Saturday, February 5, 2011

here is a letter I sent to a 2nd Cousin

I hope that your doing well and I hope that you wont judge me too harsley when you read what I am sending you and I understand that you may not know how to react to what you are about to read but I hope that you will try to understand this is some thing I sent to a close friend of mine so here goes.
I hope this finds you doing well and I hope the weather has not effected you too much I am sending you this message in hopes that you and Audrey will be praying for me as I am having some real big interpersonal issues for a long time I have felt like I was 2 people in one, I noticed that you was friends with Jim Earl Swilley I watched intently his confession to his congregation has to his Homosexuality and after watching the whole thing I sent him a message and I conveyed to him that I was in no place to pass judgement because I was dealing with some issues of my own and have dealt with theses issues since I was about 6 years old so now after some time I feel like I can trust you with this as we have been friends for many years I have known for a long time I was different well there is just no sugar coated way of saying this I am transgendered I have felt like I was trapped in the wrong body I have had to reconcile what I have been taught and what I have preached with what and who I am I may wind up resigning the ministry over this but I am taking this one day at the Time and yes Lauren knows she even says I am more like a woman than a man this is an excerpt of a letter I sent to some of my family members
This is just a note to all of my family member as some of you may have known and for some of you may not have known I have been dealing with a lot of things in my 48 years of life. Approximately 4 years ago I attempted to commit suicide I felt as if I was a failure as a person, as a husband and mostly as a father, me and my wife attended counseling at the pastoral institute and during that time I had to bring some things out to my wife and at the time she was shocked but came to realize how deep my personal problems had become, shortly after that happened my daughter was molested by a 15 year old boy at the age of 9 we have gone through a lot with her distrust of boys and she asked why was I going through therapy with momma then we made a decision to tell her why because she begged to know so me and the wife decided to tell her she had a great understanding of my life’s deepest issues . Now I bring it to all of you as of Friday April 2008 I am out of the closet as a Transgendered person
I hope that I will not loose you as a friend over this I just can not explain what it is like to be the person who is dealing from the inside out i equate it to a living hell I hope that I gain the same kind of Grace and mercy from the Lord as I can get. xxxxx This was his response,
First xxxxx, you won't lose me as a friend. You won't lose the Lord as a friend either. He will give you grace and mercy. What does transgendered mean? Are you cross-dressing? You told me that you had experienced that years ago. Are you being faithful to xxxxx? I'm not asking to judge. It's just that I don't know what all transgendered means. .
and this is my follow up.
I feel as if I am a woman trapped in a mans body and have felt this way since I was about 6 years of age and yes I am faithful to xxxxxx and always will be ,I have know this for years but I have buried it with my judge-mentality of others , And by what I mean I feel as if I am trapped in the wrong body in my mind I am a woman and always have been when other boys was playing cowboys and Indians I wanted to play house when other boys love Blue I have always loved Pink and there are other things too that I could tell you as to why I feel this way.Now you see why I could not Judge Jim Earl,I hope is that I have not lost your respect
xxxxxxxxx
AKA Alicia Neal
That is what my mother was going to name me if I had be born a GG (Genetic Girl)
and here is some info I sent to him.
This is from wikipedia
Transgender (pronounced /trænzˈdʒɛndər/) is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from the usual gender roles.

Transgender is the state of one's "gender identity" (self-identification as woman, man, neither or both) not matching one's "assigned sex" (identification by others as male, female or intersex based on physical/genetic sex). "Transgender" does not imply any specific form of sexual orientation; transgender people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, or asexual; some may consider conventional sexual orientation labels inadequate or inapplicable to them. The precise definition for transgender remains in flux, but includes:

* "Of, relating to, or designating a person whose identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender roles, but combines or moves between these."[1]
* "People who were assigned a sex, usually at birth and based on their genitals, but who feel that this is a false or incomplete description of themselves."[2]
* "Non-identification with, or non-presentation as, the sex (and assumed gender) one was assigned at birth."[3]
Like I said I know you may not understand this all but for years I have lived in a private HELL with this in the back and front of my mind I guess when your not the one living with this it seems sort of crazy but I have for years I shared this some time back with Gloria and as she said we all have our cross to bear.
xxxxxx aka Alicia Neal