said that. I'm so sorry!" The guy looked so shocked and taken back by the fact that he though I was a woman only to discover that I was a guy.

I laughed and I said, "It's no big deal. You probably don't see many guys around here in Utah with long hair." He then responded, "Oh no I'm so sorry. I've had my hair down past my shoulders twice before."

I actually thought it was kind of funny how freaked out he was about it.

I was kind of surprised myself. I've never had the experience of a guy mistaking me for a woman--at least that I was aware of... oh yeah there was that one time that I was walking with my wife holding hands in the dark and some jerk called out some derogatory comment that lead me to believe he mistook us for lesbians. But he saw us in the dark from behind. This guy saw me in the full light of a store, but my head was down.

The funny thing is this isn't the first time people mistook me for being female. In grade school a few times people would ask me "Are you a boy or a girl?"

Once I was shopping with my mom when I was a teenager and I had short hair and pretty long sideburns and was starting to grow a bit of facial hair and some lady said "How are you ladies doing?" She never even realized I wasn't a girl. My mom turned to me and said, "I don't think she had any idea what she just said."

Then there was the time when I was shopping with my wife and I had a buzz cut at the time and woman that was about our age that worked there saw us from behind and said "How are you ladies doing this evening?" Then I turned around and she said, "Whoa! Big mistake! I'm sorry,"

So this was actually the first time someone mistook me for a woman since I grew my hair out, at least to my knowledge.

Now let me just clarify something, I have long hair and I wear tomboyish gender neutral womens clothing, but I don't dress in a way were I'm trying to convince people that I'm a woman, and I think it's pretty obvious from my 5 o'clock shadow that I'm not. In fact, I'm not sure anyone has ever noticed that I wear women's clothing--not even members of my family that I haven't told. Oh, I guess the purse I wear could initially throw people off--I got some spontaneous giggles from a mom and her daughter that saw me out shopping once because of it.

After this incident I walked around with my son and looked at clothes. Yes, I was looking at women's clothes--I pretty much stopped trying to find clothes that fit me that I liked in the men's section and I've gotten rid of almost all of my men's clothing.

We passed by a woman of about 65 and she gave me the dirtiest look anyone has ever given me. At first I wasn't sure she was directing this look at me. I mean maybe there was something itching the inside of her nose or something. Later we passed by her again and I smiled at her as I usually do when I pass by someone. And if looks could kill then the look she gave me then would have knocked me dead in a second. I just went on my way, but as I passed her I heard her say pretty loudly to herself "Diiiisgusting!" Then she mumbled something about people these days being freaks.

I was left feeling kind of shocked. I had never been so addressed by someone before. I'm sure she was talking about me because no one else was in the area. Why did she think I was so "disgusting?" Is it because I have long hair? Is it because she recognized that I was wearing women's clothing? Is it because she thinks I'm trying to make people think I'm a woman? Is it because I'm looking at women's clothing with my son?

All these questions went through my mind, and I'm only left to assume why she thinks I'm disgusting. But that's not the worst part about it. When she said that I just felt creepy chills run down my back and I just felt the feeling of being hated.

I was confused. Why would someone feel hatred or disgust just because of how I looked? Or just because I was looking at clothes. I could see someone being disgusted if I were running around in a skimpy dress or in low riding skinny jeans that showed off my bottom or something else indecent, but I was wearing pretty normal and very modest clothes and I didn't even look like I was trying to be feminine. I don't get why someone would be disgusted by that.

I recall when I was younger I saw a teenage boy dressed like a girl talking with his mom on the train. He was way done up with lots of makeup and his hair was so done up it was, let's just say, too done up--it was so done up it looked bad. Anyway, he was wearing a nice dress. I remember looking at him and being intrigued by his appearance and by the initial curiosity of wondering which gender he was. But I wasn't disgusted by it, I've never felt disused by things like that and I don't understand why someone could be disgusted by the way someone dresses or grooms themselves as long as it is modest and not profane in any way.

Anyway, that's probably just the first of many prejudiced experiences I'll have in my life.

We Can't Expect Understanding, but We Can Appreciate It

2011-10-10T19:13:00.000-06:00

My brother once said something very wise to me: "People shouldn't expect to be understood." He went on to explain that most arguments arise from people feeling like they are not understood.

I think what my brother said makes a lot of sense. Think about it; how could someone really understand you unless they went through the same experiences in life you did and did it with the same attitude. No, we should not expect to be understood, and we should not be angry at others for not understanding us. Rather, we should be delightfully grateful for those moments that are few and far between when we feel like someone has really understood the thoughts, intents and feelings of our hearts.

As a transgendered person I often feel frustrated and even angry when people misunderstand me and misunderstand why I do things and what I am feeling. It frustrates me that people think that I have long hair to make some sort of statement. It frustrates me when people think that being transgendered means I'm attracted to men more than women. It frustrates me when people think that being transgendered is a sexual addiction that I get some sort of sexual kick out of. Anyway, I was just thinking back at the times I attempted to explain my feelings to people and they completely misunderstood me and I was feeling angry about it all over again, then I remembered those words from my brother.

Then I wondered, if I didn't have these issues. If I wasn't transgendered then would I be understanding of others with the same problem? I would like to think so, but honestly I don't think I would be. I was an extremely judgmental person before I finally admitted to myself that I was transgendered. I looked at others with an extremely judgmental and condemning eye at times. I still find myself wrongly judging others, but God has humbled me sufficiently with struggling with being transgendered that I now reconsider my judgments and consider instead the compassion that Christ would show to someone who struggles as I do.

As Paul did, I now thank God for giving me a 'thorn in the flesh' that I might not be lifted up, but that I might understand that when I rely on God in my weakness then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).

I, like Paul. Pleaded over and over again for God to change me. I pleaded for him to remove this from me. But He never did. Year after year He never took it away. Now I thank God that I have this struggle because it has opened my eyes and given me understanding and compassion towards others.

Yes, we can not expect to be understood, but we can be full of love and compassionate towards others. I believe that when we do this the Spirit of God will enlighten our understandings and make it so we truly can understand one another through the mercy of Christ and His Holy Spirit.

What in the weird world are people thinking?

2011-10-09T17:44:00.002-06:00

I just ran into this website: transchristians.org
I read a bit and found myself baffled at the reasoning used.

The author makes claims that Adam was not male or female but that he was both (an androgyne). It also arrives upon the conclusion that Jesus was not male either but also an androgyne. After reading this it just leaves me baffled like the river otter above.

It makes me want to cry when I see people try to downplay the importance of gender and from what I can tell about this site that's exactly what the author is accomplishing.

I've actually heard these ideas from several other trans people. I wonder why these ideas are so common. I think it stems back to people wanting to be normal. And if we can downplay the importance of gender in God's eternal vision then we can justify our 'abnormalities.'

We don't have to downplay the importance of gender in order to be ourselves. Gender is critical to God's plan. Think about it! If we all had the same gender or if we had no gender then the family could not exist (unless we wanted to be a bunch of hermaphroditic worms instead of children of God). We would have no children, we would not know how to appreciate our differences. It is our differences that make us so precious to God and our gender is an important and defining characteristic of who we are.

I don't understand how a trans person can try to nullify the importance of gender. Isn't the reason why people are trans because they believe gender is important?

Again, I think much of this confusion comes from confusing 'cultural gender norms' with eternal gender roles--these two things are completely different.

I believe that Jesus is male and that God the Father is male. The author does bring up something in Genesis that tends to confuse Christians not of my faith which is that God said let us make them in our image male and female. This is perplexing to many because most Christians seem to think that God is single, but why would God command us to marry and to avoid fornication if he wasn't married as well? It makes sense to me that God has a wife and that she is our mother and that we are created in their image male and female.

Also the part on the previously mentioned site about Adam not having a belly button made me laugh. Why in the world wouldn't he have a belly button? But I guess that because many Christians believe that Adam was a creation of God and so are we, but I believe that we are God's children. We are His literal offspring. We have His DNA. Why would God create Adam and Eve in some magical way out of dirt when mortal man can just have babies? Can't God do everything that mortal man can do and a whole lot more?

I believe that God is our Father and our Mother in the most literal sense.

Being a Transgendered Mormon

2011-10-05T20:40:00.000-06:00

I just couldn't think of a good picture for this one, so I just found a smiley face.

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. People often call us Mormons after the ancient American prophet that compiled the Book of Mormon. The Church of Jesus Christ is a Christian faith. We believe in the Bible (Old and New Testaments) and we believe that God has revealed other scriptures to us as further witnesses that Jesus is the Christ and savior of the world.

I would say that being transgendered is a difficult thing, and I would say that being a transgendered Christian is a difficult thing as well. Some seem to have the attitude that being Christian would make it somehow harder to face the challenges that come with being transgendered because the two can seem contradictory. I have found that the opposite is true for me. Being a Christian has made it possible for me to bare my burdens through my faith in Christ.

It seems almost everything I have found written by transgendered people about my church has been extremely negative. I've read stuff like "Mormon prophet says transgendered people are of the Devil" and similar things that state that my church believes that people that struggle with these issues are of the Devil. I've read secondhand experiences people have had with bishops and other church members that seem to do nothing but try to smear the image of the church and spread a message of hate.

It seems that people seem to think that because their views don't match the views of religious organizations that the organizations have somehow wronged them and that they need to somehow retaliate against them. I don't understand this view point. If you don't believe in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints then why spend time complaining about it and trying to make it look bad. Why not just go find a church that fits your beliefs and be happy with life instead of trying to make everyone else miserable like yourself.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been nothing but a blessing in my life. It has given me so much hope, peace, and understanding. It is my religion that has helped and is helping me to understand and make it through the trials I suffer in life. If it were not for my religion I imagine I would have killed myself or suffered a fate worse than death long ago.

I have discussed some of my issues with being transgendered with a few of my bishops and have felt nothing from them but a deep love, compassion, and genuine concern for my sole, but not just for me but for the welfare of my entire family.

My church believes that gender is an important and eternal part of who we are and of God's plan for us and I believe that too. I believe all the doctrines of my church and I don't regret or denounce any of them. I feel in my heart that the doctrines of my church are the doctrines of God.

Sometimes it seems that believing something that is contrary to my church's beliefs would make understanding my problem easier. If I could believe that I'm just a woman trapped in a man's body and that God or nature made a mistake then it would be easy to explain why I feel the way that I do, but I can't believe that because I feel in my heart that it is wrong. I believe my religion whole heartedly and I have no desire to deny any of its doctrines in order to make my life more convenient. I say this because I have seen many accounts from gay and trans members of my church that say things like "I hope the church will accept our way of life some day" and by this they mean: 'I hope that the church will smile upon same-sex sexual relations' and "I hope the church won't excommunicate people for getting sex changes any more.'

I don't understand how someone can claim to believe in a church yet hope that it will someday alter its fundamental doctrines in order to excuse their behavior. If you don't believe that what your are doing is sin and your religious organization does then I see a problem--not with your religious organization but with you wanting to be a member of it. It just seams to me that if a person is a member of a church and if they believe that church is of God then they should believe the doctrines of that church.

Anyway, I'm transgendered. I'm a man that constantly feels like I don't want to be one. And I'm a Christian, I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ and I'm a Mormon. Well, how does that work?

My church believes that our gender is a sacred part of who we are and that it is sinful to attempt to alter that part of ourselves in any way. Members of our church who have SRS (sex changes) are excommunicated and those who desire to live a life as the gender opposite to their birth gender are subject to disciplinary council if they act upon it. Similarly, members who act upon homosexual desires (meaning have homosexual sexual relations) are also subject to disciplinary council. Similarly those who fornicate (have sex out of marriage) are subject to church discipline.

I should probably explain what church discipline means. When a member of the church admits to committing sin to a bishop the bishop gives that member loving council. They try to help that member overcome the sin and rely on the atonement of Jesus Christ to help purify them from their sins through repentance, faith and following the word of God outlined in the scriptures. Basically, sin makes us spiritually sick and the Bishop's job is to help members become healed by helping them understand the mission and purpose of Jesus Christ by changing their lives and behavior.

If the sins are severe enough--usually meaning they are of a sexual nature or something that harms the wellbeing of others like murder or child abuse then a disciplinary council is held where the member in question meets with the bishop and his councilors or members of the Stake Presidency (the people who are over the bishops of that area). The reason for this is because when more people are involved they can seek the guidance of the Spirit of God more fully in order to know how to help the member heal from their sins. Members who commit sins severe enough or those who refuse to repent of their sins are excommunicated. The reason for this is that we can only receive the blessings of God's kingdom if we are willing to abide by the laws of His kingdom. The church excommunicates people with hope that they will repent and one day return to the church of Christ, and it does what it can to help them do so. Even excommunication is done with the spirit of love. I know this personally. My father and other loved ones were excommunicated for severe sins. I read the formal letters of their excommunication and I truly felt the love those men had for my father and the sorrow in their hearts that he was leaving the fold of God, and they hoped and prayed for his return.

I went though church disciplinary council because of my self-defeating behavior of the past band because I left my family over it for a time. I hate what I did. I hate the way I treated myself and I hate the way I treated them, but I was completely willing to change my behavior in fact I had struggled to overcome it my entire life. The people that sat with me in council were extremely loving and wanted nothing but to help heal my wounded heart, and I thank God so much for their help.

Through all of this I have learned something extremely important:

There is nothing wrong with the way that I feel. There is nothing wrong with being a man that has feminine tenancies and desires so long as I keep God's commandments. My problem wasn't being transgendered. That's not why I went though church discipline. My problem was with beating my self up sexually and neglecting my family and hiding the way I felt from them. My sin was not being transgendered my sins were hating myself, being dishonest, doing sexually inappropriate things, and neglecting my family. The bishop made that very clear.

