How God Conquered One Lesbian's Heart

By Michelle D. Smith. Posted by Charisma News on 22 May 2016.

It took me a couple of years before I could work up the courage to go back home for a visit. I wouldn't go alone and took my girlfriend, Ann, and her daughter, with me. My mom was very warm and welcoming, even loving toward all three of us. I thought perhaps things had changed in the nearly seven years I'd been gone.

She pulled me aside and said, "Michelle, I love you, and you are all welcome to stay here tonight, but you'll have to sleep in separate rooms." I was mad, but I understood and appreciated the forewarning. We went to a hotel.

Mom continued to love on us by sending cards and money on birthdays and holidays. I joked it wasn't fair Ann got the same amount of money on her birthday as I did from my parents.

I was beginning to calm down, to live a more stable life, one that wouldn't cause the neighbors to blush. Normal. I thought perhaps I should also pursue a more normal religious identity. I was still seeking God. I knew I couldn't return to mainstream Christianity, just the thought of it still gave me the heebie-jeebies, but I had a deep longing I couldn't satisfy. I was still writing, reading and viewing porn.

I began studying Kabbalah and the Zohar (both Jewish mysticism), and I decided I needed to talk to a rabbi, to learn as much about the foundational aspects of Judaism as possible before I could truly attain proficiency in Jewish mysticism. At the time, this seemed to fall within the realm of "normal" for me. I met with a rabbi in the Reformed tradition, one who assured me it was OK to continue my life as a practicing lesbian.

Although the thought of entering a Christian church or speaking to any of my former mentors and friends who were Christians almost sickened me, I could read the Bible if I was doing it to pursue Jewish knowledge. I stuck to the Old Testament, which kept me safe from the pesky and disturbing writings of Paul. I couldn't deal with Jesus either, but that was OK for now. He seemed safely ensconced in the New Testament.

What I didn't intend during my course of study was to have feelings about God emerge. I began to sense an awareness of Him again. My previous experiences into other forms of spirituality (or non-spirituality) had always been to soothe an ache, but had always been unsuccessful. They were fun, scary, encouraging or wishful, but never fulfilling. I began to pray the serenity prayer and the 23rd Psalm.

More than a year passed as I met with the rabbi once a week, alone and in a small group. I rarely went to synagogue. I am an introvert by nature, and couldn't seem to break into this Jewish family in any meaningful way. Finally, Rabbi M. told me it was time to pick a date for my official conversion ceremony.

Within days of the announcement, I received devastating news. Aunt Jan, dearly beloved and only 11 years older than me, had died unexpectedly. My entire family felt this loss deeply. I drove with my girlfriend to Oklahoma to the funeral.

As I sat in the funeral home chapel, listening to a sermon by a very inexperienced friend of my uncle's, I heard a voice say to me, "You can't give up Jesus." I turned my head to the left and to the right, but no one was looking at me. "You can't give up Jesus." Again, I looked around and no one was paying any attention to me. It repeated again, and perhaps one more time.

I found myself saying, "I can't give up Jesus. I can't give up Jesus." The voice of the minister had faded. I wasn't aware of anything except that thought. I knew to convert to Judaism was to deny Jesus. It turned out I wasn't prepared to do that.

Strangely, even in spite of hearing an audible voice inside my head, I continued to be lost. I searched on the internet for an acceptable church. When I would find a local church that accepted and endorsed the gay lifestyle, I would get excited and go try it out. However, I never went back to any of those churches. It was as if there was a heavy cloud over every single one of them. It was like a giant room lit with only a few 25-watt bulbs. Any church that would accept me as a practicing lesbian lacked all credibility with me. I knew it was wrong, and having someone tell me it was right made me lose all respect for their authority.

I began reading theologians in what is called Progressive Christianity such as Marcus Borg and John Shelby Spong. While their theology was appealing to someone who wanted Jesus without sacrifice, Christ without obedience, I was still hungry. The intellectual spin was interesting, but didn't sound the bell of truth in my spirit. I had experienced a relationship with God when I was a child. I longed to be deeply loved and cherished by Him.

