Ruth Shekinah Noel
“Not only did my cheating girlfriend break up with me for attending a church, but the “trans woman” (my now-husband Simon), and I were both thrown out of the church.”
I grew up in a strict Punjabi family in Malaysia. A tomboy at heart, I always loved sports, and because I wasn’t allowed to cut my hair, I would stuff it under a ball cap. Other than the fact that I was secretly molested by a neighbor and a cousin as a child, life was relatively normal until I was 16 years old. That’s when I attended my aunt’s wedding in India for a month. Though I had a boyfriend back home, I became attracted to a distant female cousin, and I couldn’t get her out of my mind. Feeling drawn to her, I began to act more stereotypically masculine. I felt like a boy, and she treated me like one too. This was the first time I realized I had gender dysphoria and same-sex attraction.
Once home, I became curious to know whether other girls experienced similar feelings. I turned to Google and YouTube for answers and learned I was not alone. In fact, I learned I wasn’t a girl at all. Because I was having these feelings, the internet taught me I must have been born in the wrong body. As I continued to watch “trans men” on YouTube, I was excited about how good they looked, and I was encouraged to come out as the person I was meant to be. This isn’t a disease, I thought. This is normal. Because I knew my family wouldn’t approve, I lived secretly this way until I was 25, stuffing my long hair under my cap and binding my chest. But when I turned 25, my parents began to talk to me about marriage. Having already spurned guys “because they only wanted sex,” I knew I needed to come out to my parents, or my life would be ruined. Though my father was disappointed, he really didn’t say much. But when I cut my hair, my mom became furious and started hitting me. She even brought a knife to kill me. What’s more, my entire family—all of my relatives--decided to disown me. Undeterred, I continued to alter my appearance by packing my pants and applying ointment to my face to grow a beard. I avoided hormones because I didn’t want to deal with the side effects. Though I initially wanted to take testosterone, the procedure seemed too complicated, and I was afraid of injections. I couldn’t afford a mastectomy, so like other trans men I’d seen, I worked out really hard to naturally reduce the size of my breasts. Within a month, I had a beard, and no one knew I was a woman. People started addressing me as sir, and women started noticing me and calling me handsome. I was loving my life and feeling more confident about myself. The only problem was that girls kept coming in and out of my life. For the next few years, I experienced a revolving door of heartbreak. Though I had assumed I would be able to fulfill a woman’s need for love better than sex-obsessed men, my relationships never lasted. What’s worse, some of the women were bad influences, and I began to drink and smoke. Eventually, I lost everything I had—house, car, bike, work, and money. I was laden with debt and hounded by loan sharks.
Miraculously, one of my friends introduced me to Jesus, and when I stepped into a church for the first time, I felt an incredible peace. I shared my story with the pastor and told him I wanted to marry my current girlfriend. When he said I wasn’t meant to be a man, I refused to listen. In an effort to convince me to change, he introduced me to a “transgender” woman attending his church who was unhappy with the decisions she had made and the surgeries she had endured. He wanted to make sure that I understood the consequences of my lifestyle. The moment we met each other, however, we fell in love! It was truly love at first sight! Not only did my cheating girlfriend break up with me for attending a church, but the “trans woman” (my now-husband Simon) and I were both thrown out of the church. That’s when we found Kingdomcity, the church we attend today.
Still embracing our transgender identities, we began dating. During a sermon series on healthy relationships, the pastor began to teach from Genesis about God’s design for marriage and His creation of man and woman. I instantly fell under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Immediately, my heart began racing. I knew at that moment that the answer to my problems was rooted in my identity. I am created as female, I said to myself, but I want to be a male, which is against the law of creation. With this revelation, I prayed in my heart, “Lord, I am willing to change; please change her (Simon), too, as I love her so much it does not matter if she is a female or a male. I want to marry her.” Miraculously, Simon decided he, too, would desist. The next day, he cut his hair, and I shaved my beard, plucked my eyebrows, and removed the binder from my chest.
Physically, it only took me a day to revert back to female. (I still grow facial hair, and I have to now go for threading every week.) But, it took at least a year for me to adjust emotionally to the change. Today, happily married to Simon, I am still learning to fully embrace my femininity and am continuously asking God to teach me and mold me into the woman He wants me to be. My friends, family, and coworkers are surprised at how feminine and beautiful I have become. The Lord has guided me through each and every step, as I never liked to dress up, wear makeup, or even walk like a lady. By His grace, everything is changing, and others are noticing the differences in me. Now, instead of searching YouTube for “how-to-transition” videos, I watch sermons on women’s empowerment, which have helped me in this journey. There are many resources on how to become “transgender,” but very few that explain how to avoid this sin and trap. If I had received counseling or if I had been able to find videos explaining how to overcome gender dysphoria, my story may have been different.
Today, I know I am a child of God, created in His image to be a woman, and when I struggle, I can count on Him to lead me. My hope for the future is to be used by God mightily. Now that He has saved me, I would like to spread this good news to others so that they, too, can experience His love.
Kingdomcity kingdomcity.com - Young Adult Group Leader