The other day I was thinking about homosexuals. Being transgendered has helped me to understand the kind of trials they go through to some degree and I feel for them. I realized that there is absolutely nothing wrong with men finding other men attractive, or women finding other women attractive, and there is nothing wrong with them being close, loving friends. I guess what I'm saying is that there is nothing wrong with these feelings, but according to the doctrines of my church there is something wrong with having sex with someone of your same gender because that relationship governs the sacred powers of procreation and these powers should only be used between man and woman. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't even see any problem with two gay guys living together, loving each other, and caring for each other as long as they don't have sex with each other.

So I've learned to accept that there is nothing wrong with me being transgendered so long as I live an honest life as a man. I've accepted that there is nothing wrong with acting how I want to act or dressing how I want to dress or growing my hair how I want to grow my hair as long as everything I do is within God's commandments. As long as I am honest with myself, God, and others and accept that I am a man then I can be the person that I truly feel I should be, and there is nothing wrong with that. So, I don't see any problem with men dressing how they want to dress or acting how they want to act even if those things are stereotypically feminine. I don't think it's wrong for guys to wear dresses, makeup and all that. I don't think it's wrong for guys to shave or have their body/facial hair removed or whatever. But I do believe it is wrong for someone to alter their bodies and their lives in a way to try to pass as the other gender. 'Passing' in my opinion is just a word masking deception and deception is something God disproves of. Also it is important that no matter how you dress you should always dress modestly and decently. Dressing in a way to provoke sexual feelings has only one place--the bedroom with your spouse.

Yeah, I guess if you dress like a woman then people will probably think you are one more often. The funny thing is people only mistook me for a woman twice in my life so far (as far as I know) and both of those times I had short hair and was wearing men's clothes. Anyway, It doesn't matter so much what people think about you based on first glances--it matters that you are honest about who you are with the people you know.

In short--do everything you can to be who you are and to love who you are, and do everything you can to love your religion and live you religion. If you don't love your religion then it's not your religion!

I love being a Mormon and I love who I am at the same time : )

The Other Extreme of Normal

2011-09-12T22:03:00.000-06:00

In an earlier post My Struggle to be Normal I spoke about trying so hard to be everyone else's idea of a normal man that I ended up hating myself. I wanted to take some time to talk a little bit more about the struggle for normalcy that a transgendered person goes through.

In the struggle for normalcy I hated myself for two reasons: 1) I hated myself because I couldn't be a normal man. 2) I hated myself because I couldn't be a normal woman.

I often told myself something like this "If I could only be a woman then I could be myself and be normal." (sometimes I still tell myself that)

Why do I tell myself this? Because so many things about me and the things I want or wanted from life are not 'okay' for men to do. Men don't wear makeup, or dresses, etc in our culture. It's not okay for men to be pretty or feminine, but if I were a woman then I could be free to be 'myself.' I could do what I want to do, dress how I want to dress and no one would think I was not normal.

But I'm not a woman. I'm a man, and I'm not normal. I'm a deviant from our societies norms. I can't be a man and be how I am and be normal, but if I were a woman everything about me would be acceptable in our society... but my gender makes me unacceptable unless I change how I act, what I want to do, and how I want to be.

I wonder how many transgendered people cross the line of living as the opposite gender from their birth gender because of this desire to be normal. I wonder this because this is what makes it tempting for me to want to cross that line--because if I could pass as a woman then it would be normal for me to dress how I want to dress, look how I want to look, and be how I want to be.

With very few exceptions people don't want to be freaks, they don't want to be perverts, they don't want to be weird, they don't want to be alien to those around them. We just want to be normal, and is it possible for a man to dress like a woman and act feminine and be considered normal? No. But what if it was normal? If what is now considered non-gender conforming behavior was actually pretty normal then would transgendered people be more open about living as their birth gender? If I could dress just like women do now, have all the social benefits of women, wear makeup and all that, if I could have worn a wedding dress instead of a tuxedo (like I really wanted to) and be accepted by our society then would I even want to be a woman?

I ask myself this question a lot. I wonder how much of my longing to be a woman actually stems from my desire to be normal and accepted by others and be myself at the same time. It seems to me that this longing is more than something based on social norms that I don't fit, but I can't really say that because I can not go back and live my life in a world were a person like me is normal to find out now can I?

The difficult truth that every transgendered person has to deal with is this: no matter what we do we will never be normal in our society.

I can never be a normal man. I might be able to trick everyone in to thinking that I'm a normal man, but I can't be a normal man and be myself.

I can never be a normal woman. I might be able to alter my body and outward appearance and make people think that I'm a normal woman, but I wouldn't be normal. I would always have to live with the fact that I was a transexual. I wouldn't be any more of a woman then that I am now. I would just look more like one.

So the harsh reality I have to deal with is that I have to learn to love life living as someone that is not normal. I have to love myself even though I am a social deviant. I have to love myself even though I don't fit in anywhere around me. I have to love myself even though I'm so weird!

or maybe instead of loving myself in spite of who I am I could love myself because of who I am, and maybe you could do the same.

It makes me want to throw up when...

2011-09-04T11:49:00.000-06:00

I recently heard someone say "It makes me want to throw up when I see someone and I can't tell if they are a boy or girl."

I've heard similar comments from many other people. Why does this bother us? Honestly, it even bothers me a bit--even though I don't want it to.

Why does it seem that our brains need to be able to answer the question "are you a boy or a girl?" and if our brains can't answer that question it bothers us.

Now I should probably clear things up from my point of view. It doesn't make me feel sick to my stomach or emotionally disturbed when I see someone who's gender isn't obvious. I think for me it's more of a sense of curiosity and wonder and I think that that is just part of our human nature, but why is it that some of us let this inability to distinguish gender based on appearance make us sick to our stomachs or make us feel angry, or upset or lead us to think unkind thoughts about that person?

Here's the question I asked myself: Does knowing what gender someone is really matter anyway?

The answer is yes only in a few cases:

It's important to know the gender/sex of someone if you are planning on pursuing a close or intimate relationship with someone.
It's important to know the gender/sex of someone if you are a physician and you are treating some gender related issue.

Well that's all I can think of and the second reason is pretty obvious.

I think it is a sad but unavoidable part of our culture that men and women generally speaking seem to be uncomfortable with the idea of just being friends with each other without pursuing intimate relations, yet men can be friends with men and women can be friends with women... it kind of leaves a transgendered person to feel like they can't be friends with anyone. But I understand that this tends to be the case because of the evil nature of many individuals--it's a way to stay safe from perceived threats.

I think that it bothers some men when they think that a man looks like woman because they feel like it is some sort of attack on their own masculinity especially if they think that man that looks like a woman is attractive. I could see that bothering someone if they were originally considering that person 'an option' until they figured out that person wasn't the gender they thought they were. So maybe that's part of why this bothers us, but I believe anyone that considers someone 'an option' only based on appearance (meaning how physically attractive they find a person) is pretty shallow.

I think we get a bit too caught up in thinking that if we are find someone of the same gender physically attractive then there is something gay about that (this is especially true for men). Honestly though, this is not what is important, and it's actually pretty normal. I guess the point I'm making here is that who you have intimate relationships with should be based on a whole lot more than whether you are physically attracted to them, and there's no need to be embarrassed or betrayed because you were attracted to someone of the same gender.

It also bothers me when people get caught up in whether they should use masculine or feminine titles and pronouns with people when they don't know their gender. I would simply say no you shouldn't. Why not just ask them their name and call them by name. Pronouns are way over used anyway. People have names for a reason so just use their names. Anyway, I think after you get to know them it will become clear what pronouns you should use.

I'm sick of using the term crossdressing.

2011-09-04T11:23:00.000-06:00

I recently changed the name of my blog and eliminated some references to crossdressing. Here's why:

Crossdressing has negative connotations and I'm trying to focus on positive things about myself and others.
Crossdressing is kind of hard to define. I wear mostly women's clothes everyday, but I seriously doubt any of my friends would consider me a crossdresser.
The term crossdressing seems to be associated more with people who dress in women's clothes for entertainment purposes and seems detached from the experience and feelings of the transgendered. (This includes drag queens, those who dress in indecent women's clothing to get sexually aroused and those who dress as the opposite gender in order to poke fun at the other gender--personally I find this disturbing).
(I know even I have poked fun at people who have said this in the past, but now I'm saying it) I feel more like myself when I am wearing women's clothing and I feel less like myself when I wear men's clothing. In other words I feel like I'm crossdressing when I am wearing men's clothes. I feel like I am trying to appear to be something on the outside I'm not on the inside.

Anyway, I believe the world would be a better place if people dressed how they wanted to regardless of social pressures as long as they were dressed modestly and decently. I think the important thing to avoid as far as dress goes is you should never purposefully dress in any manner that provokes inappropriate sexual feelings in yourself or others. Remember there is a time and a place for everything and intimate clothing should be reserved for the intimate relationship that exists in marriage.

My Struggle to Be Normal

2011-09-04T10:50:00.000-06:00

All my life I've struggled to feel normal, to act normal and to look normal... 'normal' for a boy/man.

I believe every human being has a desire to fit into society in some way and I had that desire too. I believe that even transgendered people have this normal human desire to be normal. From my experience, I remember trying so hard to just be a normal boy/man, but never feeling comfortable with it. I was afraid that someone would find out how I felt about my gender (that I wished I was a girl/woman). I was so afraid that I purposefully tried to change things about myself to make myself more 'masculine' to make myself a 'normal' male.

I remember times when people asked me "are you a boy or a girl" that really bothered me because I was a boy and I didn't want to be one, and I didn't want anyone to know how I felt, so I would try even harder to look like a boy.

I remember in high school girls often told me that I had girl finger nails and girl hands. It really bothered me because I wasn't a girl, and to show everyone how much of a boy I was I would try to clip them as short as possible sometimes resulting is accidentally cutting my finger tips. I remember doing knuckle pushups on our cement patio just to prove to myself that I had tough manly hands.

When I was little people would make fun of my voice and tell me that I sounded like a girl and just to show them that I wasn't I would talk in an unnaturally low voice for someone my age.

I remember being afraid that people might think that I walked like a girl so I purposefully started walking with my feet turned out. I'm not sure why I thought this was more manly, anyway, people made fun of me a lot at school because of how I walked. I was trying to walk like a guy, but I ended up walking like a duck.

I remember one of my friends in my high school gym class told me that I had 'boobs.' They did look a bit large for someone as skinny as me, but I think that is mostly because of a skeletal abnormality I have that gives me a dimple in the center of my chest near my sternum. And this dimple makes my breasts appear to protrude more. Anyway, my friend's comment made me scared to death that other people would think I had 'boobs' too so I started wearing really baggy shirts and slouching a lot.

I've always liked art, music, sewing and fashion, but I was afraid people would again accuse me of not 'being a man' so I wanted to prove to the world how manly I really was so I studied science and math and aimed for very male dominated careers. I believe I chose to specialize in the most difficult science I could think of in an attempt to prove to myself and the world that I was smart like a man should be.

I always wanted long hair, ever since I can remember, but I was never brave enough to tell anyone because I was afraid they would again accuse me of looking like a girl or behaving like a girl... and I didn't want anyone to know that I wanted to be one. In my early adult years I would cut my hair as short as possible because if I couldn't have it long I really didn't care about it at all.

Why did I put myself through such torture? Why did I try to fit myself into an obscure masculine mold that I had established for myself? I was trying to be normal. I was trying to be accepted by my pears and family. As a child I never really felt accepted by people. I often felt alienated and estranged, but I always longed to feel accepted. I longed to feel and be normal.

But, all these attempts to be accepted by others lead me to be a person who I wasn't. Then in my adulthood after getting married and having two children I finally had a complete breakdown and I was very close to being suicidal. Over the course of following years I began to realize that my misery was coming from trying to live someone else's life. I had become a person who I wasn't in many ways. I was working at a job I hated and studying for a career that I never dreamed of having. I had really become someone I hated simply because I wanted people to accept me.

I have realized that it doesn't mater how many people accept you if you cannot accept and love yourself. From my early teens to only a few months ago I couldn't look in the mirror and see myself. I literally felt like I was looking at someone else in the mirror and I hated that. When I would see pictures of my wife and I, I hated seeing them because I didn't feel like that was me with her. It felt like looking at someone else with my wife... and it still does sometimes.

When Jesus Christ was asked what is the greatest commandment, He responded:

(Matthew 22)

37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt ^alove the Lord thy God with all thy ^bheart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy ^cmind.

38 This is the first and great ^acommandment.

39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt ^alove thy neighbour as thyself.

There are three commandments here, not two and the second commandment is often over looked. Jesus said, "love thy neighbour as theyself"

We cannot love our neighbor as we love ourselves unless we first love ourselves. Jesus commands us to love ourselves for who we are and to love our neighbor for who they are.

I finally started to understand this. I needed to learn to love myself. I needed to stop hating myself.

I have always been (as long as I can remember) a male with a female identity. I have always seen the person I am inside as being female. I would often dream of being female and not even think about it as unusual until I would wake up and realize I wasn't. When I would visualize myself doing something in the future I the person I would visualize was a woman and not a man.

I tried so hard to change that. I tried so hard to make that person on the inside of me into a man and I try so hard to make the person on the outside of me into 'more of a man.' and the end result was nothing but misery.

I remember pleading with the Lord countless times for him to give me a knew mind and a new heart. I plead with him to make me the man I should be, but no matter how hard I tried to be the man I thought I should be I couldn't change who I was in my head.

I remember one day pleading with God asking him to change me--telling him that I would abandon all my 'feminine' thoughts, feelings and actions even if it made me miserable if that is what he wanted. Then he told me something unexpected. He said, "That doesn't matter to me. I love you for who you are. Why can't you do the same?"

I never thought God could love me because I didn't want to be how He created me. I hated that I didn't like being a man and I tried so hard to like it. In that moment I realized that God loves us so much despite all of our quirks and 'abnormalities.' In fact I realized that God loves us because of our 'abnormalities.' God loves us because we are unique. He created us all to be different and he loves our differences.