Excerpt from "Prodigal Pursued" by Michelle D. Smith. Former Assistant District Attorney, Michelle spent nearly 25 years as an out, loud, and proud lesbian. A feminist, separatist and anarchist, she wandered through New Age beliefs, witchcraft, Buddhism, agnosticism and all the other "isms" available to explore. At last she encountered the undeniable, indescribable love of Jesus, and everything changed. Today Michelle not only reaches out to touch the LGBT community with the love of God, but also speaks to the church, sharing a message of hope to those who feel they have lost a   loved one to the LGBT lifestyle.

Link: 

http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/57327-how-god-conquered-one-lesbian-s-heart

Finding Real Love

BY CHUA EE CHIEN. Published by Asian Beacon on 28 July 2013.

Edmund Smith is a good-looking pastor, loving husband and father of two children who once led a “wild homosexual lifestyle,” as he says.

Smith had his first gay relationship when he was 18. A pub singer at night and a special education teacher by day, he used to entertain thoughts of having a sex change and tried to behave as femininely as possible. Plucking his eyebrows and shaving the hair on his legs were just two of his many womanly routines. What drove him to this lifestyle and what made him walk away from it?

Confusing Childhood

“I am the fourth boy in my family. When Mum was pregnant with me, they had hoped that I would be a girl. Perhaps that’s why, until I was five, my mother brought me up like a girl. I played with dolls and wore dresses,” says Edmund. “My father rejected me – he never
hugged me or touched me. My rejection deepened especially after my younger sister was born because I could remember clearly my father loving her and saying nice things to her just because she was a girl.”

“So, for the first five years of my life, I remember wishing to be a girl due to all the ‘self issues’ that had developed because of how my parents treated me and my confusing upbringing. I hated being a guy and naturally I began to think, feel and talk like a girl,” he recalls.

“When I reached the age of six and started to go to kindergarten, my mum suddenly decided to stop treating me like a girl after receiving comments from others and she started abusing and beating me up, making me more confused,” he says.

Edmund was later sent to an all-boys school and there he found boys who were just as effeminate. So, at the age of 13, he began his homosexual life.

Triggers

Based on his personal experience, he finds that there are mainly three specific issues which would trigger one’s journey to homosexuality, if not dealt with.

The first is the ‘vacuum’ issue, which is related to a lack of parental love. “Everyone needs the ‘V’ love. A mother’s love flows down from one side, and a father’s love flows down from the other and a child needs both parents’ love. Most gay guys have never had a father’s love,” he says.

The second trigger is the ‘self issue’, which is basically something about ourselves that we reject. For example, if you are a man and you reject your masculinity, that becomes a ‘self issue’ towards your gender.

The third trigger is the ‘barrier issue’, which causes one to look at the opposite gender negatively due to bad experiences such as abuse and bitterness.

Unfortunately for Smith, he had all three issues and therefore, looked for real love among his kind all through his secondary school days, while trying to be as feminine as possible.

Smith had his first real relationship with a man when he was 18 but it only lasted a year as his partner became possessive. He then started another relationship with another man.

It was not until he was 24 when he was dumped by his third lover that Smith decided he was sick and tired of his lifestyle and decided that he’d rather be single than be used by men again. It was a lonely journey to recovery as he had to walk away from his friends and give up his lifestyle of frequenting gay clubs and saunas.

Meeting The Right Man

Brought up in a Roman Catholic home, Smith faithfully went to church even while he was practising the homosexual lifestyle. “I went to church every Sunday, but I never had a relationship with Jesus,” he says.

His turning point came when he met Jenny, his colleague at Salvation Army where he worked as a teacher. “One day, Jenny asked me, ‘Why don’t you give Jesus a try?’ I then decided to open up my heart and receive Christ into my life.”

Upon Jenny’s invitation, he started attending the Salvation Army Church and grew in his relationship with this Jesus.

Looking back, Smith realises that his “right man – Jesus” had always been by his side because when he was going through his third break-up, he happened to be at a place where he was surrounded by Christians.

“If not for Jesus and the support from fellow Christians, I would have gone back to my old lifestyle. The journey to recovery from sexual brokenness is not an easy one. You need a church or group who can listen to you and lift you up when you fall,” Smith says.

One of Smith’s greatest blessings is his wife, Amanda Amutha Perumal, who was his colleague and good friend at Salvation Army. In 1997, Smith and Amanda went to Singapore Bible College to further their studies and there, they got to know about Choices, a Singapore- based organisation which reaches out to homosexuals.

