High-school graduation photo taken when I was seventeen.
Fifty years ago this month, in April 1974, I turned seventeen. By age twenty, I awarded that age this honor:
It was the favorite year of my life.
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Before breaking down what elevated age seventeen to this lofty position, a bit about my youth. My childhood was the equivalent of my most beloved meal: Thanksgiving dinner. Give me a plate of turkey, bread dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy—as much as I love them, no vegetables to slow me down, thank you—and I am in taste-bud-pleasing heaven.
That was my childhood. Everything on my plate was delicious. In my house, I was the middle child of five. There was safety in that position. I didn’t have the demands of the oldest (my brother, Tom). Or the only girl (my sister, Sue). Or the youngest (my brother, Mark).
Summer of ’68: clockwise, beginning with Sue: then me, Dave, Tom, Mark.
We were blessed with parents who loved us and provided us with everything we needed. Our house was filled with fun. Our block was crammed with kids. Our town was safe.
With those things in place, here’s what fell into place for me at age seventeen.
I had a job …
I began working at Todd Pharmacy three months before turning seventeen (Todd Pharmacy: my 50th anniversary). Initially hired to clean every evening, I soon was stocking shelves and running the cash register. I hated cleaning (still do), loved the process of taking items from the back and refilling the shelves (I manage my kitchen with the same fervor), and reveled in waiting on customers.
That last one calls for more. I already knew I had a natural wit and loved making people laugh. What I didn’t know was how much I would love interacting with people of all ages. This job was a vital step in preparing me for the career I would find in my thirties.
… where I gained my best friend
Fifty years later, Tim Todd and I still call each other best friend.
Whoever snapped this did the same to Tim’s head. We weren’t much past 17 at the time.
Here’s what I wrote about Tim eight years ago: Meet Tim Todd.
Here Tim and I are at one of the many baseball games we’ve attended together.
I had a bicycle
As soon as I’d saved a few bucks, I replaced my one-speed Schwinn with a ten-speed. I rode that bike everywhere, my most frequent trip being out to Brian Cribbs’.
For the 3.5-mile ride, I headed west on Wilcox to Whitbeck, south to Old Channel, west on Old Channel to where it hits Lamos, but as it goes south it remains Old Channel. Just before the hill and curve at White Lake, I took a left on Lakeshore and soon his lakeside house. At Brian’s, he and I either did that teenager thing—we hung out—or when others came with we played baseball in the Cribbs’ pasture.
My friend Larry Kroll and I were so bike-crazy that we would go riding with a coin in hand. Nearing each corner, we flipped it—heads, turn left; tails, turn right—allowing chance to determine our route. We wound up all over Montague.
Whenever we didn’t catch the coin, we were able to circle back, remain on our bikes, and reach the street to retrieve it. Oh, to still be that limber!
I had my driver’s license
I didn’t need to drive a lot, but I loved that I was able to do so. Soon, my sister taught me how to drive a stick. I loved the act of shifting gears so much that my first two cars had manual transmissions, and Julie’s car has one.
I won a lot of Tigers’ tickets
When Whitehall’s radio station became part of the Detroit Tigers’ network, they introduced a weekday trivia question. The prize: two Tigers’ tickets. The catch: you could only win once.
I won twenty times. Forty tickets.
A photo I took at one of the many Sunday doubleheaders we attended on our freebie tickets.
Well, Greg won once. Then, ahem, Tim Todd won. And Dave Faught. And Scott Bradley. And Cindy Roessler. Okay, maybe I didn’t impersonate Cindy, but she joined us for at least one of the many games our gang attended with our free tickets all because I knew baseball trivia, was quick on the dial, and wasn’t called out by the radio station: “Hey, I recognize your voice!”
I finally grew tall
I entered high school as a 5’1″ shrimp. Nowadays, I know why I didn’t hit puberty until I was seventeen—my endocrine system was disrupted when I was a fetus—but in those days I was nothing more than a late bloomer.
I loved that I grew tall. I developed, athletically. And I hoped the girls noticed, because I sure noticed them.
I was still safe from a landmark I feared
Though I enjoyed safety in every facet of my life, I was afraid of everything new. Thus, I was scared of this looming event: graduating from high school.
If I would have known what would come of my life—how each of the goals I would set for myself by age twenty-one would be achieved, but then one by one dismantled—fear might have led me to blow my classes so that I would flunk and have to repeat twelfth grade. Yet, what young me couldn’t know: for every goal I would lose, something marvelous would take its place.
At seventeen, I didn’t know what I wanted to do in life. At the time, it wasn’t college or a career—both of those arrived in my early thirties when I returned to college so that I could go to seminary.
At age twenty-one, I met the girl I would marry at age twenty-two. At twenty-three, I became a father. At twenty-seven, a homeowner. At thirty-nine, a pastor.
Age seventeen might still stand as the favorite year of my life for it’s twelve months of serenity and fun, yet I can name numerous ages in which I either accomplished something huge or something notable happened to me.
As this month I turn sixty-seven, I won’t try to pin down a single year as my favorite. Having pondered age seventeen for this piece, I see how when I was young I came to reckon it as my favorite age.
P.S.
Janis Ian wrote “At Seventeen” when I was seventeen.
Though I wasn’t often attracted to female artists, this song grabbed me when it was released soon after I graduated high school into the scary unknown, each element of the song drawing me to contemplation: the sexy melody that felt haunting, and the lyrics’ themes and what I heard in Janis’s voice: a plaintive longing of envy for those who appeared to have it all; craving to be known and accepted, to understand and be understood. I was able to flip the song to myself, the guy searching for his place in the world—to be liked and respected by his peers, most of whom he revered for their seeming lack of fear, their abilities, and their popularity.
I’ve never shaken my weakness for envying people who are in situations I long to enjoy. And fear remains a bugaboo for me, even as I reflect on a life in which I took chances and accomplished things that few would dare to chance or be able to accomplish.
As I reflect on age seventeen, I see it as my being in the sweet spot of life. I had freedom—a bike, a driver’s license, and spending money—but I had no significant obligations. High-school graduation was still safely in the future, when adulthood would be forced on me.
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Fifty years ago this month, in April 1974, I turned seventeen. By age twenty, I awarded that age this honor:
In a declaration published April 8, 2024, the Roman Catholic Church’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released Dignitas Infinita. It is a sweeping document, covering areas of human dignity from poverty to war, from the travail of migrants to human trafficking, to more.
Much in it is to be considered seriously and to be praised. My focus is on one area, which, because it is too narrowly focused, is not to be praised. In two fairly brief sections, the document takes up gender theory and sex change. Here is its presentation regarding gender theory:
My argument is not with what they have written regarding gender theory. Indeed, in their examination of what I would call secular, radical gender theory, I am in agreement. My concern is that they might be lumping into one group all persons declaring that they experience gender dysphoria.
In the next section, Sex Change, they only allow as valid those with obvious corruption to their genitals. Thus, everyone else experiencing conflict between their sex and gender, their body and mind, would be placed … where? They’ve provided no space for we Christians who reject secular, radical gender theory, yet have experienced the real, physical disorder that is gender dysphoria.
What this document contains regarding gender theory—and what it omits—is reminiscent of my church body’s (the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod) writings on the topic. Thus, with the set-up of secular, radical gender theory, the rest is bad news for all Christians suffering gender dysphoria.
Here is the report’s section on sex change:
I am in agreement with the first portion of this, until here: “At the same time, we are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created.” Before examining this, I jump to the penultimate sentence: “This is not to exclude the possibility that a person with genital abnormalities that are already evident at birth or that develop later may choose to receive the assistance of healthcare professionals to resolve these abnormalities.”
Taking this sentence first, many of the thirty-one known disorders of sex development would not qualify as valid should a person decide to transition to living in the sex “opposite” of how they were identified at birth. Two examples suffice:
Swyer syndrome. At birth, the baby appears female. Outward genitals correspond. At puberty, they do not menstruate. When examined, they are found to be lacking some internal female reproductive organs. When a chromosome test is performed, they are found to have male, XY sex chromosomes.
