Rubicon IV

by Terri Main

 

This is the most recent published Cindy story. It is a fictionalized version of a turning point in my life, which occurred in January 1999. During my transition, I had basically avoided gender groups as a rule. Part of this was because I lived in Fresno, California and there really were no gender groups there. Of course, just three hours away in the San Francisco Bay area there were several such groups, and I did make the drive every other week to see my therapist anyway. So, why didn’t I go? Pride, fear of getting stuck in the gender world, shame, you name it. Mostly, I didn’t want to take ownership of my transgenderism, and I was running from a call God had on my life to reach my people for Him.

About two weeks before the events chronicled in this story took place, I was sitting in church one night. We were having a concert by Southern Gospel artist Daryl Williams. I was looking around at the crowd. It seemed like everyone was in pairs. I had chosen a life in which I had to be open about my transsexualism. I felt shut out from any type of relationship with a man because of my ministry. In short, I felt I had given up everything and frankly, I was ready to just put all the internet ministries on autopilot and try to live a "normal" life.

Of course, it was self-pitying nonsense. The rewards far outweighed the costs. And my life was incredibly normal. But, there it was. I was getting burned out.

Nevertheless, I had been asked to come and participate in a workshop at First Event in Boston on transgendered Christians. So, I went. I sort of thought it would be my last "official" act in my role of transgendered guru.

January 10, 49 B.C.  Julius Caesar stood with the men of his Thirteenth Legion on the banks of a small stream marking the southern boundary of Cisalpine Gaul. He could turn back to the relative safety of his Governorship of Gaul or he could cross the Rubicon and risk capture, torture and execution as a traitor.  However, if he succeeded he would save a decadent, crumbling Roman Republic from collapsing in on itself and create a mighty Roman Empire that would rule the known world for half a millennia.

Crossing the river, he said with a mix of finality and destiny, "Iacta est alea" – The die is cast.

As Cindy rushed down a corridor in Boston International Airport, frantically searching for Gate 43B and hoping that the plane had not already begun boarding, she wasn’t thinking much about Roman history.  In her own way, though, sometime during the past three days she had crossed her own Rubicon and now the die was cast for her as well.

The plane hadn’t left.  It was just creeping up to the boarding tunnel.   Cindy would have a few minutes to wait while passengers came out of the plane.   Then, of course, first class passengers would be boarded first, then the 100,000-mile club members, then finally the tourist class.  It would be awhile.   She may as well sit down and wait.

Airports are places of waiting.  In-between places really.  Existing in communities, they are not really part of the community no matter how hard the local Chamber of Commerce  tries to sell the glories of the town in large backlit displays along corridors.  You have to exit the airport to enter the community.   Nevertheless, the airport becomes an ad hoc community of its own: frequent fliers making connections with bored indifference; virgin travelers studying signs to find their way; business executives rushing from the plane to meeting and from meeting to the plane; families on vacation; relatives flying to christenings or weddings or funerals; ticket agents, baggage handlers, car rental agents, janitors, gift shop clerks, restaurant waiters, and sky caps making up the permanent residents of this very temporary community.

So, there she sat in a plastic chair in this temporary place waiting.  It was not an unfamiliar feeling.  Transition was like that: a temporary place, a way station, a place of departing, a place of waiting.  And the faces were similar: those resigned to the wait, those impatiently pacing about, those watching the windows with wondrous anticipation, those departing for far off locations never to return, and those who would stay behind to help other travelers on their journeys.

"Boarding for Flight 187 for Los Angeles now commencing at Gate 43B."   The ubiquitous voice of the airport said it, and it must be true.  Cindy gathered together her purse and carry-on suitcase both carefully scanned and declared safe. Yes, her bags were safe. Her purse was safe. Her life was safe. At least it was until this weekend.  Now, that safety was crumbling around her.

She followed the other passengers onto the plane.  The ticket agent tore her ticket on the perforations and gave her back the stub.  She found her seat.  It was a little in front of the wing.  That was good because Cindy liked to watch the ground fall away from the plane on take off.  It was an exhilarating feeling watching as this impossibly heavy composite of metal and rubber and flesh rose into the sky riding on nothing but air itself.

