Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - I'm Trans and I Love Jesus | An interview with Laura Skaer

Episode Date: May 20, 2021

Over the last 5 years, trans rights have become a cultural lightning rod. But what often gets left behind in the culture war are the stories of real-life trans people. In this episode, Keith interviews his friend, Laura Skaer, a Jesus follower who transitioned from male to female in the early 90s. She shares her experiences and faith journey with incredible honesty. To learn more, visit our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (website) and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks (Facebook) and https://twitter.com/tmbtpodcast (Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO and @TMBTpodcast. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to Tim Minna Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. My name is Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. Also, if you want to connect with us, follow us on Twitter at TMBT Podcast. You can also check out our hashtag, hashtag, Ask TMBT, where you can ask us anything, and we'd love to connect with you. One of your earliest memories of feeling uncomfortable in your body? I was four or five years old, and I was. I had this feeling that I should have been a girl.

It was just a feeling that my body didn't match what I felt inside. Who is the first person you told about this? Oh, gosh, I didn't tell anyone about this until in the mid-70s on a business trip, I took a detour to Baltimore to John Hopkins University where they had a doctor or two. that were spending a lot of time with gender identity issues, gender dysphoria, is what they called it. And I went there to tell him that I thought I was transsexual. And I wanted to start hormone treatment.

How old were you? Almost 30, 29. So you start having these feelings as a little boy in your four or five, and you think at least the best you can tell and make sense out of it in a four or five-year-old brain. that you feel like a girl. You keep that quiet for 24, 25 years. Yeah, kept that as my secret. Why didn't you tell anybody before that?

I was scared to. I was afraid to. I was afraid that people would think I was kind of sick or crazy. And my father was a very strong, controlling, large person. who I was fearful that he would beat me. I want to introduce you all to my friend Laura Scare. Laura is a part of the church where Patrick and I are a pastor. She loves Jesus.

She is 73 years old, and she has a story that few people know, a story that she's ready to share with us and with anybody who she thinks will benefit from it. So thanks, Laura, for being a part of this. Are you nervous? A little, but not too much. I believe the timing is right, and I know this is what God wants me to do. You haven't shared all this information with too many people, have you? I have not.

So you're 30 years old, and you're talking to this doctor. He does what for you? He, I think you told me, sends you back home with some hormone medicine? Yeah, he gave me a prescription for estrogen, and I got it filled in Baltimore, and took it back to Kansas City, where I was living at the time, and took the pills. When I went to renew the prescription, I couldn't renew it because it was an out-of-state prescription, and none of the drugstores in Kansas City would fill it. So this like 30-day venture into hormone therapy ended abruptly. It didn't last long, did it? No, it did not. So you decided that the best of action was to continue then to try to make life work as Larry. Make life work as Larry, yes. And to try to repress the gender conflict feelings that I had

inside of me that I'd had my whole life. And you were married at this time, right? I was married at this time and had a daughter who was about two years old. So let's go back a little bit. You started having these feelings, let's call it gender dysphoria. I don't know a better phrase, when you're four or five, and you experience that all through grade school, high school, college, dating life, you get married, you have a kid. What's this feel like? What does gender dysphoria feel like? How would you describe it as somebody who's never experienced it? Well, I think it's hard for people to understand because most people's gender identity is congruent with their sex. But for me, I mean, it was always these feelings that I wanted

to be a girl. I thought I should have been a girl. Couldn't understand why I wasn't. Is it psychological confusion? Is it physical? Does it feel something in your physical body, like a broken arm? Or is it depression or anxiety? I don't know. I'm throwing all these things out just because I don't know. For me, it was mental. It was psychological, I guess, is a way to put it. And God gifted me with some intelligence and an analytical mind. So I started in high school. I started reading as much as I could about it. I stumbled upon a paperback book called the Christine Jorgensen story.