They were trained at Choices for their ministry with homosexuals and in 2003, they moved back to Malaysia and set up Real Love Ministry (RLM) in Malacca.

“I started the ministry with the goal of raising up Befrienders-trained RLM workers who will journey with homosexuals who want to leave their lifestyle. I also started giving talks on the issues of sexual brokenness and formed support groups,” says Smith.

Spreading The Love

In 2006, Edmund and Amanda felt God’s call to start a church in Malacca which they later named Real Love Fellowship. Today, Edmund is the Senior Pastor of the church, reaching out and spreading the love of Jesus to the sexually-broken and marginalised community. His church is attended by the young and old from all walks of life.

The proud father of two – Angel and Ethan – has a passion for the performing arts and still sings, acts and dances professionally. His album, Wake Up, was inspired from his years of community work with the mentally-challenged, AIDs patients and homosexuals. He also travels frequently as an itinerant speaker, sharing his testimony to many.

Seeing the huge need of the homosexual community, Smith says that his church is looking to doing more work among the community. “There are hundreds of homosexuals who want to come out, but we have only few Befrienders,” he says. “We need more people to step out to reach out to these people.”

The Smiths also hope to purchase their own building to cater to the increasing needs of their church members and ministry. More information on Real Love Ministry is available at www.r-l-m.com.

Baby Boomers: Egocentric Comes With A Price

By Yvonne Roberts. Published by The Guardian on 29 June 2013.

To some, it must have been a very long time coming but here it is at last. That smug, gold-plated, bloated slice of the population whose main preoccupation appears to be, on the one hand, continually bragging about their unique birthright of rock'n'roll, flower power, feminism and the sexual revolution while on the other grabbing jobs, income and bread from the mouths of their young, are running into trouble.

As newspaper headlines told us last week: "Baby boomers face a lonely future." According to Who Will Love Me When I'm 64?, a report published by the relationship charity Relate and the New Philanthropy Capital consultancy, the over-50s, unsurprisingly, rate health, financial security and strong relationships soundly – but many are ill prepared for the significant transitions that ageing brings. These include retirement, loss of income, loss of status and ill health. And these changes, in turn, have an impact on spouses and friends resulting, for some, in an isolated and difficult older age.

For my generation, as we all know, counter-culture Cupid fired his arrows in a variety of directions. Among those born between 1946 and 1964, divorce flourished for the first time; cohabitation became the norm and fidelity was for many no longer seen as an essential part of a relationship. In addition, women could earn a living and pay their own way while the stigma attached to being either a divorcee or a thirtysomething spinster evaporated. The bars on the matrimonial cage were removed, and many a canary fled.

But, according to Ruth Sutherland of Relate, that also means now, in later life, baby boomers face "a looming crisis … totally overlooked by government". They may have fewer intact relationships and a thinner financial cushion on which to look for support when they become vulnerable.

According to the Relate-NPC report, while the number of divorces is falling in every age group, the number of "silver splitters" is rising. In the late 1970s, a third of marriages ended in divorce before the 50th wedding anniversary. By 2005, that had risen to more than 45% while cohabitation has an even higher rate of attrition. One in three children will see their parents separate. "Blended families" including step-relationships add to the complication. Sons and daughters, second wives, husbands and partners – all of mature years – can still behave like children when family ties turn into Chinese knots. Add to that the inevitable loss of bereavement, and for those aged over 70, in particular, even the most gregarious, will see their circle of friends shrink.

So what is to be done? Relate offers recommendations, including a minister for ageing; health checks on relationships (depends upon who is wielding the stethoscope) and greater efforts in later life to add to the circle of friends (although one Ipsos-Mori poll shows that only 4% of the over 50s rate making new friends).

What the report irritatingly fails to point out is that an attitude of mind is crucial. Predict a pessimistic "looming crisis" and it will undoubtedly happen. A minister for ageing would have no budget, no clout and no seat in cabinet. Instead of encouraging each ministerial department – housing, health, communities to consider ageing as a natural continuum of its brief – it would allow them all to continue in their Peter Pan position and park any concerns on the secretary for senior citizens' very small and wizened desk.

What the report also omits is that the baby boomers are nothing if not inventive. The plot of 50 shades of silver grey has yet to unfold. So far, that has consisted of developing every kind of device known to man to deny that ageing is even taking place. But there is more to come.