Finally, the plane taxied down the runway and rose slowly to it’s cruising altitude.  The flight attendants rose from their seats and began to make their ways to the carts that provided beverages, snacks and distraction for the passengers.   Cindy looked across the aisle and the man was covering his eyes during take off.   Slowly he removed his hands but he was still trembling.

Cindy found she was trembling slightly as well, but from excitement.  She had been so busy after the retreat finding her way to the airport, bidding farewell to her new friends, and rushing to board the plane that much of the experience had been deferred by the practicalities of life and travel. Now, her mind went back to the past few days and she began to realize that something significant had taken place.  Her life had turned a corner and she could no longer view herself, other transsexuals or ministry quite the same ever again.

They called it First Event.  It was held in Boston. The name seemed oddly appropriate since it was her first gender conference.  All during transition she had never attended one.  She didn’t have the time.   The workshops weren’t that relevant to her.  They were too far away.  The excuses were many.  But at the core, she hid a certain shame about being associated with Them.   Them – the cross-dressers, the drag queens, the transvestites, even the other transsexuals.  She didn’t dislike gender-variant people.  After all she was one.  But still, she had been trying for five years to put all that behind her.   But God had other plans.  This weekend, she finally saw what God was about to do and she accepted his invitation to go along with him.  That decision would unalterably change her life.

As she reviewed her life to this point, she realized that this type of change had happened three times before.  Three times she had stood at the edge of her own personal Rubicon, and, on trembling legs she crossed knowing that her life could not ever be the same.

The first time was back in 1979 or was it 1980.  The date didn’t really matter much. It was almost 20 years ago.  Strange it seemed much more recent than that or did it seem much longer ago. She never could get a good handle on time before transition.  She was living in Eugene, Oregon right across the street from the University of Oregon.  She was working for a radio station. Her name was Carl back then.  She was still trying to keep Carl alive, but life support was failing quickly. In a last ditch effort to save her dying masculinity, she asked Maggie out to dinner.   Maggie was a young woman from church.  They met in Sunday School and had a number of mutual interests music, writing, literature, Bible study.  This would be Carl’s sixth date in 10 years, and the last.  The dinner went all right.   Carl was polite.  Maggie was polite.  It was a very polite evening.   When Carl asked Maggie the obligatory second date question, Maggie politely said that while she valued Carl’s friendship….

Carl felt at once a sense of relief and sadness.  At home, Carl could no longer deny Cindy and Cindy wept for a half-hour, dried her eyes and said, "Okay, I’m transsexual.  There is nothing I can do to change that.  So, what do I do from here?  It was 10 years before Carl officially became Cindy, but the inner acceptance of Cindy started on that day.

The flight attendant brought the beverage and bag of nuts.  Cindy poured the nuts out on a napkin and counted them – all 12 of them and wondered why it was that everything seemed to shrink on an airliner.  Well, the Coke was full-sized.  The trembling man was now taking rapid sips of his soda.  Cindy looked out the window of the plane.  It was dark but she could make out a few scattered lights from some small town below.  Her mind went back to the second of her Rubicon experiences.

It was nearly 10 years later. Cindy tried to remember exactly.  Odd that such an important event should occur and she have no clue as to the exact date.  It was sometime in January 1991 or possibly December 1990.  She had been in Fresno since August.  She was 37 years old and had her first serious teaching position.  She had just completed her first semester and now was beginning her second.  She was still wavering and confused about the direction her transsexualism might be taking her.   During the past seven or eight years she had been living with her parents.   The recession had hit and she had to leave Eugene.  She had been doing odd jobs in the media: writing, marketing, advertising design.  She finally got an adjunct faculty position at College of the Redwoods, the community college from which she graduated a decade before.  She had been doing limited cross-living in Eugene before she had to return to her home town even developed a limited identity as Cindy, attending a Christian Women’s Club in Eugene and participating in a ladies Bible study.  No one apparently knew, and if they did they politely kept silent.  She had resumed such activities when she came home to Eureka.  Still hiding her transsexualism from her family, she would crossdress fully and then put on her suit and tie over the feminine clothing.  Finding a deserted parking lot, like a superhero in drag she would rip off the male persona and assume the female.  It was a dangerous, paranoid existence but preferable to denying totally her true nature.

