About Face: My Journey to Freedom from Homosexuality
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Feeling ashamed and embarrassed, I pretended to be asleep while his hands roamed freely. Inside I seethed with anger, wondering why this was happening to me and how to make him stop. I prayed for him to go away, but God did not answer.
Somehow this must be my fault, I concluded.
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How I Came to See Things
While growing up in my parents’ home, I noticed that women were either the object of a man’s lust or the victim of his abuse. There was no in between. My father had stacks of pornographic magazines under his bed and he routinely hit my mother. Late one night when I was 4 years old, a scene unfolded that haunted me for years. I laid in bed with the covers pulled over my head, trying to block out the angry voices coming from the next room. I couldn’t sleep with all the yelling, so I tiptoed out of my bedroom and down the hall where I peered into the living room. Dad was glaring at Mom with a cold, angry look. Then he raised a tennis racket and swung at her, hitting the left side of her body. She stood there motionless and did not fight back.I Won’t Play the Victim
Tears stained my pillow that night as I vowed in my heart never to let a man hurt me like that. Watching their abusive marriage, I determined not to be a victim like my mom. I believed that to be feminine was to be weak and passive. I wanted no part of it.
Instead I looked up to my older brother and wanted to be strong and tough like him. I emulated him in every way and even wore his hand-me-down clothes. Unlike my sister, I shunned playing with dolls and excelled at sports, mastering everything from tennis to little league baseball to sandlot football. I developed masculine qualities and found acceptance as one of the guys.
Over and over people mistook me for a boy. Though the characters were different, the dialogue was always the same. Time and again I was called “Sir,” “Son” or “young man.”
One afternoon when I was 8, I strolled into the women’s locker room at the tennis club only to be greeted abruptly by a middle-aged woman and her doubles partner.
“What are you doing in here?” they inquired, thinking I had wandered in unknowingly.
Startled by their question, I stepped forward with my hands on my hips and announced boldly, “I’m a girl.”
“Are you sure?” they replied in unison, looking me over for any clues that showed I was telling the truth.
I didn’t know what to say. I knew there was only one way to prove it, but I was not about to take my clothes off. There in the locker room I decided to stop correcting people from that moment on. They didn’t believe me anyway.
After being sexually molested by my cousin a few years later, I wanted to conceal whatever shred of femininity I had left. I reasoned that if that was what it meant for a man to find me attractive, I didn’t want to be attractive anymore.
Where I Went For Love
Growing up, there were other incidents when men took advantage of me. I never felt safe as a girl because every man I met treated me as the object of his desire.
I entered high school with this twisted view of men, believing they were all sexual predators. With my masculine appearance and mannerisms, some people assumed I was gay, including my best friend, Kim. She thought we would be perfect for each other.
“I want to be more than friends,” Kim announced one day.
Young and naive, I thought she meant really good friends so I enthusiastically agreed.
Days later a classmate clued me in. “Don’t you know that Kim is gay?” said Liz.
Though I never had sexual thoughts toward women up to that time, I did have a hunger for feminine love because of the breakdown in my relationship with my mom. I didn’t know who to talk to so I looked in the Bible for answers and found a verse on love.
I knew I loved Kim, and I concluded that nothing can be wrong between two people if they love each other. This freed me from my inhibitions and we became lovers. I was 15 and she was 17. It was exhilarating and seemed to meet a need in my life because for the first time I really felt loved.
It wasn’t long before our lives revolved around each other. After seeing each other at school all day we spent hours talking on the phone at night. I lost interest in other friendships and wanted to be alone with Kim whenever possible. I was jealous and possessive of her.
We always checked with each other before making plans, and I felt I would die if Kim withdrew from the relationship even slightly. I didn’t know it, but these were all characteristics of an emotionally dependent relationship, which is very common among lesbians.
Because we couldn’t bear to be apart, Kim went to college nearby though she had athletic scholarships from many other schools. Months later, my mom found a love note I had written to Kim, and she confronted me with it.
“Do you want to tell me about this?” she asked one Sunday morning, dropping the card on the table in front of me.
I didn’t look up from my cereal but continued to eat in awkward silence. My mom opened the card and began to read what I had written to Kim:
“My dearest Kimbo, I’m so glad you are in my life. You make it worth living. I want to spend the rest of my life with you because I love you more than anything. When we get older I can’t wait to get married.”
“You know that’s illegal,” Mom protested, referring to the marriage part.
“No, it’s not,” I snapped.
Embarrassed to have a gay daughter, my mom demanded that the relationship end. To make sure that it did, she called Kim’s mother and together they worked to separate us.
Afterward, at 17, I began to experiment with guys sexually to find out if I was really gay or not. Each time I felt used and degraded because the guys didn’t care about me at all — they were only interested in sex.
I preferred being with a woman because it felt natural to me. I enjoyed being the center of another woman’s world. It filled a void in my life as I desperately longed to be loved. I resumed my homosexual involvements in college.
I Felt His Grace Extended to Me
I was a lesbian for six years and thought I would always be gay. I never knew that change was possible. But in my early 20s, I met some Christians who showed me an even better love — the love that God had for me. Still in a homosexual relationship, I joined a friend’s church softball team. I just wanted to play ball, but God had other ideas.
For 18 months, I played on the women’s softball team for Idlewild Baptist Church in Tampa, Fla. During that time, I was drawn by the love my fellow teammates had for one another and for me. It seemed so pure and so right.
They knew I was different because of my foul language and unsportsmanlike conduct on the field. But they never treated me like an outsider. Their attitude made me want what they had — a relationship with Christ. I started going to church regularly and became a Christian in November 1989.
Becoming a Christian didn’t instantly resolve my homosexual orientation, however. It was only the beginning of my journey. I broke up with my lover yet continued to struggle with unwanted same-sex attractions.
Weeks later, I heard the president of Exodus International — a Christian ministry that helps homosexuals — on a radio program. As I heard him share his own story of overcoming homosexuality, my heart filled with hope that I, too, could change. I began attending the weekly support group of the local Exodus ministry called Straight Ahead.
That’s where I discovered the root causes of my homosexual desires — things like sexual abuse, a poor relationship with my mother, peer rejection, and an abusive father. I tackled these issues through Christian counseling and conferences, such as the annual Exodus Conference and Dan Allender’s sexual abuse seminar.
God Changed Me
Change happened gradually from the inside out. First, the misguided beliefs about men and women were put to rest as I met godly, strong women in the church who dismantled my belief that to be feminine was to be weak. I also met men who treated me with dignity and respect, which freed me to embrace my gender. For the first time, I felt safe as a woman.
Then I began to outwardly identify with women, experimenting with things like makeup, clothes, and purses. As I worked to overcome my feelings of inadequacy about being a girl, I learned that straight women struggle with insecurities as well. I used to think I had nothing in common with them, but I discovered I was more like them than I ever dreamed.
The biggest challenge was developing healthy same-sex friendships. As I did that, my sexual attractions for women naturally diminished because I found what I was looking for all along — love, intimacy, and connection.
With God’s help and the support of caring people, I have been walking in freedom from homosexuality for over 10 years. As the director of an Exodus ministry, I now have the privilege of helping other people on the same journey, giving them the hope that if I can change, they can, too.
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