Ageing is no longer a process tied to chronological age – the 60-year-old first-time father springs to mind. But it does trigger a physical and mental change of mind that eventually impacts on even the most ardent of age-deniers as time runs out. Because the baby boomers are "the pig in the python" according to demographers – a large group of people of similar age causing a bulge in population statistics that moves through the demographic cycle – they have left an impact in each decade through which they passed by the sheer weight of their numbers and financial clout. How they meet the challenge of ageing well – with or without a partner, in or out of love – is therefore of interest to us all.

Last year, Al and Tipper Gore divorced in the US after 40 years of marriage. Forty years is no mean feat. And still time for a second go. Why do people separate after a lifetime together? The reasons are as diverse as they are well rehearsed. Once the children are gone, silence may set in and boredom creep from the closet. Or it might be a case of: "Is that all there is?" And good enough is no longer strong enough; or one partner wants adventure and the other prefers more of the same. "It's not just about what you want to do," says Penny Mansfield of the relationship charity One Plus One. "It's also about what you are scared of changing."

In his 2003 book Aging Well, George Vaillant, an American psychiatrist, drew lessons from three longitudinal studies that followed 824 people – the parents of the baby boomers – for more than 60 years. He was fascinated by why some became "sad sick" as the years progressed and others "happy well". One of the studies selected a Harvard group for their soundness of mind. Yet a third had suffered mental illness by their 50s. "They were normal when I picked them," one researcher told Vaillant, "It must have been the psychiatrists who screwed them up." Childhood isn't decisive. How you start out, Vaillant learned, is no indicator of where you will end up.

He looked at those people, male and female, who had fared well emotionally as octogenarians and saw patterns in their 50s that gave signals. They were in a stable relationship, did not smoke, drank little, exercised, had a normal weight and had the maturity to handle emotional issues well, "and make a lemon into lemonade". Comfortable in their own skins, they would not have mouthed the words of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman: "I still feel kind of temporary about myself."

It is this "social aptitude" or emotional literacy that Vaillant discovered, not intellectual brilliance, or income or parental social class or genes that leads to successful ageing – that is being rich in well being and not alone.

Some of the wealthy in his studies died alone, prematurely and miserably just like a number of the poorest.

As you age, Vaillant advised: "Don't try to think less of yourself … try to think of yourself less." That, of course, may mean breaking the habit of a lifetime for some of the baby boomers. But it's worth a try.

Read more here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/29/baby-boomers-old-age-lonely

Pornography: A Habit That Can Destroy Lives

Published by The New York Times (Room for Debate) on 11 November 2012. By Gail Dines, a professor of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College in Boston, is the author of “Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality.” Robert Jensen, a professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, is the author “Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity.” They are founding members of Stop Porn Culture.

Assessing the effects of mass media is never simple, but the important questions about pornography are obvious: What happens when a culture is saturated with sexually explicit images eroticizing male domination and female subordination? When those images become increasingly cruel and degrading to women and increasingly racist? When pornography becomes the de facto sex education for most boys and an increasing number of girls?

These disturbing trends do not apply to all pornography. There are many varieties made by hundreds of small producers, but the porn industry around Los Angeles dominates, shaping cultural ideas about sexuality, relationships and intimacy. Just as the food industry shapes how we eat and the fashion industry shapes how we dress, the sex industry shapes the way we think about sex.

This dominant source of pornography has some consistent themes. The most extensive peer-reviewed study in the past decade found that a majority of scenes from 50 top-rented porn movies contained physical and verbal abuse of female performers. Physical aggression – including spanking, open-hand slapping and gagging – occurred in 88 percent of scenes, with expressions of verbal aggression – usually a man calling a woman derogatory names – in 48 percent.

Individual experiences as a viewer of pornography differ, and many men and some women report pleasurable experiences. But clear patterns emerge from more than 30 years of academic research and organizing informed by a feminist critique of pornography. In heterosexual couples, men who habitually use pornography sometimes withdraw from intimacy with female partners, and sometimes make demands on female partners for sexual acts that are uncomfortable, painful or degrading to the woman. Women in heterosexual relationships report that both these behaviors can destroy relationships, and men sometimes report that they are aware of the damage but cannot break the habit. 