Klinefelter syndrome. At birth, the baby appears fully male, with outward male genitals. As they go through puberty, they will have low or no sperm count, small testicles and penis, less body hair, and larger breasts for a male. A chromosome test finds the reason: they have an extra X sex chromosome. Thus, they are XXY, making them as chromosomally female as they are male.
Because neither of these disorders of sex development affect one’s outward genitals, should individuals with Swyer syndrome or Klinefelter syndrome not experience themselves as the female or male as they were identified at birth, and transition to live as the “opposite” sex, be accused of going against the created order of male and female? Would they be accused of sinning?
For them, there is no “opposite” sex. They possess attributes of both sexes. Though their outward genitals match how they were identified at birth, shall we not give them the benefit of how they experience themselves should their experience not match their outward genitals?
I return to the first sentence quoted: “At the same time, we are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created.” As it was created. I again note that there are thirty-one known disorders of sex development, many, such as Swyer’s and Klinefelter’s, in which the genitals are not generally affected.
What of other conditions, which could include any number of them that have not yet been diagnosed? My own situation fits here. Before going on cross-sex hormones, the easy call would be that my gender dysphoria was “all in my head.” I either experienced a human failing, or a psychological trauma, or a spiritual failing, or a combination of these.
Though I had no testable, measurable disorder, when altering my sex hormones, so that my testosterone and estrogen now match those of a female my age, my gender dysphoria resolved. My hormone levels match those of a woman, yet I experience myself as fully male.
Why might this have occurred? I suspect my mother took diethylstilbesterol (DST), which is an artificial estrogen, when pregnant with me, because she was prone to miscarriage. DST now is a known endocrine-system disruptor. If my mother ingested this estrogen when pregnant with me, it would explain my hormone imbalance.
Even if she hadn’t taken DST, when pregnant with me my mother experienced extreme stress. With me arriving soon—my parents’ fourth child in five years—my folks had to decide to sign over to the state my oldest sibling, Jim, because he was profoundly handicapped. We now know that the stress hormone, cortisol, can adversely affect a fetus.
Thus, I, as a developing baby, could have been affected by one or two hormones. That I didn’t properly develop is seen in my lacking an Adam’s apple, lighter body hair, extremely late puberty, and that I’ve always been more emotional that a typical male. And, I’m left handed, which also could be a sign.
When my hormones were checked in 2013 (I was 56), and my levels were in line with those of a male my age, I felt female. Undergoing hormone therapy, I was accused of sinning because I was seen as rejecting that I was a male. Yet, had I not gone on hormones, I have no vision for my gender dysphoria doing anything else but continuing to torture me: I was suicidal, and thought I was going insane.
I didn’t transition because I fell for secular, radical gender theory. I remained true to the biblical faith I professed on the day of my ordination into the holy ministry of Jesus Christ.
There are many Christians just like me who don’t fall for the radical gender-theory nonsense that’s out there, who experience debilitating gender dysphoria, who are seeking relief from this vexing condition. They don’t want to sin; they long to be healthy. Should they transition, they are not rebelling against the Lord; they are seeking the same good health that all ill people strive to regain.
My Lutheran church body, Roman Catholicism, and many other Christian organizations need to be doing a far better job understanding gender dysphoria and what it means for those Christians who identify as transgender. So far, they are doing us, our families, and our congregations, a disservice.
Fifteen days after Julie and I presented “Transgender Christian: An Oxymoron?”, this article (photo) appeared in the April 2024 issue of The Lutheran Witness. As has occurred with every article LW has published on this topic, I am in agreement with the theology, yet find the information regarding gender dysphoria and transgender to be
lacking;
largely informed by ungodly transgender ideology, rather than by we Christians who also find that ideology to be nonsense;
setting up strawmen that can be easily knocked down;
as if the author has never spoken with anyone such as myself;
and doing more harm than good for those who suffer this debilitating disorder, along with their families who long to understand what they are experiencing and why.
The article contains nineteen paragraphs. The author begins, “The world is filled with voices luring us down uncertain roads,” with some “voices that speak folly.” Agreed!
Paragraphs 2-3. The author quotes Romans. First, 1:25 regarding those who have exchanged God’s truth for lies, then 2:14-16 regarding creation and natural law.
Paragraph 4. Quoting Genesis 3:4, he discusses the temptation and fall of Adam & Eve.
Paragraph 5. He discusses some of the effects of the sinful nature all people have inherited from Adam & Eve, now homing in on the articles’ topic. Two thoughts are key, so I examine them:
“Folly says that there are many genders beyond male and female and multiple ways you can express your sexuality.” Yes, some assert this. I do not. Nor do the Christians I’ve gotten to know who suffer gender dysphoria, with some of them transitioning. We know there are two genders, and that what we experience is a physical malady due to the fallen and fractured nature we received because of Original Sin.
“In addition, folly has determined that some people have been born into the wrong body. The ‘spirit’ of a man can accidentally be placed into a female body, or the ‘spirit’ of a woman can accidentally be placed into a male body.” Yes, some people believe they were born into the wrong body. I do not. Nor do the Christians to which I refer in the previous point. We also do not believe the wrong spirit was placed in us, or in anyone. Rather, we believe that during our formation in the womb our maleness/femaleness was disordered so that we experience gender dysphoria. We believe our condition lines up with other congenital disorders, such as Down syndrome, fetal alcohol syndrome, and spina bifida: something went wrong during our development and we are experiencing the consequences.
Paragraphs 6-7. The author quotes Genesis chapter one regarding God’s creating all things and declared His creation to be very good. “Even after the fall,” the author writes, “it has purpose and order.” While I agree, I find he ignores the dis-order of the fallen creation, and that this dis-order visits us in the myriad of disorders that can form in us in the womb and come to us throughout our lives.
Paragraphs 8-9. He now cites that God’s good design for Adam and Eve was that he was male and she was female, then, “The spirit of a man cannot be born in a woman, nor the sprit of a woman in a man. Such thinking denies that God is our Creator and that His ways are perfect.”
Yes, God’s ways are perfect. However, Adam’s way was not perfect, and we pay for it in every form of dis-order. No, we don’t inherit the spirit of the opposite sex, but there are numerous disorders of sex development of which I will speak more in the tenth paragraph.
In the ninth paragraph, he writes, “Yet transgender activists assert that the body is only a shell animated by the spirit within.” I am not a transgender activist. I do not assert that the body is only a shell. Has the author ever spoken with a Christian, such as myself, who does not buy into the beliefs of non-Christian trans persons?
Paragraph 10. Citing Psalm 139:13-14, the author writes, “You were not arbitrarily or mistakenly ‘assigned’ a sex at birth.” He then acknowledges intersex conditions (disorders of sex development) as captured here:
There are thirty-one known disorders of sex development (intersex). There could be others not yet diagnosed or found to be measurable, such as my hormone condition that became evident when I began cross-sex hormones.
Since the introduction of chemicals, plasticizers, and pharmaceuticals, we have an array of genetic and hormonal disorders. I suspect this is why we now have far more gender dysphoria.
Yes, as the author wrote, God knit us together by His loving hands, but humans work with infected yarn.
In how he moves on from his acknowledgment of intersex conditions, I find the author dismissing these disorders that tear at God’s creating us male and female. Has he not asked the question regarding those experiencing gender dysphoria: Might they have a disorder of sex development? He doesn’t do so here, but moves on to the next paragraph.
Paragraph 11. Three key thoughts of the author’s:
“God did not design men and women to be interchangeable.” Agreed.
“A man might … take estrogen and have various surgeries … but he is still a man.” Agreed.
“Instead of lamenting the differences between men and women, we should celebrate them.” This requires more than a one-word reply.
This is unfair to the person experiencing gender dysphoria, which is not a case of a person’s lamenting the differences between the sexes. They are fighting a disorder that doesn’t allow them to be able to celebrate being a male or a female, because they experience aspects of both, or experience the one that does not match how they were identified at birth.
