My Story – Written by Matthias

Hello! My name is Matthias, and I would like to thank Barnabas for allowing me to write a guest post to share my story.

If this feels like it’s intended for a broader audience, it’s because it is. I’m planning to go public with this. I’m still working out how and when, but in the meantime, I’ve drafted this as what I could say to a general audience. There have been only minor changes to adapt it for ya’ll.

Like most of you reading this, part of my story involves a secret. And not a small secret. This was a secret that I swore that I would take to my grave without ever telling a single soul. I was terrified about what people would think about me if they found out. This was one of those things that we just don’t talk about in church.

I’m sure it comes as no surprise that my secret was that I had a desire to be a girl.

If that’s also you – if you’ve been holding onto this secret (or really any secret) about yourself – you’re the reason I’m here. I’m here to let you know that you’re not alone. I’m here to tell you that there is absolutely nothing you’ve done, nothing you’ve thought, and nothing you’ve felt that you should be afraid to talk about in church.

Let me start by telling you about the Shame Cycle. This was a lie that I was trapped in for literally decades.

This cycle began when I first became a Christian. You see, I was under the mistaken impression that becoming a Christian meant that I would never be tempted to sin and I would never sin again. I was wrong. And that wrongness led me to doubt my faith over and over again.

Here’s how the Shame Cycle works. It starts with me failing and sinning. After that comes hiding from God. That’s where the shame lives. I was ashamed, and so I didn’t want to face God. I figured that he was immensely disappointed in me. I figured that I must not have really been a Christian, because if I was, I never would have failed and sinned. Eventually, I would return to God and repent. And then, inevitably, I would fail and sin again.

I’m guessing there are some of you here who are living in the shame cycle. If that’s you, then just like I’m here for the secret people, I’m also here for you.

Now that I’ve introduced you to the shame cycle, let me tell you about my story.

When I was in middle school, I started wishing that I was a girl. This happened in the 90’s, and that was the type of thing that you definitely kept to yourself. Even now, it has taken a lot for me to get to the point where I am willing to share it with ya’ll. I was about 13 years old. I didn’t know why I felt that way, and I definitely didn’t want to feel that way. All I wanted was for that feeling to go away. But it didn’t. It persisted.

Gradually, these thoughts of wanting to be a girl became more and more persistent. I started to do more than just think about it. Every student in my grade was required to take a Home Economics class. In that class, I learned how to sew. I used that knowledge at home to convert a pair of my shorts into a skirt. I was a big reader, and at the library, I found a book series that involved people swapping bodies. I found one where a boy and girl swapped bodies and read it straight through as soon as I got home. Continuing down the rabbit hole, I eventually started masturbating while fantasizing about being a girl. It even started to enter my dreams while I was sleeping.

During this time, I was overwhelmed with guilt, shame, and isolation. I felt like a total freak. My biggest fear was that I would be found out, and so my biggest priority became hiding it. I hid the skirt in clever places in my room, but even then, I was terrified that my parents would stumble upon it and I would be found out, so I only kept it for about a week. When I checked out the book where a boy and a girl swap bodies, I also checked out one where the boy swapped bodies with the President. I remember my mom knocking on my door while I was reading the boy/girl body swap book. I was deathly afraid that she would find out my secret, so I quickly put that book down, picked up the President body swap book, opened it to the middle, and pretended that I had been reading it. As I look back on it now as a parent, I know how obvious kids can sometimes look when they are lying, so I’m sure my mom thought I was up to something.

I was about 16 years old when I became a Christian. I can’t say an exact date like some of ya’ll because I didn’t have a specific moment of salvation. I was raised Catholic, and they don’t really teach that. I had read through much of the New Testament and I was excited about God. I started dating a girl (yes, I was and am attracted to girls) who was Baptist. On a youth retreat, the youth minister shared with me about what it meant to be born again. He also taught me the importance of having a “moment” of salvation when you completely turn from your old life and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. I was already fired up about Jesus at that time, but I had never had a moment.