But now, with a good job and financial matters settling enough to allow serious thought of transition, Cindy could turn her attention to seriously consider becoming a woman socially and physically.  But such decision making was not to be taken lightly.   She decided on a course of action.  She would test it out.  One day after school, she would remain male. The next she would live female. She even established herself in two different churches with alternating Sundays being male and female.   This lasted a couple of weeks.  Then one day she found herself at home, standing totally naked in front of her closet.  She could not remember what day it was.

She stared at the two halves of the closet and the two halves of her life.  She knew this could not continue, but she couldn’t decide between them.  In utter desperation, she threw up her hands and said, "God, I give up.  I mean it, God, I give up.  I can’t figure out what I am supposed to do.  You say that the Peace of God will rule in my life.  But I have no peace.  So, it’s in your hands now.  I’m not going to half-and-half my life any longer.  If you want me to be a man, you will simply have to put that identity in me.  If not, you will have to affirm my feminine identity.  So, from now on, I’m simply going to dress and live in according with my identity as you give it to me.  So, I simply give up.   My transsexualism isn’t my problem anymore it’s yours."

In her spirit she had heard, "You don’t know how long I waited to hear you say that."  She reached for a dress and never turned back.  Within six weeks she had begun the therapy which would eventually lead to full transition and surgery.

The nervous man had completed his entire soda and had eaten all his peanuts.   Cindy was still sipping her first cupful and had three peanuts left.  The flight attendant was trying to sell the headphones for the movie.  Cindy had no desire to watch a movie.  She had touched reality this weekend and now needed to think about what it meant.  The distraction of the cinema for 90 minutes could not compare to what she was already feeling.  The third Rubicon experience in some ways was more frightening for her than the other two combined.

It had been a year since surgery.  Looking back, Cindy had to admit just how blessed she had been.  Her family had accepted and supported her decision.  The school had gone out of its way to create a smooth transition for her on the job.   Even her church had been accepting and had actively defended her and worked to keep her in church even when other’s left.

A touch of poignant pensiveness crept into Cindy’s heart remembering the time of opposition, the feeling she had to leave, the defense from the pastors, and the subsequent departure of several people.  She never wanted that.  She always just wanted to go to church, to pass perfectly, and for no one to ever know her gender history.  But God apparently had other plans.

She was going out of town to visit her parents.  It was a ten-hour drive.   The phone rang as she was putting the suitcases in the car.  It was Connie.   They had been through a lot together.  Connie had laughed when told of Cindy’s transsexualism.  They had both laughed.  Connie knew.  Connie laughed.  Connie accepted.

"Cindy, I’m glad I caught you before you left.  I was praying and the Lord told me to tell you something." Cindy knew better than to discount Connie.   "The Lord wants you to pray all the way up to your folks.  Pray and praise.  Even when you stop to eat, don’t read your book, just pray silently."  Connie didn’t know that Cindy always took a book on long trips to read over lunch and dinner.

"How did you know I had a book to read at lunch?"

"I don’t know, God just told me to tell you that specifically that you would know what it meant."

Cindy knew what it meant.  It was confirmation that it was really God and not just Connie.

"Okay, I’ll do it," Cindy said, wondering how she could keep it up.
It turned out to be no problem.  When she ran out of prayer, she turned to praise, then she sang songs with the praise tape in the car. Much of what God showed her she never told anyone.  Much of it she didn’t understand at the time.  Much of it was still a mystery.  One thing that was clear was that she was to get back into ministry.  She was to offer herself to the church to minister in whatever way was needed.

Cindy had left active formal lay ministry soon after she accepted that she was transsexual.  She figured God could never again use her in that way.  Even though she had been active as youth leader, Bible teacher, Christian writer and publicist since she was 14, she figured it was all past now.  She argued with God in that car, telling him that she could not minister any longer, no one would accept her, it would hurt the church, the pastors wouldn’t agree.  Arguing with God is rarely effective since as C.S. Lewis observed, "When you argue against God you are arguing against the very power that makes it possible to argue at all."

When she got home, she went by the Associate Pastor’s office, sat down and timorously stepped into the waters of another Rubicon.  She expected rejection.   Instead, he said, "I was wondering how long it would take for you to get in here."

Another city was coming up below.  It was a big one.  Cindy wondered what city it was, Cleveland, Chicago, Des Moines?  It really didn’t matter.  It was almost like looking down on the stars with all the lights glittering in the darkness below.  The nervous man had finished his peanuts and a second soda and was now turned away from the window clutching a pillow with eyes closed trying to sleep.