I had never before though nor imagined the possibility of loving myself even though I didn't want to be a man and I was a man. But in that moment I realized that I could love the person I am. I could love that woman I had always been in my mind and I could be her and be me at the same time even though I am a man. Instead of hating my feminine qualities because others thought they made me less of a man I could love my feminine qualities because they made me 'less of' the type of man others think I should be--because they make me more... well, me.

I realized I can have long hair, I can like sewing, crafts, art, fashion, shopping, makeup, socializing, flowers and all that--because those are the things I like and they are part of who I am.

I didn't need to like to pretend to like anything I didn't like or not to like the things I do. I didn't need to walk funny or be ashamed about my body because of what others think a man should look like. I could finally be me!

You can never be happy with yourself unless you are yourself.

I can finally look in the mirror and feel like I am seeing myself, and best of all I like who I see... no best of all I love who I see.

Before when I saw the struggles of others I would often catch myself criticizing their behavior. Now when i see the struggles of others I remember my own struggles and I thank God for them because my struggles have helped open my eyes so I can now see how much pain each and everyone of us goes through. I can now truely love my neighbor as myself because I now love myself for being myself.

Don't try to be 'normal' be yourself, and love yourself for who you are.

WARNING: If you are not transgendered then don't try to be.

2011-08-15T01:08:00.000-06:00

I think many people are drawn into the transgender lifestyle because of curiosity, sexual gratification, glamor, bodily lusts or other vain reasons. I have seen many videos or posts online by 'transgender' people that seem so obsessed with how much they look like women, or how well they can pass as women, or how pretty they look and they look into the camera like they are a vain woman admiring herself in the mirror. I wonder if these people are really transgender or it they just get a kick out of looking like and feeling like a woman because women turn them on so much. These people seem to be 'transgender' because they want to be. Don't let yourself become transgendered because you are sexually addicted to the behavior.

For a long time I though I must have a sexual addiction, but I didn't understand how that could be when I felt this way even before I had any sexual desires (as far back as I remember). Then I came to realize that I really didn't get any sexual gratification from it at all. I am not transgender because I want to be to gratify some vain pleasure, but I am transgender because something didn't develop right in my mind. My mental and emotional self doesn't mesh with my physical body. No matter how hard I tried to change my mind I could not. I could not change it.

I am in no way trying to endorse or even encourage being transgendered with this blog. This is my advice--If you can stay away from it without hating yourself and feeling like you can never be who you are then STAY AWAY from it all together! Do not allow yourself to give in to anything because you feel tempted to do it or because you lust after it or it will lead you to become careless and selfish. If you think it is difficult to live a good Christian life without having these issues then you have no idea how hard it is with these issues. Again, do not experiment with these things out of curiosity. If you feel comfortable being a man then don't wonder if you would feel more comfortable being a woman. Don't purposefully put yourself through that. Having to be transgendered is as painful as hell. No, it is hell. Living every moment of your life feeling like you can never be yourself. YOU DON'T WANT THAT! It's not glamorous like you see on TV. It's not.

I am working so hard right now to accept myself for who I am and how I feel. I'm working so hard to love who I am regardless of how I am.

Yes women are pretty and being one sounds like fun, but being a woman isn't any easier than being a man. It may be easier in some ways, but it's harder in others. To put it bluntly so my wife will understand (I've retyped this several times)--being a woman is just as hard as being a man.

I came to a realization

2011-08-15T00:41:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I talked to my wife all day long. I love talking with her--there are few things I love so much.

We were talking about my transgender issues. We have been talking about it a lot lately. I think it is because I am really trying hard to figure it out so I can move on with my life.

As we were talking I realized something. Up until I was almost 18 years old I never actually visualized myself as growing up to be a man. Before this I realized that it was hard for me to not visualize myself growing up to be like my mother, but it never really struck me that I NEVER visualized myself as growing up to be a man until I was almost a man already! So what did I visualize myself growing up to be? A woman.

During all of my childhood I visualized that I would grow up to be a beautiful woman like my mother. I saw that woman I would become as being caring, loving, a wonderful mother. That woman is sensitive, compassionate, understanding, creative, thoughtful, artistic, social, cheerful, talkative, spiritual, and beautifully modest. She likes to dance, likes to sing, play piano, violin and many other musical instruments. She likes to play soccer, loves yoga, loves to eat healthy and cook, clean and sew. She is an innovative problem solver. She loves to teach children and learn from others. She is smart. She loves pets. She loves flowers and loves to garden. She is passionate about life. I placed all my dreams of everything I wanted to be in her. I didn't just see myself as growing up to be her I expected myself to.

But as I passed through puberty I saw myself growing more and more different from that woman in my mind and I realized that I wasn't going to grow up to be a woman, and if I wasn't going to grow up to be a woman then I could not be her--how could I be that wonderful woman in my mind if I wasn't that woman?

I had to reform my existence and my purpose in life. I had to find something that I could become that wasn't her. I had to be a man because I was a man, but if I had to be a man I wanted to be a great man. I didn't grow up with many good male role models. In fact I grew up with a lot of bad ones, and I didn't want to be like them. So who were the great male roll models I saw? The only males I grew up to know as great people were the presidents of the United States, the Prophets, and great scientists like Albert Einstein.

So, during puberty I had to make this shift in my mind. I could not be the woman I was in my mind so I had to get her out of my head. I had to do everything in my power to kill her and replace her with someone else, and it wasn't until I was seventeen that I visualized myself as growing up to be a man.

I grew up seeing men as being bad--being something I should not become, unless I were to become a great one (a president of the United States, a Prophet, or a great scientist like Albert Einstein).

I never successfully killed her in my mind and I still find myself expecting to be her, wanting to be her, and longing to be her, but I also find myself expecting to be a president, a prophet or a great scientist. The difference however, is that out of all of these people I expected to be the only one I want to be is her.

Yesterday I realized that I am her. I am the woman I have always saw myself growing up to be in my mind, but I am not a woman, but I am that person, only she is a man.

For so long I've had unrealistic expectations that I felt I had to live up to in order to qualify for being a good man. In order to qualify for something greater than filth (because that is how I pictured my manhood). I felt like because I expected to grow up to be this woman in my mind but I could not then I had to become something else. I felt like I couldn't be a man and be her at the same time so I tried to rid myself of all of her qualities and I could not be me if I did that. I was miserable. I was trying to live a life that was not mine. I was living someone else's life not my life.

I realized that in my mind the person I really am is a woman, she was a woman as far back as I can remember, and she is still a woman today.

So much of the pain I have suffered in life has been in trying to change that woman in my mind into a man by changing who she is. I sought to change her behavior and her personality and make it more 'masculine' and if I couldn't change her I thought of her as a devil that I needed to kill or exercise from me so I could replace her with something else--the mind of a man.

There are three parts of myself. My physical self, my mental self, and my spiritual self. My physical self is male and has been trying to live up to unrealistic expectations for masculinity, my mental self is female (I'm not saying that all my behaviors are female, but that my mind sees itself as being female), and my spiritual self is male but possess all the wonderful qualities of my mental self.

My goal now is to bring all of these into balance.

Before I thought the problems was that society just wasn't accepting of non-stereotypical behavior and that this behavior was part of my character (this is a problem, but it is not the root of my problem). My problem is simply that in my mind I am a woman, but in the flesh and in my spirit I am a man.

This explains why dressing as a woman has brought so much peace to my life--When looking into the mirror I could finally come so close to seeing that person I had always seen myself as. I felt like I could actually be me for a moment. Why do I feel like it would be so relieving if I could have SRS? because then I could feel like I was that wonderful person I had always saw myself as really being and that I didn't need to deny myself anymore.

I'm not going to have SRS though because I am a man and this is a reality that I need to deal with, but perhaps there is some way. I hope there is some way that I can find a middle road where I can still be a man but see myself (not just in my mind but in reality) as being that wonderful woman I am in my mind--no longer denying myself, but being myself.

Can we live in Zion?

2011-08-12T05:20:00.000-06:00

The scriptures teach us that Zion is a state of living with others in one heart with one mind and all things in common.

I've been thinking about this. I've been thinking about how I feel like I need to hide being transgendered from many of those who I love dearly. I feel like I can't share the way I really feel with them. I feel like I can't tell them the struggles I'm going through when they ask how I'm doing. Why can't I tell them? They are my brothers and sisters, my mothers and fathers, but I can't tell them. I can't tell them because I am scared. I already know some of them have strong feelings against transgendered behavior. I know they love the 'me' the see and think I am, but would the still love the me that I really am. Would they love me despite my struggles with my gender? Would they still love me if they knew everything about me?

I believe Zion is when people love each other enough to be able to share intimate feelings, thoughts and problems with each other no matter how hard or scary they might be. I believe Zion is when we can come to those we love and ask for help and advice with our problems and receive love and understanding in return. Zion is when we live as a united family baring each others burdens. Zion is when my problems are your problems and your problems are mine. Zion is when your joy is my joy. Zion is when we share each others greatest sorrows and each others greatest joys.

I don't want to keep the way I feel from others anymore. I don't want to keep pretending that I doing just great.

I want to live in Zion.

Admitting how I feel and who I am

2011-08-12T05:07:00.000-06:00

One of the most difficult things for me is coming to terms with how I feel. I kept denying my feelings. I kept telling myself "How I feel isn't how I really feel, and who I want to be isn't who I really want to be, and what I think I should be isn't really what I think I should be."

Every single day I had to deal with my feelings, no matter what I was doing. And every single day I would try to box those feelings up tighter and deny them more and more.

But the point came when I started to realize that I was only hating myself more each day and this was leading me down a dangerous and suicidal road.

I realized that I needed to accept my feelings as my own. I had to admit that I feel the way I feel and think the way I think and I had to share that with my wife.

It was a gradual process. It took me a while to be able to actually say to myself "I'm a man that wants to be a woman. I'm a man that doesn't feel comfortable having a man's body and I would feel at peace in a woman's body."

It took me a while to be able to say to myself "I am transgender" because I don't want to be transgender. I want to be 'normal.'

I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that I am not what I want to be and I am not what I feel like I am. I am learning to accept that and learning to love the understanding this is giving me for the pains and trials of other.

I am transgender. I want to be a woman, but I'm not and there is nothing wrong with the fact that I'm not, and there is nothing wrong with wanting to be something good, and there is nothing wrong with being a woman, and nothing wrong with being a man.

Living Up to the Expectations of Others

2011-08-12T04:52:00.000-06:00

It's hard to live every moment of your live trying so hard to be a person you don't want to be. You try to be that person, not because you feel you want to be or that you are that person, but because others feel or you feel like others feel that you they want you to be that person.

You feel like people want you to-

act a certain way
look a certain way
dress a certain way
talk a certain way
get a certain kind of job
have a certain amount of kids
care about a certain thing
like certain things
be attracted to a certain type of person
eat a certain kind of food
participate in a certain sport
know more about a certain thing than they do
feel a certain way

I feel like all my life I have lived trying to meet the expectations of others, trying to be the person I feel like they thought I should be. Looking back I find my life feeling so hollow. I feel like in many ways it wasn't even my life I was living. Perhaps many of us feel this way.

I know many fathers expect their sons to play a certain sport that they played in school or do a certain job that they are doing and many of those sons really hate living their lives trying to follow their fathers dreams, but they live them that way anyway because they are afraid to disappoint and afraid to admit they have their own dreams.

I've spent a great deal of my life trying to live up to what others think being a man means. I've tried to fit their ideal of masculinity, but I never could in many areas and in the areas where I could it didn't please me.

I've often told myself that God doesn't just want us to obey him, but he wants us to obey him because we want to obey him. He wants us to want to do what we do and he wants us to want what is best for us.

I keep asking myself if it is possible for me to want to be a man.

I ask myself if it is possible for me to be happy to be a man, and if so how is it done.

In my mind I see three options for my life:

I could try to keep living to the ideals others set for how a man should be and try hard every day to like being what I don't want to be. I could keep trying to change the way I feel and change what I want to do. I could try to change how I want to look and what I want to be. I could learn to love the way others want me to be and hate the way that I want to be.
I could do everything in my power to change my gender and live my life as a woman and try to hide the fact that I was ever a man.
I could try to find a middle road. I could try to redefine what it means to me to be a man and what it means to be me in a way that is consistent with my feelings, my beliefs, my desires and the way I think.

Honestly, options 1 and 2 are the most tempting. I've tried option 1 for over twenty years and it has successfully lead me to consistently hating myself to the point of wanting to commit suicide. I know God doesn't want me to feel that way about myself, but so matter how I try to take option 1 I find I can't escape feeling that way. I would spend my entire life denying how I feel and denying my own being.

Option 2 is tempting. I could live my physical life in a way that is socially, emotionally and more physically consistent with my feelings and desires, but what would happen to my family? How could I be a good father and be a woman? How could I be a good husband and be a woman? These are part of who I am and I can't stop being that. And if I somehow pulled it off where my wife and kids could somehow live normal happy lives and I was happy and at peace with myself and I lived a long and happy life and a woman then died. Then what? Well, if my immortal being is a man then I would be a man in the eternities. I would have spent my entire live trying to eliminate the thing I hate--being a man--only to discover that I must now live through the eternities being a man and hating myself all over again.

I have to believe that there is a third option. I have to believe that there is some way I can be who I am, and who I feel I am. There must be some way I can be the beautiful person I long to be and still acknowledge, accept, appreciate, and love that I am a man. Is there some way I can closely match the world's view of femininity in many aspects of my life and still match God's view of masculinity?

It's past 4 in the morning now. I haven't slept at all. I stayed up all night praying and crying asking myself these questions.

I've been using estrogen and progesterone cream for the past month. I should clarify that I didn't start this because I am transgender, but I've been dealing with chronic testicular pain for over 14 years. I've seen several doctors and urologists about it and none of them offered a solution. The last urologist could only offer this advice "try putting ice on it." Anyway, I noticed that my testicles would go through cycles of getting larger in volume and shrinking smaller. This seemed to correspond with sperm production. I noticed that the cysts I have that are causing the pain hurt most when my testicles were the most swollen in volume. From reading about HRT I knew that estrogen and progesterone can shrink the size of the testicles and lower the production of sperm. So, I theorized that this would lessen the pain.

