They moralize my medical need for MTF gender affirming surgery lying to me that God wouldn’t want me to have it which contradicts “With God, anything is possible”, demanding spiritual benchmarks a.k.a. moving the goalposts before "allowing" surgeries disguising it as “care” or “concern”, but they’re just being architects to my suffering. They even have the nerve to say I’m selfish when they’re manipulating me using shame to control me by saying I’m selfish because I’m not doing what they want me to do: be a straight or gay cisgender male.. They’re narcissistic!

Hi: I'm very glad this sub exists. Thank you for being here.

I'm 25 FTM.

After having some negative experiences in church and feeling angry with God due to the g*nocide in Gaza, a couple years ago I stopped going to church and reading my Bible and mostly stopped praying. (I still did an online support group for queer Christians though.)

Unfortunately, during the time that I left church, I started watching a lot of tarot content, mostly on YouTube but also on Tumblr. I HIGHLY regret this now, because I understand how bad it was to do that. I was basically breaking the first commandment. I didn't think it was a big deal at the time, because my attitude was that as long as I show Jesus's love to other people, it doesn't matter what I believe in. I had experienced too much Christianity that didn't really palpably show Jesus's love but was more focused on following rules and being better than other people, so I concluded that believing in Jesus didn't really mean anything, because if it did, then why were so many Christians hateful people? And due to emotional abuse from my mom and brother I desperately craved someone saying kind things to me, even if it was just a random stranger in a YouTube or TikTok video.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I had a ton of sleep issues. I had nightmares. Waking up in the middle of the night multiple times, could not get back to sleep. It all came to a head this August, when I started hearing evil voices and I felt like some entity was trying to gain control of my body. I prayed over and over again, but it didn't go away. Finally I confessed every sin that I could think of (including being trans), and a weight was lifted and the evil entities went away.

I had a dream that night where I felt like Jesus was talking to me, telling me that being trans was not a sin and He was very sad that so many trans people thought it was. But I don't remember the dream too well; I think that's what happened though.

I blocked and unfollowed all the tarot content online I had been watching/reading, went back to church, I started reading the Bible daily, my sleep improved, and I thought that was the end of it, but then it happened again a couple night ago where a negative entity was choking me and then I woke up. I think it was because I was longing for someone who I prayed to God for me to not desire anymore, and He removed the desire, but then I was longing for that person again.

I prayed to God, begging him to show me what to do to make the nightmares go away. Then I got a dream where He showed me an alternative version of my life. It looked like a Disney movie, but then it abruptly stopped. I asked where the rest of the story was, and He said that the story I had been watching was called "No Visible Progress." I think He was warning me about going back to things I need to move on from. If I do, I'll stay stuck in the same place and never get more spiritually mature, never make any real progress.

The problem I'm having is that whenever I feel God's presence and draw closer to Him, I start to feel scared and automatically pull away. I don't know why I do this, and it's very frustrating. Maybe it's because every time that a person has told me they loved me, they turned out to be lying, so now love feels dangerous.

Another major problem is that the Devil feels real to me in a way that he never felt real before, so now whenever I think about God I also tend to think about the Devil, and I feel a tug of war going in my body between warmth and peace and love and cold anxiety and fear. I keep praying to God that I only worship Him, I only worship Him, but it feels repetitive and frantic, the same thing over and over and over, and I know God is probably irritated with me for it. Part of the reason I'm praying it is because I still get intrusive thoughts sometimes. I wonder if I have some religious OCD...

I also pray a lot for guidance, for God to tell me what to do with my life, but He's not really telling me anything specific about my career path/work. I'm not sure if that's because I'm supposed to figure it out on my own, or if I'm missing his messages.

Despite becoming a Christian again, I still feel like something is wrong with how I'm living my life. I feel exhausted and numb inside all of the time. The only time I feel anything is when I cry. I try to be kind to others, but I don't feel love for them. I feel like a zombie quite a bit of the time. I have acquaintances but no friends, no partner (I'm aroace), no family (distanced myself from them because they're mostly MAGA/conservative Christians) except for my dad who is my boss and honestly idk if he really cares about me or not. I have quite a few health issues (enlarged turbinates, deviated septum, sleep apnea, allergies, visual snow syndrome) but not enough money to solve them. Despite being on testosterone for over two years, I don't pass as a man at all and so I usually ask people to call me they/them instead of he/him, but I guess that might be a sin because I'm sort of lying about my identity (my actual pronouns are he/they).