I prayed to accept Jesus into my life soon after that. I had high hopes that since I was born again, that meant that I would now be free from temptation. After all, I was a Christian now. I had God on my side, so who or what could stand against me? I could do all things through Christ who strengthened me. Surely that meant that temptation could no longer touch me, right?

How did that work out for ya’ll? Did you magically quit sinning when you became a Christian? I doubt it. That’s just not how things work.

Gradually, slowly, temptation crept back in. And each time I gave into it, it was immediately followed by my new friends – guilt, shame, and isolation. I hid from God. After all, I figured he wouldn’t want to be around a freak like me.

At some point, I decided that enough was enough and I wanted to return to God. I told him that I was very sorry and I promised to do better this time. I prayed to accept Jesus into my heart (figuring that I hadn’t really done it before) and I started reading my Bible again. I figured that this time I was genuine, and so this time would be different. I would be free from temptation this time. Nope.

I graduated high school, left home, and started college. Gradually, slowly, temptation crept back in. I secretly shaved my legs, but hid it by always wearing pants.

And wouldn’t you know it, my old friends came to visit me. Guilt, shame, and isolation. More feeling like a freak. More just desperately wanting to be “normal.” I can’t tell you how many times I pleaded with God. Mostly, I begged him to just take away that desire so I could be free from it and live a normal life. But I also asked him that if he wouldn’t do that, then just supernaturally make me a girl so I could be done with it that way.

Neither of those prayers got answered, and so I re-entered my cycle. I had failed. I figured God didn’t want to be around me, and so I ran from him. This cycle became so familiar. I would fail and run from God. Eventually, I would return to God, apologize profusely for my failure, and pray to accept Jesus into my heart, thinking that I hadn’t really been a Christian before, but I would be now. I would believe that I was truly saved, but I would also believe that part of being saved meant that I would be fully free from temptation and sin.

You see, I hadn’t yet learned a key, central, very important thing about God and salvation. I had been told repeatedly that salvation was by grace alone, through faith alone. Being told something isn’t the same as learning it, though. It isn’t the same as feeling it.

I didn’t even realize it at the time, but in my heart, I saw God first as a judge. He needed all of me – complete and total surrender – or I was not truly his. I was either a slave to righteousness or I was a slave to sin. There could be no compromise and no middle ground.

What I failed to see – what I failed to feel – was that God was first a father. A father who loved and cared for me beyond anything I expected was possible. A father who knew in advance that I would fail time and time again and who still decided to pay the cost for my failure. A father who – every time I messed up – wasn’t waiting in disappointment, but rather with eager anticipation, watching so that he could run up to me and engulf me in a giant bear hug as soon as I returned. A good and patient father.

Realizing this was such a breakthrough for me. I was truly his child. A child who made mistakes, but a child nonetheless. My mistakes did not affect my status as God’s child. Let me say that again, but in second person. Your mistakes do not affect your status as God’s child.

I wish I could tell you that this realization magically gave me freedom from temptations, but that’s not the way it worked out. When my wife and I got married, I was still dealing with these temptations. I stopped acting on it and I hoped that regular sex and my marriage vows would make any temptation go away for good. And it actually worked for awhile. Sex is good. It’s great. We both waited until marriage and it was so awesome to share that level of intimacy.

The feeling of wanting to be a female returned, though. I resolved this time that I would honor my wife by not acting it out by cross-dressing, shaving my legs, or anything like that. What I was left with were fantasies that I’ve since learned are called cross dreaming. It was imagining myself as a woman. The other part was discovering artwork and stories online that depicted men turning into women. Basically, other people’s cross dreams put into stories and art.

I justified this in my head by saying that it wasn’t happening very often, so it wasn’t really that bad. It’s not like I was looking at porn or sleeping with other women, so I wasn’t really dishonoring my wife (or so I told myself).

Even though I knew by this point that I was a true child of God and that my salvation was secure, the guilt, shame, and isolation were still there, my companions now on my faith journey.

I don’t think that the guilt, shame, and isolation were exclusively a result of my faith (non-Christians often report feeling the same thing), but I would say that it was heavily influenced by my faith. LGBT issues are such a hugely divisive topic, especially among Christians. I see two opposing views you may have come here with.

