The Child is Mother to the Man (with apologies to Gerard Manley Hopkins)   By Melissa Tawn   A Baptist preacher undergoes SRS. Hallelujah, she is saved!

My name is Beverly Johnson. I am a girl, 20 years old, a sophomore at Santa Isabella Community College in Santa Isabella California. I hope to get a degree in occupational therapy. I was not always what I am now. Two years ago, I was a man: Jonas McCracken, 29 years old, a Baptist preacher originally from Arkansas.

If this is a bit confusing, I had better explain: I was born in Clearwater Pass, Arkansas, population 2534. I was a boy, or so it seemed on the outside, but I knew very early in life that I was really, inside, a girl. Somehow, for my sins, I had been condemned to live in a boy’s body. (There was a lot of talk of sinning in our house, and one just assumed that everything bad that happened was “for my sins”.) I envied the other girls in my school, and tried to act as much like them as I could. This, of course, made me the butt of many cruel and painful “jokes” by the boys, but I couldn’t help myself. Fortunately for me, my dad was the preacher in the local Baptist Church, and so they didn’t dare beat me up, or really get to me too bad. The girls, on the other hand, accepted me, more or less, as a friend. I jumped rope with them and even played with dolls with them, when I could. Of course, as we all grew older, and their thoughts turned to puberty and boys, I found myself more and more excluded from their circle.

It did not help that, physically, I was not very impressive: 5’6” and skinny — like my dad. (My mom was even shorter, about 5’2”.) I certainly was not a football player or anything like that. By the time I reached high school, I was pretty much of a loner. Because of that, I studied a lot and was, by far, the best pupil in the district.

My dad arranged a scholarship for me to his Alma Mater, the Baptist Bible Academy of Arkansas, and, being a dutiful son (on the outside, of course; inside, I was just a frightened girl), I went there and did well. My religious beliefs are, after all, quite sincere. By the age of 20, I had become an ordained minister, like my dad.

It is very hard for a young preacher to immediately get a congregation, especially in the South. You either take a fairly low-paying low-prestige job as an assistant at some church, hoping that the minister will soon hear the call of Gabriel’s trumpet, or you go on the circuit, making guest appearances at churches, revival meetings, and the like, and taking over temporarily for preachers who are ill or on leave. This is the path I chose, among other things, because it would take me out of Arkansas and let me see the rest of the country. My appearances were booked by another BBAA graduate, who ran an agency called Pulpits on Fire. He videotaped several of my more successful sermons and even a revival meeting which I organized, sent them out to his contacts in churches around the country, and arranged my bookings in advance. For these efforts, he received 15% of the fees I earned.

As I traveled around the circuit, I had plenty of time to think about myself, and my condition. I searched the internet for information, and learned that “transsexualism” (I had never encountered the word before) was something not as uniquely mine as I thought. Little by little, I began to understand myself. I also began buying some items of women’s clothing and trying them on, first in the privacy of my motel room and then, little by little, daring to go outside. By the end of my first year, I wore female lingerie regularly, even when I was preaching. I taught myself how to put on makeup, how to coordinate outfits, and the body language of a woman. It’s not that hard, really, especially when it seemed to come naturally to me — something that just reinforced my conviction that this is what I was meant to do.

By my third year on the circuit, I had begun to make a name for myself and my bookings took me from coast to coast. Wherever I went, I observed the women around me, how they acted, what they wore and how they reacted to others, especially men. It is easy to pick up the little signs and learn them. Certainly, I had no problem going out as a woman, first just walking the streets, then going to malls to shop. Going to clubs or bars was harder; because of my size and delicate features, I look much younger than my age, and was constantly being carded. Needless to say, I did not have the proper ID. Every once in a while, a man would try to pick me up, but I always turned him down. I was not ready for sex, nor was I sure I could handle it.

As time passed, however, I found it harder and harder to be able to sustain the “male me”. When I had to dress as a man, to hold services in front of a congregation, or to preach a fiery sermon, I felt that I was a woman playacting. I knew that I could not continue in this manner, and decided to start planning an alternative future.