And that was the first time that I had realized that I wasn't the only person in the world who felt like this. And I read that book cover to cover. and then I started going to the library trying to find books or anything I could about it, went to medical libraries looking to see if there was articles published in medical periodicals about it because I thought that if I could understand why I felt this way, then I could cure myself. If I understood what the root cause of my feelings was, then I'd know how to address it. Did you figure it out?

were you ever able to answer those questions? No, I mean, there was some. There were some issues learned about that sometimes there can be some hormonal effects during gestation that could have an impact. I read about a study where they had injected male rats with female hormones and the rats started acting like females. And then I found out that my mom had a miscarriage before me,

and this is in the mid-late 40s, and then the doctor gave her extra shots of estrogen and progesterine during the pregnancy with me. So my developing body got hit with a lot of extra female hormones at the time, and there was some research that they thought that that could be a factor. I think what I did was I jumped on that as, okay, this explains it, and I kind of gave myself permission. to go down to further explore the path of changing my gender. It's got to be weird to be hiding this part of your life, but be studying it, exploring it like you're a science project or something. Yeah, it was something that was not part of school or anything,

but it was something that I was obsessive about. Well, I mean, here you are reading about rats and studies they do and wondering, is this what happened to me? How does this help shed light on what I'm feeling inside? But let's go back to middle school, high school, college, dating, all that. So you said you gave yourself permission to kind of explore this part of your life. What's that look like? What did you do?

How did you keep it at Ceres? Whatever you did, other people weren't aware. So whatever your exploration was, was it private, personal? It was very private. It was my bedroom was in the basement. of our home, and I was down there by myself, and we had like a half basement, and there was like a dirt room that you could access through like a crawl space. And I remember acquiring female clothing and hiding it in this dirt room so that when nobody was home but me, then I could cross-dress

and get kind of a euphoric feeling out of it. When you look back on that part, of your life, was it painful? Were you hurting? Scared? Painful, scared. I mean, scared that somebody would figure out what was going on in my life, that somebody would discover that I had this kind of second person that nobody knew about. And I was scared to be discovered that I'd be ridiculed and would lose all my friends would be chastised. laughed at and all of that. So I kept it really hidden. You must have done a pretty good job of hiding it if you dated a woman, got married to her and had a kid, and she had no idea. No, she had no idea. In law school, she worked to help support us, and sometimes I would come

home after class, knowing that she wouldn't be home until I'd have to go pick her up at five a clock and I would sit down and I'd put makeup on and sit at a mirror and put makeup on everything and then take a shower and clean up and everything and go pick her up. So after you snuck off, got the prescription for the hormones, took them, ran out, decided to be Larry the best you could. Eventually you end up telling your wife. It became harder and harder to hide Laura and the desire to live as a woman was growing inside of me. And I felt like this is somebody that I made a commitment to and I love and we're in a relationship

and I need to be honest and transparent with her finally. And you had a good marriage. It was going well at the time. So I told her about it. And her initial reaction was compassion. Was she surprised or did she kind of seen this? It wasn't totally shocked. She didn't act in shock, but she was surprised.

I don't think it wasn't what she was expecting to hear from me. Date night. Yeah. And then a couple of days later, she goes, I can't handle this. I want a divorce. I can't live like this. I can't handle this. So the first reaction was compassion, but a couple of days later, she rethinks it.

And she wants out. We'd become really good friends again after. going through a divorce and everything. You're still in touch with her? Oh, yeah. And we've vacationed together and we've done things together. But we had a rough road to get to where we are now. And we had a very nasty divorce and everything.

And I think she's told me that it caused her to question her own femininity. It's like, how could I have been attracted to someone who had this gender conflict? So in some sense, it sounds like it reaffirmed your. fears that if people found out, I would be rejected. Because that's, although she didn't mean to do it, and although her first response was compassionate, and although you guys have reconciled and have a great relationship now, the reality is there was a season there where she did reject you. Absolutely.

How did that feel? It felt horrible. I thought this was somebody that I could trust with my secret and that we could find a way to work through it. And so did it all become public at this point then? Did everybody in your life find out about Laura? Some people found out about Laura, and some people found out but never said anything to me. I did have one friend who came up to me and said, do you know what Carolyn's saying about you?