I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing, and I'm stressed out wondering how I'm sinning, where I'm going wrong, why I am still being punished. I have no idea how to become a better person, a better Christian. I'm probably overthinking things too much.

I wish I could stop working and just fast and pray for like a week straight or something. But that's not really an option right now.

What should I do? Do you have any advice for me? I feel so alone in my experiences, but I know that I can't be; there must be others who are struggling with the same things.

I’m a trans girl and my parents are extremely traditional Christian. They accept me as a transgender girl and sees me as someone who identifies as a female, but doesn’t allow me to dress “feminine” or medically transition when my mental healths really bad and I have eating disorders because of it. They’re saying body is a temple of God so don’t change it and if I’m reborn with Christ my gender identity might change even though I was trans from when I was born. My dad already read Transforming by Austin Heartke more than half way and nothing changed. The only time his mind did change was as when he read Understand Gender Dysphoria. I do have resources still like books Raising Kids Beyond the Binary, Transfigured: A 40-Day Journey through Scripture for Gender-Queer and Transgender People (The Where True Love is Devotionals), and Outside the Lines: How Embracing Queerness will Transform Your Faith, https://www.lifeisstory.com/podcast/raising-kids-beyond-the-binary-a-conversation-with-jamie-bruesehoff/, https://www.hrc.org/resources/what-does-the-bible-say-about-transgender-people, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVyQHp6jq9U, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7VavMKXxyE, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwWfCs7vnwdC1wbIAmH3_kIm0fE7oN9tE, https://youtu.be/fTjMeXzjvLs?si=iJ6K_sslXbcNIE0q, https://youtu.be/2XiHWC1ThLs?si=8xhyIOzNx7Fzx08z, and movie/documentary For They Know Not What They Do (2019) that my parents haven’t seen yet. Also maybe a therapists from The Christian Closet. Could all these help my case enough for me to get medical transition started with my parents agreeing or is it not enough and what are more things thats good for a traditional Christian person to learn more about progressive ways.

Oh boy, this is going to be a train wreck of a post, please bare with me if you are willing to listen. Fair warning for some brief mentions about sexual activity and LOTS of internalized transphobia.

I haven't touched this reddit account in years. I identified as transgender (FtM) from ages 13 to 18  and also began experiencing same sex attraction (me being attracted to women) at 13 years old. Approximately the years 2017-2022. When I was 14 I was formally diagnosed with gender dysphoria, but was not affirmed whatsoever by my medical providers. I would like to add that even though they were not affirming, my psychiatrists and therapists during this time did the best they could to help me with my mental health and I am still grateful for it. (I'm sure being in Texas also made affirming counseling for minors a lot more tricky)

Anywho, I spent my teen years playing hideaway from my parents and authority figures. I dated women behind everyone's backs, shared my preferred name and pronouns with the few circles of people I trusted, and did everything I could to get people out of my business. It was a very fearful time for me, I lost relationships because I was unable to take risks while living under my parent's roof and people would eventually get fed up with how hush-hush I was about it all. I never stopped being a Christian during this time. I think I wasn't taking my faith super seriously, but it was something that I was always coming back to and thinking about. (I’m a pastor’s kid and I also went to a Christian private school throughout grade school where I was bullied severely so I'm sure that contributed.) I dealt with SO much shame and guilt for my identity. I would wrestle with it every single day and tear myself to pieces over it, trying to understand what God *really* would say about my gender identity. I always cried out to God saying "if only I had been born male, then I wouldn't have to keep sinning." And that to this day has always struck me in a certain type of sadness that I can't begin to describe. 

