One more time: it’s NOT a choice

 

So many still don’t get it. They don’t hear us. I fear that they refuse to listen. They have hardened their hearts. The case is closed to them. They know nothing, but they know it all. They are experts at everything. Please, give them the task of solving world hunger, peace among the nations, and how I can take off fifty pounds and keep it off, because, clearly, there is nothing that is beyond them.

I prefer to write upbeat articles, themes to move us all forward in life, but, sadly, this piece comes from shear and utter frustration. Forgive me, but my ranties are in a bunch.

This was prompted by yet another person—in this case, a celebrity—insisting that we trans folks are making a choice by being trans. Let’s look at the facts.

Yes, I did choose several things.

• I chose not to take my life when my daily refrain was, “You hate being a man. You can’t be a woman. Just kill yourself.”
• I chose not to commit myself to a psych ward, because it would not cure my ails and only be a temporary escape.
• I chose not to reject my Lord Jesus all of the times when it felt like He was asleep on the job. I chose to trust Him. I chose to follow His instruction, to ask, to seek, to knock down His door until I heard His answer.
• I chose to keep the vow I made to my congregation and do my job, and thus also take care of my family, even fulfilling my promises on those days when the only thing I wanted to do was sit on my bed and cry.
• And, yes, I chose to transition—or, more accurately said, I chose to try it, to see if it would help, and it is. Even when it helped, I stopped four times, so badly did I not want to hurt anyone or have anyone hate me. But, when, each time, I crashed worse than the previous time, last summer I finally learned to enjoy the peace of mind I was enjoying and reveal that I was living as Gina and planned to continue to do so.

No, I did not choose several things.

• I did not choose to be the child who was conceived after my mother had two miscarriages, so that I was in line to have my endocrine system disrupted which left me with hormones that did not match my genetics.
• I did not choose to have the gender identity question that I began experiencing when I was very young.
• I did not choose for it to worsen throughout my life. Indeed, if everything that everyone wanted me to try after I went public—beg the Lord’s help more, repent of it as if it were a sin in my life, try to convince myself that I am the male that God made me to be, stop dressing in women’s clothes, concentrate on others instead of thinking about myself—which was everything I did, countless times throughout my life—if any or all of this would have been proper treatment for me, then I would have ceased to have any gender identity question decades ago.
• I did not choose for the identity question to erupt into gender dysphoria when I hit my early fifties, which means that I finally went from simply wishing I were a female to now hating that I was a male.

I continue to make many choices.

• I choose to live a highly ethical, moral life.
• I choose to educate about all things transgender.
• I choose to bring light to what it means to be a Christian, and that being transgender is no more a factor in being a Christian than being an American, or a factory worker, or a parent, or anything else.
• I choose to take care of my family in my new role of house spouse.
• I choose to be a friend to many trans folks from all over the country who have called on me for help—sometimes to understand themselves, sometimes for help with their families, sometimes because they too are Christians, and sometimes it is their family member who is trans, and sometimes because a person simply needs a friend who understands and on whose shoulder she or he can cry.
• I choose to be a biblical Joseph, who declared to his brothers that the thing which they meant for harm the Lord would use to accomplish good things. This is the Lord’s Romans 8:28 promise to me, to use all things in my life for good . I choose to believe Him. I choose to glorify Him in my life.

To you, who think you know all, I beg you to show some humility.

I beg you to do the one thing that all humans desire, to be treated well and fairly and justly and with respect. For the sake of the entire human race, please do for others what you want from them.

Unless you enjoy division. Prejudice. Ignorance. Bigotry. Hatred. Walls. Walls. Walls.

If these are the things you want, go for it, but please purchase a desert island and practice your deaf-dumb-and-blind-ness there.