I’ve lived the majority of my life keeping a secret from those around me. To me, this secret felt like the most shameful, loathsome secret that anyone could have. I felt so much shame that for a long time, I convinced myself it wasn’t true. Secrets like this can be destructive and prevent us from realizing happiness in our lives. My secret is that I feel that I am female.

Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress some individuals experience because of incongruence they sense between their physical sex and their gender identity, or the gender they feel they are.  Many who experience gender dysphoria or identify as transgender have a soul wrenching struggle. Questions enter the individual’s mind such as: “what is wrong with me?” or “how do I make this go away?”  For me the answers to these questions always reinforced the feeling that God must not love me…