When Cindy had offered herself for ministry, she didn’t know where that road would lead.   It eventually lead to writing Bible study lessons for the church, helping to edit the church newsletter for a time, teaching Bible College level classes, a daily devotion on the internet, and reluctantly to a ministry to transsexuals.

She fought the last with every fiber of her being. During the past four years or so of the ministry she had gone in cycles of writing, posting, counseling and then retreating, delaying responses to e-mail, and avoiding situations where she might be associated with transsexualism.  At one level, she felt she was part of the ministry, but not necessarily part of the community.  But at another, the ministry was not really part of her total Ministry.  It was in some way disconnected from herself and the mainstream of her life.

She told herself it was mostly a matter of moving on, she was no longer really transsexual, but simply a woman, she didn’t want to stay "stuck" in her gender past.  It was all true, but not completely true.  Indeed, most of her life she thought little of transsexualism in terms of her daily life.  It just wasn’t an issue much anymore.  She passed reasonably well on the street.   Everywhere else the people who knew her, knew her gender history as well, and it really didn’t matter, they treated her as a genetic woman.  She had moved on.   Occasionally, an old issue would arise, but with work it could be dealt with, and it did not dominate her life.  Still, there was something slightly ingenuous as well.   She saw other transgendered people as "them" rather than "us."

It was hard to admit, but there it was.  She had become a gender snob.  She had become much like the girl who grew up in the inner city, avoided the streets, drugs and prostitution, got a good education and a good job as a lawyer, moved uptown, and sent money back to the neighborhood legal services group, but was always unavailable to actually volunteer time for pro bono work at the office.

Five years ago, she had let her membership expire at the gender group in San Francisco.   She gave speeches about transsexualism, wrote about it, even did on-line counseling by e-mail with transsexuals, but inside had distanced herself from them.

About eight months ago, the associate pastor asked her if she would start a support group at the church for Christian transsexuals. It scared her, but said she would.   At times she secretly hoped no one would show up.  Then she began to feel it necessary to expand the on-line ministry to include chats, a mailing list and a discussion board.  Still, as much as she moved ahead, she felt threatened that her carefully acquired normalcy was slipping away from her.

"Would you like the chicken or the beef?"  Cindy turned back from the window trying to connect the words spoken by the flight attendant with their meanings.

"Chicken or beef, ma’am for dinner?"

"Oh, sorry, I wasn’t paying attention, chicken is fine."

The nervous man had taken beef.  A glance at his plate showed Cindy the wisdom of her own choice.

Of course, making choices is always what life is about.  Choose a major in college and your career changes.  Choose a spouse and your life changes.  It comes down to the choices we make.  Those daily Rubicons we cross constantly change the courses of our destinies.  The art of living lies in choosing rightly.  But how does one define a "right" choice.  Is it the most pleasant choice? The one which is most practical? The safe choice? The righteous choice? The profitable choice?  Cindy knew the answer, but feared it.  The right choice was always the one that aligned one’s own will with the will of God.  It was not always a pleasant choice or a safe one or a practical one, but it was always the righteous one.

Almost without thinking or even praying, three months ago she made a choice that would lead to this latest Rubicon experience.  It was a short e-mail message inviting her to take part in First Event in Boston.  Her first response was a safe, and honest one.  The event was late in January. Because of the peculiarities of how she got paid, Cindy would at that time have been five weeks since her last paycheck and her next paycheck would be a week later.  She could not afford to make the trip.  She wrote back explaining this with mixed feelings.  It would be a wonderful opportunity to minister for the Lord, but also it would be a type of going back.  It would also be admitting to herself and to others that the Call of God was on her life to minister to other transsexuals wholeheartedly.

By the end of the day, she had an e-mail saying that they could arrange both airfare and hotel accommodations.  Her excuse (honest though it was) vanished like a vapour and she wrote back both excited and fearful saying she would go.

It was like she found a renewed fervor for a while in the ministry.  As she talked with the organizers about the event, she became excited about the possibilities for ministry.  She began to feel that God was about to do something wonderful within the gender community and that this conference marked a starting point for that.  She felt privileged and humbled by the opportunity to take part.  She also felt scared.   She was being drawn into the ministry she fought against the hardest.  She was like a sailor who launched her vessel out into the bay, but had the hawser still tied to the dock.  The rope was pretty long, but it was still a point of safety that could pull her back at any time.  She felt the rope fraying.