Anyone who doubts these trends should talk to marriage therapists and divorce lawyers. 

Although there is little systematic research on performers, anecdotal evidence suggests it’s a harsh business for women. The industry portrays high-profile performers with glamorous lives, but producers and directors we’ve interviewed said candidly that the industry “chews up and spits out” women. According to the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation, which provided testing and health care for performers in Los Angeles until it closed last year, female performers are at risk for injuries and diseases. The group’s founder once said the average career of these women was “six months to three years, tops,” after which they must cope with a variety of physical and psychological problems. 

Pornography is the industrialization and commodification of sex, and like all big industries, its product is generic, formulaic and plasticized. These images tend to rob sex of its creativity, playfulness and intimacy, and hence are ultimately profoundly alienating. The performers, the consumers and the culture deserve better.

Link: 

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/11/11/does-pornography-deserve-its-bad-rap/a-pornography-habit-destroys-relationships

Christians take 'beliefs' fight to European Court of Human Rights

Published by BBC News on 4 September 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19472438

Four British Christians who claim they lost their jobs as a result of discrimination against their beliefs are taking their cases to the European Court of Human Rights. They include an airline worker stopped from wearing a cross and a registrar who did not want to marry gay couples.

All four lost separate employment tribunals relating to their beliefs. Secular critics have said a ruling in favour of the group could "seriously undermine" UK equality law. A ruling is not expected from the European court for several weeks.

The cases involve:

1. Nadia Eweida, a Pentecostal Christian from Twickenham, south-west London, who was sent home by her employer British Airways in 2006 after refusing to remove a necklace with a cross,
2. Devon-based nurse Shirley Chaplin, who was moved to a desk job by Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust Hospital for similar reasons,
3. Gary McFarlane, a Bristol relationship counsellor, who was sacked by Relate after saying on a training course he might have had a conscientious objection to giving sex therapy advice to gay couples,
4. Registrar Lilian Ladele, who was disciplined after she refused to conduct same-sex civil partnership ceremonies in north London.

Each individual had made a separate application to the court, but the cases are being heard together. Miss Eweida's lawyer, James Dingemans, said her employer had permitted other religious symbols to be worn.

He said: "She was working alongside colleagues who were able to wear religious symbols and attire including the Sikh turban, the Sikh bracelet, the Muslim hijab, and the Jewish skull cap. "It was indisputable that wearing the cross visibly did not have any detrimental effect on Miss Eweida's ability to do her job." But a lawyer for the government, James Eadie, said employees' rights have to be limited in order to protect the rights of others.

He said: "These four linked cases at their core raise questions about the rights, and the limits to the rights, of employees to force their employers to alter employment conditions, so as to accommodate the employees' religious practices.

"My submission will be that the court's jurisprudence is clear and consistent, it is to this effect the convention protects individuals' rights to manifest their religion outside their professional sphere.

"However, that does not mean that in the context of his or her employment an individual can insist on being able to manifest their beliefs in any way they choose. Other rights, other interests are in play and are to be respected."

'Right to religion'

Court documents explained that Miss Eweida and Mrs Chaplin believed the UK law has "failed adequately to protect their right to manifest their religion" which is contrary to Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This article provides a right to freedom of religion, including to worship, teaching, practice and observe elements of their faith. They also claim that previous tribunal rulings have breached Article 14 of the convention, which outlaws discrimination based on religion.

Miss Ladele also believed her right to an "effective remedy" was infringed, and Mr McFarlane claimed his right to a fair trial and right to a private life in the UK were breached. Earlier this year, the UK's equality watchdog, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said the UK tribunals had come to the correct conclusion in the cases of Miss Ladele and Mr McFarlane. But it conceded that the courts "may not have given sufficient weight" to Article 9.

Andrew Marsh, campaign director at religious group Christian Concern, whose sister organisation Christian Legal Centre is supporting Mrs Chaplin and Mr McFarlane, told the BBC the four could have had their beliefs respected by their employers without adversely affecting the people they serve.

"The crucial question in these cases is this: could these four individuals have been reasonably accommodated and their Christian faith respected, without detriment or damage to the rights of others - and the answer to that question is clearly yes.

"Each of them could have been reasonably accommodated without there ever being any danger of risk, significant risk to others or indeed of anyone who is entitled to a service being denied that service." However, the National Secular Society - which campaigns against "religious privilege" - said a European court ruling in favour of the quartet would undermine UK equality law.