At my lowest point, when I was striving not to transition, the two-person struggle in me was so severe that I told Julie, “I don’t care which one I am, Greg or Gina. I just need to be one person.”
Paragraph 12. Discussing marriage, the author conflates transgender with homosexuality.
Paragraph 13. Citing that God created marriage for one man and one woman, he further confuses same-sex relations and transgender, then writes, “Instead, folly calls gender a mere ‘cultural construct’ and promotes gender identity over biological realty.”
I do not call gender a mere “cultural construct.” I also do not promote gender identity over biological reality. Neither do the transgender Christians I know. Has the author ever spoken with any of us?
Indeed, when I lived as a transgender woman I continued to identity as a biological male who was heterosexual, who was transgender because of a physical malady, and I made it known on social media, my blog, and in my autobiography.
Paragraph 14. He quotes Romans 13:14: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provisions for the flesh to gratify its desires.”
Christians suffering gender dysphoria do not “take off” the Lord Jesus Christ, and they no more seek to gratify desires than does a person with a cancerous tumor, a broken leg, or clinical depression. They are seeking healing.
Paragraph 15-19. Citing numerous scriptures, the author exhorts all Christians in their baptismal identity and, where necessary, to repent so that their sins may be forgiven.
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In our presentation, Julie and I cited five articles from LW in which transgender has been unfairly characterized, and nowhere to be found were the stories of faithful Christians who do not align with the ideologies cited in the stories. If I get more opportunities to speak, I will be adding this article.
To summarize, I find the author to have cited only those ideas from the transgender ledger that he can knock down. I also disagree with the ideas he cited.
Secondly, I find him accusing transgender Christians of sins that they—at least among those persons I know—are not committing.
Thirdly, I wonder if he’s ever spoken with Christians whose attitudes are such as mine, because there is not a word in these pages to reflect it.
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There is a sidebar to the article, with five points. Point 4 calls us to prayer: “Some problems are simply beyond our power to fix. … When we are tempted to despair, we can turn to God in prayer and cast all our anxieties on Him (1 Peter 5:7). Our God hears us and will answer.”
I am a man of prayer, from the moment I awaken each day, to the first thing I do when I close my eyes at night, to numerous times throughout the day. When I suffered gender dysphoria, I did as Christ taught me in Matthew 5:7-8: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
I believe my Lord Jesus.
I asked. I sought. I knocked.
I kicked. I begged. I screamed.
I trusted. I trusted. I trusted.
For decades.
The Lord never said, “Yes,” to my prayer for healing. Um, wait. He did. But not in the way I requested.
As I went through every step of transition, seeking the Lord’s will as to whether I should proceed, I possessed confidence that I was to do so. It was only after completing my transition that I received the healing I’ve now enjoyed for six years.
I’ve never asserted that this was the Lord’s plan for me. I can’t read His mind, and He’s not called me to a mountaintop to chat directly with me.
But it sure seems it was His plan. I have no other way to understand it than that I needed to go through all of this so that I could speak up for those who do not have a voice. I was a pastor, and I was transgender, and I am able to write and to speak, and I never wavered in the doctrine to which I swore on the day of my ordination.
It sure seems this is what the Lord wants from me, to speak the truth of His Word and the truth about gender dysphoria.
As I begin to write this, it is 6:40 a.m. on Holy Saturday, March 30 2024. Yesterday, we marked the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Tomorrow, we will rejoice that He was resurrected from the dead. Today, we trust that His resurrection proved that He defeated death, devil, and damnation so that we can possess forgiveness, life, and salvation.
But, the today of the Lord Jesus’ disciples—the day after their Rabbi had been put to death—the day after the unthinkable was carried out against the one they thought was the Messiah, the one God sent into the world not to condemn the world but to save the world through Him (John 3:17, my favorite verse)—I am trying to imagine the level of anxiety they experienced.
I realize that I can’t.
Yet, I know my own.
And it’s plenty.
Two weeks ago today, Julie and I arose to the expectation of our second day of presentations at our first seminar—“Transgender Christian: An Oxymoron?”—with high hopes because my initial talk Friday evening was well received. Then, Saturday’s three sessions went equally well.
The event was videotaped. On Sunday, I received the six-hour, thirty-nine-minute file. The next few days, I watched and clipped and created five videos, posting them to my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@porthopepizza/videos.
As of this morning, those five videos have been viewed 900 times. I am grateful.
Next week, I will begin to contact people—mostly pastors—lobbying for them to host me in their churches. This is what has me reflecting about the anxiety of the Lord’s disciples.
Though the Lord had told them what was coming—that he would be raised on the third day—their hearts had been darkened to that news. His crucifixion had blinded them. Their despondency and disappointment was engulfed in despair.
All they knew was that their hero was dead. Oh, and they might be next.
I can’t begin to imagination the roiling of their stomachs that Saturday.
But I know mine these past two weeks. I share in a high level of anxiety, because I don’t know what is coming. I have no idea whether I will make the inroads I crave in educating my fellow Christians in the truth of what it means to be transgender.
And this. The disciples put all their eggs in the basket of following Jesus. They needed it to be true, that He was the Promised One.
On this point, I find myself able to better identify with them.
They didn’t ask to follow Jesus, He chose them; I didn’t ask to experience gender dysphoria, it chose me.
They dropped everything and went with Jesus; I gave up the work I loved as a minister and took the path of transitioning.
They didn’t know where Jesus was leading them; I didn’t know where transitioning would lead me.
They trusted Jesus; I trusted Jesus.
On Holy Saturday, they didn’t know what was next; this Holy Saturday, I don’t know what’s next.
After their Rabbi was resurrected and ascended to heaven, the disciples’ eyes were opened to everything He taught them, to putting together the prophets’ predictions, so that they could go forth to proclaim the good news about Jesus Christ.
Will I enjoy such a resurrection? Is it the Lord’s will that I will have a path to go forth proclaiming everything I’ve experienced and learned about being a transgender Christian?
I so need it to be.
He knows how desperate I am for it to be.
In my Friday presentation fifteen days ago, I quoted Romans 8:28—“God works all things for good in the lives of those who love Him, whom He has called according to His purpose”—and stated that through the greatest trials of my life—the death of my son, the loss of my marriage, and the gender dysphoria that sought to crush me—the Lord fulfilled His promise.
He has worked all things in my life for good.
He has brought me through every trial, so that I believe He is fulfilling His purpose for my life.
Is it His purpose now that I have opportunities to proclaim the good news about Him and what I’ve learned about gender dysphoria and being transgender?
I don’t have the answer.
And if this doesn’t pan out … deep breath … then what was all this for?
And if this doesn’t pan out … deep breath … would it mean that I’ve been wrong?
And if this doesn’t pan out … deep breath … what do I do next?
This has to be about far more than the healing I experienced in 2018, and how good I’ve felt, fully male, the past six years. It has to be, otherwise why did He lead me into the ministry and remove me so dramatically?
It has to be, right? Is there any other way for me to view this?
I’m not ready to retire, to do nothing more than garden and jog and cook and write and travel. I’m full of energy and passion and longing to good things with the rest of my life.
I need my basket to be filled with Easter eggs.
I continue to pray, Show me your good and gracious will, Lord Jesus, and give me your Holy Spirit that I might follow it.
I know that my Redeemer lives, but I don’t know what He wills for the rest of my earthly days.
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:15).
Do you realize what an odd thing it is that we do on this Friday we call good, when we sing about a wondrous cross, when we look to a wounded man for healing freedom—a man who has suffered damning punishment?
How did we get here?
Going all the way back to the Garden of Eden, we remember that it was Satan, suited in a snake, who swindled Adam and Eve, who were now bit by death. Snakes would continue to play a vital role in the plan of salvation.
After the Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt, they wandered the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land. Along the way, all was not Red Sea partings and manna-from-heaven feedings. Despite the Lord freely giving them, each day, their daily bread—when they couldn’t do so for themselves because there wasn’t a grocery store in sight—God’s people whined like little kids on Easter who get fewer Peeps than the others.
