I was born into a church that taught its members to live Holy and upright. I was taught about Jesus from as early as I can remember and accepted Him into my heart as my Lord and Savior by the age of 7. This was the same age that I lost my virginity to two older boys who raped me. One of them was my older brother. Due to this early trauma that I told not one soul about until I was 14, I was afraid of men but hypersexual with females. I felt safe with women and ended up seeking sexual encounters with strange, older women on the Party- line at 14.

I knew deep down that it was wrong, but I had developed such a hatred for men that I turned my back on God and the church. My parents divorced when I was 5 due to my father’s addictions and physically abusive nature. My mother remarried when I was 7. My birth dad would abandon me on his scheduled visits and my stepdad was verbally abusive in the early years though now he’s a changed man. I would cut school and meet random women because my home life was miserable until at the age of 16 when I finally emancipated myself from my parents and ran away from home.

I got into alcohol and drugs to numb the pain and try to forget but all that got me was in and out of several rehabs. I was living with older women who roped me into a lesbian lifestyle and made me feel desirable which was new to me because I had always been awkward and unpopular. I was hyper masculine and played the role of a man to protect myself on the streets while I was selling drugs. I surrounded myself with the LGBT community because they would all affirm the life that I was living when all the while God was tugging at my heart. I’ve dealt with serious mental health issues since childhood, some of which were undiagnosed at the time and I would do self-harm.

I eventually became so disillusioned within that community and so far from God and my identity in Him that I began injecting  testosterone, transitioning into being male. I was lost, broken, homeless traumatized and addicted when I walked into this church in San Francisco, California and fell on my face before God. I was tired of running from Him. The people there took me in to live and work at the church. They gave me assignments, the word of God and prayed over me night and day until I no longer felt right about living as a Transgender male. It was nothing that anyone said to me but it was the Spirit of God that filled me and spoke to me saying  “Crystal. You are my daughter and I love you.”

Since that moment, my life has never been the same. I shaved my beard, grew my hair out, went back to my birth name and began learning how to be a woman of God. I spent over 15 years as a butch-lesbian and Trans man and started at such a young age that being a woman of God is still new to me but I’m now willing to learn and grow spiritually. I still deal with thoughts, urges, trauma and nightmares of my past life but I’m now a new person in Christ who is unashamed to tell where God has brought me from. Life is brighter for me in Christ and I look forward to my future in Him and in ministry.