Between kindergarten and first grade, my brother and I were abducted by two men and taken to a public restroom. I was brutally sexually assaulted, but my brother was not. Filled with shame, I never told anyone what happened. In my child’s mind, I thought being a boy would prevent me from ever being assaulted again by men. So, to protect myself, I dressed in my brother’s clothes and did my best to act like other boys. I got in trouble for being too aggressive both verbally and physically, and I even practiced peeing standing up. I thought if I could master this skill, I could “pass” as a boy. Eventually, I cultivated same-sex relationships while pretending to be a boy.

In the first grade, my teacher asked the school psychologist to evaluate me; she could tell something was terribly wrong. The psychologist then told my mother that I wanted to be a boy. To alleviate my hatred for my female body, she made some simple recommendations for my mother and my teachers, including reinforcing positive ideas of being a woman, exposing me to strong, talented women, putting me in activities with other girls, like Brownies or Bluebirds; and discouraging me from wearing my brother’s hand-me-downs. No one, not even my mother, knew that my longing to be a boy, a budding transgender identity, was based upon my desire to keep my body from being sexually violated, and it took years of therapy before I even understood the connection.

Though therapy helped me understand the root cause of my childhood gender confusion, it did not address the brokenness and pain that resulted from my early childhood trauma. As a result, I engaged in same-sex relationships as a teenager. Later, I realized that my same-sex attraction was the result of my fear of men and my desire to feel safe. Again, therapy helped me address my fear, but it did not address the core problem: the trauma of childhood sexual assault. As a result, I was drawn to pornography, where I made and posted more than 400 videos on Pornhub as a solo performer. Men would give me encouragement, thanking me for acting out their sexual fantasies and telling me how wonderful I was. I even had a therapist encouraging me to develop this new “career.” He likened me to being a social worker for men who had never been sexually fulfilled.

During this season, I was invited to speak at an Eagle Forum conference about my childhood gender dysphoria. A proud leftist atheist, I disagreed with almost everything they espoused, yet they welcomed me anyway. While there, I felt God's love reflected by those in attendance. If they knew I was making a living making porn, I thought, they would ask me to leave in disgust. But when I confessed to a number of people, rather than reject me, they responded with God’s love. After my presentation, during the Q&A session, a woman from Alabama came to the mic and said, "I don't have a question, but wanted to tell you that even though you don't believe in God, He believes in you." God's love began to soften my heart, and shortly after I returned home, I surrendered my life to Jesus and asked Him to be my Lord and Savior. Filled with peace for the first time in my life, I realized that all my brokenness, from my childhood gender conflict to my same-sex relationships to porn, was because I was trying to fix something deep within myself that only Jesus could heal. I am so thankful that my school psychologist put me on a healing path. I am grateful to other therapists who helped me understand that my perceived “transgender” identity was a result of the sexual assault, not because I was born in the wrong body. But mostly, I’m thankful for Jesus. When I accepted Him as my Savior, I realized that I had been searching all my life for an identity—first as a girl identifying as a boy, then as a lesbian, then as a porn star. God delivered me from these destructive and false identities and miraculously healed me from the brokenness I’d lived with most of my life. Today, I know who I am: God’s adopted and much-loved daughter and I pray that those who have internal conflict over their sex or sexual feelings will find healing and identity in Him. 

Advocates Protecting Children: www.advocatesprotectingchildren.org