They complained to Moses, “There is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” Can you believe this? The food God freely gave, they called worthless?
Could you ever be accused of the same thing? How many of you miss a meal because your Mother Hubbard cupboard is bare? Yet, how many will complain?
Remember, the daily bread for which you pray in the Lord’s Prayer is way more than bread. The Lord reigns down manna from heaven and showers you with everything you need for your body and life.
Luther put it this way, in his explanation to the Fourth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer: “Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.”
I’m not sure what Luther missed, to feel that he had to conclude, “and the like.” He covered it all, because your Lord Jesus Christ covers it all. He is not only your crucified Savior, but also your resurrected, ascended, and ruling Creator. He cares, not only to win your forgiveness, but to fill your refrigerator.
The next time you kids find yourselves whining because your parents won’t buy the latest fashion, or game, or whatever it is that you simply must have or how can you go on living, look at the clothes in your closet and drawers, the many forms of entertainment you already enjoy, and face the Lord, begging His forgiveness for Jesus’ sake, and turn from your whining ways and be thankful.
The next time you adults find yourselves sniveling over the price of gas, ask yourselves if you continue to have money in your wallet to fill your tank and still feed your family and have a roof over your head. The next time you find yourselves carping about the President, or the Republicans, or the Democrats, or anyone else whom the Lord has put into place to serve you, turn from your snarky remarks and pray to the Lord both to forgive you for your unthankfulness and to provide your leaders with wisdom.
The next time any of you find yourselves complaining about your job, beefing about your husband or wife or kids, looking with contempt at the high mileage on your car’s odometer— or any of the thousands of ways we spoiled American Christians bemoan the riches with which the Lord Jesus surrounds us—turn from your whining ways, throw yourselves at the Lord’s mercy for Christ’s sake, and give thanks for the plentiful blessings of your daily lives.
Truly, the average American Christian deserves to have the Lord do what He did to the Israelites. To silence their mewling mouths, the Lord sent—you should have guessed it—snakes to bite them, and many of them died.
The snakes served as the wake-up call the Lord intended. The Israelites turned to the Lord in repentance, pleading with Moses: “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take the serpents from us” (Numbers 21:7).
Moses prayed; the Lord answered. He instructed Moses to make a fiery snake and set it upon a pole. When the people looked at the bronze snake, they would be healed of their bite.
What an odd thing for the Lord to do. He took the very thing that harmed the people—the snake—which was a reminder of the first snake-bitten moment of Adam’s and Eve’s, and He used it as the cure for what would otherwise kill them.
How much faith did it take to trust the Lord that this snake-on-a-pole would work? If a person heard Moses tell of the remedy and went off in disbelief—no doubt muttering under his breath what a stupid thing Moses was suggesting—the person would die in his sin.
But, believing the Lord—no matter how goofy-sounding the cure—and turning in faithful thankfulness to look up at that snake on the pole, God’s people received healing for their wounds.
The Old Testament lesson for Good Friday comes from Isaiah 53: “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”
As wild an idea as it might seem, the snake on the pole foretold Christ on the cross.
In the verse that comes immediately before the well-known John 3:16, the Lord Jesus called it: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
You bunch of sinners have been snake-bit. The devil has bitten you. The world has bitten you. Your own sinful nature has and constantly does bite you.
The same goes for me.
Today, God calls us to look up at the snake on the pole and be healed.
God calls us to look up at the snake on the pole? How dare we call our Savior a snake?
We dare call Jesus a snake because that’s what He became in taking your sinfulness, my sinfulness, and the sinfulness of the world into His flesh. Jesus became the chief of sinners so that, looking to Him in faith, we become the children of God.
Second Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
As Moses lifted up the fiery snake on the pole, and the people were healed when they looked at it, trusting the Lord that it would be as He promised, you look at Jesus on the cross—the holy Son of God who now is on fire with your sins—and you are healed through your trusting what the Lord has promised, that God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that, believing in Him, you have eternal life.
What an odd thing for the Lord to do, making His Son into the very thing that bit you with the bite of damnation, and using it as the cure for what would otherwise kill you.
How much faith does it take to trust the Lord that this snake-on-a-pole works? Indeed, it is such a leap that you cannot do it on your own. No one can look up to Jesus on the cross without finding it either offensive or ridiculous, unless the Father draws that person to Jesus (John 6:44).
It takes the proclamation of this Gospel for the Holy Spirit to create and sustain the faith in your heart to look up at the cross and live.
It takes the washing of rebirth and renewal in Holy Baptism (Titus 3:5), which you once received and which continues to bathe you in Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, for you to be able to look up at the cross and live.
It takes the eating and drinking of the Lord’s Supper, in which Jesus nourishes your faith with His crucified and resurrected body and blood, for you to continue to be able to look up at Him on the cross and live.
John 3:15-17: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” Amen.
On March 15-16 2024, at the invitation of Pastor Mark Buetow, my wife Julie and I presented a seminar titled, “Transgender Christian: An Oxymoron?”, at Zion Lutheran Church, of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), in McHenry, Illinois.
In the way that I was the first pastor in the LCMS to announce that he suffered from gender dysphoria, and then after leaving the ministry to have transitioned to living as a female, Pastor Buetow is the first LCMS pastor to invite me to speak to his congregation about the ticklish topic of transgender.
Why did he do it? “Because,” he said, “it’s affecting members of my congregation.” And, in my remarks, I said my reason for wanting to speak was because “few in the Missouri Synod know what to do with it in a Christlike manner.”
There were a few in Pastor Buetow’s congregation who questioned hosting this event. Some of those attended. I spoke with two of them. They told me their minds were changed. Why? Because, previously, they knew little about this.
Pastor Buetow’s congregation is on the small side. For its size, I was surprised by how many students are in their preschool-through-third-grade school. In all Julie and I witnessed, Zion is a vibrant place, a spirit that begins with its minister.
Because the congregation is smaller, we knew it would show in attendance for our presentation. The most we had in church at one time was around forty. Overall, more than fifty different people attended sessions, several from McHenry’s sister LCMS congregation.
Julie and I were grateful for each one. All paid close attention. Many spoke with us during breaks. They gave us the feedback we hoped to receive: they were edified regarding transgender and strengthened in their faith in the Lord.
The faith part of our message focused on the universal gift of Christ: “For God so loved the WORLD.” Thus, no matter who we are talking about, Jesus died on the cross for them. This needs to inform how we think about those who are different from us, whose lives we don’t understand, even when we take offense at them.
When Julie and I spoke with Pastor Buetow after the event, his take on the entirety of it pleased me. He said that we began and ended on Jesus Christ.
Amen, Pastor. We sure did.
Then, in my first Facebook post regarding the event, he wrote, “You and Julie gave a fantastic, informative, polished, and most of all Christ-centered presentation. One of the key takeaways should be obvious to any Christian, but we need to be reminded often: every person is one for whom Jesus died. Remembering that will help us go a long way to loving our neighbor. The science was extremely helpful. Even more so was the reminder that all aspects of creation have been wrecked by the fall, gender having no exemption. Thanks again for coming here and teaching us a thing or two!”
To that, I proclaim, Hallelujah!
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Following each video is the rundown of that video’s topics. On YouTube, click on the time notations to go directly to the topic.
0:00: An overview of how I got here – Lutheran and transgender. 26:00: Getting into transgender. Swyer syndrome – females who are XY male – which bathroom? 38:17: Disorders of sex development. Other disorders for which we don’t know their cause. 54:05: Christian faith: objective and subjective justification. 59:48: “This is one for whom Christ also died.” 1:04:30: Harmful substances that might be causing gender dysphoria. 1:18:10: Signs that I have androgen insensitivity. 1:21:44: In 2013, my gender dysphoria erupts. Julie finds the report that changed my life. 1:24:43: More on what causes gender dysphoria. Introducing the problem of suicide. 1:32:29: “Outcast” – a reading from “A Roller Coaster through a Hurricane.” 1:36:54: Suicide; Leelah Alcorn. I don’t want anyone to have to transition. 1:42:47: Trans Christians I’ve gotten to know. 1:44:48: My hormone shift and my feeling of being exclusively male. 1:48:02: The turmoil I experienced. 1:50:05: The effects of Original Sin. Let’s be Romans 5 people.
