My story starts in the very late ‘60s – 1969 to be exact -- but since I don’t remember anything from then, I’ll begin in the ‘70s. I was a rather precocious child, and I remember making a letter to my grandparents just after my 3^rd birthday, telling them that I was now three. I made my three backward -- but hey -- still pretty good for a 3-year-old.

My dad was in the Air Force, and we moved lots. He wasn’t present when I was born, because he was stationed in King Salmon Alaska at the time. He vowed that he was going to be present for the rest of my childhood, and he kept that promise. I am fortunate that my parents love both my sister and me.

Now, this is where things are going to get interesting. You’ll hear me mentioning my brother many times during my childhood, but all I have is a sister. In her thirties, my sister transitioned, as she is also a transwoman.

Anyway, this is my story, not hers.

Music has been the focus of my life since I was around 4 or 5. Around that age, I was in a Great Uncle's house, and they had a piano sitting in the back room. I wasn’t sure if they minded if I played it, but one day, the temptation got too great. I started playing the melody of Jingle Bells on it. I had never tried a piano before, and it just made sense to me how it worked, and I was able to play it. Mind you; I didn't become a prodigy overnight. In fact, I didn’t add the left hand at all that day. I just realized how the piano keyboard worked and started with it. God only knows what key I played it in.

My grandpa always played harmonicas, and he let my brother, who was almost five years older than me, play them along with him. Both of us picked them up very early, and when my grandpa died in the ‘80s, I inherited his collection.

My brother started guitar lessons in his 4^th grade, and he taught me what he learned. Like me, he could play almost anything he picked up very quickly. We both loved Country Music and listened to a lot of Johnny Cash music, as well as Chet Atkins, and within a year, we were quite proficient at their styles.

We moved to Alaska at the end of my 1^st grade school year, and after a short time, my brother bought himself an old piano from a church. It came completely disassembled, and one of the keys was missing, but he got it built, fashioned a new key, and we both learned to play it. From then on, music was incredibly easy for me.

I started playing trumpet in the 4^th grade. Of course, I learned Hot Cross Buns on the recorder, much earlier than that, but I continued learning how the little plastic whistle could play OTHER songs as well.

By the time I was in high school, I could play Bass Guitar along with 6 and 12 string, I had picked up the Accordion, and many other things. I wanted to be a doctor, or rather a vet, but I found out that God had a sense of humor, and I was allergic to pet dander. (don’t tell my dogs and cats that. They don’t know.)

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Yes. My belief in God. Let’s back up a bit.

My Grandmother was born in a little town called Zion, Illinois. It was founded by an interesting character who was ousted from England, went to Australia, then ended up in the United States. Apparently, several people followed him to the States, because my Great Grandpa was Australian.

I am not going to run the church in Zion down, but I will say that I would consider it a cult these days. The leader told his flock that they should live simply, while he had a mansion himself. My Great Grandfather took his family out of the church and town, and eventually wound up in North Idaho.

My Grandma was very Pentecostal, but she had a lot of strange ideas left over from that church, and my mom was raised with them as well. While the “boys don’t pretend to be girls” mantra was standard at the time, it was even more so to us. I also was raised so that I was in constant fear that I would not go to heaven. Every sin I committed had to be repented of, each time, and in between the commission of a sin and asking Jesus for forgiveness, you were not going to heaven.

To me, this was terrifying!

When I was a teenager, and still keeping my transgender status secret, I remember hearing that God wouldn’t consign you to hell for hitting your thumb with a hammer and uttering a blood-curdling stream of profanity. I didn’t know how to take that. Where was the line, because in the conflict between Arminianism and Calvinism, the Assembly of God is on the Armenian side. In essence, they believe that it is possible to backslide away from your salvation.

I don’t anymore, but more on that later.

As I continued to near adulthood, I was teased and continuously bullied because I never fit in. I was a musician, and my Dad had retired in a logging town. Needless to say, musicians and loggers don’t complement each other when they mix. Of course, I've recently found that I’m autistic, but back then, the autism spectrum wasn’t recognized to be as broad as it is now.