Carolyn was your wife. Yeah. And I just kind of said, yeah, I do. And I didn't expand. So once you've told her, and you guys are going through this. divorce. Do you then now fully embrace Laura? No. Okay. What do you do? Because we're going through a pretty nasty divorce at the time. So I went through a purge and I got rid of all the clothing and women's clothing. Yeah, all the women's clothing. I grew a mustache and a beard, tried to do

everything I could to make it seem that Laura didn't exist. And was that for your benefit? Were you trying to convince yourself of something? Are you trying to play an image for other people because of what Carolyn was saying? Yeah, it was part of playing an image for other people and to make sure that it would be hard for other people to believe what she was saying. So you got married again? About six years later, seven years later. So in between those two marriages, for that six, seven years, you were trying to make Larry work. You sell your clothes, you grow a mustache and a beard, you're trying to play this role, this image, I don't know, again, for yourself, for others, maybe for everybody, but it's not working still,

right? And the whole point of telling Carolyn was because you felt like you needed to live as Laura. Right. So then I made this effort, the power of positive thinking, I'm going to overcome this and use my mental powers to change. And that worked for a while. I played on a competitive softball team and just did a lot of things

to try to bury this, keep it out of my mind. But it just kept gnawn at me, kept creeping in. And then so I shaved everything and started going out and buying clothes again and rebuilding my wardrobe. And while you're going through all this,

it's kind of interesting because I know enough of your story to know that you're experiencing a lot of professional success during this time? Yes. I was a successful lawyer at a large Kansas City law firm, was made a junior partner after just about five years. And then six months later, I resigned to go into business with my father and brother. My father was a successful oil and gas producer and the timing was right with the industry growing in the mid-70s. And I went out there to go to work, got involved helping run the business, got involved in some oil and gas trade associations,

and became recognized for my knowledge of tax issues and my quick grasp of the industry. Well, you do my taxes. Just kidding. So it's got to be, I don't know, I just want to understand, you're going through all of this internal anguish. You have a divorce that is kind of nasty. You got a daughter out of that marriage that you care deeply about. You're trying to put your life together as Larry, Laura, and reconcile all these feelings. Meanwhile, you have professional success and nobody in that part of your life knows about this other part of your life. That's got to be incredibly exhausting. incredible amount of energy to keep the two separate. This was the time that I started to kind of explore. Is there a way to kind of blend the two together? You mean your professional

and private life, Larry and Laura? What do you mean blend? Yeah, just try to see if there's a way that Larry can incorporate some of Laura and still go on as Larry. But your feelings, they haven't subsided. No, the gender conflict was there and it was growing. And I was exploring. I was continuing to read and to study, and it was growing, and to the point where I had rebuilt my wardrobe, and I was experimenting with getting in the car and going out and driving around for a while and coming back as Laura, but I had that private. So I was a loner. I was very much alone. I didn't have a lot of close friends at the time. When you kind of dressed up as Laura and went out driving around or put on makeup, did that assuage some of the anxiety, the dysphoria? Did you feel better

when you did that or not really? No, I felt better. I felt kind of a piece. It felt right. There was kind of a euphoric feeling at the time and it just seemed right. And when I was dressed and going out as Laura, I didn't have this feeling of a gender conflict. You end up getting married again. And I think we have a relationship where I can just ask you this. That seems a little odd, given that your first marriage has ended and that you're in this anxious state of trying to resolve these two people, Larry and Laura. Why do you keep going? Are you hoping that getting married solves or reconciles some of this? Or help me understand the big picture here. Yeah, I think part of the first time I got married was I thought that getting married would

cure me, cure me of my gender conflict and it would cause Laura to go away because all of a sudden I had this responsibility in a marriage as a husband and father. And that didn't happen. So I had gone through a period where I mentioned that I had rebuilt the wardrobe and everything. And I met this woman at a Christian renewal weekend in Colorado who was going through a divorce at the time, and we kind of hit it off. We spent a lot of that weekend at the camp just talking and talking, and we were really comfortable with each other. And later the next week, we were talking on the phone, and it was clear that she wanted to date me. And I told her, I said, well, I got to tell you something first. Uh-oh. Did you tell her? I told her on the phone. You told her? I told her that

had this gender conflict and that I had always felt like I was a woman and that there was this Laura part of my life. And I told her about it. And it was kind of like, wow, that's really interesting. And she said, I'd like to meet Laura sometime. Wow. So we did. So this was part of your idea of whether Larry and Laura could blend, somehow merge together or something. And now here, you have found a woman who wants to know both Larry and Laura. Yeah, who wanted to, and so we went out on a Mary Lee Laura date together. Mary Lee was her name. Mary Lee was her name. And you end up getting married to Mary Lee. And you're married to her for... Well, I married until she passed away in February of 2001 from ovarian cancer. And you had a daughter with her. I had a daughter with her.