So I experimented with a non prescription strength hormone cream I purchased online called Estro Pro. After a few weeks I noticed a definite decline in the size of my testicles and after about three weeks the pain was almost completely gone. There were however some surprising consequences of using this cream:

I felt much better emotionally
I felt like I could express my emotions how I wanted to
I was less depressed
I was much happier
I was more energetic
I was a lot less stressed
I felt more social
My sex drive seemed better and more ballanced
I felt emotionally closer to my wife and children
I felt more like myself
I didn't feel feelings of anger and rage for no reason as much anymore
I slept better
I wasn't as worried
I felt like things in life were more enjoyable
I didn't feel pressure in my head like someone was squeezing my brain any more when I tried to think about things.
My thought process seemed much clearer and less cluttered.

I stopped using this cream a few weeks ago because I felt I should talk to a doctor before I continued using it. My doctor said I can continue using it and we talked a little bit about doing HRT with prescription meds. She said we would discuss it more after my blood test results come back. Unfortunately, I am away from home right now and left the cream behind. I wonder how much of this is strictly the placebo effect and how much of it is the actual product because I'm back to feeling just as awful as I felt before I started taking it.

The doctor told me that medical studies have shone that the brains of transgender people and homosexuals differ significantly from the brains of others. I've heard people say this before online, but she said that the brains of transgender people more closely resemble the gender opposite to their birth gender than the brains of others.

It seems like there are structures in my brain that don't work well with testosterone and like they never have. It's almost a feeling of feeling allergic to myself, and it seems that introducing female hormones into my body not only allowed my brain to function better, but my body as well.

I admit, I am transgender and I do want to be a woman, but I don't want to want to be a woman. I want to want to be a man because I am man, but I want to be able to function and live as a healthy human being. I want to be able to feel good about myself and be able to love who I am and taking hormones so far has definitely seemed to help me do that an awful lot.

But I'm left trying to figure things out. How to I balance out my life? It seems the only reason the urologists could give for not removing my testicles was that I needed the hormones for my well being and they didn't want me to be on testosterone for the rest of my life. It's ironic because testosterone is making my miserable and I'm ending up being on HRT anyway.

But if I go on HRT full time then I'm going to start looking more like a woman, and how do I live my life somewhere between the genders. I just feel like there is no place in this world or the next for me.

I keep asking God what I should do, but it still doesn't seem clear.

Tonight I found myself praying not to know what I should do, but praying that God would help me to get the help I need.

Cultural 'Gender' vs Divine Gender

2011-07-08T11:20:00.000-06:00


Jesus doesn't usually wear sunglasses in this picture.

I often looked at the above picture as a child now as an adult, but the question is still the same. "Are those angels boys or girls or both?" It's so hard to tell. I mean, they're all beautiful, they all have long hair, none of them (except Jesus) have facial hair and they all look quite feminine. Sometimes I would try to convince myself that several of them were definitely male, but I just couldn't know for sure. It seems all the cultural gender queues are missing. Oh no! Does this mean that in heaven we can't tell if anyone's male or female? Well, even if this painting did represent an accurate sample of heaven's angels I'm pretty sure it really wouldn't be confusing at all if I could actually sit down and talk to any of them.

Anyway, I use this picture to bring up a distinction between cultural 'gender' and divine gender. Cultural 'gender' is really a load of garbage worthy stereotypes that we have imposed upon ourselves through centuries of worthless traditions.

Here are some things that fit in the cultural 'gender' category:

Gender specific colors (pink and purple)
Gender specific clothing (dresses, suites and ties, etc.)
Gender specific sports (football, ballet)
Gender specific products [makeup, deodorant (its' actually really hard to find women's preponderant instead of antiperspirant), hair coloring, hair clips, razors, etc]
Gender specific toys (girl dolls, boy action figures, etc)
Gender specific activities [sewing, shopping for clothes, video games, watching sports, plumbing and fixing stuff, heaving lifting, reaching things on the top shelf (I couldn't believe my wife would ask me to do this sometimes when we are exactly the same height), etc]
Gender specific behavior (the way you walk, the way you talk, facial expressions, and other mannerisms)
Gender specific hair styles (short for boys, long for girls, braids, pigtails etc).
Gender specific jobs [engineer, mechanic, runway model, stewardess, homemaker, pro athlete, fireman, policeman, mailman (the funny thing about this is I rarely actually see a male mailman actually delivering mail), working at a fabric store, urologist, etc)
Gender specific things you can own--this is kind of related to the products part, but these things are not necessarily marketed exclusively to one gender (tools, power tools, scrap-booking materials, hair clippers, curling irons, camping gear, hunting gear, a hummer, a pink car, etc).
Gender specific responsibilities--not all of these are culturally imposed (mowing the lawn, hard labor, cooking, cleaning, taking care of kids, managing finances, grocery shopping, fixing what's broken and other home maintenance, paying bills, teaching your children and spending time with them).

I'm sure this list could go on, but I'll end it at this for now. I hope you realize that all the things I've listed are things we culturally associate with gender, yet they are all stereotypes and they are NOT and indicator of ones gender! To put it bluntly I say to hell with the whole idea of cultural gender! I say to hell with the idea, not because I'm swearing but because I believe that is exactly where these ideas came from--hell. This isn't what gender is and we need to stop telling people it is. I believe this is the main source of Gender Identity Disorder, gender dysphoria, transgenderism, transsexualism and other gender confusion related topic. If boys want to play with Barbies then by them Barbies. If they really want to wear dresses and makeup then why can't they? If girls don't want to wear dresses and makeup and want to play with action figures they let them. We don't have to keep being such idiots. We don't have to keep forcing our children into culturally defined gender molds when they don't fit, or even if they do fit for that matter!

Okay, now I want to take some time to talk about what gender really is--divine gender.

Yes, gender does exist. It is not a culturally impost set of sexist stereotypes it is a divine nature and destiny. It is part of who we are.

What does it really mean to be a man?
It means you can be a husband and father and it is your divine destiny to be so. That is part of who you are if you are male. With this destiny comes responsibility. With the responsibility of creating a family comes the responsibility of taking care of a family and providing for one. This responsibility is part of being a man, but it is not exclusive to men, women also share this responsibility. It is a man's divine nature to protect his family, to care for them, to teach them, and to lead and guide them and to be faithful to them at all times.

What does it mean really to be a woman?

It means you can be a wife and a mother, and it is your divine nature to be so. It means you can bear children and love them and nurture them an protect them and give your life to ensuring the security of their lives.

Really what it boils down to is the difference between men and women's divine gender can be summed up in two words Mother and Father.

I hope I made it clear that the divine nature of what it means to be a man or woman is really only related to our family roles. But what about those of us that are sterile and we can never have biological children of our own in this life? We can fulfill our divine gender roles as mother and father by adopting and by helping others rear their children. But that's not all. There's more to life than this life and God has given us the promise that those of us who are faithful that cannot bare children this life will be able to do so in the next life. Most religions don't teach this, but mine does and it's just too beautiful to be wrong. Also those of us that lose children in their youth will be granted the opportunity to raise them up to adulthood at the resurrection when Jesus Christ comes again.

This is what gender IS and anything that detracts from this does not support one's gender identity it destroys it. Gender is all about FAMILY and life and love are all about FAMILY.

I am transgender (but that may not mean to you what it means to me)

2011-07-08T10:05:00.000-06:00

I got this picture from http://thefreshxpress.com/2011/02/transgender-equality/ which I thought was a decent article that briefly touches on some of the struggles transgender people go through.

I mentioned previously that I had discussed my thoughts and feelings about being transgendered and crossdressing at christianforums.com with other transgendered people and I found it very helpful, but they (those that rule the forum with an iron fist) removed the entire thread.

So, why was it helpful for me to discuss my thoughts and feelings with others? Well, because it helped me realize and admit that I am transgendered.

So what do I mean by this? Well, what I DON'T mean is that I believe I'm a woman trapped in a man's body. I don't just believe I'm a man in body and in spirit. I know it.

Many might ask, "If you believe you are a man then how can you be transgender?" Well, first off let's talk about how I know that I'm a man.

With all the birth defects out there and intersexed children and people that have chromosomes that don't "match" their biological genders because of the SRY gene sequence (and sometimes other gene sequences) ending up somewhere where it usually isn't or missing form where it should be it sounds perfectly reasonable that somehow the spirit of a girl could be placed in a boys body or vice versa.

Let's look at the case of a person born genetically male with complete androgen insensitivity (the inability for one's body to actually use testosterone because the testosterone receptors are non-functional). Because of this disorder the person does not develop phenotypically male (i.e. they have the external genitalia of a female and look female in every external aspect). In some cases these individuals may also develop internal female parts with the exception that they have testes instead of ovaries. The question comes to my mind, "if we were all either male or female before our birth in mortality then what are these people?"

A councilor I went to see a while back told me about an old military buddy of his who started having really bad abdominal cramps. Doctors ended up performing exploratory surgery and they found that he had a complete set of ovaries (he had testicles too). I've had abdominal cramps before... for all I know I could have ovaries too, so how could I possibly know that I'm a man?

There are several reasons:

1. I have male genitalia (this is the most obvious one, but some intersexed people have those too). And many argue that your external genitalia does not necessarily define your gender.

2. I'm exclusively attracted to women (well, honestly there are a lot of women I'm not attracted too at all, but I'm attracted more than you could possibly imagine to my wife and that's what matters). But many homosexuals and others would argue that this isn't conclusive proof either because sexual orientation does not define gender.

3. I liked playing with dinosaurs and matchbox cars as a kid. Well... so does my daughter and I liked playing with Barbies, jewelry, makeup and dressing in girls clothes too. I really put this point here as a joke to make a point: WHAT YOU LIKE TO DO DOES NOT DEFINE YOUR GENDER!

4. I have kids. This is definite proof that I am biologically male, and most probably not intersexed in any way. But again what if I somehow because of some genetic issues/birth defects was born with a female brain/spirit into a man's body.

5. This is the really important one. I know that I am a man because God told me so. Yeah, there have been times in my life when I was confused enough about this issue to actually kneel down and pray to God and ask him what I was, and no matter what answer I wanted the answer I always got is "you are my son." It's hard (and dangerous) to argue with God.

Okay, so I know I'm a man, so how is it possible that I'm transgender?

Well, after much discussion with transgender and transsexuals I've discovered that I relate well with the feelings and experiences they have had and were it not for my religious belief and direct revelation from God I most certainly would feel just as they do "a woman trapped in a man's body" Actually, I often feel like this, but I know I'm not.

So based on my personal experience and my religion I've come to realize that being transgender actually has more to do with a person's personality conflicting with gender stereotypes and a person's life experience. Maybe we should actually start accepting the fact that it's actually normal for some men to be feminine and some women to be masculine. Maybe it's even normal for some men to want to act like and be women and vise versa.

I believe it is actually a healthier attitude for a man to accept that he is a man that feels like a woman rather than insisting that he IS a woman. If a person goes to the point of 'changing' their gender and blending in with the gender opposed to their birth gender they are not accepting who they are any more than they are not accepting who they are if they walk the walk of the stereotypical male. It's just another way to hide how they really feel and who they really are. I mean no disrespect to transsexuals, like I said before, if I didn't hold the religious convictions that I hold so dear I would most probably become one myself. Also the way our society and health care is organized in the US I believe it would be more difficult for a person to live life as a feminine male (dressing and looking female without the pretense of being so) than it would to try to blend in as a woman. People seem more excepting of people who look and act like women when they try to pass as women.

I just wonder how people would react to me if I left the house dressed how I really want to dress--wearing makeup and feminine clothing if I spoke in my normal male voice. Remember, I do wear womens clothes on a regular basis, but I try not to dress in a way that people would see me as being a woman or wanting to pass as one. So far I've gotten an occasional odd look from some people and some giggles from a mother and her daughter while I was looking at womens jeans. I have been mistaken for a woman from behind twice in my life, but the odd thing about that is both those times I was wearing mens clothing and had short hair. But I just wonder how someone would perceive me if I dressed as feminine as I want to but didn't try to convince people I was female as opposed to dressing as feminine as I want to and trying to convince people I was female. I just wonder which would be harder.

Anyway, I'm taking the road less traveled on and I'm trying to be me. I'm trying to be all of me. My physical, spiritual and emotional self. I think it's a sad thing to deny any of these things.

Like I said I'm not trying to insult or offend any transsexuals. I completely understand why they do what they do. What I am trying to accomplish is to show transgendered people that there is another way. That you can accept who you are. You can accept the fact that you are a man/woman that wants to be a woman/man and be happy with the fact that you are without having to change your gender. I think it takes a lot of courage and strength to be a feminine man or a masculine woman if you are transgendered, but I believe it is exactly what you need to be. You need to be who you are.

Having said this I believe there are things you can do to feel better about your body. If you are a harry man then great if you like to be a harry man, but if it causes you great anxiety and you're loosing your hair over the fact that you're harry (I probably fit in this category) then get your hair removed. Some might think its unnatural for a man to want to remove his facial hair, but it's no more unnatural for a woman to want to remove her armpit hair (and most women I know want to do that).

If it makes you happier and more comfortable with yourself go ahead and remove your body/facial hair. The only problems I have with this is it costs a lot and you might have other priorities (like feeding your wife and kids) that take precedence. The other problem is it doesn't always work.

Do I think it's wrong for a man to have surgery to become more feminine in appearance. No more than I think it's wrong for a woman to have surgery to become more feminine in appearance. I think this largely depends on the needs of the individual and the priorities they have in life. I would recommend avoiding surgeries that give you a "new face" especially after seeing a youtube video of someone that got facial feminization surgery and they were so depressed that they didn't look like themselves anymore. They wanted to look like a feminine version of themselves but they ended up looking like a feminine someone else. So, please avoid trying to recreate yourself. Love the beautiful face God has given you. If you feel like there are things that you just really can't live with I recommend a 'fine-tuning' approach rather than the 'complete overhaul' approach.

