The most important decision I made in my life was my decision to transition genders. If I hadn’t done that I would undoubtedly be dead right now. I know it sounds dramatic but it’s the ugly truth about this condition called gender dysphoria. In some ways it is almost a terminal illness if left untreated. Have you ever had to stand on the ledge deciding between destroying everything in your life or ending your life? Because that’s the choice I had to make for me to finally feel at home in my body, in the world, and in my heart. I had to burn it all to the ground and start over again. I had to go through puberty a second time at the age of 29. I lost my wife, the person I loved more than anyone in the entire world. She was my best friend and now we basically never talk to each other. I had to walk away from a career I’d spent 5 years in. I had to walk away from friends and family members who would never try to understand my decision. But more than all of those things, the one that hurt in a uniquely singular way was losing the ability to ever return to church, or so I thought.
I can’t begin to explain the numerous little changes that my
life and body went through when I stopped producing testosterone and started
taking estrogen. I am a completely different person than I was before. That
former identity, now hollowed out and decaying from neglect, is only a part of
what I’m referring to. The body I now live in has only ever known estrogen as
the primary sex hormone. Literally every single cell in my body has replicated
and been replaced in the many years since I began this voyage through gender
transition. So when I made the decision to come back to church after ten years
away, it wasn’t really the same person who’d been baptized. Sure I had the
memories of going to early morning seminary at 5:30 in the morning. Sure I
remember going down into the baptismal font at the ripe age of 19. And I can
never forget the wonderful experiences I had in the institute building during
college. But those things feel like memories from a different life, one mired
with an unquenchable craving for belonging.
I think back then I hoped to belong to a family, to a
community, or to a joint purpose of heart, never realizing that what I really
needed was to belong to myself. Can you understand what I mean? Can you step
into my shoes and vicariously feel the impenetrable darkness of that feeling?
How does one not belong to themselves?
That is what gender dysphoria felt like to me, never
belonging to myself, never understanding why or how that was even possible. I
tried so hard and in so many different ways to fill that darkness with the
light of other things. With church, with friends, with love, with marriage,
with sex, with drugs, and finally with alcohol. None of it satisfied. None of
it shone further than a few feet in that veiled abyss of existential torment. I
hated everything about who I was. I hated the way I looked, the way I sounded
when I spoke, the way people saw me, and the way my body felt wrong in some way
that I couldn’t have put words to. I hated being put in the box with the other
men who always felt alien and confusing to me. I tried so hard to make that box
my home, to stay there and bear it with dignity but I got to a point where
being in that box even a minute longer than I had to be would be the literal
death of me.
We all have crosses to bear in this life, and that is mine:
to know that inside I’m a girl and on the outside I am something else. Even
now, after 8 years of hormone replacement therapy, I still experience that
feeling of incongruence. It’s dramatically less than it used to be. It used to
be an ever-present torment all hours of the day and night, but now it’s more of
a tedious annoyance that I forget about sometimes. No longer does it threaten
my will to live and push me to the brink of killing myself.
In terms of belonging to myself I will explain it this way.
Back before I fully accepted that I was transgender it felt like I was lost at
sea, floating in the darkness with no sense of direction or how far away from
my home I was. It felt inescapable, like I was doomed to just wait until dehydration
withered my body until I gave up the ghost. Today, however, it feels like I
live in the right apartment building, but the unit I actually should live in is
just out of reach. I still have somewhere to lay my head at night, and I still
get to point to the building and say I live there, but it’s still not quite the
way it should be. You know how most apartment buildings have some units on the
same floor that are WAY nicer and bigger than the others? Well I’m on the
correct floor, but I’m in the smallest most uncomfortable unit instead of the
nice one at the other end of the hall.
Much of the time I can walk through the world as if I am in
that correct unit, but it never fails that there is something that knocks me
down a few pegs, just to remind me that I’ll never be a “real” girl. That’s
what I mean when I say I’m in the most uncomfortable apartment. It’s akin to
being punched in the gut and having the wind knocked out of you, except instead
of everyone being worried about you being okay, they are more affronted or
confused about why you are pain. Although they never say it, people’s unconscious
behaviors seem to say, “You chose this life as a transgender person, so what
did you expect? You didn’t think we’d see you the same as the rest of us ‘real’
women, did you?”
