Born into an Lutheran Church MO Synod family & town, strong (but not fanatical) faith. Attended Lutheran Schools from Kindegarten to post-grad, forced myself to believe. Always thought I did, as did everyone else. As I grew older, had to force myself to believe more and more.

I investigated other beliefs: Islam--way too monotheistic; Hindu--no revelence to my life; Satanism--tried too hard to be reverse-christianity (ok for fun, but not a belief); Wicca--too touchy-feely. But I always came back to the church, call it guilt or conditioning or whatever.

Then there's the little matter of me being (gasp) a liberal, and gay, and transgendered. Things I had to fight to surpress. "Be a good christian by living a lie."

Lastly, I've had severe bouts with depression and mood swings since childhood. A handicap. Did I get any love, understanding, support, acceptance etc from anywhere in the church (and by extention, their god)? Quite the opposite. I was scorned, mocked, denied rights, ostracised and condemned. Needless to say, that only made my problems and lack of self-esteem worse.

All of this was never more true or obvious then after my Mom died recently. Yes, the congregation and the church made no bones about it that I was an outsider because I wouldn't join their group mentality or false piety. Of course, that also then fed my doubts and questions about the "holy trinity", "son of god", "sin" and all the rest. But asking questions was in and of itself a sin! Believe, just don't think.

Down and looking around, I remembered the pagan community and how loving, accepting and empowering they were. So I started living, if not Wiccan, then at least a more magical way where the relationship between the divine and self is closer, more in tune and more self-empowering.

Although I haven't felt like a christian in years, I consider 2005 the year of my deconversion/reversion. This summer, not only did I begin gender-reassignment, but it was my 25th class reunion at the afore-alluded-to lutheran high school. I came out as a witch, as a gay male-to-female and as a liberal...which seem to be the hardest thing for those right-wing hardhead christians to accept!

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