As transgender identity has become more mainstream in the last two years, stories of transgender regret are also starting to bleed into the national consciousness, much to the distaste of the LGBT movement. These stories are important, however, and they can even be inspiring.
Singer/actress Montreea Bailey shared her story with PJ Media in an interview Wednesday night. She came to dress and even partially identify as a man, spurred on by her lesbian lover in a context of drugs and alcoholism. Even in the midst of this, however, she felt the providential hand of God protecting her from particular pitfalls.
“I thank God that I did not have that surgery,” Bailey told PJ Media. She explained that some of her friends who took transgender “treatments” like hormone therapy and surgery struggled to return to their birth sex.
“They had the science to get you there, but they don’t have the science to get you back,” she said, chillingly. “They haven’t considered that there are people who do that who want to reverse out.”
Indeed, many who were born women and had surgeries to become transgender “men” have been left with life-long scars, deeper voices, and other unalterable characteristics. A university in Britain recently rejected a research project on transgender regret because it would be too “politically incorrect.”
But these former transgender people exist, and their stories are important.
Bailey herself was raised in a Christian home in Houston, Texas, but headed north and east to study music in Boston, Mass. “While I was auditioning around town, I met a woman in the music industry,” she said. This woman “had access to powerful people,” and she introduced Bailey to the lifestyle of homosexuality.
“It was just the perfect storm of confusion and sin — we were both lost,” Bailey said. “Mix in power, money, famous people, homosexuality, drugs, and alcohol — I just wasn’t able to handle it.” She mentioned “ecstasy, cocaine, pills,” and being drunk all the time.
Then the transgender push came. “It was a lesbian relationship, but she was pushing me more and more into the male role,” the singer confided. “this woman that I was with had so much control over my identity, over my relationships, over my friendships.”
Her transition began with appearance. “I cut all my hair off, I wore men’s clothes, men’s jeans, men’s underwear, men’s cologne,” Bailey said. “The gay press began to write that I was transgender.”
Her music career started to take off, and the LGBT movement claimed her as their own. Eventually, even she started to believe it.
“I never came out as transgender, but they began to write I was male. It was the perfect storm — Satan had really blacked it out. The media thought I was a man, the woman I was with wanted me to be a man,” she said. “You’re thinking, ‘Well, maybe I am.'”
Bailey said she ended up in a “gay marriage” of sorts — before the 2015 Supreme Court decision Obergefell V. Hodges made same-sex legal across the U.S. — and she thought, “Just be the male.”
But something held her back from going all the way. “I didn’t want to take steroids, I didn’t want to change my singing voice. I didn’t like what the surgeries looked like,” she confided.
After being confronted with the logical conclusion of transgenderism, she was struck at how unnatural it was. “You’re changing the fabric of your soul,” Bailey said. She compared it to a pair of pants, not just being dirty or stained, but having discoloration “down in the fibers,” where it cannot be removed.
Eventually, it all fell apart. The singer was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, and started losing the use of her legs. After the diagnosis, “I was in denial,” Bailey said. “I was at the peak of my time in music, I had all of these great opportunities.” But the disease caught up with her — she stared using a cane, and then had to use crutches.
She suffered the psychological trauma “of being young and living in an 80-year-old woman’s body.” Eventually, the strain became too much.
“One night I went to a parking lot, sang in this parking lot, with my hands stretched up to the sky,” Bailey recalled. She had hit rock bottom, had to use a wheelchair, and finally yielded to God’s grace. In that moment she felt “no judgment, no condemnation. Nobody was out there throwing rocks at me. I felt the love of Christ and from that day forward I began the process” of becoming a woman again.
It was not easy. The singer had not dressed like a woman for nearly 20 years. In fact, the first time she went back to church, the pastor thought she was a man! “We want to welcome the new brother in the back of the church,” she recalled him saying. In the interview, she burst out laughing at the idea.
The church welcomed her and showed her the love of Jesus. “Everyone was just really nice to me and they encouraged me to read the Bible,” Bailey said. “There wasn’t condemnation so I shut the Word out. We pray to God to find a right balance” between teaching God’s will on sexuality and showing His love to LGBT people.
“I think His provision provided that balance for me, because He wanted me out so bad,” she added.
Bailey also credited God the Holy Spirit with leading her away from the LGBT lifestyle. Of the Bible, she said, “the more you read, the more you’ll be convicted, the more the Holy Spirit grows within you, then the sins you might have done you won’t do again.” She declared herself “completely free” of dressing like a man and being in a sexual relationship with another woman.
Looking back, Bailey said she saw the hand of God working throughout her life. “God’s grace came through the periods when I was high on LSD. The cops didn’t pull us over when there were six of us in a two-seater car. Even though I was still in bondage, He prepared the way for me,” she recalled.
“That’s a wonderful God who gives us chance and chance over again,” Bailey said.
While she found love and acceptance in the church, she did not find it everywhere. “It’s amazing how many people will be mad at you for wanting to live your natural gender,” Bailey told PJ Media. “People get angry when women want to be women and men want to be men. They say that Christians are the problem, but they’re twisted.”
Even so, she emphasized that Christians need to be humble and gracious in their outreach to LGBT people. “Don’t be holier-than-thou and sanctimonious,” Bailey said. “Just live a life that is real, not like you’re above people. We need to welcome people. If they don’t accept us, be like Jesus. Jesus moved on.”
The singer has been in a wheelchair for “about twelve years,” but now her attitude is entirely different. “God has blessed me tremendously.”
Bailey actually credited her muscular dystrophy with leading her back to God. “I parallel it to the Apostle Paul on his road to Damascus,” she said, referring to Saul’s journey to Damascus, where he planned to persecute Christians. On the road, Paul had a vision of Jesus Christ, was blinded, and came to believe the gospel.
“On his road, he had blindness. On mine, I had a wheelchair,” the singer said. When Paul asked God to remove a “thorn” in his flesh, God responded, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness,” so Paul declared, “I will boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9).
Today, the singer helps other transgender people find their true selves in Jesus. She has posted pictures of former LGBT people who rejected the transgender, gay, or lesbian lifestyle.
https://www.facebook.com/djmontreea/photos/a.993646030673211.1073741852.175845129119976/1087054027999077/?type=3&permPage=1
https://www.facebook.com/djmontreea/photos/a.993646030673211.1073741852.175845129119976/1258132254224586/?type=3&permPage=1
https://www.facebook.com/djmontreea/photos/a.993646030673211.1073741852.175845129119976/1032748090096338/?type=3&permPage=1
She has also interviewed many of these people.
Bailey announced that her book, teased as “Escape From Sodom,” will be released next year, around the same time as a movie tentatively titled “Here’s My Heart.” The movie will feature ex-trans, ex-gay, and ex-lesbian actors and actresses, and should help draw more attention to the struggles within the LGBT community, and the difficulty withdrawing from it.
In this troubled time, Americans need to hear Bailey’s story, and the stories of so many others who left LGBT identity. Not only should their struggles serve as cautionary tales, but they should also provide hope for those wondering if there is life and love after the LGBT movement. The answer is a resounding yes.
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