I graduated from high school at sixteen. I got tired of school because often I knew more than my teachers, so I was extremely bored. My IQ had been tested as being in the genius range when I was in grade school, and when I went into seventh grade in a private school, it was determined that I only needed high school was because I had to have the credits to graduate.

High school was terrible for me, even at a private school. I was still autistic, and I was always an outsider. Thankfully, they didn't know that I was trans, because it almost certainly would have been worse.

I finally got sick of school, and I decided to finish through correspondence, and I set my sights on finishing by Christmas, 1985. I finished my last test on December 26th of that year.

I worked hard for three years, then found that there was a college in British Columbia, where I could get my degree to be a minister for less than half the cost for which my brother got a very similar degree.

Now, at that time, my best friend, who still holds that position, made the prediction that I would find a red-headed Canadian girl and marry her. So it was, two years later, I did. I confessed to my girlfriend, right before I proposed, that I had always wanted to transition to a woman, but at the time, I honestly thought I had "beaten" the trans problem.

We were married one year after I proposed, which was just after I finished my sophomore year. By the end of my junior year, we had our first son.

During my time in college, my real ministry began, although neither my wife nor I knew at the time. She had started college one year before me, although she is younger than me, by eight days. She likes to tell people I robbed the cradle.

While at Bible College, we had to work in an outreach once a week. My wife had been the leader of what was then called the 'handicapped outreach.' It was a drop-in center for developmentally disabled people to go on Friday nights when all their friends we're on dates.

My second year in college, I took over and was in charge of it until I graduated. Little did we know that this would set the stage for our ministry from then on.

I was the music pastor at a church in Dawson Creek, BC for two years, and have been a lay minister in music off and on, but our ministry has always been with disabled people, either mentally, physically, or both.

We were foster parents for many years, and for a time, I worked with developmentally disabled people who had committed crimes and kept them monitored while they lived in two or three people homes. When I changed from that job, I went back to driving semi for about a year, but then we had to take in my cousin, who is developmentally disabled. We also took in his father and step-mother, who had dementia quite severely.

I had my certificate for caring for people, so I became one of the few 'men' who worked for an agency when my uncle passed away.

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I worked for them for five years before I realized I was having partial brain seizures. My memory would disappear for a few minutes, and I would have auditory hallucinations. The strange thing was, I couldn't remember peoples names, not could I remember how to talk. I could understand people speaking to me, but I couldn't remember how to form words. I was told by several doctors that I just needed to get my type two diabetes under control. I, however, didn't buy that. No one believed that it was really beyond my getting older and diabetes.

Finally, I lay for fifteen minutes one Sunday morning, unable to remember my wife's name or my dog's names. All three were by my bedside, concerned. While I was waiting for the seizure to stop, my wife asked if I wanted to go to the ER. When I could finally form words, I got out a yes, then it happened again. I got to the ER, and after a CAT scan, they thought they had found a tumor. I was transferred to a hospital, and it was confirmed after an MRI. 2 months later, it was removed.

During my later life, I became embittered against churches. When I realized I hadn't beaten being trans, I went to a pastor I was working with and in confidence, asked for his help. He had no idea what to do, so he asked someone in the church what to do. Suddenly, my name in the church was mud. My wife and I went through a very trying time and ended up moving out of the town. This time was also when my sister came out and transitioned.

My wife and I had some problems after that. She didn't know how to deal with my being trans any more than I did. Finally, she agreed that I could dress at home sometimes, which was a lifesaver for me.

Interestingly, I found out during this time that I had low testosterone, and I began taking shots trying to raise it. There was no effect in lowering my trans feelings, so I figured why should I risk prostate cancer? Just forget the injections if they're not helping.

In retrospect, I don't think I wanted them to help, anyway. Being trans has made me who I am, and I don't want to change that.

Of course, that didn’t help matters much on another front in my life. How was I supposed to put this into my view on life.