I do not hate any of the adults that I was hiding my identity from. They could tell I was dealing with something, and I'm sure because of how well-behaved and respectful I presented, most of them were very fond of me. There were a few disciplinary actions taken against me, like forcing me to shut down a cosplay tiktok they found because I had displayed pro-LGBTQ beliefs and had he/him pronouns etc. Obviously that sucked, but to spare the details, I very stupidly left an easily discoverable trace to the account so that was something that could've been avoided. Taking all of this into account, to say that I had some internalized shame and transphobia would be an understatement. I am a chronic people pleaser after all, so trying to undergo gender transitioning with the community I had at the time sounded like a nightmare. The supportive people around me would tell me to cut off my family when I turned 18, but I just couldn’t. I knew they loved me, but they just didn’t understand what I was dealing with, and I unfortunately cannot make them understand. I never felt entitled to anyone’s support either, so when people did chose to use my name and pronouns, it meant the world. 

Flash forward to graduating high school, I chose to detransition. Looking back, I think I learned to suppress my dysphoria enough to the point where people noticed. And when they did notice, they were so, so happy to see me trying to look like a girl. The attention I got from felt good for a while, I had finally earned the respect of others who I thought would never fully like me or accept me. I was content with being a masc girl for a while, but then slowly started to full send hyper femininity in order to fit in with other Christian girls in my college Bible groups. Naturally too, the next step I had was finding a husband to truly make everyone happy. So I eventually met a Christian guy who became a very, very close friend. 

I want to preface that he is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful and wonderful people that I know. We fall in love with each other, we start dating. This guy after dating me for two years pops the question. I say yes, my entire family and community are celebrating like never before. Flash forward again to 3 months before the wedding ceremony, and suddenly everything shifts. The steam built, and whatever had been suppressing that dysphoria and sexuality exploded. The experience was so intense that it truly felt like I had become a different person in that moment. The idea of wearing another dress or buying more pink frilly things made me want to vomit. I couldn’t remember why I would ever make my room so girly and why I ever even considered becoming a trad-wife, but here I was living in the shoes of whatever version of myself made those choices. The guilt and shame and fear came back too. I felt like I had no one to talk to about any of this and honestly felt like I was crazy. 

I got married 3 months later and had a beautiful wedding. My husband is my best friend, but I began to realize that I am not sexually attracted to him whatsoever. 

(This part mentions sexual stuff, so skip it if it makes you uncomfortable) 

I had chosen to be celibate, partially from conviction and partially because I had anatomical issues that made penetration impossible. (I had to receive a corrective surgery prior to my wedding) It’s now been three and a half months since I got married, and me and my husband have still been unable to successfully have sex. I have zero drive, there is nothing but pain, and we are clueless on how to fix it. And worst of all, I have no motivation to fix it except for feeling like I’ve ruined his life if I don’t figure it out somehow. I hate being sexual with him, it has only felt like a chore, and he’s noticed it and feels terrible. 

On the flip side, I keep dreaming and fantasizing about women. This is when I start feeling truly horrible about the situation because I’m married, but I’m tired of not talking about this. I think about being sexual with women multiple times a day and constantly find myself observing the gorgeous single college aged girls at my university everyday. I will quickly get brought back to reality when I come home and am left in my extremely lonely state of guilt and self-condemnation. 

There’s a lot more I could ramble about, and I don’t need or expect anyone here to have a solid answer for me. I literally do not have a single person I can talk to about this. They will either tell me that I’m horrible for having these feelings and even thinking about transitioning when I’m married, or others will tell me to transition right away and that my husband is a P.O.S. if he doesn’t immediately affirm and support me. I guess I just kinda feel like I’m in a bear trap, and I still don’t truly know how God feels about me potentially revisting this identity again. I am so, so much happier and confident in myself when I present masculine, I just can’t figure out how much of my shame is stemming from my upbringing and background or if there is something spiritual. I’ve never been under this much psychological distress in my life and I cannot express how grateful I am to anyone who can just simply hear me and see me right now. 

Please feel free to share and comment on whatever you’d like, and if you actually read all of this, thank you so, so much. Please take care of yourselves in this crazy world and God bless you.

Edit: Thank you to everyone who commented, from what I've read so far you have all been so kind and caring and I appreciate so much. I wanted to add that I am currently receiving mental health care actively where I'm slowly opening up about this more and more. My husband is also very aware that I still deal with gender dysphoria, but I imagine I need to be more honest about the extent of it.