What about hormones? I really have mixed feelings about this topic. If you are fine without them then be without them. However, there are cases where men taking estrogen and progesterone can actually be really beneficial to their health and mental well being. There are also cases where testosterone can really make a man's life miserable and lowering these levels can lead to better physical and mental well being and yes there are also cases where raising testosterone levels in women can likewise be beneficial. Of course there are also many cases where men need to take more testosterone and women need to take more progesterone/estrogen in order to have balanced hormones. However, hormones can be extremely dangerous especially synthetic hormones. Please avoid synthetic hormones! I would advice everyone to talk with their doctor and loved ones before beginning any hormones treatment even though it may actually be hard to find a doctor that is willing to discuss this issue. Just be careful because the wrong dose of hormones can kill you.

What about orchiectomies (having your testicles removed). I don't recommend it for the following reasons:

Kids and family are what life is all about. If you remove those you remove your possibilities of having a family and being a biological parent. Sure you can adopt, but you can never adopt someone who is biologically part of you and that's an extremely special thing.
There are a lot of unwanted side effects and risks to your heath. To name a few--osteoporosis, osteopenemia (sp?), loss of sex drive, pain, and anemia.
It is very difficult to find a QUALIFIED doctor that will actually perform the surgery and going to an unqualified doctor can be a deadly experience.

In the case where the people have physical problems with their genitalia that are hazardous to their health (cancer and chronic issues) I believe orchiectomies and hysterectomies can really help restore vitality to people's lives and they shouldn't be ruled out.

What about breast augmentation/reduction? Well, I personally think it's no different for a man to want larger breasts than it is for a woman and for a woman to want smaller breasts than it is for a man. I really don't feel good about these surgeries in any case, but I wouldn't condemn those that have them done. Just the thought of sticking something that isn't me inside of me makes me sick (I can't even bare the thought of wearing contact lenses, but hey I don't care if you can).

To sum it up--don't try to be a woman if you are a man and don't try to be a man if you are a woman if you truly believe there is an alternative. I believe that alternative is learning to love ALL of yourself for who you are.

Anyway that's my 200 or so cents.

Do biological males really struggle with transgender issues more than biological females?

2011-07-07T21:46:00.000-06:00

I've just realized that even though the statistics say differently biological females probably struggle with being transgendered just as much as biological males. I think one reason why this is less evident statistically is because as I previously stated women can usually get away with wearing men's clothes without getting much flack from people. Another thing I've realized is that testosterone has been reasonably easy to obtain for a very long time especially since it is often used for body building and as a performance enhancer, while feminizing hormones are generally harder to get.

If a woman wants to look like a man the process basically involves taking testosterone and reducing the size of her breasts. It really doesn't take much in comparison with what some men have to do to look like women. There are probably at least 100 surgeries men could do to 'undo' the effects of testosterone.

Anyway, I was just thinking that there are most definitely a lot more transmen out there, and perhaps even more transmen than transwomen, and the reason why we don't see that is because its so much easier for them to blend in and get access to hormones.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but it's just a thought.

An interesting web site

2011-07-02T09:07:00.001-06:00

I just came across this website

malefemininity.com

I thought it was interesting

A refreashing perspective

2011-06-29T17:46:00.000-06:00

I recently found this website while trying to find a psychiatrist that has dealt with gender dysphoria

http://www.genderpsychology.org/transsexual/question.html

The author offers a unique perspective I believe. It seems most transsexuals that have websites to everything in their power to convince others to transition by having SRS. It was good to find someone who mentions the possibility of finding happiness by simply being yourself.

http://www.christianforums.com/

2011-06-08T21:32:00.000-06:00

So I've been spending some time conversing with transgendered people at christianforums.com

I thought we had some very productive conversations which lead to a greater understanding of transgendered issues and the struggles transgendered people go through in the light of Christianity. I was about to post a link to the thread in my blog, but when I went to find the link I discovered that they just deleted the entire thread. I guess those that control the forum don't feel like Christians should be discussing transgendered issues. I think this is the most ridiculous thing ever. I believe we should discuss the issues and problems we face with others. It makes it a lot easier to work through out problems when we have the support of others, but I guess christianforums.com would rather have transgendered people hide in a closet hating themselves. This makes me angry.

Why do we advertise our gender by the way we dress?

2011-04-12T19:06:00.000-06:00

After all this talk, I finally realized that I really don't understand why we advertise our gender by the way we dress.

Yes, gender is an important part of us, but so is our religion and we don't usually wear shirts that say "I'm Mormon" or "I'm a Catholic" or "This person you are looking at is a Baptist" but somehow clothing has be associated with gender.

What if clothing were associated with skin color. What if only hispanic people could wear ties, and only white people could wear dresses, but all black people had to wear pants. That certainly would be silly.

Then why is gender this way? Perhaps gender is this way because our sex is something that differentiates us from the other sex. I don't think there is any other physical feature that really differentiates a person as much as their sex. I guess Adam and Eve could have dressed all the kids with attached ear lobes in pink and all the kids with detached lobes in blue, but when it comes down to it sex is the only universal genetic trait that differentiates every person regardless of their other genetic traits.

but I still think it's silly we advertise our sex by our clothing style.

Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these

2011-04-12T13:42:00.000-06:00

Matthew 6

24¶^aNo man can ^bserve two ^cmasters: for either he will ^dhate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and ^emammon.

25^aTherefore I say unto you, Take no ^bthought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

26Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

27Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

28And why take ye thought for raiment? ^aConsider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

29And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Perhaps if we shouldn't take much thought about what we wear we shouldn't take much thought to judge others for how they dress either.

Hate

2011-04-09T11:00:00.000-06:00

No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to escape feeling like I hate being a man. I don't want to feel this way, but I can't deny that I do.

I hate all the stress that comes with my responsabilities.

I hate the fact that my hair's falling out.

I hate the fact that being a man causes me pain on a daily basis.

There is only one thing I like about being a man and that is being married to my wife.

How do I escape these negative feelings about myself? How do I learn to love who I am and what I need to do?

"God doesn't make mistakes!" What exactly are people saying by this?

2011-04-02T09:30:00.000-06:00

It seems the most common criticism of the transgendered and transexuals from 'Christians' is this line "God doesn't make mistakes!"

Interestingly enough it is usually said with an attitude of contention and fear--two feelings that Christ condemns.

So what exactly are these people saying by this? There are several problems with this statement:

1) It's saying that transgendered people are a mistake (people are not a mistake)

2) It implies that you are not of God. It tells a transgendered person "God didn't make you." You are of sin.

3) I believe the main point people are trying to make with this statement is that 'God doesn't put females into the bodies of males and vice versa' but the way they are going about it holds no water. The statement basically implies that God wouldn't let something bad or unnatural happen to someone.... if they believe that then 'their God' sure isn't doing a good job. What about the people in Japan? Bad things certainly happened to them? What about the thousands of children born with birth defects? What about kids that are born intersexed? I agree that God doesn't make mistakes, but he does let a lot of 'bad' things happen and they are not mistakes because they are actually part of His plan for us. Life is a test to prove us, a test without difficult problems is useless.

I believe the problem here is a lack of understanding on the part of the criticizing Christians and the transgendered as well. Most people don't know or realize that gender is not something we are just born with it is an eternal part of who we are. We were created male or female not at our birth, but we have always been male or female. We had gender as spirits when we lived with God before we were born into mortality. I don't believe that God does put the spirits of women into men's bodies or vice versa (but honestly I'm not sure this would be entirely impossible especially with all the chemicals that are going around in everything that can mess up the development of primary sex characteristics). However, I not only believe, but I know that the socially imposed gender traits that are forced upon us in this life didn't exist when we lived with God as spirits. I don't believe we adhered to 'stereotypical' male or female behavior.

I believe some men have a natural desire to be beautiful, pretty and even stereotypically feminine just as some women have the desire to be athletic, muscular and stereotypically masculine. I don't think these traits began with our birth, but I think they are part of who we are.

Just because a little boy likes to wear dresses, wants long hair, likes pink, and likes to play dolls does not mean that he is a girl in a boys body (this is the message that many in the transgender community are trying to send). A lot of the women I know don't like to wear dresses, and only a few do. It only makes sense that most men wouldn't like to wear them either but a few do. Some girls don't like to play with dolls or makeup, they would rather play sports, so it makes sense that some guys wouldn't like to play sports and would rather play with dolls or makeup.

Forcing people into gender stereotypes only does harm! It's like forcing someone who wants to be a fashion designer to become an electrical engineer.

I believe it is perfectly natural that there are 'feminine' men and 'masculine' women. Let's stop making the 'feminine' men feel like they have to be women for their personalities and behavior to be acceptable. Is it really going to hurt anyone if some men wear dresses and makeup? It sure doesn't hurt anyone that some women don't!

It seems that the dominant voices in the transgendered community are actually doing a lot of harm to the transgendered. They are sending the message "you have to transform into a woman to accept yourself," but you can never accept who you are by trying to become something you are not! This principle applies to everyone. If a person doesn't like themselves because they think their nose is ugly then will they like themselves if they get a nose job? No! Trying to change who you are will never lead to accepting and loving who you are.

If you are a man that feels a need to be feminine then be who you are (a feminine man). If you are a woman that feels a need to be masculine then be who you are. Don't try to reach for something you can never have. Don't try to be something you can never be. You will only love yourself if you are yourself.

When we die we will all return to meet with God and He will ask us what we have done with what He gave us. Will we have to admit that we threw away what He gave us because we wanted something we could never have? You were created and born how you are and who you are for a reason. Even if you could be a woman born into a man's body their would be a very good reason for that and how would you ever know that you weren't just a man with a very stereotypically feminine nature? Accept and love who you are and how you are. There is a reason for it. Work it out between you and God. He knows and He will tell you what you ought to do if you ask him.

And for those who are transexuals I only wish to send a message of hope to you. You can find peace through Jesus Christ. You can love who you are and you don't have to pretend to be something you are not. Love who you are. Pray to God and God will help you to know yourself like no one else can. He can help you to love and accept yourself like no one else can. Jesus Christ can heal all wounds, the most important being those in our hearts and souls.

Yes I agree God doesn't make mistakes. He made you and you are not a mistake! He made us who we are and how we are for a reason and that reason is because He loves us, and He is teaching us how to love each other for who we are.

Correcting Genetic Misconceptions. Gender is Genetically Complex

2011-03-27T01:28:00.000-06:00

I read something like this in a genetics book about 6 years ago. I found it very enlightening.

The following is taken from http://www.isna.org/faq/y_chromosome

Does having a Y chromosome make someone a man?

Classification: FAQ

A lot of unintended harm happens when people assume a Y chromosome makes a person a boy or a man and the lack of a Y chromosome makes a person a girl or a woman. For example, one physician educator on our Medical Advisory Board had the challenging experience of trying to calm a 23-year-old patient who had just been told by a resident that she was “really a man” because the resident had diagnosed the patient as having a Y chromosome and complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS).
It is true that in typical male development, the SRY gene on the tip of the Y chromosome helps to send the embryo down the masculine pathway. But more than the SRY is needed for sex determination and differentiation; for example, women with CAIS have the SRY gene but lack androgen receptors. In terms of hormone effects on their bodies (including their brains), women with CAIS have had much less “masculinization” than the average 46,XX woman because their cells do not respond to androgens.
Moreover, the SRY gene can be translocated onto an X chromosome (so that a 46,XX person may develop along a typical masculine pathway), and there are dozens of genes on chromosomes other than the X and the Y that contribute to sexual differentiation. And beyond the genes, a person’s sex development can be significantly influenced by environmental factors (including the maternal uterine environment in which the fetus developed).
So it is simply incorrect to think that you can tell a person’s sex just looking at whether he or she has a Y chromosome.
Want to know more? The following comes from ISNA’s Medical Advisory Board member Dr. Charmian Quigley:
SRY, discovered in 1989, is a small gene located at the tip of the short arm of the Y chromosome. So what does it do? Actually, like all genes, it does nothing except to act as a blueprint for a protein. In this case, the protein of the same name does funky things to DNA, like bending it and unwinding the 2 strands, so that other proteins can get in and attach themselves to other genes that are then turned on. So how did this gene get its reputation (and its name) as the “sex determining” gene?
As is pretty common in the world of genetics, this was because of some errant mice. Researchers in England took a laboratory-made copy of this gene and inserted it artificially into a female (XX) mouse embryo at a very early stage of development. The mouse was “converted” from female to male, so the gene must have been responsible – right? Well, maybe not. A few years later, a similar gene was found on human chromosome 17. When the important part of this gene was inserted into a female mouse embryo, the same thing happened. Voila! A male.
So now we have 2 genes that can turn a female into a male, and one of them is not located on the Y chromosome! How can that be? It turns out that SRY is probably just a facilitator that allows a more critical gene (or genes) to function, by blocking the action of another opposing factor. Can the magic of genetics do the opposite – turn a male into a female? Indeed it can. A gene on the X chromosome (the chromosome one typically associates with “femaleness”) called DAX1 when present in double copy in a male (XY) mouse, turns it into a female.
So now we have genes on the Y that can turn females with XX chromosomes into males and genes on the X that can turn males with XY chromosomes into females… wow! Maleness and femaleness are NOT determined by having an X or a Y, since switching a couple of genes around can turn things upside down.

