From the Straits Times, Singapore:

The ex-transsexual has thrown the dresses – together with a few skeletons – out of his closet. Religion, he says, was his saviour.

It was a relief to me that, if this individual found it necessary to reverse course, he was able to do so before surgery.

‘Well, I’m really not in any physical relationship with anyone,” he says. “Chastity is a word we all hate. But I see it as being responsible to myself. I have made a choice and whether I find women or men attractive is irrelevant.”

I wish more ex-gay ministries would accept responsibility in a manner such as this (and I realize that some do). Shotgun exgay marriages do not seem like a good idea to me — certainly they are worse for the institution of marriage than gay marriages.

The next turning point came in 1991 when he met Mr Synclair Rogers, an American pastor who came out of transsexualism to become a husband and a father. The latter also started a ministry called Choices In Singapore to help people with sexual issues.

Here we have someone (the reporter?) imagining “isms” again, as if transsexuality were a political party.

Apart from that, I know nothing about ex-transsexual ministries, and I need to research them further before offering any constructive observations or criticism of them.

“But as the title suggests, the book is about freedom of choice. We’re free to choose, and we can choose to be free from whatever constrains us.

“And if that means an alternative lifestyle for some people, then power to them,” says the author, who also gives talks on sexuality in secondary schools here.

Without knowing more about the author or the ministries, this sounds to me like a mature and responsible position for an ex-movement activist to adopt. The speaker avoids presumption about what’s best for others, and (within the confines of the article) espouses free choice without attached agendas of discrimination and criminal prosecution.

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