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I know that many people have heard the general way that the LGBTQ community is defended from the Bible, but perhaps not the way I have realized. I believe the Bible exactly as it is printed, with no modifications, or “I think that the Bible is wrong.” I’m going to get religious here and contradict neither the Bible, nor the LGBTQ community.

You see, for me to be sane, I had to be able to do this, and I searched for a long time to figure this out, but one day, I seemed to have an epiphany, and have asked God many times to reassure me that this is right, always with favorable results. I watched as my sister, who explained a lot about Christianity to me, moved farther and farther away from it, until now, she and I do not agree at all. She feels that the Bible is mistranslated, and the danger there is, once again, where do you draw the line? How do you decide what is right, and how do you decide what is wrong. Then the whole thing breaks down.

Now, I don’t say that my relationship with Jesus is like that. It isn’t just a logical progression, but I suppose if I could go through my life and remember everything that has happened to me, I could follow a logical progression that leads to my unquestioning belief in Him.

So, do I believe that God made this world about six to seven thousand years ago and there was a worldwide flood forty-five hundred years ago? Yes, I do. Now, before I get a flood (pun intended) of comments saying that it is impossible, and evolution makes much more sense, I’m not going to argue that. Whether a person believes creation or evolution doesn’t matter for a person’s salvation. My only caution is that if you start to take the Bible piecemeal, where do you draw the line? What do you believe and what don’t you?

So, without arguing with the Bible in the KJV, here is my apologetic¹ in favor of the LGBTQ community.

Much of my material that I have studied comes from two sources. The King James Bible, and a book published in 1991, written by Dr. John Medina, a Christian molecular biologist (commonly called a genetic engineer).

What is interesting in this book, The Outer Limits of Life², is that it was written to show Christians why it is hard to say when a fetus becomes human life, in regards to the abortion issue, not to provide nourishment for the LGBTQ argument. In reality, there are many sources that talk about this exact thing, but I think I prefer his terminology the best.

Okay. Down to brass tacks.

One of the first arguments mentioned in the Bible, against the LGBTQ community is the fact that Genesis 5:2³ says, "Male and female created he them; and blessed them and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created." In fact, in my opinion, the entire argument by Christianity in general falls under this particular piece of information recorded the Bible.

I do not dispute that God made us male and female. When sin entered the world, corruption of what God made also entered. So, nothing was made quite perfect anymore. There was a lot of genetic drift – mutations and the like.

In early development, a fetus receives a testosterone wash in the brain. This will break down connections between the sides of the brain more in a male fetus than a female, generally because a female receives less. But there are variations in each person. If a person receives less testosterone, they are likely to have more of a female brain, and vice versa.

So therein lies a problem. We know that genetic mutations produce hermaphrodism and intersexed individuals. They can also produce differences in the brain.

Churches do not generally have any problem with people whose genitalia is ambiguous, or both male and female. But gender is not only in the genitalia. As I said concerning the literalness of the Bible, where do we draw the line?

The only people who are actively arguing that there is no difference between male and female brains are feminists who desire there to be none, or else their arguments fall apart. LGBTQ, particularly trans people argue that there are differences, and biology bears that out.

My question to the church is this. As a trans-woman, with male genitalia, but female brain, am I male or female, or both? Neither? I know that many people would stick with what they can see. I do not, nor do I believe God does. He knows everything about us, and what is different inside us.

If I am somewhere in between male and female, or both, then being married and fathering children was a sin, because I was obviously having sex with another woman. Or was I? I’m male also. Where do we draw the line?

How can I be told not to dress in that which pertains to a woman, when I am somewhere in between, or both. Am I sinning when I wear male clothing? Female clothing? Should I go around naked? Androgynous? Where do we draw the line?

Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were likely eunuchs, or rather, converted to such when they were taken to Babylon, and yet we respect them very much for their faith. Phillip preached to an Ethiopian eunuch, and baptized him. The Bible leaves clues that God does not turn us away, but a lot of people refuse to see that.

Not all of us do.

My apologetic for LGBTQ goes much deeper than this, as does my biography, but this is enough for now.