We are all sinners. I know that. But I left Christianity for a while because all I could see and feel was the hatred towards LGBTQ people. They are so eager to prove that lgbtq is wrong. That I’m wrong. That I was born wrong. I don’t feel the love the preach. It’s not love to be insulted and told the “truth”. That because I like the same sex or have a different genre than my assigned sex, I’m goin to be tortured eternally in hell.

But I was born that way. I was born without sin yet I was born gay and trans. How can that be a sin? Do they not realize the damage they cause or do they simply not care? That LGBTQ minors are SEVERAL times likely to be abused and abandoned in a Christian household than any where else. Is that what we want representing our religion, our love? When we tell trans people that they are a sin and doomed to be condemned to hell unless they repent, does that make trans people want to be Christian? Therefore WE doomed them to hell. WE pushed them from god. We are allowed to disagree unless your opinion results in my oppression. You are allowed to have disagreements in Christianity. Until you are preaching knowing fair well that it causes abuse to a vulnerable community.

Then I found progressive Christianity. I was hesitant. And then I felt the overwhelming amount of love. I didn’t come to progressive Christianity because I needed to believe in god. I came here because I wanted the love and the person (god in this case) that represented that overwhelming love. That is how Christianity should be. I didn’t come here because I was looking for a way to keep “serving two masters” or make my “sins” acceptable but because I knew that the conservative Christianity couldn’t be god. Because god is a being of pure love. I should not feel shame, judgment, and hatred in a community that is worshipping a god of love.

For your folks information, christian family (ofc) and grew up around girls. (No brothers or male cousins or uncles, only girls as far as the eye could see) My parents are pretty cool, they allowed alot of stuff, before me coming out, like shaving alot of body hair, growing out my hair, and overall pretty accepting that I was always more feminine than others. And my mother works as a mental hygiene therapist (Psychologist, but for the non mentally sick). My father still doesn't know.

Now for the coming out, It happened as I expected, maybe a bit better. My mom was overall pretty kind, she tried her hardest to understand my feelings, and I had a pretty hard time explaining it since I had such a long day. My mom got the understanding that I wanted to be a girl, because I can't associate myself with other boys, and the only way I thought I wasn't going to be an outcast was to be a girl. Which is kind of accurate, I always had a feeling that I would have been better of as a girl (and she even agreed that may be the case, because of my past with bullying).

BUT! She was against for me to transition, because in her opinion God created me as a male so God had plans for me as a male. Overall, she even considered letting me wear fem clothes, but in the end, she said It would cause alot of ruckuss in my life that It wouldn't be worth it. We agreed that having more fem/light colored clothes would be good for a start.

Also, I got the info my father was the same (which I kind of guessed, since he is very artistic minded, VERY friendly, gentle, caring and quiet. Overall more fem than your average eastern european Joe), but he didn't knew the existence of being trans, so he got used to living with it.

Overall, my mom still loves me as much as before, now she just understands my situation that I have gender dysphoria. She also made a good point, that I may be overthinking my femininity, and that I may just be a more feminine confused boy. Apperantly people at this age (I'm 17) question their identity alot and get really confused about their life (Something like quarter-life crisis) and at this point I feel like she may be right? I just still have this feeling that how good my life would have been if I was a girl instead T-T

Any advice, thoughts? Did I made and cracked my own egg too fast? Am I surely trans?

Hey there. So I debated where to post this but given a lot of us in this subreddit have conservative upbringings and likewise traditional parents, I thought probably here would be best.

I’m 55, started transitioning over two years ago. My mom, then, is 90(!). My father passed away from cancer over 15 years ago. My mom’s world is very small in the words of my sister and I would agree. She doesn’t drive anymore, she spends a ridiculous about every month for an apartment in a very boring area just because it’s supposedly a Christian complex of seniors (she sold a good house in a good area to go there, and spends over 4K a MONTH when she could’ve at least been in a beach apartment or something instead, and she even gets nickel and dimed paying for all her food there. My mom usually only goes to their cafeteria once a day, and gets “programmed” with non stop religious stuff on tv and Fox News. Sorry so long already but I wanted some context given….