In fact, there’s a whole lot more to maleness and femaleness than X or Y chromosomes. About 1 in 20,000 men has no Y chromosome, instead having 2 Xs. This means that in the United States there are about 7,500 men without a Y chromosome. The equivalent situation - females who have XY instead of XX chromosomes - can occur for a variety of reasons and overall is similar in frequency.
For these 15,000 or more individuals in the US (and who knows how many worldwide), their chromosomes are irrelevant. It is the total complement of their genes along with their life experiences (physical, mental, social) that makes them who they are (or any of us, for that matter). The last time I counted, there were at least 30 genes that have been found to have important roles in the development of sex in either humans or mice. Of these 30 or so genes 3 are located on the X chromosome, 1 on the Y chromosome and the rest are on other chromosomes, called autosomes (on chromosomes 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 17, 19).
In light of this, sex should be considered not a product of our chromosomes, but rather, a product of our total genetic makeup, and of the functions of these genes during development.

Women can do almost anything in our culture.

2011-03-26T23:49:00.000-06:00

I think one of the reasons that so many men suffer from what we call being transgendered is that in the American culture (and many cultures around the world) nearly any type of behavior or activity is acceptable for a woman, yet what is acceptable for a man is extremely limited.

Women can do almost everything men can do with a very tiny number of exceptions (besides obvious physical limitations like not being able to (naturally) pee standing up or other sexually related things like getting testicular cysts):

-women can't play professional football (I bet this will change soon)
-women can't be in some combat related military roles (I bet this will also change soon)
-women can't usually get away with dressing as Santa for Christmas
-women can't normally grown cool beards or side burns, or back, chest, or ear hair (but this is sex related so it really shouldn't be in this list)
-women can't usually go topless in public (I wonder why men can)
-women can't go to men only clubs
-have hairy legs and armpits
-women can't spit in public and still be considered respectable (but I don't know if men can do that either)
-women can't get away with wearing men's ties all of the time (but what kind of sane person likes to wear ties anyway)

My wife and I are really struggling to come up with anything else.

So what can't a man do that women can (and still be socially acceptable)?

-wear clothes of the opposite gender (it is almost entirely socially acceptable for women to do this as long as they are not trying to pass as being men. In fact some jobs require it)
-wear makeup of any kind
-wear dresses or skirts (except if you are of Scottish heritage, but then it's a kilt not a skirt... or other heritage related skirts.... but people make fun of guys in kilts anyway)
-stay at home and let your spouse earn the living
-grow long hair
-wear hair things
-look pretty
-admit that you like to sew without getting odd looks from people
-work in stereotypically feminine jobs without people thinking your gay or something like modeling, fashion design, interior decorating, working at a fabric or craft store, cosmology/beautician, hair dresser, being a receptionist or anything that ends in 'ist' and the list goes on.
-wear high heals
-wear short shorts (except for back in the 80s)
-prefer to eat a nice salad over a steak (yes I was ridiculed for this a time or two)
-wear a one piece swimming suit (guys are pretty much expected to go topless when they go swimming.... personally I hate it and I wear a rash-guard and people give me odd looks)
-wear pastels
-shave armpits or legs for non-sport related purposes (though this is changing because of hair removal marketing techniques)
-pluck eyebrows
-cry (why?)
-openly express your emotions (again what's up with this?)
-complement how cute you think one of your man friends is (if you do this people will either think you are gay or a goof ball). Really men are extremely limited in their social ability to openly complement each other's appearance.
-express physical affection towards other men (such as rubbing your friends back, giving him a massage, hugs (especially cheek to cheek hugs), or even sitting close to each other-whereas a girl could even sit on her friends lap without people giving it a second thought)
-slumber parties (boys can sometimes get away with sleepovers if they revolve around some manly activity)
-makeovers
-facials
-manicures and pedicures
-wear capris (even though manly pirates used to wear them)
-wear purses
-wear shear, soft or lacy fabrics
-wear bras
-wear pantyhose or comfortable socks
-wear pretty jewlry
-wear ear rings
-wear wedding rings that aren't thick, bulky and extremely plain
-wear small watches
-wear small gloves (even if you have small hands--good luck finding them in the guys section!)
-wear pink without people thinking you are queer or mentally deficient
-color your hair without people thinking you are stupid
-wear pig tails or braids
-plan your wedding
-pick what curtains you want in your house
-pick your bed linens if you are married (if you manage to do this your wife will detest what you picked even if she tells you she likes it initially)
-get flowers as a gift
-wear flowers in your hair
-work with children (like at a day care or kindergarten) without people wondering if you're a child molester
-do yoga
-gymnastics
-ballet
-figure skating
-cheer leading
-drill team
-water ballet
-play with hair
-get a new last name when you get married (technically you can do this but you would bring dishonor to you family and people would think you were weird)
-cover up zits
-do the splits and still maintain your dignity (you can get away with this if you are a super awesome martial artist, but that's about it)
-wear a wig/toupee

-Drive a small non-sporty and/or pink car
-wear purple
-Go to the bathroom with your friends
-Show cleavage (or the lack thereof, unless you live in Italy) or even wear shirts with low neck lines.

-have your date pay for you
-have someone of the opposite sex open a door for you without feeling like they insulted your ego
-admit that you like to watch a chick flick
-cry in a movie
-eat chocholate with your friends when you are sad or emotional about something
-shop for clothes just for fun
-shop for lingerie (if you try to shop for your wife people give you dirty looks and if you try to find something for you the selection of men's lingerie is either laughable, not attractive or just plain gross
-shop for clothes of the opposite gender without people looking at you funny even if you are shopping for something for your wife
-scream with excitement
-giggle
-jump up and down when you are excited
-walk with one foot in front of the other (men sort of have to walk with their feet apart)
-have long fingernails
-waist time in pointless gossip

and the list goes on and on and on........

The funny thing is none of these things would really be bad for men to do. In fact many of these things would actually be good for men to do. It would make life a lot less stressful and less restrictive.

I think transgendered men need to stop trying to fit in by being women and start helping out all the other guys by helping make more good things socially acceptable for men.

Being a man is a stressful job-The truth is being a REAL woman is too!

2011-03-26T22:12:00.000-06:00

There are many stresses that are placed on men. Men have to work to support their families. They have to deal with a stressful job only to come home and deal with another stressful job (the one their wives have to deal with all the time). Men have to worry about making sure everything works (the car, the dryer, the dishwasher, etc). Men have to take the initiative to please their wives and be the principle instigators of date planing (which I am naturally horrible at). It is the man's responsibility to make sure that important events such as anniversaries are commemorated according to their wives desires. It is the man's responsibility to pay the bills, make enough money to buy the house, fix anything that is broken (it is the man's responsibility to know how to do that). It is the man's responsibility to take care of the kids when the wife doesn't feel like doing it.

Sometimes I think it would be a relief to be a stay at home dad. To spend my time cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the kids while my wife goes out and works. It would be nice not to have to worry about where or how we have enough money to eat, have a place to sleep and pay medical bills. It would be nice to have someone to fix everything that breaks for me.... and so on.

Anyway, being a man is a stressful thing and it can be tempting to wonder what it would be like to be a woman and not have to worry about all these 'masculine' duties. I fear that many individuals (perhaps including myself) venture towards trangendered behavior because they see it as a way out of an undesirable and stressful life full of unwanted duties. I am convinced that any behavior that leads someone to neglect or forfeit their duties will only lead to misery in the end.

A prominent transexual website http://www.tsroadmap.com/
encourages transgendered individuals to undergo SRS (sexual reassignment surgery). The author of the site states: "It is about what makes YOU happy; you're not doing it for other people.... Again it is whatever makes YOU happy."

You know I might be 'happier' as a woman and you might be 'happier' too. It sure would be stress relieving to no longer have to put up with male duties and stereotypes. I could do so many things that I have always dreamed of doing, but now can't because they are not 'acceptable' for men.

But I can't believe that life is about what makes YOU or ME happy. Life is not about self gratification, and it is not about doing what makes us feel happy. I can't believe that.

I think of my Savior Jesus Christ. I think of the record of his life we have in the Bible, and I can't think of him ever doing anything so that He would be happy. He was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. And even He was not 'happy' about what was required of him when it was required of him. When he atoned for the sins of the world He pleaded with the Father to let that bitter cup pass from him. He plead for another way, yet he said not my will, but thine be done.

Transexuality might seem like the way out of a nightmare and it might very well feel like the way out of a nightmare. It might prevent you from hating yourself and make you feel better than you have ever felt. It might even prevent you from committing suicide because of the deep depression that comes from feeling like you can't be yourself (I know it's painful). But the fact remains, you were born who you are for a reason, you were created in the image of God male or female for a reason. You have a mission in life that you were created for that you must fulfill if you want eternal happiness and everlasting joy.

After Christ's mortal ministry was complete he visited the people in ancient America (as recorded in the Book of Mormon). He prayed and wept with them and stated after blessing their little children "My joy is full"

If transgendered individuals seek their own happiness they will get what everyone else gets when they seek their own happiness at the cost of the happiness of others.

Matthew 16:25 (King James Version)

²⁵For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

Lose your life in the service of others, forget yourself as Jesus did and you will find eternal and true happiness.

Yes being a transgendered man (or woman) is painful, difficult and stressful, but so was suffering all the pains, sorrows and sins of mankind, bleeding from every pore, and being nailed to a cross.

I believe that the end to the suffering of the transgendered is not found in changing ones body, but it is found in Christ Jesus. He knows our suffering, he has suffered it, and it is he that can comfort us and heal our wounded hearts. He suffered for us that we need not suffer. All we need to do is take His yoke upon us, to forget ourselves and seek the welfare of others. It is only then that we will feel truly fulfilled. It is only then that we will experience true and lasting happiness.

The Painful Truth About Being Transgendered

2011-02-27T17:06:00.000-07:00

From what I have seen the media seem to mainly focus on the 'glamorous' side of things concerning the transgendered. They seem to focus on how pretty they look, or how happy they are now that they are expressing their 'true' selves, but as of yet I have not seen any representation of the transgendered that actually discusses the heartache and pain a transgendered person goes through on a daily basis.

It is extremely painful, frustrating, and emotionally prying to feel like you can never be yourself.

I recall an experience I had while serving an LDS mission. I had an extremely emotional conversation with a man that had undergone male-to-female gender reassignment surgery (a sex change). He told me "all my life I thought I wanted the body of a beautiful woman. Now I have one," he said, "but ever since then I've felt an emptiness inside me that never goes away."

So many people feel like changing their gender is the answer, and there are so many people in online communities that are trying to convince us that getting a sex change is the only way we will be able to feel better about ourselves, but it is NOT the answer.... It will not make the pain and frustration go away--trying to deny who you are will never make you feel better--temporarily perhaps, but in the long run you will find yourself empty inside.

God made us male or female for a reason regardless of how we feel, think or act. We need to not deny or hide our sex, but learn to love ourselves as God created us. Yes going down the road to becoming a transexual is a difficult, expensive and painful road, but so is learning to love who you truely are. The difference is one road leads to emptiness and more pain, sorrow and self denial, and the latter leads to love, self-acceptance, and a fullness of joy.

Transgendered people have character traits that are stereotypically of the opposite gender. Our character traits are part of who we are as well. The problem a trangendered individual faces is they are pressured in many ways to deny their true character traits; they are forced into one mold or the other. They are told by society that if they cannot act stereotypically male then they cannot be accepted unless they become female. Honestly, I often feel this way. I often feel so frustrated with being a man that I know I would feel so relieved if I could only be a woman, but I know this will not bring me lasting happiness--I know denying myself is not the answer.

I believe diversity in our personality traits is what makes us beautiful and truely human. We need to learn to love people for who they are, not for who we want them to be.... We need to learn to love ourselves for who and what we are not for who or what we wish to be.

Bem Sex Role Inventory

2011-02-27T16:25:00.000-07:00

I just ran into this Bem Sex Role Inventory
it is suppose to tell you whether you are masculine, feminine, or androgynous (neutral or both)

Here is my score:

You scored 65 out of 100 masculine points, 76.667 out of 100 feminine points, and 67.5 out of 100 androgynous (neutral) points.

Here is my wife's score:

You scored 40 out of 100 masculine points, 87.5 out of 100 feminine points, and 67.544 out of 100 androgynous (neutral) points.

I tried to do this an honestly as possible. It turns out we are both more feminine, but she is more feminine than me (I already knew that).

Why Can't Men Have Long Hair?

2011-01-15T20:58:00.000-07:00

I guess Johny Depp can....

I just ran across this website about men with long hair http://www.choisser.com/longhair/four.html

I think it is so odd that men are expected to and often forced to have short hair in our society. Women used to be expected to have long hair, but that has changed dramatically. Perhaps this too will change for men eventually.

The Dangers of Crossdressing

2010-11-24T21:35:00.000-07:00

As of yet my posts have been in defense of crossdressers, this post is no exception. However, I find that many people that support or except the act of crossdressing seem to portray it as being all fun and glamor and often do not discuss the drawbacks, disappointments and dangers of this behavior.

First off I think I should discuss the most dangerous aspect of crossdressing. It can lead to the destruction of family unity. There are many people that have extremely negative feelings towards crossdressing which can lead to feelings of betrayal, anger, selfishness, infidelity, anger and even hate. However, I think we need to also consider another potential danger--the spouses and loved ones of crossdressers are sometimes very supportive of the behavior. Sometimes being supportive can actually lead to encouraging the behavior to go farther. I recall the story of a wife who found her husbands women's clothing that he had been hiding from her for years out of shame. She then took the assumption that her husband was going to become a woman. She supported his behavior and encouraged it and her husband ultimately had gender reassignment surgery, and was no longer her husband--there family was ultimately destroyed not because of negative feelings towards the behavior, but because of encouraging the behavior.

Loved ones should not encourage those they love to be something other that who they are. The way I see it, the message wives like the one above were sending to their husband was, "I could only accept this behavior of yours if you were a woman, not a man."

Often crossdressers will here statements like, "wow you make a really pretty woman!" Wearing women's clothes does not make you a woman, yet statements like this not only imply that if you wear womens clothes you need to be a woman, they also imply that the crossdresser would be a better woman than they are a man. Instead loved ones should focus on the beauty the person has being who they are. They could have just as easily said, "wow you are really pretty!" This statement shows that being who you are is what makes your pretty not being the opposite gender from who you are.

