Former Transgender: Jesus Christ Radically Delivered Me and Restored Me!

I am a former transgender, having lived it for almost 9 years. I underwent years of cross-sex hormone therapy, 2 major “gender-affirming” surgeries, and all of the legal changes. Here is my story: I would describe myself as a disciple of Jesus Christ, but it wasn’t always that way… I spent nearly twenty years of abject, intentional rebellion against God, nearly 9 years of which I lived as transgender. I hated God, I hated my family, and I hated the person I was. It wouldn’t be true, though, to say I hated myself: I loved myself probably to the point of narcissism. I worshiped at the altar of self. I hated the person God had created me to be. Instead, I loved the version of myself that I had created.

Satan lies to children…

The transgender thoughts and feelings started early in childhood from a misunderstood relationship with my mom. I wrongly believed she loved boys more than girls because of how differently she treated my brother and me. It seemed to be a logical conclusion. I did not have the language for it then; I had never heard the word transgender. My heart burned with jealousy and confusion. I simply knew I wanted to be a boy like my brother.

I did not understand how hard it is to be a parent nor did I know the stress she was under. She was exhausting herself, trying to be the perfect Christian and mother and to please Jesus. I internalized her responses to me because I could not understand the stress she was experiencing. I thought her stress was because I annoyed her. She often didn’t want me around because I was hyper and likely on the obnoxious side.

To reinforce the sting, I learned my mom had miscarried two boys before me. I excitedly said one day “Hey, if my brothers had lived we would have five kids”.

This news was a devastating blow. “No, we only wanted to have three kids. You likely would not be here if either of them had lived.” My parents intended for this information to be a blessing. They wanted me to see that God must have wanted me to be here. But I felt guilty. My brothers had to die for me to be born… I became more confused when I was molested at the age of eight and became very sexualized.

Trying to find love in all the wrong ways…

I spent the next 25 years trying to get fulfillment and love through sex. In high school, men objectified me (and women in general) more and more. I began to believe it was a disgusting, filthy, worthless thing to be a female. Shame and self-hatred permeated my heart. I decided that I was supposed to have been a man and began the journey of becoming a transgender “man” named “Jake”. I hated Jesus for making me a girl and decided I would never serve Him again.

During those years I underwent hormone therapy, a double mastectomy/chest reconstruction, the removal of all my uterus and ovaries, and all of the legal name and gender status changes. I realized in horror that none of the changes I was making had actually made me a man. All I had done was change the outside. So then I felt trapped in a world between male and female. I truly believed I was not a woman, but I knew I could never be a man, no matter how badly I wanted it.

Instead, I lived in a world of lies, suspended in limbo between reality and fantasy. I wanted to erase the existence of Laura. She had to be destroyed. I realized I would not ever be a man. I decided to hide and pretend to be the “best man I could be”. It was too painful to admit I was a woman. I had often described myself before “coming out” as having been wearing a mask of a female identity. The truth is, it was my transgender identity that was the mask.

The transgender illusion began to crumble

What had promised to be freedom had become my prison cell and I soon became enslaved to the need for affirmation. I was wearing clothes that never fit right, injecting myself over and over with needles (hormones, not recreational drugs), and wearing prosthetics that were a constant reminder of how fake it all was. As the years went by, Jesus gently drew me back toward Him. I tried to erase the existence of Laura. Jesus never let me forget who I was. My mom refused to call me Jake. At the time this made me angry. Yet, her stubborn insistence on calling me Laura was a tether to reality for me. It became a lifeline.

My relationship with my parents had been almost nonexistent for years aside from the occasional phone call or dinner meeting. But God was working on me and answering their prayers. My mom asked me one day to make a website for her Bible study that she was teaching. I agreed though I had no interest in Bible study. She agreed to pay me for it and I needed both the money and the experience. Little did I know God would crumble my walls of prideful defense that had kept Him on the outside for so long. I decided to summarize the lessons for the website. As I read the words in the lessons the ice that encased my heart began to melt. For the first time in my life, I began to see God’s love and faithfulness in His Word.

Jesus began to gently draw me

Over the next few months, I began to call my mom every day after work. She patiently answered my questions about the Bible. One day I said “Mom, how did I get here? Six months ago I was 180 degrees from where I am now. All I want is to learn more about the Bible.”

She said, “I have been praying that God would draw you back like a magnet.” And that is exactly what He had done! She was no longer the angry, stressed-out, exhausted legalistic mother I grew up with. My mom exchanged her religion for real faith. She was now filled with the Holy Spirit and she shed her rules and fleshly attempts to please God through works. She was filled with peace and patience and gentleness.