My mom has never handled my transition well and has made it pretty much all how it has affected HER. For a few months, we were not even talking and it was insinuated in a LETTER that I would probably be taken out of the will. She eventually reversed course some, and at least tolerated it and we talked and I even went to her and my sister’s church a few times as me. However it makes it even worse that she has some dementia…

About a month ago, I had told her that I had decided on another name and I told her first name and why, then middle. And then the last name. She had said at the time, “oh so you’re changing the last name as well?” to which I replied, reading her tone, saying back that “oh yeah it’s nothing against the family or anything (even though there has been more rejection than acceptance or even tolerance from most of them)…I added that the new last name simply sounded a lot better with the new first name. Then, she didn’t say one thing, end of story. Or so I thought. The other day, I called her as I usually do every week or two. At one point in the phone call, when I told her I had done the next step and turned the paperwork in for the change, she again asked me what the name is going to be, in the tone and verbiage as if I never had told her before. When I said again the first name and middle name, she says literally nothing (my sister and I also have long suspected she’s on the spectrum but she’s never been tested, so she often says literally nothing or else something negative). When I got to the last name and that it was different, she def acted like she talked to me when I first came out to her over two years ago. She immediately dead named me, put words in my mouth that I wanted nothing to do with the family anymore, asked how I thought that made HER feel (to this day over two years into this journey, she literally has never asked me one solitary question about what it was like growing up hiding being transgender, or even simply saying the words “I’m sorry”….never to this day. Then she brought up a greatest hits line line she has said before of the name that is on my birth certificate, and the and the ultimate bad thing to me, and talking to me like I was decades younger, “what would your father think?!”, who, again, died over 15 years ago. At this point I was actually getting mad but somehow restrained my words and just answered “well I guess we will find out soon enough” and I doubt my mom even understood that.

We have not talked since then. It’s only been a few days, but I’m thinking I need to wait until it’s at least two weeks. Plus I paid the hundreds today at the courthouse to make the name official in probably 4-8 weeks.

Thank you if you have read this far. I’m really wondering if any of you, or even anyone you know, has had a parent or parents act the same way like it was a personal family insult and sin to change the last name as well? Forgot to say that when she also threw in the line , “so you aren’t going to be a (surname) anymore?” that I responded that WOMEN change their last names all the time and if my sisters were no longer (surname) because they got married…to which of course she said NOTHING. I think with it all combined it just proved that despite over two years of HRT, an orchi, and two FFS stage surgeries, she still thinks of me as a man. One thing that is funny yet infuriating is that I spotted on her calendar about two months ago, that for November 6 she had written “(deadname)-breast implants”. That is INSANE levels of denial. To those of you, if any, that had a parent personally insulted by changing your last name, did it get worse (taking out of the will, not talking anymore etc) or did it eventually blow over? Again tysm if you read all this. 🙏

I'm 35 MTF. My grandma is heavily catholic and is terrified for me. Thinks I'm destroying my life and body. That it's a sin. I don't believe she's bigoted... Not in an overt way. She's genuinely just full of a lot of old school ideas about trans people that she's never had to examine until now.

She just seems terrified for me. She doesn't seem ashamed of me. She doesn't seem angry with me. She doesn't seem to be thinking I'm a disgrace. She just seems scared I'm hurting myself and I'm gonna go to hell.

My mother has been accepting and she's working on it from her end. I'm meeting my grandma this Wednesday to talk about it and I'm nervous. My mom suggested I use religious arguments and just state my lived experience.

I was just wondering if anyone had gone through something similar and if anyone had any advice for me?

Vent; I went on a camp retreat this weekend with my life group. I had left it a couple months prior because I was going through a crisis of faith and my recent acceptance of being trans. By this time I had left this my home church for another church I grew up in that is affirming. The theme was about “identity in Christ,” so this was very important to me.

I had already talked to my pastor about it, saying I felt like I needed to hide it away because it went against our churches “traditional conservative” values. He was very compassionate with me and never treated the conversation as a matter of right and wrong. He really advocated for me, which gave me hope in this retreat. Maybe people would understand.

Cut to Saturday night. I had told a few people in passing about my gender dysphoria issues with no real reaction. But I didn’t have the guts to tell everybody in confidence. I was so afraid of rejection, and I was grieving for my life group because they really do love me. My problem wasn’t between me and God. It’s between me and my life group. I was so caught up in my emotions I wrote a letter and desperately wanted to drive home early, but didn’t. I calmed down and had fun for the night.