Some of you may have come from backgrounds in which LGBT issues are wrong, they are always wrong, and maybe you even believe that gay or transgender people can’t possibly be saved. This was me. This was why I struggled so deeply. I had been taught that homosexuality and transgenderism were sins. And not only were they sins. It was almost like they were unforgivable. They were certainly different. They were worse. I saw the people claiming to be Christians holding the signs that said “God hates gays.” I heard the outcry when gay marriage was legalized. I had heard the verses in Leviticus multiple times, and I, personally, had found the verses in Romans 1 to be even more compelling.

But one very important thing that I want you to realize is that people who identify as LGBT are people first. There is so much more about me besides this temptation that I never asked for and didn’t want. I’m a goofy nerd who shares lame dad jokes at dinner. I’m a hard worker who was able to get my dream job. I desperately love my wife. I am a devoted Christ-follower. I adopt teenagers from foster care and help them heal from past trauma. No one should be defined by a single trait, and for so long, I have felt that transgender thoughts were the worst trait about me.

If you have been in this camp, I hope at the very least that I have given you something to think about. I am here writing to you, being raw and real. If Christ’s sacrifice was not enough for my sins, what makes you think it was enough for yours?

On the flip side, maybe some of you feel that there is nothing wrong with being gay or transgender. Maybe you hear my story and it makes you angry at the church for making me feel so un-loved. Or maybe you think I’m trans-phobic and my own hate towards transgender people made me hate myself. Maybe you don’t view it as sin, and so nothing is wrong.

I hear you and I want to address this. I’m not going to make broad statements that apply to everyone. Instead, I simply want to share with you MY reasons of why I consider acting on this temptation to be sin for ME.

There are several things in the Bible that I can outline at another time, but for now, I just want to keep it simple. Why do I personally view transgenderism as a sin? For me, it is because God made me a man, not a woman. God is the potter, and I am the clay.

When I was not a Christian, I could do whatever I wanted. If I kept sinning, I would need Christ, and if I suddenly stopped sinning, I would still need Christ. No specific sin makes us need Christ more than any other sin, regardless of the many times when immature Christians act like it does. Let me say that first part again – no specific sin makes us need Christ more than any other sin.

But when we accept Christ, we don’t just accept him as savior; we accept him as lord. He knows infinitely more than I do, and that includes knowing more about what is sin and what is not.

What we all need to realize and accept is that sin is damage. That’s the real reason why God hates sin so much. It’s because he loves us so much and so he hates seeing us damage ourselves.

I feel deeply that a lot of damage would have been caused if I had fully given into my temptation and tried living as a woman. For one thing, I would have never been married to my wife, and I am telling you that she is 1000% the person that God had in mind for me and vice-versa. I never dreamed that I could be with someone as amazing as she is. When we first met, I truly felt that she was too good for me, and I still feel that way. Also, we would have never adopted, and so our kids might have aged out of the foster care system without having forever families to love and support them.

Additionally, there are no guarantees that transitioning would have solved my gender dysphoria. There are many stories of people who have transitioned (to live as the opposite sex) only to later de-transition. This is largely hidden. I can’t even give you statistics about it because trans activists label any attempt to gather such statistics as trans-phobic.

I’m not up here to say that all people who transition are sinners who are going to hell. If anything, I am up here to say that all people – period – are sinners and that Christ’s sacrifice was sufficient for all sins regardless of the severity that we humans place on them.

As Christ-followers, we choose to follow what God wants first, even when it conflicts with what we want. Especially when it conflicts with what we want.

Okay. That was a bit of a tangent, so let me return to my story. I have two more parts of my story that I want to share.

The first part happened at a church conference. This particular conference is different than others I’ve been to. My church puts it on every year, and it is truly life-changing. I’ll attempt to describe it by saying that it covers the fundamental truths of Christianity in an amazing way. It takes the assumptions that you grew up thinking about God and shows you the truth – that he loves you with a depth and breadth and width that is beyond your understanding. And every year, the Holy Spirit shows up in powerful ways.

