It’s amazing how often you need to defend yourself when you’re
out. Since coming out as transgender, I’ve gotten a barrage of questions,
accusations, and flat out dismissals. It seems nearly every day I need to
defend myself in some way. “Why are you trying to change what God made?” “Why
can’t you just be happy with what God gave you?”
But by far, the most common statement ever said to me, in
almost every conversation I have about being transgender, is “God doesn’t make
mistakes.”
At this point it’s honestly almost a trope. I can sense the
statement coming. To the point that I’ve started responding “Wait wait, let me
guess, God doesn’t make mistakes?” And they’re usually very confused once I
tell them, hey, you’re right! God doesn’t
make mistakes! But what that means to them, and what that means to me are very
different things.
Years ago, we would be on the same page. In high school I
went to a boarding school and lived in the dorms, complete with chapel twice a
day on weekdays. So, obviously I had to live in the boy’s dorms. It didn’t make
sense to me though. It was weird, uncomfortable, and felt like a mistake. Why
would I be in the boy’s dorms? I wasn’t a boy… was I?
But that phrase always stuck in my mind. “God doesn’t make
mistakes.” So it couldn’t be a mistake! I must belong in the boy’s dorm! If I
didn’t, why would I be put there? God didn’t accidentally make me male. So I
went through high school believing that I was just being whispered to by Satan.
He was trying to convince me I didn’t belong in those dorms, he was trying to
convince me that it was God’s fault!
Of course, how else do you respond to whispers from Satan
but by ignoring them and listening to God? So, diligently I went to chapel,
read the Bible, and tried to silence “Satan’s” whispers. But the whispers only
got louder. I tried to go to a Christian college to keep the feelings away.
Again, I lived in the boy’s dorms. I had
to convince myself that that’s where I belonged! Maybe then I could get the
noise to stop. But instead, the whispers only turned to screams.
The only thing scarier than noise is silence. Dreadful, dead
silence. And that was what I heard from God, was only silence. I started
drifting away, I didn’t go to chapel services or church services. Every time I
did, all I could hear was my mind screaming while God was silent. Or at least,
I thought he was. Till one day sitting alone I heard something I hadn’t heard
before, just one quiet simple sentence.
“It’s not a mistake.”
And, even greater, I’m
not a mistake. This was huge for me, it was the first time I entertained a
possibility that no one had ever given me. Maybe, just maybe, it’s not a
mistake. Maybe, this is how I was supposed to be all along. But not as a male,
no, I never was. I realized the thoughts that I should be female weren’t the
lie, it was the opposite! It was the other voice that was lying to me, the
voices telling me I was meant to be male.
God doesn’t make mistakes. I will continue to proudly say
this. So what of me? I’m no mistake. I always get the question “Why do you feel
you can change what God made, as male?” And before, I wouldn’t know what to
answer, but I know now that’s cause there is no answer, cause it’s the wrong
question!
I’m not changing God making me male, because that never
happened! I never was male. The biggest realization I had was that I wasn’t
made male and wanting to become
female. I was always female, and this is my body. God didn’t make a mistake, he
never does. God does, however, sometimes see fit to have some women (And men
too!) have a different journey than others. But that does not make any of us
any less of daughters (or sons!) of Christ.
