Do You Look At Porn?

Do you look at porn?

Have you ever had a homosexual experience?

Do you think that there is a small, tiny even, just a glimmer of possibility that the devil could have his hooks in you??

Do you read the Bible?

Tell me what your Salvation means to you.

What do you fear?

Do you love your wife enough to give up this impulse, this desire and live like a man?

Do you have the courage to stop taking hormones and live like a man?

These were some of the questions that were asked of me this past Friday in therapy session that was attended by my wife and an associate pastor of the church we are attending..

So, if you've been following this blog, or if you're new, please read the post from earlier this week. It describes a therapy visit that my wife and I were scheduled to go to at a church with a pastor. That particular visit with that particular pastor didn't happen.
What did happen is that the associate pastor from the church we are attending now was contacted by my wife. They apparently scheduled a meeting. This therapist/pastor was described as an associate pastor that is also a medical professional with experience working with Trans people. Ok; I thought, it should be better than dealing with the dogmatism of our previous pastor. I was wrong.


As part of her introduction she described her experiences and various ministries that she is a part of. She's a very busy gal. She mentioned at the end of her introduction was that she had worked with trans people.
How Many, I asked?
Uh,....two of them, she answered.
Stick with me, I'll get to those two in a minute.


After being seated, she stated that she approaches her counseling though a spiritual perspective.
Oh, boy; I thought. Here we go.
As an aside, I foolishly thought that her being a woman pastor in a Methodist church would give her a perspective that would be less, uh, wrong.

It was me who was wrong. 

So the course of the meeting consisted of me answering inane questions, ones that clearly showed that not only did she not know how to counsel Trans anything, but that her skills at counseling were biased.

In response to the counselor’s asinine questions, here are my answers:

Do you look at porn? No

Have you had a homosexual experience? No, (to be honest, I wouldn’t have said yes for a million dollars, not in this setting).

Do you think that there is a small, a tiny, just a glimmer even, of possibility that the devil could have his hooks in you? (that’s another one of those “when did you stop beating your wife questions) I said that by the mere fact of me sitting here shows that I’m willing consider anything. For the record, I think that the only influence the devil has regarding this, is on my marriage.

Do you read the Bible? Yes, but not as much as I used to.

Tell me what your Salvation means to you. Excuse me? How about, Jesus died for my sins?

What do you fear? I’m sorry? Hurting the ones that I love.

Do you love your wife enough to give up this impulse, this desire and live like a man? Come on, really? This is not an impulse or a choice. It is.

Do you have the courage to stop taking hormones and live like a man? I told her that when I started HRT, that I considered that they might be medicine for my body, but they were food for my soul. I left it at that.

During the meeting, she turned to my wife and asked her, is he always like this? I kept asking her to repeat her questions as well as clarify some of the more ambiguous ones. ("What are you afraid of?" ) Then, as the meeting was ending, the counselor had the nerve to tell me that getting me to answer her questions was like pulling teeth.

I have a solo meeting with her this week, coming. We’ll see who needs a dentist, then.

So, back to the meeting,

When Lisa was describing how I had changed after I got back from Iraq (2003-2005), she stopped and said that during the period I was deployed, that our oldest Son died. This counselor “tut – tutted” Lisa, saying: “you poor dear”. She continued, “You have had to handle your son’s death and now “This””, She added: “How do you make it through the day?” for good measure.

I was flabbergasted.

Our whole family lost a wonderful, loving, son and brother. We all have had our battles to fight. Literally and figuratively. Not just my wife. No, I’m not feeling left out of this little pity party, but to suggest that my wife is a grieving mother and a wife who is battling the devil inside of her husband was just too much.

Where does this counselor get off?

That’s not all, In the course of this meeting, my wife said something that totally floored me. I couldn’t have been more surprised. Truly. She told the counselor that my mom told her that as punishment she would put me in my sister’s panties.

I didn’t add this for shock value, but the counselors comment to my animated, incredulous denial was that I sure had a lot of anger behind that response.

For the record, my mother never did any such thing. Ever. My family had their dysfunctions, but never was there anything stupid like that.

Back to the session though, I asked my wife how she would say something like that, her response was: “I’m just telling you what she said” I have since called my siblings to double-check, and of course they agreed that this never happened.

So, I guess, that it's time to move. My wonderful sister asked me last night when was I going to come live with them. Soon. There are many reasons to stay in a marriage, I think that I've found a few reasons to get out.

Oh, about the trans people that this counselor has worked with. Both of them. I asked if she could describe her experience with them. She said no.
Flatly.
I was like, hmmm.
I pressed, and found out that both of them were pre-HRT and they both continued on with their transition.