This leads me to another great danger involved with crossdressing--feeling like you have to be the opposite sex in order to be accepted by others, and more importantly by yourself. This is something that you have to fight every step of the way. You can never be happy unless you learn to love who you REALLY are.

Another great danger is misrepresentation as the opposite gender. I believe it is extremely dangerous to try to make others think you are the opposite gender. Lies and deceit can only lead to sorrow and further sin. However, crossdressers are extremely pressured into trying to pass as the opposite gender because of fear that others will not except them, and more often than not they won't.

For example if someone is crossdressing in public and they need to use the restroom which one should they use? If they are a man and they go into the woman's restroom then they are trying to convince others that they are a woman, and in some parts of the world this is against the law. If they are dressed as a woman and enter into the mens restroom then they would probably feel quite awkward as would all the other men in the restroom. It seems a very potentially dangerous social situation.

Misrepresentation as the opposite gender can also lead to attracting others of the same gender which could ultimately lead to homosexuality or worse as in the case of Brandon Teena (portrayed in the movie Boys Don't Cry) who was murdered when associates found out she was female.

I don't believe you should ever hide who you really are. Which generally makes crossdressing publicly a dangerous situation.

It seems most of the dangers in crossdressing are due to lack of social acceptance for the behavior and try to pass as being something you are not.

However, there is another danger. If you are married your spouse may feel like you feel inclined to crossdress because they are not satisfying your, or because they are not pretty enough. If you are particularly pretty when you crossdress they may feel uncomfortable or self-conscious about their own looks. Whatever the case it is extremely important to let your significant other know how much you love them, how beautiful they are to you, and how attractive they are to you. Make them feel like your beauty is theirs and theirs is yours.

I think we should also consider the dangers directly tied to our cultures perception of crossdressing. Crossdressing could lead to losing friends, family support, and even your job. You should never let crossdressing endanger your responsibilities.

The Wife of a Crossdresser

2010-10-23T15:13:00.000-06:00

I just came across these articles written by Julie Freeman the longtime wife of a crossdresser. While I don't agree with her statement that being a homosexual or a crossdresser is not a choice, I was surprised that I agreed with most of what she said and thought it would be most helpful for crossdressers and their spouses to read.

Being a Crossdresser Doesn't Mean you are Gay

2010-10-23T13:56:00.000-06:00

For some reason the masses seem to believe that crossdressing means you are gay. It seams they are far too often associated in people's minds.

I have no desire whatsoever to be a homosexual (man or woman) and there are many that feel the same way I do.

Don't feel pressured into thinking that because you like to wear clothing of or dress up like someone of the opposite sex that you are gay. On the contrary, dressing up like a woman makes me feel closer to and more attracted to my wife.

Society seems to be trying to send the message that if you want to wear women's clothes then you have to get your genitals chopped off and be attracted to men.

I'm telling you right now that you don't. You can be happy with being the man that you are.

One of my teachers in college said something very profound to me when I expressed discomfort at writing a paper about my experience with going through puberty (it was a course on adolescent development and everyone was required to write the paper). She said something that I believe was inspired. There is no way (even from reading my paper) that she could have known what I was going through. She said something along the lines, "Every man, even those that go through sex change operations, will eventually have to come to terms with who they are."

Your gender is part of who you are. Even if someone goes through gender reassignment surgery they will have to come to terms with the fact that they are really a man (or woman. I just want to make it clear that I think that even women that struggle with gender identity can find my posts useful).

I recall an experience on my mission when I was having a discussion with a man that had undergone gender reassignment surgery and was actively involved in a homosexual relationship with a man.

He said to me, "All I wanted was the body of a beautiful woman. I felt like I couldn't live without being a woman, but I feel empty inside.... like I'm missing something...."

He expressed deep sadness in the conversation. He was telling me that he felt like he was missing something because he wasn't accepting who he really was. He also said to me, "I found out about the gospel after I went through all these changes.... I feel like it's too late for me."

I wasn't sure what to say to him, but I said, "It's not too late. The mercy of Jesus Christ through His infinite atonement can help you."

This man and all men who undergo gender reassignment surgery will one day die and through Christ's resurrection they also will be resurrected and restored to their proper frame, putting on immortal bodies of their true and original gender. We will hall have to come to terms with who we are, and we need to learn to love and appreciate who we are.

I believe Jesus Christ will help people like this man I've talked about resolve their heartaches and sorrows.

I just thought I should say something about homosexuality. I don't endorse the behavior in anyway, but I don't believe there is anything wrong with loving someone. I have good friends that I love dearly who are men--there's nothing wrong with that. Even feelings of being attracted to people of the same sex are normal (we discussed this in my adolescent development class too). Women find some other women attractive and men find some other men attractive. It's perfectly normal, yet society tries to convince us that it's not normal to be attracted to an attractive looking person. This is ridiculous!

I do strongly believe however, that the procreative powers God gave us (including intercourse) should only be used between a married man and woman. These powers God gave us enable us to create families, using them for other purposes is like using a hammer to wash your dishes with instead of a dish rag. Obviously the hammer isn't going to get the job done and it is going to end up destroying what you're try to accomplish in the first place.

So, No I'm not against love. I'm against misusing procreative powers.

I just wanted to make it clear that you can be a crossdresser and also be very much against homosexual behavior (speaking of sexual behavior not attitudes, feelings, or social behaviours).

Woman trapped in a man's body? I don't think so!

2010-10-23T09:58:00.000-06:00

I've heard so many people say that transvestites are the opposite gender trapped in the wrong gendered body. I don't believe this for one second, first for religious reasons, second for logical reasons.

First off I don't think if a female were born in a man's body she would mind as much as most transvestites/transsexuals do. Most females find men quite handsome and attractive, but this does not seem to be the case for most transvestites.

Secondly, I think if you were able to perform a completely confidential survey among men (really getting at their thoughts) you would find that the average answers to the following questions might be something like this:

Q: Have you ever felt left out because you wanted to do something stereotypically feminine but you couldn't because it was socially inappropriate?

A: Yes

Q: Have you ever wanted to wear makeup?
A: Yes.

Q: If it were completely socially acceptable for men to wear women's clothes would you ever?
A: Yes

Q: Have you ever wanted to dress like a woman?
A: Yes.

Q: If you could be a woman for a day would you?
A: Yes

It would be interesting to see the results of this survey if we could actually carry it out, but I believe every man in the world would say yes to at least one of these and that at least 50% of men would say yes to all of them.

I believe it is natural for men to want to be feminine sometimes. In fact I can't imagine any man not being attracted to the idea of having a woman's body--at least for a while. People are naturally attracted by curiosity to wonder about these things, and I believe every sane man is attracted to women, so men naturally find women's bodies attractive. It's no stretch of the imagination that men would desire to be more feminine in order to feel more attractive.

Honesty is the Best Policy

2010-10-18T21:57:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking for some time that there are two crucial attributes that everyone needs to focus on developing, and that these attributes are absolutely essential for crossdressers to focus on. The first is selflessness, and the second honesty. Right now I want to focus on honesty.

First off never keep secrets from your spouse. Never hide anything from her. Don't do anything that you wouldn't want her to know about. When you are married or in a serious relationship hiding things from your spouse/loved one can be powerfully destructive. Don't hide your thoughts, don't hide your feelings, don't hide your actions--Don't hide your crossdressing!

Remember that your spouse is a huge part of who you are and you are a huge part of who they are.

“Neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord”

(1 Cor. 11:11).

Forget the fact that you are scared to death to tell her how you feel--she needs to know the truth. Be sensitive to her feelings, be kind, be loving and be understanding if she doesn't understand.

Be honest with yourself.

"This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

-Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 78–82

Do you feel like you should be a woman? Do you feel like God made a mistake?

"My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place; when I was woven together ... your eyes saw my unformed body."

(Psalm 139:15-16)

God planned things out well when he made us. There is a good reason why He made us male or female.

Many transsexuals argue that if God doesn't make mistakes then why are some people born intersexed (hermaphrodites) or with malformed genitalia. Well aside from obvious reasons such as medications/chemicals that cause birth defects, I would add that this too is part of God's plan for those individuals. There is a reason behind why they are born this way, it also is part of who they are in this mortal life. Just as some are born blind or some are born with three arms. Adversity and opposition are part of life.

"For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility. "

(2 Nephi 2:11)

I mean not to imply that it is a bad thing that these individuals are this way, in fact I mean to imply that it is a good thing, in that it was meant to be part of their mortal experience.

I recently found a touching story found at firestone.org about a man who was verbally and physically abused from his childhood. He was convinced by his parents that he would have been better off if he were a girl. He recounts his painful experience growing up hating himself because he is a man. He was convinced that he could only be happy if he could become a woman. It was taring his family apart. Then he recounts how through Christ's help and help of members of his church he overcame this hatred for himself and also his transgendered behavior.

In being honest with ourselves we need to ask ourselves the following about why we crossdress:

Do I do it for selfish reasons?

Do I do it for carnal pleasure (lust)?

Do I do it because I hate who I am (being a man)?

Do I do it because I would rather be a woman because I think my life would be easier or more fulfilling?

Do I do it because I was verbally, physically or otherwise abused in the past?

Would I be happier if I stopped this behavior and came to terms with who I really am?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes then I invite you to seriously reconsider whether crossdressing is really something you should do.

I will admit of myself that I'm not sure I am being entirely honest with myself in my motives--I am hoping that writing this blog will help me better sort out my emotions and better love who I am, in turn I hope that it will also help me love others, and help others understand how they feel and what they are going through.

"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"

Lev. 19: 18 (Matt. 5: 43-44; Matt. 22: 37-40; Rom. 13: 9; Gal. 5: 14; James 2: 8; Mosiah 23: 15; D&C 59: 6)

I think we miss the fact that the first commandment here is not to love thy neighbor, but to love yourself . How could you love your neighbor as you love yourself if you don't love yourself first?

Be honest with who you are then learn to love who you are. Then go beyond that and love your neighbor.

Crossdressing and Wearing Cotton/Wool Blends are Evil?

2010-10-17T22:03:00.000-06:00

One of the main reasons some Christians condemn the practice of crossdressing is a verse in the Bible. Deuteronomy 22: 5 "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are [in] abomination unto the Lord thy God."

First off according to some research I have done this verse is actually mistranslated in the King James Version--I added the word 'in' for a more correct translation. God doesn't look at anyone as an abomination, but he does abhor sin.

Secondly this verse is part of a lengthy set of strict laws called the law of Moses. Moses was instructed to give these laws to the Israelites to tell them exactly how to live in a way where they would abandon any Egyptian or pagan rituals. The laws were also given to help the people live more healthy and sanitary lifestyles according to what was available to them at the time.

If we read the scripture in context we find that Moses also condemns taking birds out of nests, planting a garden with different kinds of seeds, plowing with an ox and an ass at the same time, and then in verse 11 Moses states, "Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together."

Wow, I never new that.... I'd better get rid of all of my cotton/wool blends, cotton/polyester, cotton/spandex, rayon/polyester, polyester nylon etc. Just pure cotton for me from here on out.

Hold on a minute--aren't we forgetting something...or someone? Jesus Christ came and fulfilled the law of Moses. "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." (Matthew 5: 17, 18)

We can eat pork, and ducks now, so why are we using this scripture out of context?

As a side note I find it extremely interesting that people just use this scripture to condemn men dressing in women's clothes, but we don't mind at all that women wear pants (which were originally only men's clothes).

I believe the purpose of this law given by Moses was to help the people avoid the practice of deception which ultimately leads to moral sin. I believe it is wrong to crossdress for the purpose of leading someone to believe you are of the opposite gender. Willful deception is not of God, and neither is immorality. These are the things that are an abomination to God.

My Church's Views on Family and Gender

2010-10-17T11:25:00.000-06:00

The following statement was given by the leaders of my church in a document entitled The Family: A Proclamation to the World

"We, the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator's plan for the eternal destiny of His children. All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose."

We believe that our gender is a vital part of who we are and the plan that God has prepared for us.

I have read many statements by people that say things like, "the Mormon Church is against crossdressing." While I know that recently my church has discouraged crossdressing at church activities especially Halloween activities to avoid confusion (they also discourage wearing masks to avoid frightening children) I have not heard nor have I read any formal statement about crossdressing other than what I have just stated above given by any of the leaders of my church.

I do know that my church is against damaging our bodies in any way (gender reassignment surgery is included in this) because we believe that our bodies are divine gifts from God that we should take care of (just as the apostle Paul taught). We are against using and misusing the powers of procreation outside of marriage. But in all these things my church leaders seek to provide counseling to people who struggle. They counsel with love, understanding, and a sincere desire to help everyone come closer to Christ and closer to happiness no matter what they are going through.

Probably the most informative document that I've found as far as my church's views on gender has been A Parent's Guide specifically the section entitled Teaching Children From Four to Eleven Years

It was copyrighted in 1985--so it's not the most up to date document and transgender issues weren't very well known or understood then (not that they are today).

In this guide President Kimball said,

“Some people are ignorant or vicious and apparently attempting to destroy the concept of masculinity and femininity. More and more girls dress, groom, and act like men. More and more men dress, groom, and act like women. The high purposes of life are damaged and destroyed by the growing unisex theory. God made man in his own image, male and female made he them. With relatively few accidents of nature, we are born male or female. The Lord knew best. Certainly, men and women who would change their sex status will answer to their Maker” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1974, p. 8; or Ensign, Nov. 1974, p. 8).

It kind of seems like President Kimball is saying it's wrong for women to wear pants and for men to have long hair--I guess we have to realize that this quote was given in the 70's when the long hair bell bottom wearing hippies were shocking the conservative thinkers of the world. I think what President Kimball is emphasizing in this quote is the importance of gender and that we shouldn't try to eradicate it by making the sexes the same. I don't think he's saying women shouldn't wear pants or that men shouldn't have long hair (I bet he believed that Jesus had long hair and wore dresses, and I bet his wife wore pants too).

