This is the third part of a multiple part series about the term gender. Conservative religious organizations and ex-gay organizations use the term gender — and variants on the term gender — to group together GLB & T people in a manner that GLB & T people don’t group themselves together. This series will explore groupings around the term gender, and the term’s variants.
–Autumn
Who identifies as ex-trans in ex-gay circles? Who could by their testimony — but doesn’t — identify as ex-trans?
Three testimonies associated with figures that have ex-trans identities are linked here and here. The three figures are ex-cross-dresser Randall Wayne, ex-transgender person Jerry Leach, and ex-transsexual Sy (or Synclair) Rogers.
Randall Wayne stated in the article Cross-dressing and Christianity; A REAL Man’s Struggle:
In or about October of 1996 I experienced an onslaught of temptation and spiritual warfare in the area of cross-dressing. This strong desire to dress in women’s clothes was totally out of the blue, although it was something that I had experienced before in my life. At times, the temptation was so strong that it was all I could think about. As a result, I could not focus on the normal activities of life. Fortunately, I found help and hope. Today I can truly say after over 30 years of dealing with this, “Thank God I’m free!”
Sy Rogers stated in the article The Man In the Mirror:
There was a time when I would never have believed such fulfillment was possible for me. Only three years earlier, I was lost in pursuit of my identity, desperately seeking love and acceptance. I was transsexual – or at least that’s what my psychiatrist called it. Although physically a man, I felt “trapped” in the wrong body. I was obsessed with the desire to change my outward gender and conform my body to what I believed I really was – both mentally and emotionally. I convinced myself, and worked hard to convince others, that sex-change surgery was necessary for me if I was ever to lead a fulfilled life.
Unlike many transsexuals, however, I was also very homosexually active prior to my sex-change efforts. I began having homosexual encounters before I was ten years old. I was aware of an intense desire to be intimate with men, and I wanted men to desire me too.
And, Jerry Leach stated in the article Gender Variance?
What’s the cause for gender identity variance? Explain it we must, for without an understanding of the “root causes” we are left adrift upon an endless sea of speculation, preposterous/untrue theories, victimization, and yet untold emotional suffering. A well known Catholic Priest, Ted Dobson says, “There is a ‘tear’ in the masculine soul – a gaping hole or wound that leads to a profound insecurity. The German psychologist, Alexander Mitscherlich, has written that society has torn the soul of the male, and into this tear demons have fled – demons of insecurity, selfishness, and despair. Consequently, men do not know who they are as men. Rather, they define themselves by what they do, who they know, or what they own.”
Men with transgender/homosexual disorders will typically experience very similar backgrounds in the development of their social family history.
Two who could identify themselves as formerly identified as transgender persons — but don’t — are Alan Chambers and John Paulk.
Alan Chambers stated in the opening paragraphs of his Stonewall Revisited testimony:
My earliest memories are of wanting to be a girl. I often dressed in my sister’s clothing, my mother’s high-heels and tried to pass myself off as a girl to strangers. I desperately wanted to be a girl so I could do all of the things that others called feminine without the fear of being ridiculed. I hated sports and the rejection and name-calling that went with it.
I remember an older boy teasing me about the way I walked, ran, threw a ball or swung a bat. “That’s just like a girl would do it,” he’d say.
He was right. In fact, I used to sit at the dinner table and mimic my mother’s eating style. When she took a bite, I took a bite; when she dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin, so did I. Femininity became “my other world.”
John Paulk was quoted as stating:
Over the next three years I threw everything into being the best woman I could. I was proud to be a drag queen and even adopted the name “Candi.” Soon I became popular as a female impersonator, not just locally but in neighboring states as well. But inside I still hated myself. One night on the dance floor I said to God, “I know you can help me–someday I’ll come back to you.”
Of the five ex-trans or could-be-ex-trans people listed above, all but Randall Wayne directly link transgender behavior to homosexual behavior, and all of them link a lack of a strong, male gender identity to their transgender and/or homosexual behavior.