The first time I met you here at the crossing, there was no Larry. You were Laura, and we sat and visited for a while, and that was that. So at some point, you went from Larry who Laura came out from time to time to Laura. Help me understand that. How did that come about? Well, in the 80s, late 70s, early 80s, I discovered a community of transgendered people, everything from occasional cross-dressers to people who had sex reassignment surgery. That's an interesting point because I don't think everybody understands that trans means something

different to different people. There's not just one definition of what a trans person is. And therefore, when you said you met everybody from cross-dressers to people who have had surgery, it just kind of shows there's a wide variety of ways that you can think of being trans. Yes. It's kind of like there's lots of places on the gender line for people that have a gender identity conflict to land. I think it's also then good to remember that when you've met one trans person, you've met one trans person. One trans person doesn't speak for anybody but themselves.

This is your story, not every trans person story. I spent several years active in the community, and I met everybody from one end of the spectrum to the other. And your story is just one story among all those. But I interrupted you. You're explaining how you. you came to fully embrace Laura, and you said you were in a community of transgendered people. Found a community, started communicating with them. They would have a week-long event in

Provincetown, Massachusetts, which is a gay community. And it was a week where you could come there and you could spend the entire week as your female self. And I did that. And I was married to Mary Lee at the time, and she knew I was going. And I did that, and I did it one year and then wanted to do it the next year. And the more I did it and the more I experienced, like having a week of just living full-time as Laura, the more I felt convinced in my own mind that this was my path, that my true happiness was going to be in living my life as Laura. And so you ended up transitioning. Yeah. Mary Lee got to the point where it was fine for a while, but then it's like, if you're going to go down this path, I can't live with you.

And we had a long discussion about whether we should get divorced or whether we should stay together. And for a lot of economic and financial and other reasons, we chose to stay married. So I started transitioning. I started spending. more and more time I was doing electrolysis. I started hormone therapy. There were changes in my appearance in my body that became noticeable to people. And people kind of started asking, what's going on? What's going on? And I started telling people. And I put together a letter to give to people a two-page letter that kind of explained what I knew about at the time, about gender dysphoria and gender conflict and trying to help people understand the struggle and what was going on in my life. But the secrets out at this point.

The secret's out now. People are finding out. And I'm president of a oil and gas industry trade association. And some of the members are trying to like, this is too much for us. Is interfering with your professional life at this point? Well, yeah, it is. Although there were some who said, I don't understand what's going on in your life. but you're the best president this association's had in the last 10 years.

So we'll put up with whatever, just keep doing a good job. Yeah, there were some that weren't, some that was like, oh, this is too much. This is too embarrassing to the organization to have somebody going through a gender transition. I mean, it was at a time when gay people were in the closet, too. So, I mean, it was a time in society where this was pretty unusual. It wasn't talked about. So I transitioned and started living full time as Laura. So when you say you transitioned, my understanding is that people can mean social transitioning, hormonal transitioning, surgical transitioning.

They can mean all kinds of different things. Yeah, it was social and hormonal. And so just like, okay, this is the cost. This is the price I have to pay. But I'm fulfilling my dream. And then I got to the point where I decided. that I was feeling euphoric. I was feeling at peace. I really had convinced myself that this was the path that was laid out for me, that I needed to go down, and that I had finally resolved my

gender conflict by living full-time as Laura. And so I made a decision to have surgery. Mary Lee loved me enough to let go and to sign a spousal consent to that. surgery. And so in April of 94, I had surgery. I was not active in a church community. I never stopped believing, but God and Christ were certainly not part of my life, and I certainly wasn't fallen at the time. I was following my own desires. You said earlier that you met Mary Lee at a Christian renewal conference. So I was just curious, how has faith played a role in your life from the very beginning? Do you grow up in a church family, that kind of thing? I grew up in a Southern Baptist church. My mom was active superintendent of the Sunday school. I did what all 11 and 12 year old kids did

in a Southern Baptist church. I walked the aisle to just as I am and made a public profession of my faith. But that was all it was. As I look back on it, it was kind of like, I got the fire insurance. I've got my get out of hell free card. Yeah, it's always hard to interpret somebody else's spiritual experience or even our own. And so it sounds like you think while you believe certain truths about Christianity, you said you never stopped believing. It doesn't seem you think of yourself as being a Christian during this whole time. I thought of myself as being a Christian because I had accepted Christ, but I wasn't active. I wasn't following Jesus. I wasn't trying to grow in discipleship. I'd have

periods where I wouldn't go to church for years, never stopped believing, just wasn't active. Then I'd get involved back in church, did that when Carolyn and I were divorced. I got back into church for a few years. That's how I was at a Christian renewal weekend in Kansas City, and they connected me with a similar group in Colorado, and that's where I met Mary Lee. And so I had this period of time where I was active and I was in my Bible and I was trying to grow in my faith. But resolving my gender conflict took precedent and became kind of my obsession. And it kind of pushed my faith to the side. It became all about me that the most important thing was that I had a right to live my life.