Cut to Sunday morning and I let my pastor read my letter. He still assures me that it’s unhealthy to bottle myself up and that I need to be authentic. But then he said something that solidified my fear: “I’m not going to agree with you on everything. Nobody agrees on everything.” Now I hope I heard him wrong, I desperately want to believe that I took what he said out of context. But saying “I’m not going to agree with you on everything,” tells me that he wants me to address my masking but to still mask. Which defeats the point of being authentic. I know nobody’s going to instantly accept me. These things take time. But I don’t have the confidence to be rejected by good friends. I feel like an attention seeker or a control freak for wanting people to treat me different. I feel crazy, stupid, stupid crazy, crazy stupid.

So, I found this nice church, or so i thought, the pastor talked about awesome stuff! But today he brought in unnecessary stuff (THAT WASN'T EVEN IN THE VERSE OR THE VERSE TOPIC!!) about how Christians are called homophobic and transphobic for hating on use. I- idk it just hurt so much cause i used to love that pastor.

I dont have any other churches to go to...

I have multiple concerns and I don't know if one concern counts as transgender, but I know that trans is an unbrella term, so I guess we will see. I am a young teenage girl (AFAB) who is struggling with identity and finding where I belong as well as what I believe is the REAL truth about myself and what to believe is right and acceptable. I have grown up my entire life in a heavily conservative Christian household while also being the daughter of a pastor. My family isn't, homophobic or transphobic, meaning they do not show hatred to individuals of the LGBTQ+ community, but they are in no way supportive of its beliefs and believe that God’s design for humanity goes against the LGBTQ+ therefore calling it entirely sinful and wrong. I personally do not know which "side" I am meant to choose. Since I grew up with these beliefs against the community, I feel like I expected to not support it. However, I myself am struggling with gender identity and have felt a change in the way I view LGBTQ+ members. I find myself asking the question, "Is the Bible actually condemning homosexuality in its entirety, or just certain aspects of it? Or is it strictly talking about the perverts and rapists of that time?" I also ask, "Where in the Bible does it say people cannot be transgender? There is no clear answer without twisting wording, is there? Then again, why are Christians like my parents so set on their belief?" Being a teenager, these questions are very heavy for me especially because of my background growing up and my current identity struggles.

Speaking of, I should explain what it is I am experiencing so you could get a better understanding of why I am so torn. Basically, I know I was born female and I accept that. I love being a girl most days, but some days I don't care for it all that much. I would use the term demigirl tk describe my experience, but it isn't fully accurate. I would say I love expressing myself in a more androgynous and masculine way, while still enjoying being feminine. Now, I wouldn't say I am just a tomboy, because it feels like it is more than that. I am fully comfortable being referred to as feminine, yet, the term "girl" just doesn't feel like me. I often feel disconnected to that term. To use an analogy, say there is an outlet for every single gender and each person gets a cord (or more depending on the person). I have my cord plugged into the outlet assigned to "girl" (AFAB), but it's a really loose outlet, and my cord falls out sometimes and becomes disconnected from the "girl" outlet. When it is disconnected, it doesn't plug itself into a different gender outlet, it just stays unplugged until eventually it will plug itself back in. In other words, during the time it isn't connected, I don't feel like any gender, I just feel like me. This seems like a normal experience for a girl, right? That doesn't necessarily mean I'm a demigirl or any other gender. But that's the problem, I don't know if this is gender identity or just gender expression. I should also mention I am not against someone referring to me as "they" in conversation. I do much prefer she/her, but she/they feels like it could fit me. I get this little small jolt of like, excitement (?) or something when someone calls me by they/them, but I don't knoe if that means anything or not. I know this is something I need to figure out for myself, but I have been trying to for about 2 months with no luck and don't know where to go from here.