Every so often, I would volunteer to go to a local prison to preach to the prisoners and talk to them individually afterwards. It is a preacher’s equivalent of a lawyer’s “pro bono” work — good for public relations and for filling out an otherwise empty date. On one such occasion, I met a man who was in for forgery, and convinced him to see the light of Jesus. Two years later, I met him again, this time on the outside. He came to a church at which I was preaching and, after the service, came up to me and told me that he owed me his life and sanity, and would do anything possible to repay me. I instantly saw my chance, and grasped at it. I improvised a story (I am very good at that) about a girl who ran away from her alcoholic father and sadistic mother, and whom I was now sheltering. The authorities were intent on restoring her to her family, and the only way I could keep that from happening is to provide her with a new identity in life, as I had in Christ. Would he be willing to go back to his old ways — this time in the service of the Lord — and provide her with a birth certificate, high school diploma, and driver’s license under a new name, so that she could have a new identity? No problem! The next day, I met him and gave him her physical data, as well as a picture. Within two weeks, I had the documents.

Needless to say, the data I gave him were mine, and the picture was mine too, wearing one of my best wigs and made up to look like a teenage girl. Within two weeks, I had perfect documents. I carefully chose the name of Beverly Johnson, the sister of one of my friends at BBAA, who had died when she was 5, and was of the “right” age. At the time, her parents were missionaries in the jungle of Colombia, where she is buried, so her death was not recorded in the U.S. However, in case anybody looked up the Arkansas birth records, she would be there.

I now drew up my plan. The first step was to apply for, and get, a passport for Beverly Johnson, which was surprisingly easy to do. I also opened a bank account in her name, and deposited in it a rather large sum of money which I had been slowly skimming off of my fees without telling Pulpits on Fire (or, needless to say, that Instrument of Resolute Satan, the IRS). I then checked the internet for names of reliable surgeons in Bangkok who are good at what they do, but are willing to forget about the various documents from psychologists which American doctors insist on. By the end of the year, everything was set.

I had a revival meeting set in southern California. After it was over — and it was very successful by the way — I went to a beach and took off my clothes in one of the cabanas, leaving my wallet and keys in the pocket of my pants. I then dressed in my “Beverly” outfit, and caught a cab to LAX, where I retrieved from a locker the suitcase full of clothes I had previously saved there, and caught a flight to Thailand. My idea was that my clothes would be discovered by somebody at the end of the day, and after a suitable police investigation and search, Rev. Jonas McCracken would be declared dead by drowning — a tragic ending to the life of an up-and-coming man of the church.

The first part of the plan worked perfectly. Within two months, a joyous 18-year-old young lady, Beverly Johnson, returned from Thailand “completely equipped”, as they say, and ready for life. She had money in the bank, and no obligations. Reality, however, quickly set in. My original plan was to go to UCLA to study pre-law, but either the SAT exams are harder now, or I had forgotten quite a bit since I was in school. My scores were not that good, and I ended up having to go to a community college, in the hope of raising my grades. I was all ready to date, and have (safe) sex, but the boys at SICC not already taken are either real dweebs or very immature. I was not current about the latest bands and Hollywood stars, or teenage lingo of Southern California, and found out that making friends was not that easy. The other girls in my class thought that I was way too serious, or were turned off by my southern accent, or whatever. While I am quite pretty, if I say so myself, I am not a “Valley Girl” or whatever the current in-style of Southern California is (these things change monthly, I think) and I could not really fit in. Except for a few one-night stands after being picked up in a bar, I was high and dry.

To tell you the truth, I also missed the excitement and adrenalin rush of the pulpit. Standing before a crowd and molding its thoughts and actions is a definite turn-on.

In short, I found myself again a loner. I was not doing well in class, and ended up studying occupational therapy after it became clear that I would never get grades good enough to transfer to a real university. I was discovering, rather rapidly, what most girls learn sooner or later: tinsel is a base metal. And a good man is hard to find.