Society director, Keith Porteous Wood, said the group was fighting the action: "We think that if it goes the wrong way it will cause a hierarchy of right, with religion at the top, and it's going to be bad news for employers and for gay people."

Related report: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/05/christian-discrimination-lord-carey-human-rights_n_1857460.html

Discrimination against Christians is rife in the workplace, with religious groups warning that the cases of four Christians in the European Court of Human Rights are "the tip of the iceberg". The former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey criticised the prime minister for his hypocrisy, in failing to support Christians facing "discrimination" but extolling his own faith...

In a submission to the court, Lord Carey said: "The secular human rights agenda has gone too far and the Convention is losing legitimacy in many Contracting states. "Many noble words such as ‘human rights’ are seen as little more than a political agenda. "The human rights agenda is now seen as an anti-moral agenda; the Court must restore its prestige by recognition of traditional religious values. "Christians have values of morality, honesty and generosity that the State should promote, not discourage.

In his submission, Lord Carey argued Christians were being increasingly “vilified” and “driven underground” by the tendency of UK courts to apply "equality law to discriminate against Christians.” As the court adjourned on Wednesday, Lord Carey accused the government of double-standards, saying: "David Cameron has turned the value of ‘tolerance’ on its head. Only two months ago he championed the right of Christians to wear crosses.

“Yet at the same time he was making that statement, his lawyers were drafting a legal submission to Strasbourg which opposes the rights of all these Christians. "We have to question, then, whether Cameron’s initial words of support mean anything at all. “Sadly, the Government has passed up its opportunity to support the right of Christians to express their faith and have a reasonable accommodation in the law for freedom of conscience. “It is now down to the European Court. In these cases, Christians are not seeking special rights but merely trying to overturn unfair verdicts which create a hierarchy of rights in which Christians are at the bottom of the pile.”

Andrea Minichiello Williams, barrister and founder of the Christian Legal Centre also criticised the government's approach. “The prime minister has been asked, repeatedly, to intervene in these cases and back the four Christians who have served the public through their varied professions. He has failed dismally.

“Many believe it is unfair that hard-working public servants and employees are being discriminated against simply because of their faith. It is very clear at the moment that there is either a major problem in the way that the Equality Act was drafted. It is time for this to be redressed.

“The working of the British courts has led to deep injustice. If we are successful in Strasbourg I hope that the Equality Act and other diversity legislation will be overhauled, so that Christians are free to work and act in accordance with their beliefs and conscience.”

Andrew Marsh, campaigns director for Christian Concern, which is providing legal support for Chaplin and McFarlane, told The Huffington Post UK that the four cases were a small example of the volume they dealt with. He said he felt they had been treated with "aggression and hostility" by their employers. "I think the media has drawn attention to the fact that much of this is directed specifically against Christians, for whatever reason, and other faiths are more accommodated if they have specific requests at work.

"What lies at the heart of this is that no-one has been harmed by the choices these four wanted to make, no-one had had a service denied to them. This is an issue which really resonates with people on the ground, and is much wider than just a Christian issue. "Detractors have wanted to paint Gary and Shirley as 'rights-obsessed' and belligerent, but they are extremely gentle and accommodating people."

Transsexual Returns to Original Gender After Relationship With Christ

By Jeff Schapiro, published by The Christian Post on 11 January 2012.

By his early teenage years, the fantasy had only grown. He adopted the female name Andrea West, and began cross dressing. At age 15, he also began learning about Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) and, although he struggled against his desire to be female, he says those feelings were like a radio playing in his head that he just couldn't turn off.

"While I didn't want to be going down this pathway I seemed to be on this track that I couldn't interrupt, stop or change,” he recalled. “But I wasn't homosexual. I was having dates with girls, I never felt any desire to have relationships with men, so from the standpoint of my sexuality I was always heterosexual.”

“That I think, too, is one of the...misleading factors. Most people consider transgenders to be homosexual and, from my experience...98 to 99 percent of the people who contact me are not homosexual...It's really a gender identity issue, not a sexual preference issue.”

In the midst of his struggle, Heyer got married and had two children. He worked as an engineer for a while and achieved significant financial success.