However, in their personal histories, these individuals identify their feelings of not being completely masculine, and the real fact that many of these folk are now, or have been key players in ex-gay ministries — well, I believe these individuals have personal experiences that lead them to believe that gay men and transgender women are very similar entities. And, in my mind, there’s no doubt this belief that gay men and transgender women are very similar entities is reflected throughout the organizations where they lead or have led, and how these ex-gay ministries impact other conservative religious organizational viewpoints on gay men and transgender women.
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Previous:
Part 1: Transgender / Ex-Transgender Glossary
Part 2: Trans And Gay: The GID Diagnoses And “Gender Confusion”
***********UPDATE***********
I fixed the broken links in the first paragraphes. The website I’d linked to completely revamped their site since I wrote the article, and the links changed. My appologies. ~~A~~(11/26/06)
As a transgender woman who is trying to become a minister, I run into the assumption that I am a gay man who wants to pretend I’m a woman all the time.
I think that much of the time it comes from a very binary view of the world: “there’s the people who are just like me and there’s everyone else, and because the people who are just like me are all the same, the people who are different must all be the same, too.”
I’ve also met people who are baffled by why I would want to give up the privileges of being a white male. I think some of them assume that the only thing that would drive someone to leave that place of power is some kind of perverse sexual desire.
I’ve also found that even among supporters conversations that start at trans (which at least for me is a matter of identity) end up moving fairly quickly towards sexuality.
I think sexuality just has such a huge gravitational field in our society that anything that gets anywhere near it gets sucked into it like light into a black hole from which it can never escape.
Meghan,
I think that much of the time it comes from a very binary view of the world: “there’s the people who are just like me and there’s everyone else, and because the people who are just like me are all the same, the people who are different must all be the same, too.”
Well said
The ex-gay organizations are also woefully lacking in the science behind gender variance. DES and other endocrine disruptors have had a manifestly obvious effect on sexual dimorphism.
Political ex-gay organizations shun this hard science the same way they shun the biological influences on orientation. To admit these data is a thread that, when pulled on, begins to unravel the entire ex-gay tapestry.
Have you heard of Gordon Babcock? Gordon is an ex transsexual who is even more stringent that the others you mentioned
I respect Sy Rogers for finding a personal style which strikes me as nontraditional, sometimes androgynous.
Perhaps he would disagree with me, or it could also be related to cultural differences given the years he’s lived and worked in Asia, but photos like this one and this one suggest to me that he doesn’t feel constrained to present himself in male preacher garb (suit, tie, big hair) in order to be OK as a man. Here’s another listed among “vintage” photos at his site which I find distinctive and compelling.
There are also more recent photos like this one and this one with Sy in suit and tie.
I am a moderately effiminate gay male, and I have never considered myself anything other than a man. Chambers and Paulk are playing a stereotype that gay men are acting like women. It’s an insult to gay men and an insult to trans male to femle, I hope I phrased that correctly. We are different people and should be treated as such. I have had the opportunity to become close online friends with two very special trannies. The only thing I can say is that I can’t claim to understand, but common sense tells me that they would not go through what they go through if it wasn’t something that was real and deep inside. And I truly respect them for their convictions, and their desire to be themselves, regardless of what the “ex tran” people try to say.
I respect Sy Rogers for finding a personal style which strikes me as nontraditional, sometimes androgynous.
I would second that statement. In an odd sort of way, and from what little I have heard him speak, he comes across infinitely more sincere than most of those I know in ex-gay ministry. He and I would most certainly disagree on some things, but I think I could respect him and vice versa. I also hear no political agenda to speak of when he speaks.
Autumn,
I am really glad that you addressed the childhood parts of Alan Chambers’ testimonies about his wanting to wear women’s clothing and be a girl. When I read that a few years ago, I was asking myself “Is this really the story of someone who is gay or transexual?”
Anything that I have seen from Alan treats this early desire to be a girl and cross-dress as typical little gay boy behavior, but from my experience, I don’t think these things are all that typical among boys that grow up to become gay men.
Lovely, informative site, thanks