My name is Kirk Taylor, a follower of Jesus Christ who overcame gender identity issues in my late forties and is a non-addict who is an advocate of Twelve Steps for Christians. My mission is to be an example for others who are willing and desire a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
I grew up in a small town in eastern Iowa in a typical middle-class conservative Christian family in the seventies and eighties. Nobody knew I struggled with gender identity from five years old, continuing into my late forties.
My family attended the local United Methodist Church. My mother played the organ, and my father taught Sunday school. That is until my grandmother passed when I was nine. We ceased attending church before forming a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
I’ve always believed in God and knew about Jesus, thinking I was a Christian, yet I did not understand what it meant to be Christian. You could say I was like most people who believe they are Christians.
There is a catch. I did not believe I would be accepted into heaven because of my gender identity issues. The truth is that I didn’t know Christ and what he would do for me.
Three failed marriages also happened in addition to struggling with gender identity. My wives knew about the gender issues, which did not cause the divorces. Keep in mind that my gender issues were symptoms of other problems in my life, which were the cause of the divorces.
Entrepreneurship allowed me to buck the system and provided avenues to act on my gender identity needs. The businesses would allow me to overcompensate for my insecurities and give me time to crossdress in hiding. Eventually, I would dress publicly in Las Vegas, where nobody would know who I was.
I came out publicly after my third divorce, deciding that I would give in and quit fighting the gender issues. A local clinic prescribed hormones, and I began presenting almost full-time as a female for a year and a half.
My anxiety went down, but my problems didn’t go away. I was still the same person. I just looked different. At least I was comfortable in my skin, but why did I need to make these changes to be comfortable in my skin?
The answer would come in February 2016, as I had a friend do my makeup before going out. She was looking into my eyes, and I freaked out, thinking, “Oh, my God, I can’t do this anymore,” That was the end of my anxiety and Gender issues.
I dressed a few times after that, but I was no longer comfortable presenting as a female and quit taking the hormones. The gender issues were gone.
What happened to cause my gender issues to end in a moment after haunting me for over forty years? I spent the summer trying to understand this with no answers until I walked into a Bible-based Christian Church in October 2016.
I was unknowingly invited to a service and picked up one of the NLT(New Living Translation) Bibles in the worship center. Why not read the Bible and see if my answer would be found there as I had looked everywhere else?
Over the next seven weeks, my journey took me through the Bible, cover-to-cover, which planted the seed to reveal why my gender issues dissipated.
Once finished, fear still had a grip on me, thinking that the gender issues would return, but my faith and trust in Christ continued to grow and develop, freeing me from the strongholds that haunted my life for so long.
Today, I am comfortable with my masculinity and am filled with peace and joy, knowing that gender identity issues no longer have a grip on my life. I am blessed beyond belief and know that what Christ has done for me is available to everyone willing to accept this gift.