by Andrew Franklin

From my earliest memories, I can recall a sense of feeling different from my brother, dad, and male friends. While the other men in my life got excited about sports or active play, I found myself much more adept and interested in artistic endeavors like singing and dancing. My dad had survived a very difficult upbringing that left him all but crippled emotionally, especially with a young boy as expressive as I was. I knew my dad loved me; but I never quite felt known by him. In response, I took up a stance of enmity and a hyper-critical spirit toward him. Although I could quote the command “Honor your father and mother, so that it may go well with you…”, I held onto dishonor in my heart. This dishonor led me to a deep brokenness in my views on masculinity, and my beliefs about myself as a man.

by Joseph Thiessen

I have never considered myself a gay man as this title seems to be for the more political person who lives with his same-sex sexual orientation out in the open for all to see. In contrast, homosexuality was never a lifestyle wherein I immersed myself with like-minded people for any length of time, nor was I ever given to sex with anyone. Rather, it has been a lifestyle of fantasy, pornography addiction, masturbation, withdrawal and introspection.

by Sy Rogers

Imagine - me married! A day of rejoicing and celebration, of sharing love between family and friends. At my side was my wife, the woman I loved. But special as it was, our wedding held a much deeper significance.

There was a time when I would never have believed such fulfillment was possible for me. Only three years earlier, I was lost in pursuit of my identity, desperately seeking love and acceptance. I was transsexual - or at least that's what my psychiatrist called it. Although physically a man, I felt “trapped” in the wrong body. I was obsessed with the desire to change my outward gender and conform my body to what I believed I really was - both mentally and emotionally. I convinced myself, and worked hard to convince others, that sex-change surgery was necessary for me if I was ever to lead a fulfilled life.

by Willis Ward


I never felt I could share my testimony because I felt too hypocritical. If people knew what I was, and what I had done, then they would reject me. I couldn't deal with rejection. I was an expert at reading people, figuring out what they wanted to see, and meeting their expectations. I held to a strategic plan to protect an image I had set up: "ME".

by Jim Venice


I was born and raised in the St. Louis metropolitan area. Both of my parents were just 16 and newly married when I was born. Like many teens, they married to escape the turmoil of their sin-filled homes, thinking that things would be better on their own. Their relationship was doomed from the beginning, being so young and both without even a high school education. My father turned to alcohol to deal with the pressures of life. After all, that's how he had seen his parents cope.