Anyways, at this conference two years ago, one of the pastors led us through a time of declaring lordship over things that have plagued us. He covered several things by name – drug addictions, sexual abuse, pornography addictions, etc. Then, he gave us an opportunity to name anything he had not covered. It was then that I named my transgender temptations and declared lordship over them in the name of Jesus.

I can’t fully describe what happened, but I felt a release that I had never felt before. We were all praying and the pastor was still on the stage. He said that the Holy Spirit told him that someone had been released from something that had plagued them for 27 years. Ya’ll, that was me. I knew it right away. I was 40-years-old at the time, and this started when I was 13. That was me.

After having this life-changing experience, I decided that I was done hiding. I was going to try counseling, I was going to give up masturbation, I was going to try to quit cross dreaming, and I was going to be honest with my wife.

I decided in advance that I needed to find a Christian counselor. The LGBT community has gained wide acceptance and it felt like I would be encouraged to pursue my transgender thoughts if I didn’t have a Christian counselor.

I went to Christian Counseling dot com. Sounds like a good fit, right? Unfortunately, my experience was not great. My first counselor outright argued with me that homosexuality was not a sin. I’m not homosexual, though, and I didn’t go into counseling to argue. I felt no desire to convince him of anything because I didn’t really care what he thought. I just wanted help and healing.

And so I sought a different counselor. This one was less stand-off-ish since I had explained about my bad experience with my first counselor. Still, she seemed thoroughly un-equipped to help me and still not on the same page. Her answer was that I should be more open minded and embrace my feminine side. I should try painting my fingernails and dressing more feminine. But the part of me that wanted to be a girl didn’t want to be a feminized man; it wanted to be a woman. And the rest of me hated myself for feeling that way.

You see, I’ve learned a lot in my journey dealing with this. I knew fairly early that part of my feelings were sexual in nature. That was why I masturbated and that was why I didn’t constantly feel the desire to be female.

This didn’t match what I was finding when I would search for answers online, though. The narrative was always the same. Transgender people were simply born in the wrong body. As much as I wanted that to be true, it wasn’t. I knew that if I transitioned, I would likely be miserable. Even if you ignore all the hate speech I would have heard, and all of the friends and family members I might have lost, I still would have missed out on my wife, our kids, and the life I have now. Even before I met my wife, I knew this was true. I knew God had something good for me.

I eventually found that there are two types of people with transgender temptations, depending on the person’s sexual preference. One type is people who have homosexual preferences (based on their birth sex). This isn’t me, so I can’t tell you a lot about it. The other type is people who are straight, bi, or asexual. This type is me and it is most commonly called autogynephilia. A guy named Phil Illy recently wrote a book about it that describes it better than anywhere else I’ve seen, and he calls it Autoheterosexuality, so that’s how I’m going to refer to it.

Basically, it is a type of sexual preference. The majority of people are heterosexual. Hetero means different or other. Heterosexuals are attracted to the other sex. With autoheterosexuality, that attraction to the other sex instead turns back on the self. Instead of just being attracted to the other sex, they – we – are attracted to the idea of being the other sex. This is why some people de-transition. Since they are attracted to the idea of being the other sex and they don’t actually feel like they are the other sex, the appeal is sometimes lost after transition.

However, autoheterosexuality is likely the most common root cause for people who are transgender here in America and most of the Western world. Each person’s story is unique, but it often happens in a common sequence. The person has temptations like mine. They cross dream and give into the temptations by masturbating. This adds fuel to the feelings. Gradually, a little bit at a time, they create a female version of themselves (or male if they are already female). They give this person a name, they imagine how she looks, how she walks and talks, etc. They cross dress. Often, they go through shame cycles in which they cross dress, feel deep shame and purge their closet of those clothes, only to return to it months later. And still more gradually, a little bit at a time, they begin to feel more and more as if the female version they have created is their *real* self and their male reality is the false mask that they wear. They grow discontent with having to hide who they really are. Eventually, the female persona is over-powering and they give in and transition.