“But the difficulty that I faced was that I couldn't shut the thoughts or the feelings off," he said. He turned to alcohol to cope with his issues, and eventually his life came crashing down around him.

He and his wife split after 17 years of marriage, and he lost his job when he began making the physical transformation into becoming a woman. He got breast implants, began taking hormones, had electrolysis to reduce the hair on his face and had his genitals removed.

As an adult woman, he gave himself the name Laura, and lived under that identity for eight years.

After studying psychology while still living as a woman, however, he says he eventually realized that a person can't actually change genders and that he was delusional. He also later found out that he had a dissociative disorder and multiple personality disorder as a result of his haunting past.

"You're not born transgender, something happens in your childhood that causes you to not want to be who you are...And today the only thing that is...socially acceptable is calling yourself a transgender,” he said.

“I don't think that's an accurate description of where the people are. They're individuals suffering from a delusional disorder that is going to become very self-destructive if, in fact, they don't get good psychological counseling or psychiatric help during that process.”

While he was living as Laura, Heyer says that he believed in Christ but struggled to be accepted in the church. He recalled one church he attended where he entered as a woman but was asked to leave by the pastor once his identity issues were revealed.

Not all his church experiences were bad, however. He found a church that welcomed him in, even with the knowledge of what his struggle was. The pastor of that church told him, “Our job is to love you and it's God's job to transform you.”

“The church, what it did for me was it allowed me to really get to the point where I asked the Lord for forgiveness. I began to pray for forgiveness. And I realized that the critical point is understanding that you can accept Jesus Christ, but there's a point where that doesn't become real...until you're walking with Christ,” he said.

“Because the real truth that Christ is alive is the fact that you see a transformed life. And so what happened in my life is that when I finally... got down on my knees and was working through these things many years after I had accepted Christ – probably 10 to 15 years after I accepted Christ – I finally felt that I was broken enough as a man that I got on my knees and prayed.”

He says that one day he had a vision while praying with his psychologist. He saw Jesus pick up a baby version of himself, look at him and say, “You will now be saved with me forever.” From that point on he could feel the Holy Spirit moving and guiding him in his life.

Today, Heyer says he no longer struggles with his gender identity and uses his testimony to speak out in support of those who have similar struggles and against those who advocate sex reassignment surgery as the solution to the gender identity problems.

A Swedish study published online in February 2011 examined individuals who had sex reassignments between 1973 and 2003, and found that switching sexes can have a significant negative impact on the individual and is not a good solution to someone's gender identity crisis.

“This study found substantially higher rates of overall mortality, death from cardiovascular disease and suicide, suicide attempts, and psychiatric hospitalizations in sex-reassigned transsexual individuals compared to a healthy control population,” the study's authors write in their conclusion. “This highlights that post-surgical transsexuals are a risk group that need long-term psychiatric and somatic follow-up.”

Heyer is the founder of websites such as Sex Change Regret and True Trans Christians, and is the author of several related books including Trading My Sorrows and, most recently, Paper Genders, which was published in June 2011.

He emphasizes the point that SRS is cosmetic surgery only, that it is “scientifically, medically and surgically impossible” for a man to actually be changed into a woman, but also says other people need to show compassion toward those who are struggling with gender identity issues.

Today Heyer is married once again, and he says that he has found happiness in being the gender that God created him to be.

Read more here: http://www.christianpost.com/news/transsexual-returns-to-original-gender-after-relationship-with-christ-66932/

The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender story

Published by Free Malaysia Today on 7 November 2011.

From Nawawi Mohamad, via e-mail

While the Bar Council has defended the Merdeka Sexuality Festival, Ambiga Sreenevasan has supported it and the country’s number two cop had announced that it has been banned, many of us do not really know how difficult and how bad is it to be a LGBT.

Islam prohibits this kind of relationship between people of the same sex. However Islam does deal with individuals who face this kind problem in determining their gender. The point is Islam tackles the issue at its bud. Unfortunately the authorities have not really put a serious effort in solving the issues. But this is typical of the Umno-BN government; they never really resolve any issues.

The problem with the LGBT people is that their problems started from adolescence up to old age but the damage will also affect others from the start and continue even after their death simply because by having a group of LGBT in any community it adds to the already so many problems.