0:00: I introduce Julie 3:00: Julie: “I am a cisgender person.” Transgender: the mismatch of parts. 8:00: Greg & Julie. Julie’s attitude toward me. 9:27: Greg’s frustration mounts, finally tells Julie how he’s suffering. Julie fears suicide. 16:02: Julie makes a pro/con list regarding my transitioning. 17:01: How we met. 19:19: Our first conversation: a proposal of marriage! 20:48: 2013: what Julie wanted for me. Our marriage would be fine. 21:58: I fought transitioning. Julie was certain I needed it. She dug in learning. 23:45: Disorders and their effects. 28:00: Sin and its effects on us. 29:07: Types of disorders, and how they affect others. 30:07: Fetal development. Disorders of sex development. 34:44: DES. Adverse effects on me. 38:39: “If only I could spend one day in Greg’s brain.” 39:18: What to do about her husband’s brain/body mismatch? 41:24: Telling others: the internal struggle goes external. 42:13: What others experience by learning a loved one is trans. 44:14: The trans person’s outside world crumbles. 45:06: Trans persons are accused of being selfish and sinning. 45:28: All are affected with a sinful nature. 47:17: Yet, some insist gender was left untouched by sin. 48:10: “Who chooses internal torment?” 49:45: “Gender issues give people the willies.” “Put it in a box.” 51:14: “Praise God, Jesus didn’t shy away from the discomfort of His broken creation, and took that discomfort all the way to the cross.” 52:51: We address Julie’s con list. 101:50: Pastor Buetow makes a terrible joke! Then shares an important thought.
0:00: Opening thoughts. 7:42: Genesis 1:27 – God created us male and female. 15:27: Deuteronomy 22:5 – On the wearing of clothes. 28:27: 1 Corinthians 6:18 – Sexual immorality. 33:44: Bear your cross after Christ. 38:05: Q & A – In my deepest moments of despair, where did I see Christ? 42:50: Fallout from my going public. 50:11: Q & A – How do I minister to other trans persons? 55:33: Q & A – Regarding self harming. 1:03:31: Q & A – The masculinizing/feminizing of the brain in the womb. 1:06:34: Q & A – Why more transwomen than transmen? 1:10:35: Q & A – Is there a physical reason for gender dysphoria? 1:13:28: Q & A – Names and pronouns.
0:00: Opening remarks. 1:41: Julie discusses bathroom legislation. 7:20: Transgender and sports. 9:45: Julie presents healthcare and trans youth. 20:17: Social media – memes that send wrong messages. 26:03: Introducing writings from the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. 29:57: CTCR report on gender dysphoria. 36:17: “A man or a woman?” from the journal of the seminary I attended. 56:05: I answer the question: What if it is a sin to transition? 58:20: Introduction to the magazine, The Lutheran Witness (LW). 58:57: Julie discusses LW article, “Viva la difference!” 1:02:38: LCMS President Harrison’s placing of gender identity with sexual identity. 1:05:38: LW article, “Male & female He created them.” 1:08:30: LW article, “The resurrection body: Jesus’ answer to transgenderism.” 1:14:00: LW article, Julie discusses “God’s truth vs. man’s opinions.” 1:17:24: Q & A – Has the LCMS become hardhearted? 1:19:19: Q & A – Is it time for our seminaries to teach re transgender? 1:22:05: Q & A – Re: transgender being forced down our throats. 1:28:55: Q & A – Do you find yourself caught between two communities? 1:32:52: Q & A – Do you thinking transitioning can show a lack of faith in God’s ability to heal you? 1:36:05: Q & A – How can we glorify God with our thorns? 1:37:34: Q & A – Isn’t unlikely most people don’t suffer real gender dysphoria?
This video is not broken into topics.
Throughout the seminar, we quoted from my two books on the topic. You may purchase them here, both available in ebook and paperback.
February 2024 marks eight years since my article was published in Indianapolis Monthly magazine. The article was prompted by my daughter’s friend, whose husband was senior editor for the magazine.
It was October 2016. In January 2017, the Indiana legislature would be considering a law regarding transgender rights. The magazine had never published an article on transgender, so they bit on my proposal.
Between my writing and their editing we had a month. I pounded out the first draft in a week, then for three weeks traded emails and updates until we had it.
In January, the magazine sent me for professional hair and makeup, then onto a photographer. That day was a blast! Yet, I had one concern as I thought, I sure hope they don’t do a full-page photo of me. No one deserves to flip a page only to be greeted by the likes of me!
As you see, above, that’s exactly what readers encountered. Oops!
Though I ceased being transgender in 2018, what I wrote holds.
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But I like playing in the house with these girls, I thought as my grandmother urged me to go outside and roughhouse with my male cousins. I was a 9-year-old named Greg, and it was the first time I realized I might be a little different than the other boys. It’s not that I felt like a girl—I didn’t yet know what that meant. The girls just seemed safer to me somehow. Boys were intimidating and wild.
As a Christian kid growing up in a small Midwestern town in the 1960s, these were strange feelings. Our family’s faith undergirded everything: morals, discipline, punishment. Striving to be a good boy was the only conceivable course of action. As the years went by, however, conforming became harder and harder.
Sixth grade: I finally noticed girls’ bodies—but not in the way I was supposed to. I fantasized about making myself as pretty as they were. I put myself to sleep every night thinking about what it would be like to be a girl.
High school: I grew bolder still, desperately needing a way to ease the feminine longing I had. My sister’s clothes!, I thought, before realizing I would never fit into them. So I waited for an opportunity to get into my mom’s closet undetected. Whatever guilt I felt about wearing her things was tempered by pure elation.
Dating: How could I not tell my girlfriend that I was a transvestite, a word I had just learned on Phil Donahue’s talk show?
Marriage: Maybe love would be the cure. I got married, fathered children, and did everything typical of a regular guy. Not only did it fail to solve the problem, it was like taking aspirin for a brain tumor.
Ministry: Then perhaps theology would eliminate the longings. Immerse yourself in the Bible and crowd from your mind all thoughts of being female, I told myself. That lasted about a week. Even so, I went on to be ordained in the conservative Missouri Synod branch of the Lutheran Church, serving parishes in Iowa and Michigan for 18 years.
Retirement: No longer able to hide who I was, I confronted parish officials with the news. Since there was no room for a transgender pastor in my church, with its male-only ministry and traditional theology, they suggested I resign if I intended to live openly as a woman. I promised to do my job and remain quiet if I would be allowed to retire gracefully the next year.
Since then, I’ve moved to Indy, where I’m living more fully as myself and have a new mission: telling my story. Maybe if I educate people about my condition, things won’t be as hard on the next generation. But it saddens me that everyone greets me with a blank stare when I approach with a question I’ve devoted my recent life to answering: “What do you know about being transgender?”
Though it may surprise some that gender identity and sexual orientation are unrelated, transgender folks like me often consider themselves heterosexual—in my case, attracted to women, even though I identify as a woman. My wife, Julie, and I met when we both were going through the divorces of our first marriages. Shortly before we wed in 2001, I told her the truth about who I was. She was surprised, but reacted calmly. She knew nothing about being transgender, but recognized it as an inherent part of me and said it wouldn’t alter the way she felt.
I was thankful. According to a survey conducted by The National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, an estimated 45 percent of spouses break things off when confronted with that news, but Julie ultimately became my biggest supporter. Being a very practical person, she created a list of the pros and cons of me coming out as a woman. It had only one pro: I would finally be allowed to live as a whole person. There were a dozen cons: the challenges to our marriage, the impact on my kids with my first wife, being ostracized by friends, discrimination, and so on. Ultimately, that one pro was enough.