I did find the quote from President Kimball a little opposite from the next line that states, "There is nearly as much variation within each gender as there is between the genders. Each human being is unique. There is no one model except the Redeemer of all mankind."

I think this line makes it pretty clear that my Church believes that there's nothing wrong with variation among genders.

I can't remember who said it, but I believe it's true:

"Man delights in making everything uniform and the same, but God delights in making everything different and unique."

Weekly Makeovers, Voice Lessons, and a Beatiful Name

2010-10-17T02:33:00.000-06:00

Nearly every weekend for almost a month my wife has given me a makeover. I look forward to it all week and I feel closer to her now than ever. She gets better and better at it each time. It's amazing how beautiful she makes me looks. I remember the first time after she did my makeup we were looking in the mirror and she said, "You're gorgeous." I just felt like I was going to melt. I was so happy. Another really cool thing is that my wife has been trying new things out on me and when she does her makeup now it looks even better than before.

I once asked her if she would give me voice lessons to help me talk more feminine. She was hesitant because she really likes my deep voice. Honestly, I do too, but I'm glad I have a pretty high range too. She tried to help me, but I realized I'm still way to embarrassed to try to talk differently in front of her, so I've been practicing in the shower and in the car on my way to work.

One night after one of our makeovers I asked my wife what name she thought suited the way I looked. She thought for a while and came up with a name. At first I didn't like it much, but when she told me why she thought the name was so beautiful and why it fit me it made me cry. I love the name now.

I love my wife so much. She is so sweet : )

Why Can't Men Be Pretty Too?

2010-10-17T02:14:00.000-06:00

What Men DO Do:

Men fix, break, hunt, and kill things. Men love sports, especially football. Men eat meat. Men are harry. Men want chest hair. Men shave their faces because their wives don't like the stubble. Men only use shaving cream and shave gel that smells like alcohol and sweat. Men open jars that women can't. Men wear baggy pants and large shirts. Men go to work and bring home the bacon. Men get things off shelves that women can't reach. Men put gas in the car. Men eat a lot. Men want big muscles. Men open doors for women. Men have big, dirty hands and finger nails. Men wear deodorant that makes them smell like they don't wear deodorant. Men only spend time with other men if it involves fixing, breaking, hunting, killing something, playing sports, video games or doing something completely brainless and stereotypically masculine. Men build stuff. Men fix cars. Men enjoy looking at scantily clad women. Men only think about sex and want big penises.

What Men DON'T Do

Men don't talk about their feelings. Men don't cry. Men don't wear pink. Men don't shop for shampoo or hair color. Men don't use conditioner. Men don't have long hair. Men don't wear hair thingys. Men don't curl, brush or blow dry their hair. Men don't like shopping for clothes. Men don't knit and men don't sew. Men don't scrapbook or do anything crafty. Men don't cook. Men don't clean. Men don't go grocery shopping. Men don't stay at home and take care of the kids or sing their babies lullabies. Men don't have monthly hormonal mood swings. Men don't drink soy milk and eat salad. Men don't watch their weight. Men don't have high voices. Men don't sing alto or soprano. Men don't play the violin or flute. Men don't do ballet or yoga. Men don't use face lotions and wrinkle creams. Men don't like kisses and hugs as much as women. Men don't ask for directions or read instructions. Men don't go to the restroom together, men don't go shopping together, and men never rub each other's backs or shoulders. Men don't use face wash--they don't even wash their faces. Men don't wear deodorant that smells pretty like flowers, baby powder, or something you might want to eat (or actually smell). Men don't pluck or shape their eye brows. Men don't have small hands. Men don't have long nails. Men don't paint their nails. Men don't wear jewelry except wedding rings and bling (if you're a gangster). Men don't cross their legs. Men don't use pink razors or anything else pink. Men don't shave their legs or armpits (unless they are involved in some sport that 'requires' it). Men don't wear makeup. Men don't wear flared pants. Men don't wear fitted jeans. Men don't wear skirts, dresses, pantyhose, nylons, high heels, tights, capris, comfortable socks that actually fit their feet, anything with spandex in it, and especially bras and panties!

Why do we live by these stereotypes?

I hope you sense the irony in the above statements. I don't think there is a man in this world that fits all or even most of these stereotypes. Yet I hear them over and over again. I see them in our culture and in the way we market products, and we live and even sometimes die by them.

Why can't a man wear pink and still feel good about himself? Pink is a wonderful color. Why can't a man wear capris, cute shoes, or even skirts or dresses? Why can't men wear makeup or shave their legs and still feel good about who they are--that is being a Man.

It seems that in our society if a man does anything that doesn't fit the masculine mold he is subject to criticism, and ridicule. On the other hand women in most aspects are free to leave the stereotypical feminine mold whenever they please. In fact, our society often encourages them to do so.

What is appropriate for men and women is in most forms a social construct that has absolutely no bearing on what is moral or what is right or wrong, yet society manages to work these things into economic, political and even religious issues.

There was a time when the kings were as ornately dressed as their queens. They wore dresses with long trains. Tights and capris were originally mens clothing. The ancient Egyptian men wore makeup and long wigs. Even Jesus and his apostles wore dresses of a sort. There are countless examples of how our definition of what is masculine or feminine has changed through the ages.

My Story

I remember when I was a little boy and my older sisters dressed me up like a girl. They put a pretty dress on me, a long-haired curly wig, makeup, and even a pair of panties. I enjoyed it more than anything I had ever experienced before (except for maybe playing in the mud). Then my older brother saw me and he has never stopped making fun of me since. My sisters even gave me the underwear. I liked them because they were pretty. Since then I had learned that such behavior was not acceptable.

I remember going shopping with my mom and walking past pretty dresses and other clothes. I felt so attracted to them, and I wanted to try them on, but I never dared admit it, or even acknowledge the fact that I was looking at them. I remember seeing advertisements for nylons and wishing that I could buy a pair. As I grew older I remember seeing that my sisters left their makeup out on the bathroom counter and wishing that I could try it on.

I felt foolish. I felt stupid. I felt ashamed. I felt bad. I felt wrong. I felt like what I wanted was evil. I was scared to death to tell anyone what I thought or felt. I was scared that people would think I was gay and I'm not.

I didn't want to do anything evil. I didn't want to do anything bad. I didn't want to do anything socially unacceptable. I didn't want to do anything lustful, immodest, or anything to attract attention. I just wanted to be and feel cute, pretty, and beautiful. I wanted to dress, look, and feel 'feminine.'

These feelings led me to go through period when I hated being a boy. When I started to grow chest hair I went through mood swings when I either loved the fact that I had more hair on my chest than my older brothers or I hated that fact that I didn't have a chest more like my sisters'. I had similar feelings about my voice I either loved the fact I had a deep voice or I hated it. I would dream about having long hair. I often dreamed that I transformed into a girl. I would wakeup from these dreams hating myself, because I wished they would come true.

It came to the point that what I hated about myself nearly overcame what I liked about myself and for a time I didn't want to live anymore. I didn't want to kill myself, but I wished that God would just let me die and cease to exist. I would often feel so bad about myself (especially my manhood) that I would sexually abuse myself.

I found myself in the deepest, darkest, emotional despair imaginable. I wanted to die. I wanted to cease to exist. I even pleaded with God to just end my life.

Then in my despair something unexpected came to my mind. I felt and I knew that if I would live my life and let go of the hatred and sin that filled my soul that I would meet a beautiful woman that would love me more than anything in this world. I saw her in a vision, and I knew that I would have children that would depend on me more than anything in this world. I felt their love for me and how much they would depend on and need me. It was a strong feeling that just came in an instant, but it gave me hope and I cried allowed the words, "Jesus, have mercy on me, and take this pain from me."

I felt a sudden calm come over me. I felt peace, and I knew that God had forgiven me through His Son, Jesus Christ, and for that reason I dedicated my life to sharing my knowledge, feelings, and love for him with those around me.

I freely confessed my sins of self abuse to my church leaders and received invaluable counseling from them. I felt God's love in their counsel, and felt much better about myself.

I served a mission in a foreign land and shared the love that Jesus had put into my heart with countless strangers.

But through all of this the feelings I had of wanting to be pretty and feel feminine never went away. The dreams never went away. What changed was how I felt about myself. I didn't hate myself anymore. I didn't hate who I was anymore. I loved who I was, because I knew that God loved me enough to give His only begotten son for me.

I went on to find that beautiful woman God had shown me, and she grows more beautiful each day. We went on to have those beautiful kids that depend so much on me and whom I love so dearly and live my life for each day.

But the feelings never went away and I except for a vague confession to my mother when I was a teenager I never told anyone about the way I felt. I never told anyone that I wanted to be pretty, and to dress, look and feel feminine and when times got stressful with taking care of babies, working odd hours of the night, and spending every spare moment of my time trying to get through college I fell back into despair. I hated the daily drudgery of being a man... and I'm sure my wife hated the daily drudgery of taking care of two babies sometimes too.

One day when my wife and baby stayed the night at my mother-in-law's because of some conference they went to together I missed her so much. I looked in her closet and I felt a strong attraction to her clothing. They reminded me of her and I wanted to try them on. I wanted to look and feel pretty like her because I missed her so much. So I tried on her clothes. I think I tried on nearly all of her clothes that night. As I looked at myself in front of a mirror in her clothes, I felt a tremendously relieving feeling. I had finally done something I had wanted and dreamed of doing for so many years. I even slept in my wife's pajamas. I missed her and they smelled like her--it helped me fall asleep.

I felt guilty and ashamed about it and hid it from my wife. I would often stop off at thrift stores on the way home from work and look for a stylish pair of guys jeans. I found some that were unlike any I had ever tried on before. I loved them and I bought them. I showed them to my wife and she said something like, "are you sure those are guys jeans?" I said, "Yeah, they don't size women's jeans like this. Their just a really nice stylish pair of jeans." I then decided to look on ebay to see how much a pair like that was going for only to discover that they were women's jeans, and yes they do size some women's jeans like guys jeans (especially the expensive ones). I was embarrassed. I loved them, but I couldn't because they were women's. I had searched so hard for a pair of jeans that would actually stay on my skinny waist, I found it and I couldn't have it. I threw them away and I cut up all my jeans that I thought look nice because I was so upset. To this day I miss those jeans... they were nice.

As time went on I would sneak off to thrift stores after work and stealthily find and try on women's jeans and the occasional shirt, but I didn't tell anyone. I would occasionally buy a pair and try to pass them off to my wife as being guys jeans, but she was quicker than that.

I tried found every reason I could to wear women's clothing. I 'needed' women's jeans because I couldn't find guy's jeans that were skinny enough to fit me and long enough. I needed women's socks, because guys socks were too long and baggy for my feet. I even needed women's underwear because guys briefs weren't supportive enough for my defective testicle muscles (guys underwear were almost always to baggy on me to even touch my testicles). While these things were true reasons. I reason why I used them as excuses is because I wanted to dress and feel more feminine.

As time went on. I spend sleepless nights crying, trying to explain my feelings to my wife without hurting hers and without telling her 'too much'. I was afraid if I told her exactly how I felt she wouldn't love me anymore. I was afraid she wouldn't be attracted to me anymore. I was afraid she might leave me and that I would loose her. I just couldn't tell her. I spent nights crying wishing I could tell her. She would ask me what was wrong and get frustrated and cry too because I wasn't telling her. She sometimes thought I was crying because I though something was wrong with her, or because she thought she hurt my feelings.
I fell into deep sorrow again. Sometimes I felt so bad about myself I felt like cutting off my genitalia. I would have dreams that I no longer had them and it made me feel relieved.

Finally after being married to my wife for years I promised her that I wouldn't hide anything from her. One night after making this promise I realized that I hadn't been honest in my feelings. I had hid the way I really felt from her for years and I finally told her everything I had felt, done, experienced and desired. Her response was so loving, understanding, and caring that I cried the most joyful tears of my life. She finally understood what I was going through, and she finally understood how much I love her.

My wife is the most kind and loving person in the world. After having this discussion with her we had a date night. She offered to do my makeup. She plucked my eyebrows and painted my nails. I bought a wig and dressed up. I had never felt so loved in my life. I knew my wife loved me, but that night I felt it more than ever. Since them my wife and I have gone shopping together. We have bought skirts, dresses, tights etc.

We agreed that it would be best for me not to dress up in front of our kids, because I didn't want to confuse them. I was pretty confused about gender when I was a kid and I don't want to pass that on to my son or my daughter.

My wife and I recently went out and bought matching pajamas. I am so blessed to have a wife that loves me so much, and I wish that everyone that goes through what I do could have the same. So many people (both men and women) judge people with feelings like mine so harshly (I even did). People get divorced over it, people even kill themselves over it.

Clothing, culture, and gender are not the problem. A lack of love and understanding is the problem. We need to love each other as Jesus loves us. We need to love ourselves. We need to learn to understand not to judge harshly.

I believe that God does not make mistakes. He does not place women's spirits in men's bodies. I believe that gender is an important part of who we are. However, I do believe that many men feel inclined to be more feminine than is stereotypically acceptable in society, and many women feel inclined to be more masculine than others. I believe that this is an important part of who we are as well, and we need to learn to love who we are and not try to be who we are not.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be cute, pretty or beautiful whether you are a woman or a man. I have come to realize that this is a perfectly normal and good feeling. It is normal to want to be able to look into a mirror and like who and what you see, and to like who you are.

I believe God made me a man for a reason, a very good reason. I also believe that He gave me these feelings, emotions, likes, and dislikes, talents and abilities that are stereotypically feminine for a reason--it is because it is part of who I am, and I don't even believe God determines or determined who I am. He let me decide just as a father on earth lets his children determine who they will grow up to be.

I love who I am now, I am learning to love to be a man, and I am learning to love my feminine attributes as well because they are all part of who I am.