Dinner was finished, the nervous man clutched his pillow again, turned away from the window and closed his eyes.  Cindy doubted he would get any sleep.  Her mind went back to the conference.

As Cindy checked in at the front desk, she noticed a sign on the ladies rest room door reading, "Gender Society Club Members Use Restrooms on Third Floor Only."   Cindy rarely thought about the restroom issue any more.  In any other environment, she wouldn’t even be noticed, except for being tall.  Here, almost every eye was on her.  People turned and stared as each Transgendered person passed by.  It had been years since that type of attention had been a daily part of her life.  Everyone in her world knew about her, but it really didn’t matter that much any more.

Cindy thought, "Well, it’s just two days and I’ll be home, and back to normal."

Normal was an important word to Cindy.  She called her transition a "flight into normalcy."  All she ever really wanted to be was normal.  Of course, asked to define normal, and the response would be something like: living in a simple house, teaching at a small rural college, working in the church, and never having to use the word transsexual in a sentence.  Well, three out of four wasn’t bad.

What was certainly not "normal" was being in a room filled with TV’s, TS’s, TG’s, CD’s and whole bunch of other initials.  One woman, who was a director of a gender identity center commented that it was a major culture shock for her when she would leave a conference like this to deal with "shorter women who have high voices."

Cindy looked over the list of workshops:  A panel of surgeons and therapists about having a successful transition, a color seminar, a makeover session, a seminar on the crossdresser’s spouse, wigs and makeup.  "Been there, done that? She whispered more than once looking over the offerings.

Cindy checked in, got her little badge and noticed a table in the middle of the vendors.  It wasn’t being staffed at the moment, but it had the time and place of Saturday’s workshop and Sunday’s retreat.  There were some papers on the table: a list of ministry resources for TG’s, some commentaries on Deuteronomy   22:5 and other scriptures used against TG’s, and an agenda for the next day’s events. Cindy had brought some brochures for her web ministry and added them to the table.

In a couple of hours there would be a fashion show.  Being a bit jet-lagged, Cindy decided to pass and rest the night in her hotel room.  She went down to the hotel shop to buy some munchies.  Somehow she ended up in a conversation with the owner of the store, a young woman and a Christian.  They talked briefly about the conference, but ended up talking more about the Lord than TG stuff.  Cindy found it pleasant to have a simple, "normal" conversation.

Back in her room. She got a phone call from Celeste, the organizer of the Christian retreat.  They made arrangements to meet the next day.  Cindy, even though living two hours ahead, found herself keyed up and couldn’t sleep.  She took out her Bible and began to read.  (Rom 1:16 KJV)  For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek."

"Not ashamed."  Powerful words.  She had rarely been ashamed of the Gospel, but being transsexual, that was a different matter.  She began to think about shame.  Certainly she had dealt with all those shame issues years ago.  So then, why did she feel more comfortable talking to the girl at the candy counter than the members of the gender community who had asked her to come?  Could there still be lurking a smudge of shame not scoured away?  It was possible.

She began to doze a bit.  She looked over at the clock.  It was already 2:00 a.m.  She had a 9:00 meeting with some of the other conferees.  Better get some sleep.

The flight attendant was coming up the aisle with another snack.  You don’t get much to eat on a plane, but you get it often.  The nervous man evidently had fallen asleep and didn’t respond to the flight attendant.  Cindy tried the trail mix this time, but stuck to the cola to drink.

She had orange juice and a sweet roll meeting with the others who were planning the day’s events.  Kelly who had a major TG ministry on the internet was sitting at the table with her spouse Carol.  Kelley and Cindy both lived in California not more than 3-4 hours away from each other and ironically met finally a continent away in Boston. They chatted for awhile and eventually Celeste joined them and they began to discuss some of the plans for the afternoon session.

Cindy decided to spend some time staffing the table.   Kelly joined her for awhile then was taken away by other business.  Cindy noticed a young woman signing in at the desk.  She wondered at first if she was one of the wives of the crossdressers.   As she turned in Cindy’s direction, there was something familiar about her:   long dark hair, slender body, classic bone structure in the face.  Then it connected from a web site photo.