When I finally told the rest of my immediate family, my four children and four siblings were initially shocked. Knowing how foreign the revelation had been even to me, I resolved to remain patient with everyone. My children reacted to the news as people react to a sudden, tragic death. They each went through a grieving process that included anger and sadness before accepting me. Again, I was thankful. Many trans parents will have one or more children disown them forever.
Acceptance is a little more common these days, but it hasn’t always been so. The mismatch of gender and sex is recorded as far back as antiquity, with words like “transsexual,” “transvestite,” and now “transgender” tracing their roots to the 20th century. Sex-reassignment surgery (SRS) dates back to the 1920s; Lili Elbe, subject of the popular movie The Danish Girl, received her surgery in Germany, in 1930. In the United States, SRS first surfaced in the 1950s, when a soldier named George Jorgensen returned from Denmark as Christine.
After Jorgensen, transgender people occasionally made the news, often for counterculture reasons and tied with lesbian, gay, and bisexual issues, as in the now well-known LGBT rights movement. The next person to receive widespread attention was Dr. Renee Richards, who transitioned to a woman in the mid-1970s. During the Bicentennial summer that the athlete formerly known as Bruce Jenner was wrapped in Old Glory as the Olympics decathlon champion, Richards created a stir when she announced that she wanted to play professional tennis on the women’s circuit. She was denied the right, filed suit, and won in New York Supreme Court, one of the first steps in a long march of civil-rights issues for LGBT people.
Transgender people consider SRS the “ultimate surgery,” but not all of us go so far. On the transitioning menu—where it’s easy to spend $100,000—personal choice reigns. Some trans individuals simply choose to change their names and dress differently. Others pursue hormone-replacement therapy, permanent hair removal, breast surgery, facial-feminization surgery, and voice training. I began hormone-replacement therapy in September 2013, knowing that it works very slowly for someone in her late 50s such as myself. As my testosterone lowered and my estrogen increased, my skin softened, body hair fell out, fat deposits began to migrate to other spots, and breasts formed.
Later this year, I hope to have my face feminized. The idea of having cosmetic surgery sobers me. I’ve consulted a surgeon. I’ve seen what I could be—my brow and jawbones shaved, nose reduced, chin lifted. But I still wonder: Will I be happy to see a feminine version of the face I’ve known for six decades? And after that, when I pursue SRS, the questions become even more profound. Will I finally feel at peace with my body?
I wish I could report that the transitioning process has always gone smoothly, but it has filled my life with endless visits to specialists. Once a week, I see a kind woman named Barb Clayton in Castleton for an hour of electrolysis on my beard. Because the hundreds of hairs she zaps each session have me wincing in pain, our chats help the hour pass. Barb has become a friendly shoulder on which to cry, a perk given that I am only halfway through the three-year process.
When I need professional help for the emotional challenges of all this, I visit my therapist, Kathy Slaughter of Soaring Heart Counseling in Broad Ripple. She has a number of trans clients, not all of them as far into the process as I am. For those considering hormones or surgery, the law requires a therapist’s approval. This protects doctors from malpractice claims should a patient change his or her mind down the road. “The trans clients I see fall pretty neatly into one of two categories,” Slaughter says. “One is people who are already living in the desired gender, know exactly who they are, and just need the approval letter. For the other group, I see myself as a companion as they begin to understand the nature of their dysphoria and contemplate the hero’s journey of transitioning.”
A person considering transitioning faces a mountain of challenges—admitting it to yourself, telling your family, navigating work. But it often starts with altering your appearance. In my case, I came to despise everything about being a male, including the attire. When asked by friends why it was so important to wear women’s clothes, I encouraged them to imagine wearing the clothes of the opposite sex, with which they do not identify. When they recognized their immediate disgust at the thought, some began to grasp my predicament.
And so it goes with every aspect of life. Many find the challenges unbearable. An estimated 41 percent of transgender people will try to end their lives. Compare that with 4.6 percent in the general population. For months, my mantra was, You hate being a man. You can’t be a woman. Just kill yourself. Because the transgender condition is so unfamiliar to most people, awful stereotypes fill in the gaps of understanding (pervert, pedophile, sexual fetishist). Death begins to feel like the lesser of two evils.
The origins of this distressing condition are not well understood. When I came across a study about artificial estrogen—sometimes given in the ’50s to prevent pregnant women from miscarrying—disrupting the endocrine system of the fetus, I suspected it might have been given to my mother. At least, that would be evidence for why my brain might not match my body. For most, being transgender is a complete mystery.
Regardless, many trans people are less concerned with the origins of their feelings than how to deal with them. And where you live turns out to be a very important factor.
This photo, taken by our daughter Jackie, appeared with my article.
When I retired from the church in 2014, Julie and I considered moving to Portland, Oregon, which is known as a trans-friendly town. Julie was all for Portland, being genuinely concerned for my welfare. But having gotten to know Indianapolis after our daughter moved here nearly a decade ago, we decided to take a chance on it instead. An estimated 0.3 percent of Americans identify as transgender, amounting to nearly 1 million of us. Doing the math, Indianapolis may have more than 6,000 people in this group in the metro area. And while the city is livelier than we ever could have hoped, Indy is not Portland—hip and progressive. This place tends toward … reliable.
My trans friends in Indy have certainly felt that conservatism. Nebraska native Amy finds both Indy residents and Midwesterners in general to be “fiercely protective of what they’re used to.” Yet she reports that her experiences around town have been mostly positive, except for the occasional stares and giggles. Kit, who is transitioning from male to female, hopes to get back to teaching high school. Her experience also has been fairly positive. “Indianapolis is a city populated by Hoosiers,” she says. “That means no matter what they think privately, most people are unwilling to be directly rude to strangers.” My friend Chris, who identifies as a woman, manages data-storage systems at IUPUI. She is “out” at work, but still dresses androgynously there. So deciding on a bathroom can be a challenge. She feels she appears too feminine for the men’s room, and is self-conscious about using the women’s. She’s pleased that her workplace was one of the first in the city to install unisex bathrooms.
Not everyone’s experience here has been so rosy, however. Michelle, a trans acquaintance of mine who works at Eli Lilly, has seen many of her friends turned away for medical treatment related to transitioning. “So many of us are forced to travel long distances for anything beyond basic services,” she says. “It’s just heartbreaking to think that professionals who take an oath of ‘primum non nocere’ [first, do no harm] would turn away patients simply because they’re different.”
Dr. Melissa Cavaghan is an endocrinologist at IU Health who provides care for trans patients, including me. According to her, “transgender individuals still experience widespread discrimination, some overt, some subtle. This discrimination also comes in the form of exclusion of medical and surgical treatment by many insurance plans.”
Halfway into my own transition, I made my first trip out alone as a woman in January 2015. Although it was only a quick visit to Kroger on East 10th Street, I was filled with trepidation. I dressed in a nondescript way: a simple top and jeans, flats, muted makeup. While I made little eye contact going up and down the aisles, I made good use of my outgoing personality when reaching the cashier. I was sure she would “make” me, but I didn’t know how she would react. So I made the same small talk I would as a guy, trying to put things at ease. Only the stare of a woman in the parking lot, as she watched me put groceries in my car, made me feel I was under a microscope.
Shortly thereafter, Julie and I bought a house on the northeast side. I began to go everywhere as Gina, a name I chose from a baby book. It just seemed to suit me. Everyone in my small circle of friends received the new me with grace and kindness—making the ugly things I saw in the local news last year that much more surprising.
The passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in Indiana impacted all four of the classes of LGBT people, singling us out for discrimination by allowing businesses to deny us service. In the 2016 legislative session, Indiana lawmakers have before them an opportunity to right what was wronged. Although things are looking bleak this year, Freedom Indiana continues to lobby for the addition of four words—“sexual orientation, gender identity”—to the list of civil-rights protections in the state.
When I received Freedom Indiana’s email appeal to get involved, I didn’t hesitate. Yes, Indianapolis has its own protections for LGBT people in place, but you might be surprised how easy it is to find loopholes. Some of my friends, after coming out, have received poor job evaluations, affecting raises and promotions. And at the state level, there aren’t even legal protections to get around.
