My brush with Exodus International left me exposed

Long before I could admit I was transgender, I spent twenty-one weeks trying to apply the teachings of Exodus to myself.

In 1991 I became aware of a ministry at my brother’s church that was trying to help gays and lesbians change their sexual orientation. The program’s director was Marjorie Hopper, a very masculine-looking woman with a harrowing, complicated, and difficult story. For years she lived as a man and worked as a custodian until she was outed at work, and her world came crumbling down. She had a religious experience and became a zealous anti-gay advocate and eventually the director of the Living Waters program at Burnaby Christian Fellowship (BCF). Living Waters was one of the many ministries associated with Exodus International.

In those days, as I struggled with my gender identity, I desperately hoped God would heal me and remove all my feelings of inadequacy as a man. The word transgender entered our vocabulary, and there were new ways of thinking that, honestly, scared me. I had spiritualized my struggle to the extent that I dared not apply such labels to myself for fear that I would be admitting defeat to the devil or that I would be jinxing things in my relationship with God.

Marjorie’s story intrigued me because aspects of it resonated with me. But the differences were also so stark that I wondered if my situation had similarities. The fact that she had reverted to living as a woman, even though she still presented as very manly, and renounced her lesbianism offered me hope that God would be able to perform a similar miracle in my life. I wondered.

I first met Marjorie at Vancouver’s annual Missions Fest when she and some of the gays and lesbians who had gone through the Living Waters program shared their testimonies of victory. On one of their handouts, I noticed the logo they were using was one my late brother had designed for BCF before his death in 1985. The church was not using it anymore, but their Living Waters program had adopted it for themselves. I used this small detail as an entree, introduced myself to Marjorie, and then told her I would be happy to design their brochures and handouts pro-bono.

A few weeks later, I got a call from Marjorie; she needed some graphic design. We arranged a time to meet a few days later, and with butterflies in my stomach and shaky, sweaty hands, I used that meeting to come out to her. My admission to her was not that I was transgender because I did not yet know what I was—I only confessed to wanting to dress up in women’s clothing. Though that seemed to be less than the whole story, that was all I could say then. She asked if I was attracted to men; the answer was (and still is) an emphatic no. We talked a bit more, and she prayed for me. She suggested I consider joining her group, which would soon start on a new 21-week series. There was a minimal cost to enroll, and I would need to commit to attending all the sessions. I didn’t know if the program would do anything since I did not struggle with same-sex attraction.

My wife was aware of all of this and knew I had volunteered to work for Living Waters. Marjorie called one day to tell me that she had received some money from an anonymous donor who had designated it so I could attend the program. The card containing the money said, “This is for my friend, Jim Salazar, so he can join your group.” Marjorie showed me the card the next time I saw her, and I instantly recognized my wife’s handwriting. I thought that was really sweet of her.

That is why and how I was able to attend Living Waters. It was an awkward fit from the beginning—gender identity was not part of the discussion. We spent much time looking at scriptures about being made in God’s image, having a healthy image of ourselves, and dealing with abuse and painful experiences. There was always sharing and prayer. This was all really good, but as I said, it was an awkward fit because I had little in common with the rest of the group, and my experiences were vastly different. The one thing I did take away, for which I will always be grateful, is that I was exposed to a very intimate form of worship, thanks to the many inspirational Vineyard songs that made up the first half-hour of each evening.

After twenty-one weeks, my “problem” had not gone away, and I was not sure why, but I suspected it had to do more with me than God. I wanted to believe that God had the power to heal me, but I felt my faith was not strong enough. I had collected many more scriptures in my toolkit to use whenever I felt “tempted” or allowed my thoughts to derail, but that was it.

I wrote a letter to Exodus and shared a bit about myself. These were the days before emails were the de-facto method of communication. A few weeks passed before I received a short reply and some photocopied pages on gender identity. I wish I still had them today, so I could quote them word for word. Still, the gist of what they said was that people like me were autogynephiliacs and were inordinately in love with the idea of being women, suggesting this was akin to the sin of idolatry; plain and simple, I had to repent and retrain my mind.

Okay, I may be challenged by someone who will deny that this was an official Exodus position, but I remember getting it out of those pages. The person who sent me the materials admitted in the short reply that they focused more on gay and lesbian issues but that I might find the attached information helpful.

Exposed...I started by saying I felt exposed by my brush with Exodus, and you may be wondering why. The simple answer is that my hopes and prayers for healing and to be a “normal male” were dashed, and now I had no shelter; I was on my own. This sense of helplessness, ironically, is what ultimately caused me to be honest, and I resigned myself to the fact my struggle was never going to go away.

It’s hard to believe it’s been over thirty years since all this occurred. Whenever I think about my timeline, I can’t help but wonder what my life would be like today if I had known then what I know now. I wish I could have figured it out sooner; it would have spared me almost fifteen years of additional distress. My only consolation is that the delay spared my wife and our three sons, who ranged in age from 9 to 16 at the time, from what I feared would be the biggest challenge of their lives; it bought us all some time.