the way I wanted to live it. And at the time, I wanted to live it as Laura. So when I met you a couple years ago, you were Laura, like I said earlier, and we kind of explored how you transitioned from Larry to Laura. But you also had a deep love for Jesus. So how did that come about? That came about. After I got a job, I moved to Spokane, Washington to run a mining industry Trade Association, and this was my first real employment as Laura. I'd done a couple of projects with some friends as Laura, but this was my real employment. I had a two-year contract, and I had a family to support back in Denver, Mary Lee, and McKenzie, and I had to support myself, and I had to

make this work. So I spent that first year there, I was probably 14 to 16 hour a day working, learning a new industry, learning the association, and out to prove that I was going to be the best executive director of the mining industry had ever seen. And the fallout from that was that I drove my staff nuts because they had families. They only wanted to work eight hour days. And when I'm working 10 to 16 hour days and I'm throwing out work on their desks, pretty hard for them to catch up in just eight hours. And I was kind of a tyrant as a boss. It was like, no, you're going to do what I say because I'm the boss. And this was starting to backfire on me. I was having professional success in the industry, but in my job, there was a mutiny among the staff. There were people

wondering, we can't have this turmoil. And it was like, man, I'm having success over here, but my life is coming apart over on this other part of my professional life. And after a year, I was talking to Mary Lee on the phone. And I said, I don't understand. I don't understand why people, can't they see all the good I'm doing and everything? She was very blunt. She said, Laura, you're acting like an asshole. And if I was there working for you, I wouldn't want to work for you either. And I said, well, I don't understand what's wrong. She said, I know what's wrong.

I said, okay, well, tell me. She said, when are you going to let God back into your life? She said, this drive to be all about you corresponded with you putting God on the back burner. So I've heard you say this phrase, all about you. you referring to yourself a couple times. And it sounds like you're saying it in reference to your gender confusion or gender conflict, I think is the phrase you use. And you said there's times where you made it all about yourself and what you wanted and how you wanted to live and asserting your rights and privileges. And now you're saying the same thing, except it's about being a boss

and how you interact in the office with people who report to you. So it seems like making things all about yourself is something that kept Jesus out of your life, kept Jesus at the margins. Yeah, it did. It kept Jesus kind of like sitting on my shoulder maybe, and he gets one little room, a closet in my life, but it doesn't get the whole house. So how does that change? Well, when Mary Lee told me, this conversation was like a lightning bolt struck me. And it was like this realization, oh my gosh, you're right. And I started. started crying. And I asked her, I said, will you pray with me? And she did. And I was down on my knees and asking God to give me another chance that I really wanted to put Christ first and to help me

find a church that would help me do that. So that- He answered your prayers? He answered my prayers. And I found a church. And this is in Washington State, just to make sure- Spokane, Washington. By this time, I had been to Presbyterian churches. So I looked in the phone book, picked out three or four Presbyterian churches, drove by, looked at them on a Saturday, picked one to go to. What a great criteria to pick a church by. And I figured I would go to each of these four churches and see which one I like. Oh, okay, so you're actually going to attend them. I thought you're just going to pick the one based on the lawn care or something like that. No, I actually attended. And I walked in. the first one, it was Manitow Presbyterian Church, and it became really clear to me. The Holy Spirit spoke, I mean, this is like, really, this is where I'm supposed to go to church. And so I didn't go

to any of the other churches, and I started attending this church regularly. And at first, it felt really good to be back. Then it felt like I need to be more than just an attendee. I need to serve. I need to get involved, and I got involved in a small group and helped lead a small group. And then, in February 2001, Mary Lee died of ovarian cancer. And I'd gone to a prayer retreat, signed up for a prayer retreat, because I thought, okay, I need to make prayer a bigger part of my life. And at this prayer retreat, it was the first time I actually learned to listen to God in prayer that my prayers had always been, Laura Talk, God listens. And it was the idea was to, we started the prayer retreat by, you need to learn to listen, listening prayer. And it was like, well, I'm this type A off