"Danielle!"

"Cindy!" They hugged and had a hard time stopping.  Danielle and Cindy had been cyber-friends for nearly a year.  They talked on the phone once or twice a week.  Danielle was Cindy’s closest transsexual friend.  Danielle was as much closed about her gender history, as Cindy was open.  They had taken different paths, or rather different paths had been forced upon them.  Yet, they had a mutual respect and shared a call to reach transgendered people for Christ.

Cindy knew that in many ways Danielle was risking more than she in ministering to the TG community.  Even taking the precaution of doing primarily internet ministry or working in a community other than where she lived opened her up to a risk of discovery.   Cindy was pretty much out to everyone who mattered in her life, so she really respected Danielle’s willingness to take that step of faith.

It was good to see a familiar face and talk to someone with whom she had a history.   And, yes, good to talk to someone "normal."  Cindy and Danielle’s relationship had grown far beyond the gender stuff so it was like meeting one of her non-transgendered friends in this far-off and sometimes strange world.

Cindy looked over across the aisle.  The nervous man had gone to the bathroom.   Some sort of travel feature was playing on the TV.  Cindy had her earphones now and tried to pay attention.  Still her mind strayed back to the convention.

Sitting at the table was an experience in and of itself.  TG folk of all sorts came by from the ordinary to the sophisticated to the bizarre.  They stopped asked questions. Some engaged in playful banter, but no serious arguments.  This was not the time or the place for that sort of thing.  Many took the brochures.  What amused Cindy the most were people who read carefully the brochure, asked pointed questions and then quickly explained that they really wanted the information for someone else.   She had to wonder if that was how they went to their therapists for the first time – seeking help for a transgendered "friend."

Danielle joined her at the table for much of the time.  They stuck together for much of the conference.  Perhaps, Cindy thought, we were trying to assure ourselves that even though we were at the conference we were really not part of this community.   That assurance was fading quickly bringing a hitherto unknown and uneasy sense of belonging.  It was not altogether unpleasant, but it was unsettling.

Cindy couldn’t exactly figure out why it was unsettling to actually feel like she belonged in this place at this time.  As she watched the nervous man shift his position pressing his head against the aisle side of the seat trying to get an extra quarter inch or so between him and the window and all that empty space below, she reflected on this question.  Why was it comfortable and uncomfortable at one and the same time?  It seemed to admit no simple explanation.

First, she had to admit was a residue of shame.  You would think that eight years into therapy and six years since transition shame would have been purged from her system, but there it was staring her in the face once again.  She didn’t want to be associated with "those people" who weren’t pulling it off too well or those who were thumbing their noses at social conventions by being bizarre because she was afraid that she might be at the core a lot more like them than different than them. So, out of the shame came pride.  She was the Pharisee in the temple thanking God that she was not "as other men [or trangendered folk] are."  But how different was she at heart?  Did she not occasionally take a secret delight at times when she had been read and it caused some puzzlement for some self-assured person?  Did she not also have a simulated leopard-skin miniskirt tucked away in here closet from the early days of transition bought in some lapse of sanity?  Did any of that actually diminish the worth that God had set upon her?  Was her critical finger pointing outward or inward?  Was she seeing others and herself through her own wounded perceptions or through God’s loving heart?

Then there was The Call.  She had lived with The Call in one form or another most of her life.  She had always been involved in lay ministry.  She never felt called to professional "full-time" ministry.  But she always felt that sense of purpose and direction from when she was 14 years old and became youth director at her church through the years of the concert ministries when she and four other 23 year old kids put together a ministry which reached several thousand people through Christian rock music, through the years of teaching, and of course through the 12 years she removed herself from ministry because she felt God couldn’t use a transsexual, and then through the years of restoration.  But most of those were things, though exhausting at times, were never scary for her.  They demanded little of her other than time and money.

But this Call was different.  It was demanding more.  It was demanding she return to a place where she had been and thought she had left.  She was much like a missionary’s daughter returning to her parents old mission station after swearing she would never go back there. Yet, there it is.  "Called" what a terrible, wonderful, awesome, frightening, humbling and ennobling word.  A word which drew this very private, conservative, successfully "normal" woman across a continent to minister to those facing the same trials, fears, and wonderment that she faced not that long ago.