Then there are the physical dangers. Like many of us who wish we more easily passed as our proper gender, my friend Kit always fears for her safety, which explains the mace spray on her key chain. Physical violence against trans people is all too common. In 2014, a local transgender woman named Ashley Sherman (formerly known as Tajshon), was murdered in the street. Because she had been the victim of previous abuse linked to her identity, the unsolved case remains a possible hate crime.
To honor people like Ashley, I attended the first local Transgender Day of Remembrance on Monument Circle this past November. That event was a sort of public coming-out for me. When one of the planned speakers couldn’t make it, I was recruited to fill in, with 10 minutes to prepare. “You were a minister,” one of the organizers said. “You’re used to this sort of thing.” Grateful for the opportunity, I quickly found my voice. Four of us took turns reading dozens of names of trans women and men murdered over the past year around the world. In that moment, I realized all that I had given up in my spot at what some consider the top of the heap—a professional man with a happy family—to join a minority group that is among the most vulnerable segments of society.
When the Indiana Republicans announced a “compromise” bill that same month exempting religious institutions and certain wedding businesses from serving LGBT folks, we knew we had our work cut out for us. What we need from the legislature is full protection, which it doesn’t look like we’re going to get this session. In the meantime, other Freedom Indiana representatives and I have been talking to the media every chance we get.
The public fight has brought me to deep reflection. While I understand the general public’s hesitation to make sweeping social changes, I cannot shake the fact that my friends and I are law-abiding citizens. If it were illegal to be transgender, our fight would be different. But everything we desire, in every sphere of private and public life, is no more than what every American desires. I don’t want to be a bother to anyone. As a conservative, both in my religion and my politics, I want everyone to be able to live according to his conscience.
I often say that when it comes to educating society, we trans folks are where gay-rights advocates were 20 years ago. Before the early 2000s, I couldn’t have imagined living as a transgender woman in public. That has gotten a little easier, but huge challenges remain. When we’re able to live in peace here with the same rights as everyone else, maybe then the term “Hoosier hospitality” will mean something. Maybe then we’ll feel that the American dream also belongs to us.
I’ve been reading Mitch Albom since he landed at the Detroit Free Press in 1985.
At first, he strictly wrote on sports. That worked for me, because I only read the Freep for sports. For news, I read my home-county newspaper, the Muskegon Chronicle. Soon, Mitch’s weekend column was dedicated to other things, whatever was playing in society or noodling about his noggin.
I found that I liked Mitch’s style of writing and his way of thinking, so I read those columns, too.
He began to write books. I read Tuesdays with Morrie, and a few more. I found his books to be the equivalent of his weekend columns: easy to read, engaging, thought-provoking, striving to help the reader to think about things.
Then, hopefully, to act.
That’s another thing about Mitch Albom: he put his activities where his words are. Scroll down his Wikipedia page, to read about his charity work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Albom. Those paragraphs barely begin to capture the essence of the man.
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I was moved to write this piece, for two reasons. First, because of what Mitch’s non-sports columns did for me.
Though I am conservative in every facet of life, and I figured Mitch to be politically liberal, it did not detract from how I read him. I didn’t sense him wanting to influence anyone to how he leaned. Rather, I saw him striving to help us see the needs of others, and the injustices that are all around us.
Then, hopefully, to act.
I liked how he thought. And I liked how he influenced me to be a better thinker and doer.
I also learned from Mitch how I can hold ideas that seem like those of a person who’s politically liberal, while remaining a conservative. This might be the larger lesson I’ve taken from him. Especially in the current political climate.
I loathe how narrowminded so many conservatives (at least, the ones getting airplay) come off. My too-quick take on them is that they think of themselves first, and refuse to look past their own noses.
Mitch Albom has showed me a better way—how I can retain my conservative mindset, while looking at the big picture, as I consider the needs of everyone.
Of everyone.
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When I was in high-school Creative Writing class, I learned of my love for writing. When I became a minister, I enjoyed the writing of sermons as much as the preaching of them.
After retiring, it was an easy move to begin this blog. Besides, I had a purpose—transgender education—and needed a vehicle. While Eilers Pizza hasn’t sped across the world as Mitch’s racecar columns do, it’s been a reliable sedan.
From Mitch Albom (not to mention a host of writers, especially of the novelists I’ve consumed), I learned to write. How to tell a story. To create rhythm. And cadence. And flow.
To use alliteration, as I do here, to close a paragraph in my autobiography:
A tool Mitch uses became a favorite of mine: you describe a thing, then end the paragraph before providing the denouement—the thought you want to especially catch the reader’s attention.
You put it on the next line.
All by itself.
Yeah, that’ll get their attention.
The way I did it, here:
Nowadays, I’m writing novels. It takes more than a good imagination to create enough plots and twists and shouts to fill at least three-hundred pages. You gotta know how to write.
When I was in seminary, a professor told us students that if we want to be good writers of sermons, we needed to read and, especially, to read novels.
I took to reading novels. I continued to read Mitch Albom.
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For my Christmas Day sermon in 2002, I used a Mitch Albom column. He’d told the story of a minister, who had lost his teenaged son in an untimely death. I found the story perfect for sketching the larger story of God the Father’s love for us.
I quoted Mitch’s column, at length.
I had noticed that, at the close of all his columns, his email address was provided. I decided to write to him, to tell him how I’d made good use of his column in my Christmas sermon.
The man’s busy. He surely gets loads of emails. And can’t possibly reply to—
He replied. (No way was it an assistant of his that replied. No way!)
He expressed his joy that I found his column useful in my sermon.
I’m going to email him, again. That I wrote this piece. Why I did so.
I won’t expect to get a reply. But, if I do, I won’t be surprised.
Because that’s Mitch Albom.
Thanks, Mitch, for all you’ve done for me.
Thank you, Mitch, for being a positive force in the world.
As 1974 began, I was sixteen. While I had mowed lawns, baby-sat, and picked fruit, I’d not been employed on a regular basis. Late in 1973, I put in my application at Todd Pharmacy. In January 1974, the co-owner, Jim Todd, phoned me.
Jim: “We need someone to stock shelves, and clean the store every night. Are you interested?”
Me (that is, dumb, timid, nervous me): “I guess so.”
Jim (rightfully sounding perturbed): “You guess so? You put in an application. Are you interested in a job, or not?”
Me (growing up, quickly): “Yes.”
I started the next day. The store closed at 10:00p.m. My shift was from 7-10. Jim showed me how to check in orders of products the store received from various suppliers. My job was to make sure everything was correct to the invoice, price the items, and either put them on the shelve, or put extras in the storeroom. I also scanned the shelves, making innumerable trips to the storeroom for items to replenish them.
Prescription drugs had to be coded with BUCKINGHAM, where each letter represented a number, so that thieves wouldn’t know their worth. This coding became so ingrained that I can still look at a price—say, $7.40—and, without checking BUCKINGHAM, quickly convert it: GKM. (There also was a day when I could read UPCs without the numerals, but I digress.)
Jim showed me everything that needed cleaning each night, which was mainly sweeping every aisle, then mopping the high-traffic areas, and vacuuming rugs. In rotation, I cleaned bathrooms and dusted shelves.
Todd’s had been so in need of these things being done on a routine basis that I worked thirteen straight days before my first day off.
Jim didn’t want me to learn checkout, because he didn’t want to lose me as the one dedicated to stocking and cleaning. I don’t recall what happened a few months in—I assume it was my magnanimous personality, which would put a great face on the store, that broke the ice—and I was up front at the cash register. I kept doing the other jobs, but eventually another guy had to be hired, so that we kept up with the cleaning and stocking.
Before Jim Todd changed my life for a second time, his nephew had already done so. Jim had opened the store with his brother Bob. Bob’s son, Tim, was a year ahead of me in school. I barely knew him.
Tim was a constant presence in the store, doing every job that needed doing. We got to know each other. Before his senior year and my junior year were in the books, we were on our way to becoming best friends. Fifty years later, we still are.