the chart person. I don't know how to listen. And I finally realized and asked, said, God, I said, God, you wired me this way. I can't do this by myself. You've got to help call me so I can listen to you. And he did. And then in that prayer retreat, they have a series of different events that we did. And one of them was we got with three other people, four of us together, that we really didn't know each other. And we just kind of pray and see if the Holy Spirit will provide any knowledge or anything that someone needs to be especially prayed for. Well, two of the women in this group said, Laura, I sense that there's somebody in your life who's very ill, and she's near death. And another person said, you need to go see her. And I said, well, I'm planted to at the end of the month. This was in February.

And they go, no, you need to go now. And so I did. And I flew back and I got to spend a week with Mary Lee. And I left and two days later, she passed away. So I wouldn't have had this week with her, but for, God, and it was so clear that it was the Holy Spirit because these women would have no way of knowing any of this. So God got your attention. God got my attention. Yeah, I have to say, this didn't sound like a Presbyterian church, but are you sure as a Presbyterian church? Well, we had left the Presbyterian church and went independent. I can tell.

Aren't they known as the Frozen Chosen? Yes. Only they're having listening to retreats to the Holy Spirit. Obviously, just playing with you here. but what I want to hear is how Laura submitted to Jesus. I got really involved in being the co-lay leader of the prayer ministry after this and helped do some more prayer retreats. And my faith was growing.

And Laura was following Jesus. And then about four years later, God has always gifted me with resources. And so whenever there was a need, it was like, okay, I can write a check to support that. It became very clear that God wanted me to go on a mission trip with the high school kids, and I did that, and I experienced God using me in ways that I just never imagined he could, that I could, that I could do this. And it wasn't me doing it. It was God working through me and my making myself available.

So I'm growing in, I'm learning to really love Jesus more and more, and I'm growing in my faith. and I was ready to go back the next year to the next mission trip, and all of a sudden the church discovered that Laura used to be Larry. And all of a sudden, it was not okay for me to go on the mission trip, and maybe it's not okay for me to be involved in leadership, and it was devastating. And at this time, the senior pastor at the church, Doug Wagner, he had been removed about a year earlier. And when this happened to me, I got an email from Doug who said, you want to talk? And so Doug and I started meeting weekly for coffee, and we started talking. And we had felt very similar pain that all of a sudden this church had decided that we were disqualified because of a past sin in

our life. And Doug really helped me get through this. We became very close. And it was at this time that I started looking at, starting to wonder, you read Isaiah 29, 16 about the potter and the clay. And I realized, man, am I the clay that told the potter he didn't make me right? And then you get into Psalm 139 and about how God knitted you in the womb and he knew you and he saw your unformed body. Because I had thought that I was a mistake. It should have been a girl, was a boy. And this started convicting me that God's truth reigns supreme and his truth in my life that I had diverted from that truth. Can you help me understand when you say you diverted from that truth, that God's will reign supreme?

What do you mean? I mean that as I read this, I realized that God had created me to be male and that I chose to pursue a different path, my path. and while it provided some peace and happiness for a while, it became more and more empty. And it no longer filled that emptiness inside. And as I was spending time with Doug and in prayer and talking and going through the Bible and looking at different verses and everything, in Ecclesiastes, it says that God has planted eternity in our heart. It's like you have a God-sized void that only God can fill. And I started to embrace that as truth and came to the point to where I was able to finally

confess that what I did was wrong and that I had sinned. And to ask God to forgive me for that and to take me as I am, where I am, and use me. And I started to, with Doug's help and everything, become to accept that yeah, I'm Laura here, but the happiness wasn't in pursuing womanhood. The happiness was in following Jesus. So how old were you at this time? Mid-60s. So when you're in your mid-60s, you come to the conclusion by looking at the scriptures, by praying, by meeting with Doug, that you had sinned against God by rejecting who he made you to be, that God hadn't made a mistake. that he had designed you, created you as a male,

and that you were sending against God when you insisted on being a female? Yes. If you could go back, and you could pick a time, maybe it's 15-year-old Larry, maybe it's 20-year-old Larry, 30, when you were first contacting the doctor at Johns Hopkins. Knowing what you know now, what would you go back and tell Larry?

