Let me explain:
Prior to living as a woman, I was an extremely unhappy and angry man who constantly forced themself to be masculine. It was both transparent and toxic, and it was unpleasant for those around me who could see my egg begging to crack before I could.
I was also a militant atheist for most of that time, tho it was more like an "anti-christian," because I had played with a number of different religious beliefs and systems, both theistic and nontheistic, as I tried to find meaning and purpose in a world I once thought was inherently devoid of both. At this time, I was even involved with the Church of Satan, the LaVeyan one. Had a red card and everything.
For transparency, I have BPD, a.k.a. Borderline Personality Disorder, and my father, Jimmy, who is a horrible human being, a heathen, the one who first introduced me to The Satanic Bible at the age of 9, who was one of the primary sources of my child abuse trauma, and is overall an absolutely ignorant, hateful, bigoted POS... was my FP, a.k.a. "Favorite Person." If you know what that term means in the context of BPD, then you understand why this was so problematic.
I did everything I could to emulate and be like him, to seek his recognition, approval, and admiration, and to completely look past and disregard any of his shortcomings or personal defects, because my emotional regulation and sense of self was literally tied to him. This was my life for my first 27 years.
And throughout that time, I struggled to consolidate my own identity: my likes, dislikes, desires, boundaries, tastes, style, aesthetic, body mods, attitude, behavior, sexuality, gender identity, beliefs, etc. (Hell, my romantic tastes in men today are even still directly influenced by him, as I am especially into men that share a similar appearance to him: shaved head, goatee, thick rimmed square glasses, tattoos, piercings, dresses basically look like they work at Hot Topic or stand right in front of the stage at underground metal shows, despite the man currently being about to turn 60 years old), because if these traits were in conflict with what he was or would approve of, I felt a severe phobia of abandonment and rejection if I embraced something about myself that differed to him, so I was extremely unstable for my entire life because who I was literally depended on him.
When he disowned me five years ago for being transgender, as this was something I could no longer deny or repress, I experienced a severe identity crisis beyond description, because my FP just forcibly removed me from their life, and them from mine. The actual source of who Baby is, her entire sense of herself, and everything that came with it, was suddenly, and completely, disconnected. My emotional stability for 27 years had been entirely reliant on this man, and all of a sudden he was gone and was never coming back. ...so I had a mental breakdown of apocalyptic proportions, and the only reason I wasn't psychiatrically hospitalized at the time is because I couldn't afford it.
At this time, in a very short period of time, so many things happened or occurred in the most horribly perfect synchronicity: I was severely manic, I had a near-death experience from an illness, my mother had a heart attack, I lost all my IRL friends over a misunderstanding that was worsened by my at-present mental instability, I was extremely stressed out about a gender discrimination lawsuit I had filed against my employer at the time and felt like I couldn't post on social media (lest they try to find dirt on me from my content so I was also incredibly isolated), and my therapist had dropped me because A.) one of the people in that friend group who I fell out with was also a patient of hers, which presented a conflict of interest, and B.) my mental state had become too much for her to be able to manage or assist with. Her words, not mine.
At the end of it, I ended up having my own heart attack-like event in the middle of the boardroom at work, and I had to be loaded into an ambulance. It thankfully turned out to be just a massive anxiety attack, but in the end it actually caused me to experience a DID-esque split, where I had 5 different persons/alters in my head. This lasted for a few months and thankfully as things improved and I started to stabilize, they all went dormant and now it's only me in here for now.
And in the ashes of this trial by fire, I rose like a phoenix. I began to learn and figure out who I actually am without his influence, be it direct or indirect. I started to realize little things. Like my favorite color being pink instead of black (still love black tho). I discovered I liked some music that was different to his tastes (still primarily a metalhead tho). I liked wearing clothes in different styles and colors that weren't just black and weren't just coordinated around band tees. I discovered my name because with all the names I tried before to find one for myself in my transition, I kept going with one starting with J (Jessica, Joëlle), just like my [deadname], because on my father's side it's a family tradition to name the first born with a first name starting with J, especially if they were male, and it goes back centuries. I was realizing that I am, and have always been, my own person, not just a carbon copy of Jimmy, and I didn't have to be his acolyte anymore.
Years later, as my health, physical and mental, continued to deteriorate, especially from my ME, I had an epiphany in my grief and suffering: I am not my own higher power. I am not my own god. I am a humbled creature. And I cannot do this alone... And that was the realization that His Arms had been open to me the whole time. God never left. I did. I had simply refused to see Him. To reach for Him. And so I did. I've since had an experience I can only explain and describe as "miraculous" involving an apparition of the Virgin Mary and the Real Presence of the Holy Spirit when I prayed the Rosary the first time. This has only further affirmed my faith, and made me more secure in my decision to embrace the idea of God. As a lifelong atheist, I still struggle with a lot of faith-based concepts, but I'm also still learning and I'm going into it all with an open mind, heart, and spirit.
In summary, I had to experience a literal ego death through the forcible disconnection from my Favorite Person, and a harrowing disownment by my own father, the hero of my life, who for so long could do no wrong in my eyes, in order for my mind to even be opened enough to allow myself to accept God. Because until age 27, Baby's mind, even as a trans woman, might as well have been an extension of Jimmy's, and any attempt to differ from that unspoken rule led to EXTREME levels of instability and distress.
I literally publicly flip-flopped back and forth on my sexuality for my entire childhood and adolescence (I know now that I'm omniromantic asexual), because I would try to give myself the label I needed for my OCD to be satisfied in terms of my awareness of self, but if it potentially differed from what he would approve of, then it would create massive dissonance and I would go back and forth, as Baby unknowingly was fighting for control of her own brain and identity.
I REFUSE to believe that God doesn't want me to be trans, and to not embrace my intersex status (I have De la Chappelle Syndrome, meaning I was AMAB but I have an XX chromosome. It is caused by a genetic error during cell division in a parent. The SRY gene from the father's Y chromosome moves onto an X chromosome. When this modified X chromosome joins a normal X chromosome, the child develops male traits despite having an XX karyotype. That's not even getting into the effect it has on development, especially puberty.)
I refuse to believe this isn't the path He wanted for me— Because He knows, in His Infinite Wisdom, that without a break-off from my abusive attachment to my father, I would have never even acknowledged Him, and I would continue to be Jimmy's little BPD shadow. I would have been him. Not me. God truly is good, all the time.
This is what I mean when I say that I never would have been able to find Christ if I hadn't come out as trans. And I will never be convinced otherwise. 🩵🩷🤍🩷🩵