Transgender to Transformed
by Laura Perry
2019 / 192 pages
This may not be a book for everyone. It’s a hard-hitting, at times overly graphic, account of one person’s struggle with transgenderism. While painful, it’s also a hopeful book because it peels away the layers of lies, deceptions, and mistruths commonly found in most media outlets. It’s most definitely a book for mature and discerning readers only.
Laura Perry, the author of Transgender to Transformed, grew up in a Christian community. Already at an early age, she felt trapped in her female body, and she eventually had her breasts cut off, and began living as a male. She soon become disillusioned with transgenderism. Rather than feeling free, she was bound to a growing snowball of lies and fakeness.
However, she did love presenting herself as a man and even thought she could be a “man of God” after she returned to Christianity. But God laid it on her heart that He does not make mistakes and it was her feelings that had to change, not His reality. Convinced she had to completely submit to God’s will, and acknowledging she could only do it by His power, she left her partner, her job, her fake identity as a man, and returned to God and embraced being a woman. In her words:
“When I left the lifestyle, I didn’t know if He would ever take away those feelings. But if I had to suffer with the feelings the rest of my life and feel like a freak in a body I hated, I was willing to endure it to serve Jesus Christ.”
A troubled childhood and youth
Already as a child Laura began to hate the body she was born in. A noisy, rambunctious extrovert in comparison to her quiet, obedient brother, she thought her mom would love her more if she was a boy. Her innocence was stolen when she was only eight years old, and this set her on a path of sexual promiscuity. Feeling that boys and men seemed to have all the power in a relationship, Laura fantasized about being a boy. Supremely angry at her parents and at God, and addicted to her self-centered lifestyle, she made a conscious decision to sin in every way possible.
As a teen, Laura struggled with her health, especially her monthly cycle. This made her jealous of men. Then, when her mom found nutritional supplements that helped improve her health, it didn’t change Laura’s attitude – she still hated her female system. In fact, she refused to take the supplements, causing her health to spiral out of control, and then she blamed God for her misery. Her ballooning weight made it difficult to find men interested in a relationship. Turning to pornography and casual sex left her feeling dirty, used, and broken and she wished she could become the boyfriend she so desperately wanted.
Life-changing decisions
As Laura drifted through life searching for happiness, she became certain that her life would improve if only she became a man. Desperate to escape the prison of her female body, she surfed the web. This was in 2007, prior to transgenderism becoming a buzzword, and when she first learned the term “transgender,” it opened a whole new world for her. Finding a support group for people who wanted to be the opposite sex seemed like an answer to prayer.
The first few years were a honeymoon period. Physically, the male hormones she started taking began to change her, and she was elated when strangers started seeing her as a man. Living as a man (renamed Jake), together with a biological male identifying as a woman (renamed Jackie), Laura was in love with her new identity.
Disillusioned with the transgender lifestyle
But over the next years Laura became severely depressed. A piece of paper now said she was a man, but the promised freedom had become a prison cell: clothes that didn’t fit, ongoing monthly injections, the feeling of living a lie. She was especially afraid of discovery when using the men’s restrooms. Laura started realizing she was never going to truly be a man, but she resolved to live her life in limbo rather than embrace her female reality again.
While summarizing Bible lessons for her mom’s Bible study group, she came to realize there was life in the Bible and that it wasn’t just an old-fashioned rule book. The Bible and God were becoming real to her, but she still clung to her feelings, convincing herself she had a birth defect, and that God intended for her to be a boy. But as she pored over the Bible over the next few years, Laura became more and more convinced of her sin of living as a man.
Then, while listening to a conservative radio show one day, Laura heard: “We are made in the image of God, and we can choose our behavior despite our feelings.” This cut her to the heart, and she began to admit to herself that she needed to repent. She realized that on Judgment Day, God would be calling her by name, and it would not be “Jake.”
Finally, Laura did the hardest thing she had ever done, even more difficult than her identity change eight years before. She left behind her male name, her partner, her home, and her job, and returned to her parents and church, as a woman.
Conclusion
In reading Laura’s story, young adults – and older ones – will realize that growing up in a Christian community won’t insulate us from transgenderism. Fifteen years ago, Laura had to intentionally search the Internet to discover the world of transgenderism and a support group. Now, rough estimates are that 65% of youth who change their gender identity are first introduced to this confusion by influencers on social media… without any prior struggles or thoughts about being the other gender.
Do you know someone struggling with feelings of wanting to be another gender? Show compassion – and tough love. Laura credits her family with being a lighthouse in her storm. They stood unwavering, refusing to affirm her feelings, and continuing to call her by her given name. Although she hated them for it at the time, she now knows it was the most loving thing they could have done, and she says:
“Despite the fact that I had rejected God and all the truth I had heard growing up in a Christian home and attending a Christian school, it was not in vain. Everything I had learned had planted the seeds that were just waiting to burst forth to life.”
Individuals truly struggling with their identity are often hurting. Pain may come from past abuse, or trauma can transform into self-love, with the desire to escape reality and put on a mask. This is in direct rebellion to our Creator. The Potter creates vessels for His use and purposes, but it is fallen human nature that rebels and says God must not have known what He was doing (but as we read in Isaiah 29:16: “…shall the thing framed say of Him that framed it, He had no understanding?”) In Transgender to Transformed, hurting individuals can find hope and help without turning their back on their family, their faith, and their community by self-creating a new identity.
Although Laura loved her life masquerading as a man, she quickly became disillusioned with the transgender lifestyle. Eventually she came to realize that breast amputations and chemical cocktails can never change gender: she could never become a man. More importantly, she could never call herself a true Christian without denying herself. This crushing reality brought with it a true struggle against self, and only with God’s power could she fight her fleshly desires and live as God created her....