I'd go back and tell Larry that Jesus, Christ, Christ is the answer, and that if you put your faith in him and trust him, he will help you get through this. If you stay focused on Jesus, he will help you get through this conflict. The conflict was real. The conflict wasn't going to go away, but I tell Larry that Jesus will give you the strength to deal with this, to accept that this is part of Larry, and that it's okay, but that God's intent for you is to live your life as Larry. So you're not saying that had you submitted to Jesus when you were in your teens or your 20s or whatever, that this gendered conflict would have magically disappeared?

No, I think it's there. For me, it was Paul's thorn in the side. This would have been a way to keep me humble and to keep my trust in Jesus to say, Okay, I can't deal with this gender conflict on my own, but Lord, you can. You can help me through this. You can help me live with it and embrace it as a part of who I am, but not have it become the obsession that it became. Because ultimately, you see your insistence on living as Laura, similar that you see your being a jerk boss to work for, and that is that you had put yourself first. And that's something all of us can identify with. Our selfishness looks different from person to person. Our insisting upon our rights,

doing things our way is manifested different in our lives. But we all have the same common struggle that we need to give our allegiance, not to ourself and pursue self-esteem and self-happiness and self-glorification, but instead to surrender and submit our life to God, our allegiance to King Jesus. And so you see all that is the core issue. For me, that was the core issue. This battle between who's going to control my heart and who am I going to give my allegiance to. And as I look back, I mean, there were consequences to my decision. I mean, I heard a lot of people. I have a younger daughter who I don't really have a relationship with because she feels that her father walked out on her when she was eight or nine years old.

This is the daughter you had with Mary Lee. With Mary Lee, yeah, the younger one who was born in 83. She has two kids. I have two grandkids that I got to meet them when they were like a year, year and a half, but I have no relationship with them because she's not ready to have them meet me, introduce me. So that's pain for me. It's pain for her.

Have you explained to her that you have some regrets and that you have some regrets and that you wish you could do this differently, but here you are. If I had the Sherman and Peabody's Wayback Machine, with the knowledge that I have now, I would go back, and I would not have pursued the course that I pursued. But that hasn't softened her heart at all. Has not softened her heart yet. Yet. I like that word.

I bet it does. Yet. She's a believer. I just keep praying, and that God's timing will be perfect. And so when it's time, it'll happen. When you experienced the gender conflict as a kid, you kept it to yourself. You didn't tell anyone. It sounds like you had a difficult relationship with your dad.

You didn't go tell people at your church that you attended. If a kid came out and told a parent that they were having this gender conflict inside of them, gender dysphoria, what do you think the parents should do? Just based on your experience, I know you're not a psychologist, you're not trained in all this. You have lived this life for a long time. And so I'm just curious, what would you encourage a parent to do if their kid said, hey, I'm confused, or I'm feeling this dysphoria, or however the kid might phrase it? I think the thing is to love, to love them, to just explain to them, accept that their feelings are real, and to help them understand that sometimes it's best not. not to act on our feelings and that those feelings can change and to love them and come beside them

and be someone they can talk to about and to listen and to become knowledgeable. I think I would, without coming across as holier than thou kind of thing, I think there's a way to say that God created you and he's got a plan for you and whatever sex you are. It's not an accident. It's not an accident. It was intentional. So let's go to, sorry I'm bouncing around here, but there's a couple more things I want to know.

So you're in your 60s. In the conversations with Doug and studying the scriptures, you come to the conclusion, I shouldn't have transitioned. I shouldn't have done all this. So we read a lot, a fair amount, about people who detransition. You didn't do that. How do you think about that? Like, I'm not thinking you should have.

I'm just want to know how you processed where you were, than in your 60s as Laura having gone through different types of transitioning. Now you come to the conclusion, I shouldn't have gone this way. Okay, but what do you do? Well, I came to realize that it's the greatest regret in my life. If there's one thing I could do over, if we got a second chance, this would be what I would do differently. You do what differently?