So why on earth would I choose to go back to a church that
is so incredibly unprepared for someone like me? Am I a glutton for punishment?
Am I some kind of masochist who enjoys the torment and humiliation of social
inequality? I can honestly say that I am not either of those things. What I am,
though, is a daughter of God who has an unshakeable testimony of his restored
gospel. Even when I lost my faith completely and vowed to never return to
church, a piece of me always knew the truth of the Book of Mormon. I could
never forget the powerful experience I had upon first reading first Nephi,
chapter 1, verse 1. That’s all it took, “I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents…”
and WHAM, I knew it was true. I could never deny that experience, even when I
became convinced that Joseph Smith had made the whole thing up. So why come
back? Because my heart tells me that this is where I belong, and always have.
Ever since I was a child, I have sought after God almost
constantly. I have always felt the pull to commune with the divine and have had
an almost constant desire to devote my life to God completely. So much so that before
I joined the church, I contemplated becoming a Catholic priest, and later after
I transitioned and left the latter-day saint church, I looked into becoming a
Catholic nun. I wanted to devote every waking moment to my heavenly father, and
nothing in this world has ever satisfied that desire nearly as well as being an
active Latter-day Saint.
I’ve been baptized Catholic, I’ve attended nearly every kind
of church out there, and I have sought out truth through eastern religions and
pagan beliefs. None of them had what I wanted or needed. The only thing that
even came close to meeting my need for this connect during my 10 year departure
from the church, was Judaism.
The two years of attending shabbat services, taking a class
taught by the Rabbi on Judaism, and weekly adherence to the practices of making
the sabbath day holy were some of the most rewarding years of my life. It felt
like I was getting back to the roots of my faith in God. It was like
contemplating the higher mysteries and embracing the simple connection to Adonai,
Hashem, or Heavenly father (you pick which term feels best to you). I think I
had to go through that to truly, fully, appreciate the importance of the Saviors
atonement. Everything about his life and his sacrifice have been amplified a
hundred fold now that I’ve spent that time embracing Adonai the way the jews
have through history.
So the second most important decision I’ve ever made in my
life was my decision to return to church as my true authentic self. I would say
it was my decision to be baptized into the church, but even that pales in
comparison to the leap of faith I had to take when I decided to come back to
church. Baptism was exciting and I very much looked forward to it, but it was
easy choice to make. This decision, however, filled me with terror and confusion.
I kept asking myself over and over again if I was really going to go through
with my plan to come back. I fretted over it, wrestled with it, and ultimately
overcame the terror because my heart told me I needed to come back, that God
would pave the way for me.
More than this I knew that it wasn’t just about me coming
back and attending church, it meant that I was accepting a mission to become a
spokesperson for transgender latter-day saints. I knew that I wouldn’t have the
luxury of just sitting comfortably with allies in the ward. I was told by the
spirit, in no uncertain terms, that the lord had a great and marvelous work and
I was to be an instrument in that work. My desire to devote my life to God had finally
arrived, and as much as I wanted to shrink from the task, I knew that this was
what I was made for. This is why I was sent here as a transgender person. This was
why I had to go through all of my troubles and trials. This was why I had to
overcome all my various failures and losses, because I was being prepared to be
able to endure the seemingly impossible task of calling the church to
repentance in how it treats transgender individuals. I had to know what rock
bottom was like so I could find the serenity of surrender to a higher calling
and purpose. Nothing in this temporal plane matters all that much except the
things we do and the lives we touch. I am here to touch the lives of those who
feel rejected, marginalized, and invisible so that they know that their father
in heaven loves them unconditionally, even if his children who run the church
don’t always live up to that.
My first most important decision was to do the seemingly
impossible so that I could belong to myself. My second most important decision
was to do the seemingly impossible so that I could belong to my father in heaven.
And to him, may my lips forever sing his praise: Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu,
melekh ha'olam
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