When I was born my father was barely out of his teens and my mother was
mentally ill so I was given to my grandparents to be raised. I lived
with them from an infant until the age of nine, they were the only
family I ever new. My dad was somebody who visited once a month.
When I was six my dad moved near to us and I began to see him a
little more, not enough however to prepare me for what was to come
when I turned nine. He was a Jehovah’s Witness, he was therefore not
allowed to be with a woman without being married. When his
girlfriend broke up with him because she refused to become a JW for
him he was very lonely. He married the first JW Woman who came along
after that. She was, if I can be forgiven for my use of stereotypes,
“trailer trash.” What I didn’t know at nine but later learned as I
grew older was that the elders of the congregation began pushing my
father to take over my care and be “the head of his house.” So after
nine years of being with one family I was forced to simply move and
live with another out of the blue. This was of course devastating
for me. This was all a direct result of the Elder’s meddling.
Custody battles ensued but the courts didn’t recognize my
grandparents as having any legal rights whatsoever.
Now, I had been going to the congregation for a long time already at
the insistence of my father and support of my grandmother who would
for the next several years flirt with the idea of becoming a JW
herself. My grandpa did not support this but didn’t feel the need to
stop it. What I remember though, is that when I was younger my
religion was a source of joy and comfort to me and once I had moved
in with my father it became a source of extreme psychological
pressure as I continually worried over the sins I was “committing
every day and hurting Jehovah’s feelings.”
Now, to complicate my story a bit, I just so happened to be a
transsexual. Our society in general has a hard time accepting people
like me so I can’t fairly lay all blame for my life at the
witnesses’ doorstep, however, my life did become a living hell. I
would go to bed every night asking Jehovah to help me quit being
such a bad person, such a freak, such a sinner. Every day I’d wake
up feeling worse and worse about myself and being scared to death
that somebody would discover my secret. By the age of 11 I was
suicidal. I believed that God hated me.
At the same time I was dealing with these internal secret issues I
was also trying to deal with a severely dysfunctional family with a
father who drank too much and a step mother who abused all of us
emotionally every day and twice physically. (I believe I escaped
worse treatment only because my grandparents were constantly
threatening legal action) So where were the Witnesses in all of
this? Constantly counseling me to obey my father and my mother,
constantly telling me through talks and private conversations that I
was a sinner. “Why did I trouble my parents so? Jehovah wanted me to
do what they said.” They also continued to shun my grandmother when
she came to meetings simply because she was not baptized and was
going against a baptized brother. (no matter that none of them knew
the full situation) The elders set up an “impartial” meeting
between my grandparents and my father to supposedly reconcile
everyone. My grandfather grudgingly agreed to go while my
grandmother blindly trusted the elders to be as fair minded and
lovingly Christian as they claimed to be... Once I was older I
discovered what really happened at that meeting, the elders spent
hours berating, belittling, mocking, and condescendingly reading
scriptures to my grandparents without ever listening to what they
had to say. They had already made up their minds and were now
counseling my grandparents to let my father fulfill his “Christian
responsibilities.”
To further add to the horrors of my life with the witnesses is the
fact that our congregation was considered, “spiritually sick.”
Gossip and back biting ran rampant. Many children I went to school
with were constantly being abused by their parents and being told
that it was for their own good and that they needed to listen to
their parents. One girl I barely knew who was an older teenager
eventually killed herself. My dad had known her better than some and
sometimes when he was drunk would tell me how the elders had treated
her when she’d sought help for them to put an end to her father
sexually abusing her. He believed that they had driven her to
suicide by telling her that it was her own fault for leading her
father on and that she needed to be a more chaste Christian woman
and forgive her father for simply being a man... Marriages crumbled
everywhere, hypocrisy ran rampant, many of my piers turned to drugs.