Even though I am unsure, I feel a connection to the label "demigirl" and its flag. I would be very open to calling myself a demigirl because it puts into words, or acts as a symbol, for what I am feeling which helps me to feel this sense of belonging and understanding. I can relate to other people who identify as demigirls, and I feel welcomed and free to be myself when I think about taking the label. But, I am torn on whether I should for numerous reasons. Reason 1) My family and my boyfriend will not approve. I know, I shouldn't worry what other people think, but I am very much a people pleaser and I am struggling to figure out whether I am meant to support the community or not on top of choosing people I love vs what I feel. My boyfriend is the love of my life. He will not support me at all if I take the label or use she/they and said he may even fall out of love. This breaks my heart to hear. Breaking up with him is not an option because I would not be here without him. I do not see a future for me without him in my life. I don't want to deny what I feel about myself just to make him happy and keep him, but I am not willing to lose him over anything, not even this, which means a lot to me. Reason 2) I don't know that taking the demigirl label means I will subconsciously try to change myself and my behavior to match what the label defines. I caught myself doing that not long ago, and I hated it. I wasn't being myself. I was attempting to be who the media said I should be based on what a demigirl is. Reason 3) I don't want to become one of those people (no offense to anybody) who makes their gender identity their entire personality and makes it seem like there is nothing else to them. Because I subconsciously changed how I feel so easily, I feel like it is possible for it to turn into this. Reason 4) I don't know my reasoning behind wanting a label or a flag to represent me. I like the idea of looking at the demigirl label/flag and feeling connected to it, or "at home." It could also be that I have gotten serious FOMO from seeing all of these teens having flags and labels and I have nothing. I really am unsure why I am seeking after this, but it is important to me that I find out.

Please let me know your thoughts or any clarifying questions you have. I would really like your support and thoughts. This is very very stressful to me right now especially considering the fact that I am moving in a week, managing classes, and grieveing the loss of my 20 year old kitty. Thank you for taking the time to read this. ♡

Happy Coming Out Day!

Happy Coming Out Day! This is your opportunity to come out to live authentically. Be yourself and your life the way you want.

Yes you can be LGBTQ and Christian and know that God loves you! God always loves you. He has been with you in good times and bad times. He created you and knows your sexual orientation before you were born. If you are new and on your journey and know that this is a safe place to come out even if you can't come out to family, friends and your church. Welcome and God bless you?

i hope everybody has/had a blessed sunday. Today in church our pastor was talking about our Lord as the Shepherd, and then he said something that sparked something deep inside of me. for a long time ive been struggling with the notion that i should reject the flesh's desires and focus on my spirituality instead of my gender, despite how bad my dysphoria is, but today our pastor said "God created *man* to live and Jesus wants us to live our lives to the fullest" and in that moment i just felt like God was speaking to me and i started tearing up but im so scared that im just making it all up in my head because i want to find some way to convince my mom that transitioning is the right thing for me, especially since my mom apparently heard from a friend that they had a dream in which God told her that i was going down a path that im too young for. I would just eeally appreciate it if you guys could pray for me to have discernment and strength to deal with this bc im not sure what to do

Hi everybody, I recently made a post in r/Christianity about how I feel about my gender, and how horrible it feels thinking I'll be condemned for something I pretty much can't control. Even though I made that post only a few days ago, a lot has happened since and I feel significantly better now.

Just yesterday, I was feeling worse than ever. I felt doomed, like no matter what I do I'm going to suffer. If I'm being completely honest, I kind of still feel that way, just not as much. I can't find a clear answer on what God thinks about being non-binary, and the mystery is killing me. So while I was feeling desperate, I grabbed a daily prayer book and turned to the day's date. To my surprise, it said to not trust my own eyes to see what is ahead, and instead rely on God for guidance. That on it's own was very comforting. But then I noticed I had missed the correct date by a couple days. After turning to the correct date, it said that God is always with me, and loves me no matter what. That genuinely made me feel ecstatic! What are the chances that 2 things I really needed to hear were that close together, and let alone at this EXACT time of year so that I would have read them right then?! I took that as a sign.

Right before writing this post, I really felt like I had to talk to somebody I could trust. It felt horrible trying to build up the courage, but I eventually came out to my best friend. He turned out to be extremely supportive, and helped me feel even better. He's genuinely the best person I've ever met. Love you bro ❤️ I don't know who else I feel comfortable telling just yet, but I'm confident most of my friends will be supportive. My family on the other hand, I'm not so sure.