I wouldn't transition to Laura. I wouldn't have had surgery. but it's been 25 years. I'm in my late 60s. Everybody kind of knows me as Laura, both people that knew Larry went through the transition with me and everything. And I mean, it's something I prayed about and it's like, God knows where my heart is. He knows that I love Jesus and I follow him and that's the most important thing. And I just decided that I didn't want to go through it. through surgery again. I didn't want to go through all the effort of changing all my identification. I was able to change my birth certificate, and it just seemed like for this late stage in life,

I can just kind of for the first time really be open and honest about who I am and stay focused on trying to follow Jesus, and I can do that as Laura as well as Larry. So you considered detransitioning. You talked about it with Doug. You tried to figure out. And it sounds like you said, look, at this point, my late 60s and now again, you're 73. But at that point, I'm just going to live out the rest of my years following Jesus as I am. Remain as you are, as kind of Paul says in 1st Corinthians 7.

Yeah. I didn't feel a strong sense from the Holy Spirit or from God that that's what I was supposed to do. that I can be who I am now. And I'm comfortable with that. So it's about five years since you came to these conclusions and you moved. You're retired. Your life has changed somewhat. You're in a new community here in Columbia.

So when you look back, what do you think? Tell us what your perspective is now on your life at 73 years old, living through all the things that you've kind of gone through? I look back and the greatest regret I have is that I abandoned my kids and my wife and chose to pursue the path of Laura to put self above them, above others and above God. So that's my biggest regret. I wish I had a second chance to go do that, but I have grace. And maybe grace is better than a second.

chance. And I think that what I've learned is that happiness and fulfillment and my identity is in Christ Jesus. It's not in Laura. It's not in Larry. But it's in Christ. And as long as I pursue that and keep that in the forefront of my life and that that becomes my purpose, I know that following Jesus is God's will for my life to try to be more and more like Jesus and to love and to be compassionate and to show grace that I'm pursuing the life that God intends me to pursue. And I can do that regardless of what my body looks like. Hey, Laura, I'm wondering if you'd pray for us. And I'm specifically wondering if you would pray for all of us out there, which I think is all of us who struggle with putting Jesus first in our life and that temptation we have to put self first.

But I also wonder if you'd pray specifically for people out there who are experiencing the gender conflict and the dysphoria. And they don't know who to tell and they don't know what to say. And they're scared like you are. Would you just pray for us? Sure. Father God, Lord, I want to thank you for this opportunity. to share my story, Lord. And my prayer is first and foremost that this brings glory to you and glory to your son. Lord, I know it's a struggle that I had, that everyone has, this struggle between self and Jesus, this struggle to put yourself first. And especially in this culture, everywhere you turn, there are messages that it's all about you. Find your own happiness. Find your own happiness.

find your own path. I tried that, Lord, and it ended up being a dead end. It brought pain. What seemed to be happiness and fulfillment became empty, because, Lord, you are the only one who can fill that emptiness in our heart that can fill that void. Lord, I thank you that you didn't forget about me, that you didn't abandon me even when I abandoned you, and that you were there for me. that you picked me up, that you forgave me, that you gave me grace. Lord, I pray for all of those out there who are struggling with that internal battle between putting Jesus on the throne of their heart and putting themselves on the throne of their heart. I know how difficult that battle is, but I assure them that if they put Jesus first,

if they put their identity in Jesus, they will find true peace. they will find true joy, they will find true happiness, that pursuing self will always be a dead end. Lord, you know better than I that my gender conflict is real, and it's always been there. And, Lord, I know there are people out there, maybe some listening to this broadcast who are suffering or experiencing the pain, the conflict, the loneliness of having this gender conflict, and they don't know where to turn and they don't know what to do. Lord, I pray that you would bring people into their life that would love them, that would care for them, that would listen, and that would help guide them to you, Lord, because you are the answer.

You're the answer to our hopes. You're the answer to our dreams. Only you have the power to give us the strength to deal with whatever it is in our life that we struggle with. I thank you that you rescued me, and I thank you that you're the Lord and Savior and king of my life. Lord, I just want to tell you how much I love you and, Lord, how much I love the people out who might be listening to this. And, Lord, if there is any way that this broadcast or that I personally could help people struggling with the same issues that I struggle with, Lord, I would ask that you bring them into my life, that you point me in that, direction, and that you give me the words and the strength to be compassionate and to help them

in a way that glorifies you. Lord, I ask all these things in Christ Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thanks for sharing your story, Laura. You're welcome. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.