Another man was arrested for abusing several children whom his wife
used to baby sit over several years. Throughout it all I maintained
myself as the perfect JW always praying for forgiveness of my sins,
never daring to admit even to myself that I was a transsexual, never
doing anything wrong, getting good grades, never even telling white
lies, never cursing, always studying for meetings, going out in
service... When I was told that my friends were “worldly” because
they weren’t JWs (never mind that they were some of the most well
behaved kids you’d ever meet) I began associating myself more with
my piers in the congregation. (the ones doing drugs)
When I was 14 my dad and step mom finally got divorced after she had
an affair with another man in the congregation. She was
disfellowshiped but reinstated after only a three months because she
told them everything they wanted to hear. My dad started seeing his
ex girlfriend again who was not a JW. They came to the house and
told him to leave her, he wouldn’t, they disfellowshiped him and he
became shunned by the people that once so fiercely defended him
simply because he was a baptized brother.
I was finally becoming very disillusioned with the entire
organization. I was tired of keeping my severe gender issues a
secret for fear that I too would be shunned by the congregation and
all of my friends and family. I was tired of the lies and deceit
passing for truth and sound advice. I began to wonder what exactly
the society thought about transsexuals. Their stance on homosexuals
was already quite clear but try as I might I couldn’t find anything
that stated their viewpoint on this issue. Finally I found my answer
in one of the bound volumes. It was a Watching Our World article in
an old Awake! magazine from the seventies which I found in the
glossary under “sex change.” The article was only two paragraphs
long and simply stated that sex changes were happening around the
world and that they were being sought after by men who wanted to get
away with being gay by trying to become women! The article had no
bases in scientific knowledge nor even were scriptures quoted that
specifically dealt with the issue. It was all in all very arbitrary.
There it was in black and white, Jehovah must hate me. I looked
through the Bible looking for answers myself- far to scared to ask
someone more knowledgeable for their help. I found nothing, the
world transsexual wasn’t exactly written anywhere. (I didn’t know
that what I sought would be listed under the word eunuch) So it came
down finally to the fact that I couldn’t live my life anymore
without being the woman God made me inside. I wanted to die, it came
down to me or the JWs.
I was surprised to find that when I left I never received a phone
call or “shepherding call” or anything. I called one of the elders
on the telephone to inform him that I wouldn’t be giving the talk in
their theocratic ministry school and that they should give it to
someone else so that they had somebody speaking on the scheduled
material that night. I was informed that they had already given my
talk to somebody else. A month of missed meetings and I was already
considered a lost cause I guess.
After that it still took years for me to free myself from a lifetime
of control. For a long time I still felt like Jehovah was looking
over my shoulder. My hands literally shook the first time I went to
buy somebody a Christmas present. When I heard bad things about
witnesses I still felt compelled to defend them. It simply took
years to quit thinking of myself as a sinner and start seeing myself
as somebody who was worthwhile and loved. I’m happy to say I finally
escaped. I’m a well adjusted woman with friends and a real life now.
I’m still a moral person, I’m still religious, but I can no longer
reconcile myself with the stuff the witness teach.
Unfortunately my story doesn’t end there. Three years ago my
grandmother finally quit flirting with the idea of being a JW and
actually became one. She was baptized. My grandparents began arguing
and finally split up because my grandpa couldn’t stand what she had
become. This was perhaps the worst tragedy of all. At the end of my
journey I’d survived only to see my grandparents split by the JWs.
Of course there were other problems and to be fair I can’t place all
the blame at the JWs feet. However, I firmly believe that they did
much more harm than good to my family. When I came out I also found
that much of my family who were still JWs no longer wished to be
around me. The looks they’d give me and the way they acted were far
and away from being model Christian behavior. My grandmother and I
still get along and are closer than ever I’m happy to report.
However, she still struggles to reconcile her JW beliefs with her
love and desire to protect me. It frustrates both of us. She won’t
abandoned me but she can’t bring herself to leave the JWs either.
I’m afraid it will always pull her heart in two directions.
To conclude, I’d just like to say that I wish that the Jehovah’s
Witnesses and other organized religions would put half as much
effort into showing Christ’s love as they put into propagating and
enforcing their own dogma and doctrines. In the end I‘ve found that
witnesses are far more divisive than they are loving...
December 6, 2005