Despite all the relief I've had in the last few days, something still feels off. I guess I'm still scared that I might go to Hell or something. I don't know. But regardless, I still love God, and believe our relationship is what's important. If anyone has any advice or just wants to talk, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Several years ago u/tobiah_vids linked to an essay by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg about the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament's feminine / gender fluid depiction of Joseph.

I checked her blog and found this recent essay passionately arguing that -- according to Rabbinical tradition -- dead-naming a person is on par with violating divine commandments. Here's the key paragraph, emphasis mine:

In any case, the Rabbis and latter rabbinic commentators* are clear that when a person’s name is changed, it is VERY VERY NOT OK to call them by their old name. Like, violating divine commandments not OK.

That won't stop bigots from being bigots, and that's Judaism instead of Christianity, but maybe it's a heartening read for community members as we approach the weekend. [A long weekend up here in Canada, we have Thanksgiving in October, our settlers ran out of food earlier. 😅 ]

I know a lot of Christians are against Christianity, I just believe God does want us to be our ideal gender.

And if you have your own afterlife beliefs, what does your Religion say or probably says.

Or if you somehow met a Trans Ghost or are a dead Trans Person, please give us insight.

tw: depression, s\\ thoughts

hello, I'm writing here because I feel so alone in my experience - I am not sure if it is a good sub to share my story.

(this is kind of a rant and really any support is welcomed)

english isn't my first language, sorry for mistakes :((

I'm in relationship with amazing boyfriend for the last one and a half year and now I feel I can't do it anymore. for the context: he is trans. my parents unfortunately know that and completely don't accept our relationship because they say it is not the way God wants me to live. they would see me with some Christian guy and then get married in church and have kids - my sister has five and how much I love them and I love my sister I want to make decisions about my own life. I want to have kids but with my bf. they say it is not acceptable and I am so wrong for thinking our relationship can ever work. I can't listen to this bullshit anymore like some dude from heaven cares in what relationship I am. not like the is any proof for his existence, even if He would be there somewhere I am pretty sure he has more important stuff to worry about than my relationship. and if my bf would be toxic or something: but of course he is not and he has such beautiful soul.

unfortunately my sister says she understands our parents in some way bc she has her own children and just my brother and his wife are fully supportive for us. it kills me every time I see my bf or my family. I hate Christianity so much for the pain it gives me every fucking day of my life. what is even worse, my parents except that are good people so I can't hate them or something. I am mostly pretty submissive person, so it is really hard for me to stand in opposition to them when they are talking something I disagree with.

right now I am in college and they pay for my rent, I am working when it is possible, but they are still a big financial support to me.

I am also seeing a psychiatrist lately and has been diagnosed with depression and possible ADHD. every time I come back home I am trying to be a good daughter for my parents, but everytime they read something from the Bible or talk about church I am so annoyed, sad and dissapointed it is destroying my life so much.

my boyfriend is probably the kindest man I could ever dream of. probably if not my parents we would have been so happy and live our best lives. however my life has fallen apart after I heard their words about disapointing God and them because of my choice to date him. my depression risen from the dead since and with every month I feel worse and worse.

sometimes I want to end relationship with him to not give him pain from my death and then kill myself to show my family how much pain they gave me. right now I am so exhausted with fighting with my illness and my family that I want to call it all a day. I just want to stay in my bed forever or die. I wonder if I deserve to feel this way, if am I really that evil?

I am really sorry for my messy writing.

thank you so much for reading this, have a good day/night xx

Hi everyone, my name is Rose I am 27 non binary who uses she/her pronouns from California and I am looking for more friends in California that are trans and christians too and I have also been trying to find a church branch that's welcoming and accepting of lgbtq people and I have felt like I want to be episcopal but I don't really know a whole lot about it since I have never been to a service or learned about it and I have also heard stuff about the UCC but the closet one to me wasn't very accepting and if anyone can help me with understanding more about the episcopal I would really appreciate it.

this is what i posted on here, i just posted on here a day or two ago but some major theological incongruities are wracking my mind. if you have the time please read everything. some of the commentors had good faith but exactly wrong practice. i dont even know what to do