Groucho and Harpo entertain in Montague’s 1976 Christmas parade.
I loved working at Todd’s. After high school, I went to the local community college, and kept working at Todd’s. When I found myself quitting college after a year, because I had no clue what to pursue, Todd’s had a fulltime job for me. I did that for a year.
I then went to work at White Lake Castings, an iron foundry on the main drag in Montague. Today, Montague Foods is located on that land.
The early eighties were tough, economically, and I found myself laid off. Both my wife and I got some hours at Todd’s, and I did every odd job available, including farm work, shoveling snow off roofs, painting houses, and shingling a roof.
In the fall of 1982, Jim approached me in the store. For years, the trombone-playing, music-writing whiz directed Showboat, a music/dancing/comedy review, which raised money for the school’s band program. Jim was in need of replacing one of the deckhands—the guys who did the comedic bits.
When he walked over to checkout, I was filling the nut display. As I replenished the blanched peanuts, Jim explained about the deckhand opening, then said, “You can be funny around here, but you probably couldn’t do it on stage.”
And then he walked away.
Without giving me a chance—was he remembering how I answered him, when he called me about the job at the store?—he just left me hanging there.
I grew agitated. I knew Showboat—my mom sang in its choir. I knew what the deckhands did. The thought of performing excited me. And scared me.
So, there I was, the nut standing at the nut stand, roasting something fierce.
But not for long. I knew what I had to do. What I didn’t know was that this challenge would set the stage for my performance over the rest of my life, whenever I would be faced with an extreme test: I would always answer yes.
In my youth, I was timid to a fault. How much so? It was best friend Tim, who had to set me up on my first date, because I was too afraid to ask out the girl he’d told me was interested in me.
Back at the nuts, I didn’t blanch. Completely my nut-stocking task, I went in search of Jim. “I want to do it.”
My first show was in April of 1983, when I was still twenty-five. I went on to do three more, taking on the writing of the routines for the deckhands, until I uprooted my family and went to seminary.
In my final show, I did a solo stand-up routine, which I wrote. It begins at 41:11:
I went on to do things that young me could not imagine, chief of which was uprooting my family in 1992, so that I could attend seminary and become a Lutheran minister. I cannot imagine that I could have seen myself able to lead worship and preach, if not for my experience on stage in Showboat.
As I write this in January 2024, in two months, my next opportunity arrives. I am as excited as ever to meet the challenge, and to succeed such that it opens the way to more speaking engagements.
Who would I have become, if Jim Todd had not offered me a job, and then offered me a second? Thankfully, I don’t have to ponder it.
Jim Todd was the first person to see something in me. More were to come. Each one challenged me, formed me, and promoted me, growing me into the person I became.
Without each one, I wouldn’t be who I am, today.
Thank you, Jim. You knew exactly how to handle me.
Despite the title’s play on the name of one of those popular genetic-testing kits, I did not investigate my family tree in 2023. Even if I were interested in this info (I’m not), there was no space in my brain for it.
I enjoyed lots of blessings over the twelve months. However, because of the way I’m built—early in the year, a friend told me that I think too much. Yup!—one of my losses occupied so much time and space in my head that I found myself frustrated far too often.
The losses
Over many weeks of pondering this year-end piece, I find myself returning to the losses. Too many losses that have been too hard on my heart. Including the one loss that sent be back to a therapist.
I’ll get the losses out of the way, so that I can end on a high because, these December days, I’m riding a high of expectation for 2024—and, no, I’m not referring to the upcoming presidential election.
The first three months of 2023 brought the worst of the losses. In January, an old friend died. Sadly, he and I had been estranged since 2015. It was my hope to reconcile with him as soon as in the summer. The good news in this is that, after learning of his death, I took a chance and messaged his wife, also an old friend. She replied in a lovely way. And, when I saw her, we shared a big hug and warm conversation.
March brought the sudden and unexpected death of my sister. Here’s Sue, in the only photo we’ll ever have of all six children of John & Floye Eilers:
At Dad’s funeral in 2010: Mark, me, Sue, Jim, Dave, Tom.
Sue’s death was tough to take. It came a few weeks after the more challenging loss—the loss that sent me back to a therapist.
It’s a sensitive situation, with this beloved friend and me. I cherish knowing this person. Yet, things had to change.
Eventually, I will embrace that it was what needed to happen. I’d worn out Julie with my stories of where things stood, and how I was frustrated with a specific aspect of how we communicated. It wasn’t fair to Julie so, when we reached September, and after seven months I wasn’t able to talk about things in a way to show that I’d made any progress, Julie suggested I call the psychologist I’d seen in 2018.
My chief problem was twofold. First, the person continually popped into my head, throughout every day, literally dozens of times. I didn’t want it, and I couldn’t stop it; it just kept happening. When it did, I played around with it, attempting to come up with a way or ways to correct the things that continued to trouble me.
Irrational me thought I could contact the person, and achieve something beneficial. Rational me, thankfully, won out, convincing me that I was not going to do that and, if I did, it would blow up in my face.
It took Julie’s second suggestion for me to agree to call my psychologist. I have a lot of experience with therapists, because of my previous gender dysphoria. In Michigan, I saw one for a year. In Indianapolis, I engaged one for longer than that. I like writing about my seeing a therapist, because I see the value in talk therapy and like encouraging others, who might benefit.
Too many people stuff things, don’t address them, and suffer because of it. Even more, their relationships often suffer, all because they don’t put in the work to sort through things and find a way to improve.
In talking with my therapist about my current struggle, I needed to cover everything, do it efficiently, and not miss anything. Thus, I wrote an outline from which to tell him the story.
It took forty-five minutes to cover it. He barely had time to react to the copious notes he made. My next visit, he was ready for me.
Boy, was he.
His assessment came in two statements. His first assessment was the opposite of what I wanted to hear. His second assessment was worse. Harder to accept. One that I didn’t want to admit to myself, and even less to Julie.
Yes, I told her, then summed up things: “I just need to stop thinking stupid things.”
I knew it was true—what my therapist said, and what I need to do. What he told me, I know it’s why I’ve been hurting so badly over the loss of this friend. I just don’t want it to be true, because I can’t do a stinking thing about it except the hard thing: stop thinking about it and, when it pops into my head, don’t entertain it.
In November, I finally found that I was improving. I thought about the person a bit less often, and I found the edge not to be so sharp. Truly, it’s been the same as mourning the death of someone with whom you were intimately close: the sadness will always be there, but the memories tend to soften in a way that you can recall them and they don’t sting as they had.
The successes
I published two more books in 2023, my third and fourth novels. I completed a second memoir, which is in my editor-wife Julie’s hands, and another novel. I have ninety-percent written on yet another novel, a good start on another, and several ideas for more. I’m loving this new career.
For the fifth consecutive year, I surpassed 1,000 miles jogging and walking. In the eight years, since undertaking this year round, I’ve averaged nearly 1,100 per year.
I try to get out six days a week, but average around five. This has become such a part of my life that I miss it on days I can’t hit the road, typically in the morning. The health benefits are outstanding, not to mention the high I get both physically and mentally. Consider this my encouragement to you, to get out and walk.
In August, I made a trip to my hometown for the purpose of connecting with friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen in years. The trip was a total success. I wrote about it here: Mission: Montague.
The first stop of that trip was a visit with my oldest brother. I recognized it was the first time in my life I’d visited Jim by myself, which made it all the more precious.
The future
The day I returned from the therapist session in which I laid it all out, I had a phone chat with a pastor about the subject that is most dear to my heart: transgender education for Christians.
I’m at work writing this presentation, to be delivered this winter. I’ll leave it at that for now, with this final thought: I long for this to go well, to propel me to many more opportunities. When my gender dysphoria forced me into prematurely leaving the ministry at age 57, I was confident the Lord had something important for me to do for His Church. I so want it to be this.
Watch out, 2024. I might be turning 67 in the spring, but I am determined to accomplish a lot of good stuff for many years to come.
Eilers Pizza 