This way of life is not right. They have no moral right to exist in society simply because their way of life is immoral. The problem needs immediate and urgent attention by the relevant authorities before it is too late but. The problem needs to resolved humanely.

Growing up being different is not easy. Studies have shown that LGBT youth are at increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviour.

LGBT youths face an increased risk of violence, compared with other students. Violence can include behaviors such as bullying, teasing, harassment and physical assaults. This is especially true in schools where signs of weakness or difference attract bullies like moths to the flame.

Starting from this young age LGBT individuals face the ‘coming out problems; the process of acknowledging your own sexual orientation or gender identity, deciding whom to talk about it with and how you can do that. Coming out is in reality a process which occurs again and again throughout life for most LGBT individuals. Some will take their entire lives to just trying hard to be indentified and acknowledged by society. The not so long ago on the death of “Aleesha” proved the point.

As they grow up, they will faced with more difficulties. Multiple studies have established that homosexual conduct, especially among males, is considerably more hazardous to one’s health than a lifetime of chain smoking. While the medical consensus is that smoking knocks several years off an individual’s life expectancy, the International Journal of Epidemiology (IJE) study found that homosexual conduct shortens the lifespan of “gays” by an astounding “8 to 20 years” – more than twice that of smoking. They are at a higher risk of getting AIDS and other sexual transmitted diseases. AIDS have been confirmed as a gay disease.

While some do have proper employment, many are not so fortunate. How can one have a successful education, with self-confidence when there are many problems other than that faced by a normal person? Due to this inherent disadvantage, the LGBT people will not be able to acquire the relevant qualifications and find it hard to find decent jobs thus many ended up in massage parlours or become sex workers, and adding to more negative things in their lives.

Studies comparing the normal women with the lesbian and bisexual women show that the latter have a higher risk of contracting uterine, breast, cervical, endometrial and ovarian cancers. They are less likely to become pregnant, thus do not benefit from the hormones released during pregnancy that protect against breast and ovarian cancers.

LGBT people will forever have relationship problem because of their stigma in society; they will always have difficulties in their ability to form and maintain wholesome relationships. They will also be faced with the nagging question whether or not their sexual behaviour is natural, compulsive or reactive.

They will keep wondering whether monogamy work would work because they have chosen this option. Despite the legitimacy given by some public figures, the happy front the LGBT people try to portray, their self-esteem will never be high, and they will always be looked down upon.

Those who are fortunate to be legally married will always want to have a complete life; have a family. The whole idea of having a family for the LGBT people is absurd. The child they brought up within their marriage will not be able to get a normal life like most of the kids. This is most unfair to the child who has no choice at all; things will just be imposed on the child.

The poor child will end up disillusioned and face much more challenging problems than the couple, all because of the lust and the self-interests of the parents. Their children will face serious problems as a result of the misguided sexual orientation of their parents as being normal.

LGBT people encounter the same range of traumatic events as heterosexual individuals. However, they may additionally come up against traumas specifically related to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Same-sex domestic violence will bring with it even more stigma and barriers to appropriate support. As of today there is no group of experienced people who know how to help them. They will automatically be neglected and left on their own. They could be rejected by society.

As they grow older things will not improve either. Towards the end they may regret for choosing that path. Being queer will end up facing queer things. As there has not been much research in determining the fate of these LGBT elderly, they will just have to face their problems on their own. They will always be regarded as low lives and deserve the consequences of their lust, stubbornness, arrogance and self interest.

By highlighting the problems faced by the LGBT people, I hope those who are considering to choose this path will think hard and think many times; it is not a correct path to choose neither will it be successful.

They can put the blame on society, but society has its own problems. On the other hand the government, religious authorities and groups who simply belittled this group of people need to prevent the problem from the start if not, nothing can be done now to reverse the fate of the LGBTs.

CLM Talk on "Journeying Together" (Recovery from Same Gender Attraction)

Date: 12 November 2011 (Saturday)

Time: 9.30 am to 1 pm

Venue: Pusat Aktiviti Calvary, No. 20, Jalan PJU8/5G, Damansara Perdana, PJ.

Fee: RM40 per person (inclusive of materials and tea)

Tel: 03-7710 3360

Topics:

1) Same gender attraction - characteristics, issues & struggles.

2) How Support Group helps those seeking genuine change.

3) Process of journeying.

4) How can Christians respond and journey with those struggling.