By this point, their situation has become much, much deeper than a simple sexual attraction. It’s like a relationship. Even though relationships don’t usually start with sex right away, they do begin with a sexual attraction. You are sexually attracted to the other person. As the relationship grows and develops, it becomes more than just sexual attraction. You genuinely enjoy one another and want to be around each other more. You share an intimacy that is more profound than sex. It has the capacity to carry your relationship farther than sex. When couples reach a certain age, they may stop having sex, but their love is deep and the relationship endures.

This is what happens with autoheterosexuals who transition. They fall in love with their cross gender selves, so when they transition and the sexual element is gone, they are able to continue.

Now let’s get back to what I was saying about my counseling experience.

After my bad experience with a second counselor, I gave up. I figured this wasn’t the time for the healing I sought.

It took another year and one more time going through the life-changing church conference to convince me to try again.

I forgot that I had used Christian Counseling dot com before and so I ended up trying it again. And, wouldn’t you know it? My first counselor was terrible. I knew what I was dealing with and I knew it did not fit the mold set forth in the counselor’s guidebook, the DSM-5. That book included a brief reference to autogynephilia, but its description was woefully incomplete. I told her that my experience felt more like a drug addiction, and so I wanted to try treating it that way. She was determined to stick to her belief in the DSM-5, though, despite my lived experience that contradicted it. I moved on to a new counselor.

This time, I finally got lucky. This counselor was both a licensed counselor and a pastor. He decided to listen first and guide second. He led me in a different type of therapy than what is generally used. Most use CBT, or cognitive behavioral therapy. This is a great thing and I have nothing bad to say about it except that it was not what I personally needed for my situation. Instead, he taught me about DBT, or dialectical behavioral therapy. I am not a licensed counselor, and so my understanding of DBT is limited. Still, I would like to share the basics with you so you can understand what it helped and why.

My counselor explained that my thoughts about this issue were directly opposed and so they would feed each other. I would have a thought about being a woman, and then I would have a powerful and opposed thought about how much I didn’t like the first thought. The first thought, I have no control over; it just happens. But the second thought, I do have control over. This is the thought we needed to modify.

The mindset is that such a powerfully opposed second thought actually feeds and gives power to the first thought by increasing its importance. After all, if it wasn’t important, it shouldn’t have had such a powerful response. And so one of the goals of DBT is to change that second thought from powerful opposition to apathy. The goal is to simply acknowledge the first thought, but to strip the acknowledgment of emotion. Gradually, over time, the first thought loses power. It’s emphasis is diminished and we don’t feel such an intense reaction to it.

The biggest impact this had for me was to help me stop hating myself. Even after accepting Christ, even after realizing the Father’s love for me, and even after experiencing a freedom from casting out a demon, I still felt deep guilt, shame, and isolation. They were the lifelong companions of my transgender thoughts. But now, finally, I was able to quit hating myself. I could begin to truly heal.

I want to be clear that this does not mean that I am completely “healed” to the point of being free from temptations. What I deal with is a type of sexual orientation, and I have heard that those never truly go away. I will likely deal with these thoughts on occasion for the rest of my life.

What has changed is that I am able to and I am choosing to not act on my temptations. Becoming more like God is more important to me, as is honoring my wife. We all have to choose every single day that we will follow God that day. I am no exception. And temptation is not sin. What we do when we are tempted can be sin.

I finally shared with my wife and I could not have possibly hoped for a better response. It was so, so hard to share, and she knew that. She kept interjecting that she was so proud of me. She knew the strength it had taken to be that raw and real and how isolated I had felt for so long.

After that, I shared with my pastor, and he was very supportive as well. The sharing continued after that with several family members and close friends.

So, now the Shame Cycle has been replaced by the Grace Cycle. This is the cycle that God intends for us to live in.

It’s the same as before, except there is no hiding from God in guilt and shame. When I mess up, God wants me to see him rightly as a loving a caring father. He doesn’t want us to mess up, but he knows that we will, and he wants us to come back to him for help when we do.

I told you that I was here for those of you who have been stuck in the shame cycle. I hope my story helps you to see that God’s truth lies in the Grace Cycle. He is inviting you there.

I also said that I was here for those of you with secrets like mine. I want to strongly encourage you to share your secret with a few close and trusted friends. Be open. Be honest. Be raw and real. Healing can’t come by hiding. If you go to the doctor because you have back pain, but then you tell the doctor that your elbow hurts, how much will he be able to help your back? Not at all. Only by being honest can we find healing.