So she found herself on a Saturday afternoon sitting in a room with 15 other transgendered people sitting in a circle sharing their stories.  Cindy was familiar with the "testimony" service.  It was a staple of her young life growing up in a Pentecostal Church.  It was the time in the service in which people told about the goodness of God, shared answers to prayers or talked about how they came to conversion.  By her college years it had been phased out of the general church services but survived as "sharing" or "praise reports" in Sunday school classes and home Bible studies.

This was the same as those, but very different.  Here transsexuals and crossdressers were telling about their spiritual and gender journeys.  For many of them, the two followed parallel paths.  The spiritual struggles and the gender struggles were often resolved about the same time and frequently were linked.

Cindy listened with tears in her eyes as she heard stories remarkably similar to her own.  It seemed each person had a Rubicon experience of his or her own to relate - A spiritual and emotional enlightenment followed by a point of decision.  It was so much like the salvation experience itself.  The revelation from God that something is missing in one’s life, a sense of emptiness, a hunger for something as yet untasted, then the revelation that Christ holds the answers, but requires total surrender to him and total trust that He is better able to manage one’s  affairs than oneself, and finally the decision to turn one’s life and will over to him and allow him to cleanse one’s failings and to lead one’s life in the future.

It was a tall order to surrender oneself to an obscured path and an unknown future once.  Yet, each of the people in the room had done this twice: once with their soul’s future and once with their gender future.  As Cindy related her own decision points, she felt at one with the people in this room whom she had never met before.  In a way she felt at home in much the same way she felt when she first attended her home church.

She still longed for her normal life, but it was now the longing she always felt when she was away from her home and her books and her classes.  She no longer was feeling ill at ease over where she was and who she was in this place.  In a very real way she had discovered that "those people" who were like her, but not really like her, were "her people," a community to which she belonged whether she chose to or not.

The nervous man had returned.  More drinks and snacks had been served.  He was rapidly drinking his soda.  Cindy was slowly sipping hers.  The travel feature had changed into something about modern technology.  Usually, this would have interested Cindy, but her mind was still spinning.

To admit one belongs to a community means one must evaluate one’s place in that community.  She looked beyond that room and that conference and saw many other transgendered people who had been disaffected, ostracized, condemned and hurt by well meaning and  some not so well meaning church people.  She saw people who thought God didn’t love them because of who they were.  She saw transgendered folk who wanted to serve God, but were afraid that they would be condemned if they tried.  She also saw that her own efforts to serve this community from outside, though effective in a way, had to move inside the community for maximum ministry.  She could no longer minister to the gender community.  She had to begin ministering within the gender community.

What that meant was at once exciting and scary.  Once again, enlightenment was being followed by decision and consequent action.  Once again, the fog-shrouded path in front of her beckoned her onward, but her timid soul wanted to remain still.

She was reminded of the Lord of the Rings trilogy she had first read in high school. She especially remembered Bilbo Baggins the hero of the introductory book The Hobbit .   Bilbo, like all hobbits likes his orderly life, his cozy hobbit hole and regular meals.  But a couple of generations back, it was said that there was fairy blood in the line.  So, he also harbours a very small thirst for adventure. When a wizard and several dwarfs arrive at his door one day to invite him to go on an adventure, he faces a conflict of emotions.  His ninety- percent hobbit nature tells Gandalf   "No… Adventures are very inconvenient things.  They make you late for breakfast and you can never find a handkerchief."  Nevertheless, he goes.

For not the first time in her life, Cindy felt a strong empathy for the little hobbits dilemma. She was standing at the door of her cozy life facing a road, which might lead anywhere, and to anything, and God was saying, "Trust me, Daughter.  I will travel the road with you."  It was reassuring, but something more specific would have been more comforting, but by this time in her life, Cindy had learned that God rarely gave you specifics until you needed them.

Cindy put on the headphones to listen to some music. The nervous man was a bit less nervous.  He sat with the headphones on his head watching some sort of comedy showing on the monitor.  She couldn’t find any classical, just some vapid elevator music, rock and roll and country.

She kept changing the channels and finding nothing until she heard the pilot talking to the tower.  Good maybe she could pick up on where they were.  They seemed to be flying over Phoenix.  She was almost home.  Seven hours and she was still processing all that had happened during those three days in Boston.