And the moment I saw the complete regeneration in my mom, was the moment I knew that the gospel was true. Not just true intellectually, not just true historically, but that Jesus was indeed alive and that it was deeply and profoundly real. As a result, I wholeheartedly gave my life to Christ. But God wasn’t through with me.

I wanted so desperately to be a man of God. I tried to convince myself that God had intended me to be a man. Maybe it was a birth defect or something like that. I could not face the fact that I was a woman. But through Dr. Everett Piper, a man I heard consistently over the radio, I began to accept the truth. He said, “We are not just made up of our feelings, instincts, and inclinations. Despite our feelings, we can choose our behavior. We are made in the image of God.” I didn’t want to admit that he was right. But I knew it was true.

Wrestling with Jesus

And as I began to wrestle with this and admit that my lifestyle was a choice, the Lord began to reveal the ugliness and the insanity of being “transgender”. He asked me one night: “If you stood before me tonight, what name would I call?” That question stopped me in my tracks. I had hoped so desperately that God accepted me as Jake. But then in the most loving voice I have ever heard, the Creator of the Universe whispered to me, “Let me tell you who you are.”

Conviction hit me so hard that I threw myself on the floor before the Lord in repentance. I was so desperate to get out of the transgender lifestyle, but I was afraid it was too late. It seemed impossible. I had lived in complete stealth as I called it: no one except family and my partner knew I was transgender. I didn’t know how to fix it.

So over the next month, I cried out to God with all my heart, begging Him to take my life. Due to this conviction, I suddenly felt a break in my fellowship with God. He had not left me, but the peace and comfort were gone. I felt like I had fallen into a deep, dark pit from which I could not escape.

Finally desperate enough

I was willing to do absolutely anything to be free. I was finally desperate enough. Jesus gave me a vision of Himself getting down on one knee. He reached into the pit with His arm outstretched towards me and asked, “Do you trust me?” I knew He was asking me to leave everything and follow Him in faith. I said I did, and I walked away from everything I had known: my job, my partner of almost 9 years, my financial security, and my entire identity to follow Christ.

Over the next few days, I cried uncontrollably. I felt completely dead. In fact, the first day, I went back to my apartment that afternoon. I lived with my partner for nearly a decade. However, I felt like I was in the arms of a stranger when he hugged me. That night we watched a movie in our living room. Yet, I felt like I was in a hotel room. I asked God what was going on and He said “I have cut the cord on your old life and you are not going back.” As hard as that was to face, there was comfort in knowing God was in control. It was still my decision, but I knew I would never have peace if I stayed.

The Prodigal Returned

So, the next day I returned to my parents’ house where I had agreed to live for the next few months while I transitioned back. But after three days I went with my mom to her Bible study. The women greeted me with more joy, hugs, and overwhelming love than I had experienced. Those women had prayed for me for years and were so happy to see me come home. Their love for me was overwhelming. They affirmed me and loved me as a woman. My heart was completely transformed and I no longer believed I was meant to be a man.

Transgender No More: Reclaiming My Identity in Who Jesus Created

And the very next day we went shopping and I embraced buying feminine clothing. But there would still be a path to wholeness, to truly love being a woman.

That was about three and a half years ago, and in that time God has peeled away the layers of the proverbial onion. He has helped me understand the causes and has healed me and brought forgiveness and wholeness to my heart. He has revealed His heart for women and how wonderful His creation of the woman is and how beautiful it is.

For the first time in my life, I not only love being a woman but can truly see what a girl I was all along. Memories of my “girliness” have flooded back and I can see this is who I was all along. In fact, people are often shocked now at how feminine I have become, and it is no act. I have simply allowed God to peel off the false masculine that I had covered myself in.

Jesus Transformed and Restored!

God has continued to transform my life in ways I had never dreamed possible. In 2021 God brought an amazing man into my life named Perry. I had never believed I would get married. Not only had I lived as transgender and maimed my body, but I had also never felt wanted as a wife. I had always felt like I was not good enough for a man to marry. When God put it on my heart that He had a husband for me, I found it hard to believe.

But God has brought a man beyond my wildest dreams and we were married in May of 2022. I have never felt so loved, cherished, and treasured in all my life. It is so worth waiting on God and doing it His way! His design for marriage, though we know there will be many challenges and trials ahead, is good.

Click the links below to see a follow-up to the movie In His Image which featured my testimony.

Clip of Perry and I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK1sywRd3q4

In His Image full documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3YKpnrzmqc

As He says in Psalm 139:14-16 “14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. 15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.”

If you would like to know more about how to know Jesus Christ and trust Him to save you from your sin: click here.

Video Links

See my mom and I share our testimonies together: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G1gcgX50SM&t=162s

See a short CBN version of my testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucdLlJi8j50&t=23s

See a video I made called “Can You Be Transgender and Christian?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWXn9oTZ6dQ