There is always risk in honesty, and maybe you were burned in the past when you opened up and were vulnerable. I want to encourage you to try again. I can’t say it will be easy, but I can say it will be worth it.

I understand you need to be careful with whom you share. I’m not saying that you should shout your secret from the rooftop. But God never intended for any of us to be an island. He built us for community to be able to love and encourage one another. There are a lot of Christ-followers in your church who can handle the whole truth about who you are and what you struggle with. Find a few and share that deep, dark part of you that you didn’t think anyone could handle. I think you’ll be surprised. Your church isn’t made up of perfect people helping to guide imperfect people. They are all imperfect and flawed. I’m just suggesting that we all be real about our imperfections instead of hiding them.

I eventually entrusted my deep, dark secret of having transgender thoughts with my family, a few friends, and even my pastor (and I am planning to eventually share publicly). I wasn’t shunned; I wasn’t ridiculed. Instead, I was welcomed with the same deep love that our Father God has for us.

Finally, even if you’re reading this and you haven’t been stuck in the shame cycle or holding onto a secret, I have something important for every single person, particularly Christians. Be a safe person for someone to be open and honest, raw and real with. Life is messy. Meet people with compassion, not judgment. There is a time and a place to lovingly correct someone, but when they are opening up to you about a deep truth about themselves is not that time. Listen more. Speak less. Love more. Judge less.

Christians tend to take a stance on LGBT issues. The danger here is that people are people first, and Christians are called to love first. Taking a hard stance puts the focus on the stance rather than the people.

I am a prime example. I have been a Christian for most of the portion of my life that I have dealt with this, but I never felt the safety to talk about it until somewhat recently. It would have meant worlds to me if I could have confided with some Christian friends much earlier in my life and talked through it. I wanted to be raw and real – not just with the parts of my life that were “Church-appropriate,” but with all of me. I wanted to talk with my Christian brothers and sisters about why I was feeling this way, what it meant, and how I could deal with it in a God-honoring way. I didn’t want to feel judged, and simultaneously, I didn’t want to be urged to be “true to myself” and fully pursue it. I mainly just wanted to be able to talk about it.

It could be that I could have had that if I had been brave enough to open up to my Christian friends, but I obviously wasn’t. One hurdle (of many) was that stances made it feel that Christians fell into one of three groups – 1) those with a hard stance that LGBT issues are absolutely wrong and anyone who deals with these issues has no place in a church, 2) those with a hard stance that LGBT issues are absolutely never wrong, and 3) those who remain silent. This made me feel like there was no way for me to talk about this without taking some hard stance one way or another. The only other option was to remain silent.

It’s time for that to change. We can’t remain silent. At the same time, we can’t take such a hard stance that we see issues instead of people. It is possible – and even healthy – for people to love each other and still disagree. Let me say that again because I feel like it may have gone by a little too quickly. It is possible – and even healthy – for people to love each other and still disagree.

How can I have a deep and meaningful relationship with you if I feel like I have to wear a mask when I am around you and you feel like you have to wear a mask when you’re around me? Then, we’re just two masks talking to each other, with the actual people safely isolated behind the masks.

Instead, let’s take off the masks and talk! Let’s be raw and real! Let’s encourage one another AND let’s also admonish one another. Let’s talk about difficult topics. Maybe we disagree. Let’s plan in advance that we are going to love and care for one another no matter what, and that the love and care will be more important than being right in any disagreement. Judgement belongs to God, not to us. Let’s leave it in his hands. Let’s each take off our masks and talk.

That is my stance on LGBT issues, and really, on all issues. I hope you’ll join me in this stance. It’s time for the silence to end. Let’s talk.

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As I mentioned at the beginning, I am planning to go public soon. I’m just working on the how and when. I want to share my story with others and encourage open communication of difficult topics.

If you think your church might be open to having me share, please invite your pastor to read this (you could suggest it to them anonymously if you need). I welcome them to reach out to me at matthias45810@gmail.com.