To keep my figure down and my spirits up, I took up jogging. One day, as I followed a new route, I came across a Baptist church which had just recently opened. The bulletin board in front proclaimed the title of the sermon and underneath it, in big letters: “Guest Preacher: Rev. Jonas McCracken”. Rev. Jonas McCracken was supposed to be dead!

That Sunday, I was among the worshippers. It was the first time I had entered a church in over a year, and it was a bit odd sitting in the congregation, rather than up on the pulpit. When the guest was introduced, I had a good look at him. He was about two inches taller than I am, but otherwise similar in build. His face looked somewhat like mine used to look, before my surgery. He spoke with a similar Southern accent (though I would have placed him as being from Alabama, rather than from Arkansas) and his sermon was full of the same clichés showing that, if he had not graduated from BBAA, he had at least read the same textbooks used there. I found the sermon rather uninspiring, but then one always thinks that one can (or at least could) do better.

After the service, I walked up “Rev. McCracken”, who was shaking hands at the door of the church, and told him that I wanted to speak to him in private. “It is a very personal thing,” I said, “a matter of faith and honor.”

“I always have time to help a young lady with her problems,” he replied with a twinkle in his eye, and we arranged to meet at the hotel in which he was staying that afternoon. I deliberately dressed in a rather seductive manner. We initially met in the lobby, but, since I told him that I what I wanted to talk about was rather personal, he was kind enough to invite me up to his room. He even offered me a drink, Coca Cola to be sure, which I accepted. I sat down in one of the easy chairs, deliberately crossing my legs rather revealingly, and giving him the sweetest most innocent look I could.

“Who are you?” I asked, “Why are you pretending to be Rev. McCracken?”

He was a bit taken back by my directness, and just looked at me.

“I was very close to the real Rev. McCracken two years ago,” I replied. “I know who he is — and who he isn’t. You look a bit like him, but you are not Rev. McCracken. You could never fool St. Paul.”

“How close were you to him?” he asked.

“As close as a man and woman can ever be, believe me,” I smiled.

“What does St. Paul have to do with this?”

“`St. Paul’ was the nickname of Jonas McCracken’s roommate at BBAA,” I replied. “His real name was Arne Olson and he came from the capital of Minnesota. Now of course, the real Jonas McCracken would have known that, wouldn’t he? And I am sure that Rev. Olson would be prepared to come to California to testify in court that you are not the real Jonas McCracken.”

The room seemed a bit hot, and I asked him to turn on the air conditioning, but he said it wasn’t working properly. My head began to ache.

“OK,” he said, “I suppose I have to tell you. I am not Jonas McCracken, just a California beach bum, seriously considering ending my life. I had no money, no goal or prospect in life, no future. One day, I found a wallet full of Rev. McCracken’s identification, as well as his checkbook and the keys to his hotel room, in an abandoned cabana on the beach. I realized that I looked enough like him that I could make use of them. My life was turned around, and I became Jonas McCracken. I was truely reborn, physically and spiritually. I changed my ways and …”

He droned on, speaking in a rather singsong monotone, but my head ached and I sort of stopped paying attention. Then I passed out.

When I came too, I was lying on his bed, naked. He was beside me, naked as well. “What the …?” I stammered.

“Flunitrazepam,” he smirked, “otherwise known as the Date Rape Drug.” Now let us see how close you really were to Jonas McCracken.”

I won’t go into the details of what happened next. As Beverly, I was not a virgin (though my few sexual adventures had been rather disappointing), but nothing prepared me for the wonderful experience of the next three (yes, three!) hours. He was wonderful! He was great! He was God! Hallelujah, I am saved!

When I left his room, I was in a reverie, a dream. But I was back there the next day, and again the next. He moved on to another pulpit on the circuit, but he too was smitten, and returned to Santa Isabella and to my arms two weeks later. He left and returned again. And again. Then the minister of one of the local Baptist churches was called to a bigger church in Atlanta, and he applied for the post, and was given a job.

Two weeks from now, the outgoing minister will perform his last act: he will marry us in our new church, and I will become what I know that destiny and my Lord always intended me to be: Mrs. Rev. Jonas McCracken. Perhaps, some day, we may even appear on the pulpit together. What a story we will tell!