Saturday night Cindy and Danielle spent several hours together.  They went on a search for a restaurant near the hotel.  They ended up in a Burger King.   Apparently, they turned right instead of left.  So, on the outskirts of Boston, famed for fine seafood, clam chowder and baked beans, they sat eating Whoppers and having a wonderful time of fellowship.

Back at the hotel a fire alarm sent them down to the lobby.  Danielle and Cindy both ended up talking to the gift shop owner about gender stuff, the Lord and Beanie Babies.  They were both aching for their "normal" lives by this time and the gift shop owner was a very normal person to chat with.

Sunday morning, they went back to the Burger King for breakfast.  This time they picked the food up from the drive through and headed back to the hotel.  What was unspoken during their conversations was the knowledge that each would eventually go back to their respective towns and lives later that day.  Yes, it was comforting in one sense, but it would also mean a separation between friends, which is always hard.   They would have the internet and telephone, but you couldn’t really hold hands or give a hug online.  Both knew, though, that God had called them to their respective areas for the time being, and, they would meet again as the old saying goes "here, there or in the air." Still, they preferred not to think about the final hug.

It was getting close to noon.  Cindy and Danielle began making their way downstairs.  This afternoon was "The Retreat."  Apparently, a church service and celebration of communion was planned.  When Cindy walked into that room, she didn’t know how life changing this service would be.  It was a liturgical service based on Catholic liturgy.  Cindy’s evangelical, Pentecostal upbringing gave her little experience with liturgy.  But before transition, she had been a Gideon and had been in many liturgical services before she had a chance to speak to the congregation.  For someone of Pentecostal heritage, Cindy took well to liturgy.   It was orderly and predictable.  Two things Cindy wanted from life.  So, where did God place her, in an exuberantly Pentecostal church which wasn’t always orderly and never predictable.  For instance, who could have predicted that a bunch of conservative Pentecostals would come to love and accept a transsexual as one of their own?

The homily was from I Corinthians 12.  The chapter dealt with the body of Christ and how just like in a human body each part has a function and was indispensable to the health of the body, so each member of Christ’s church was essential.  How appropriate for a group of people who frequently have felt as if they had no place in the church or the body of Christ.

A table was set up near the front of the room.  The group was called to the front.   They stood in a semi-circle around the table.  The table contained a goblet of wine and a loaf of bread.  Familiar emblems of another who had been rejected and reviled in his day, but from whose sacrifice came life eternal.

The words were familiar, etched in Cindy’s memory since childhood.   "This is my body which if broken for you …. This is the new covenant in my blood … Take Eat … Take Drink…. This do in remembrance of me."

They took.  They drank.  They remembered.  And they wept.  They stood before Him in the presence of his emblems in an identity they shared little even in their churches.  They stood before God as His transgendered children in His righteousness partaking of Him.

They sang "Amazing Grace."  They thought how Amazing His grace was and shed tears on the verse, "Through many dangers, toils and snares/ I have already come/ ‘Twas grace that brought me safe thus far/ and Grace will lead me on."

The flight attendant began to pick up the headsets. The plane would be landing soon in Los Angeles.  There would be a scurrying from the big plane to the little plane to get back to Fresno and Cindy’s "normal" life.  The nervous man was sitting upright and trembling again.  As the plane dipped he covered his face with his hands.  Cindy squinted through the night sky to see the lights of the city below her.  As she did, he knew that somehow her "normal" life was going to change.  She could no longer have her "real" ministries and have her "transgendered" ministry on the side.  No call God gives must ever be marginalized or denied equal validity with any other call of God.

The shore line, which had been fraying since she accepted the invitation to First Event, had been cut entirely.  She was at drift, at the mercy of the winds and current and depending on the steersman to hold the tiller steady until she arrived at her final port of call.  But between now and then there would be adventures, no matter how inconvenient, victories and some defeats.  It would be an exciting time, but anxious one as well. How much would it change her life?  How much was He demanding of her?

Would she have to give up her "normal" life?  These questions plagued her as she tried to find her way to her connecting flight.  Then she saw a ticket taker at a counter pick up her purse and put on a jacket.  And in her spirit an old familiar voice said, "Remember, even the airport personnel get to go home at the end of the day."

As Cindy boarded the little turbo jet bound for Fresno, she said, "Yes, Lord, I understand," and she settled in for the short flight home.

 

 

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