Hi Rachel

A warm welcome to our site. Thank you for sharing some of your story.

Life can be so difficult can’t it? And you’ve certainly had an interesting and challenging journey thus far.

Are you out to anyone at present? It’s a good idea to build supports firstly before coming out especially if you believe your current people won’t take the news well. The other thing is that it helps to come out to yourself first and to have a plan of how you might come out to others. avb often suggests coming out to ‘low risk’ people first, or those we might expect to be accepting and supportive of the news. This makes good sense and builds our support network. Are there people in your life who might fit that category?

I hope that gives you some food for thought.

Blessings,

Ann Maree

Hello Rachel, I am very glad that you have made it here. 🙂 This will be a safe place for you. If I could meet you in real life, you can be sure I would give you the biggest hug ever! 🙂

As I’m sure you know, life is a journey. It sounds like you are going through a really stormy part of that journey now – and probably have been going through this same kind of stuff for most of your life. But I encourage you not to lose heart! This time won’t last forever. There are many people out there who would love and accept you as you are. At the same time, as you know already, there are many who don’t. The big problem for you right now is your friends and family seem to fall in that second group, while the first group is full of people you don’t know yet. I admire that you sought out support rather than try to deal with this on your own, and I’ll be praying that God sends you even more people who will walk with you on your journey. But no matter what people think, and I know this lesson is hard because I still struggle with this, you’ve got to know that if God approves of you, nobody else’s rejection means a thing. I’ll be praying that you will both find people who will support you and at the same time grow in confidence of God’s love, support and acceptance of you.

I would encourage you, Rachel, to rediscover your faith. Even if you were not gender-variant, coming from the background you do, the line for you between things that truly matter (God’s love for you, faith, etc.) and things that don’t matter (conspiracy theories, politics, etc.) got all blurred and mixed up. Perhaps you should “start over” with your faith, and rediscover what Christianity is really about – and I can assure that TRUE Christianity would be welcoming and seeking to understand a person like you rather than rejecting or judging. Honestly, I think this is a big reason why God made me gay – being gay forced me to question many things about my faith, and in doing so, it made it deeper. I’m not saying God made you the way you are for that reason, but the fact you are forced to examine your faith more closely can provide great spiritual benefit.

You are more loved than you know, Rachel! 🙂 All the best!

G’day Ann Marie,

I’m only out to the people @ the cross dressers support group I attend once a month, but I find it difficult due to my autism; this makes socialising difficult & awkward. Unfortunately there are no low risk people in my life who’d show understanding or acceptance, Thankyou for your kind thoughts.

,

Yours Rachel.

Hello Ian,

Thankyou for your kind words 🙂

Yours Rachel.

Dearest Rachel,

Glad to see you’ve made it here. I think you’ll find much support for your situation from persons from all walks of life: bisexuals, homosexuals, and transgendered individuals as well as heterosexuals (like yours truly).

I’m supposed to believe the bible as the literal truth, literally, believe in all sorts of conspiracy theories & hold far right wing politics.

According to who? The demagogues of your church?

Mi querida hermana, there is only ONE authority that Christians answer to: The King of Kings. These so-called “leaders” of the church you attend do not speak for the Master.

The Bible itself is something that has to be studied in context (both historical and cultural) and understood via deep meditation on its truths. Since there are multiple writing styles in the books making up the Bible, it is necessary to understand why and for what purpose something was written.

As such, reading the book literally, without study, and without and attempt to connect what was being said to what we must due as people is actually the one thing one should not do. That is a violation of the concept of Midrash we gained from the Jewish tradition and indeed is an insult to the very ideas the Church was founded on.

So I don’t think that whoever told you this has the best idea of what the Faith is about.

Just a thought.

Also I’m supposed to go to hell as I’m gender varient,

Really now? Interesting that the Bible doesn’t say that.

In fact, the only reference to cross-dressing as a sin is in reference to a cultic practice done by the neighbors of the Hebrews and even then the passage is simply a refusal to have their priests do the same .

Thus, it’s not talking about you. So once again, whoever told you this probably needs to read up on the subject.

I’m repuled by my religion & the hypocrisy.

Be careful to not to confuse the hypocrisy and vileness of adherents of a belief for the belief itself.

You are in the middle of a journey, my dear sister. We cannot the path for you.

But we can walk it with you.

We are here for you Rachel, no matter what happens and no matter what you choose to do. We are here for you.

Yours in Christ,

Raul