Second
Spirit
Some of my first memories are of being “different,” of
not fitting in. I did not get along with my male peers. I was not interested in competitive male things, baseball,
football, etc. I am
still not. I got along
better with the girls and enjoyed more cooperative activities.
My first memory of cross-dressing was a silk slip that I
found in a trunk. It
was a peach color and felt so fantastic.
That was about five or six.
There were of course many other incidents but I will not bore
you with them. They
felt so right, and yet guilt was a part of the experience.
Through elementary and junior high school I was with great
regularity in fights. I
have a very slow burn temper, but when the fuse hits the end, the
explosion is truly spectacular.
In first grad, I broke a kid’s elbow.
I deliberately bent it the wrong way and pushed.
I learned early to fight to disable.
That way they did not have a chance to hurt me.
In junior high, the frequency of fights increased.
I was 6’2” and every short testosterone-enriched teen
male seemed to feel that they had to prove their masculinity by
beating on my kneecaps. The
dean (and my mother and father) knew that I never started any of the
fights and would give me 50 push-ups and would give the other kid
detention, thereby improving my punch.
Lest you think I came out unscathed, I still have problems
hearing in one ear that had the eardrum burst.
Due to the constant fights, my parents decided to send me to
a private boarding high school, owned by the Presbyterian Church in
Utah.
During high school, I developed a shell to protect that
sensitive self, that easily hurt me, that second self.
During high school and college I was not CD-ing much, but she
was there in the background throughout.
During college I was seeking something.
It was the late sixties.
Who wasn’t? I
did not know that it was a God-shaped hole.
I had been raised in the Presbyterian Church and always
thought of myself as a Christian, but just because you stand in the
garage does not make you a Ford.
I do not ever remember anyone saying there was anything you
had to do to become a Christian, and I wasn’t.
I looked for something to fill that hole in my life.
I had had a comparative religion course in high school, and
through a number of years of college, I became involved in the
occult.
During this time I went to a coffeehouse run by a Christian
college where I met an intelligent, good-looking redhead (though I
did not know that she was a redhead till our first date [too dark]
). The first time we
held hands was at the Renaissance Faire in Agoura, California.
We dated and discussed.
She brought up John 14:6, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the
way, the truth, and the life, no man cometh unto the Father but by
me.” This was hard to
argue with. That night
I prayed and accepted Christ as my Savior.
The God-shaped hole was filled.
The salvation experience was amazing.
I proposed, she accepted.
(There was a seven month period in-between.)
I was not CD-ing at this point and thought that my second
self would disappear with marriage.
Most of us make the same assumption.
She did not, and during college she acquired a name, Sandra.
It felt right!
Through twenty-five years of marriage, there were times when
she was very much in the background, sometimes driven there by guilt
and the sense that it was sinful.
There were a couple of purges when I would get rid of the few
things I had acquired (I still regret one pair of shoes that really
fit) and I prayed for God to take it away.
I would rather be nothing than this.
Just taking communion was a painful experience “knowing”
that I was sinning by having to dress.
The consequences of not dressing were devastating.
It wasn’t until I got onto the internet that I found out
that there were only two verses that were used to condemn us, Deut.
22:5 and I Cor. 6:9. There
was quite a bit of information that indicated there were some
problems with the way God’s Word had been translated. This was largely through the web site of Jade Devlin and the
group Trans-gendered Christians for which she is responsible.
I was able to connect with other T* Christians who had been
able to go back to the original Greek and Hebrew.
It was at this time, in May, 1998, that I told my wife that I
was T*. This was
followed by three days of tears.
Thanks to the material that I had found through the internet,
I was able to answer her questions and to assure her that I was
definitely heterosexual and that I still loved her, and that this
was not going to go away. We
talked for a very long time. I
had been moved to second shift at work, so we had that time. We spent hours each day for months in discussion.
This was God’s timing.
A few months before, I would not have known what to say.
Some weeks after I told her, we were in bed early one morning
talking about how most of us are born of pain and suffering our
guilt and separation from God, or, influenced by those that do not
know that being T* is not inherently sinful.
At that point the guilt and pain that I, and many of my
sisters, really hit me; and I wept for us all.
This was second only to my salvation experience in feeling.
Since that time, Sandi has been a constant part of me as well
as my male self. (Talk
about a unique insight to the Trinity!)
There have been some very radical changes.
I now tend to be more emotional, loving, and communicative.
My wife was rather offended that I had lied to her for that
long, but understands that it was out of the fear of
losing her that I did. She
also understands that the reason I did not tell here about my second
self prior to marriage is that I felt that it would go away with
marriage. So there is
now a period where I must rebuild that trust.
I much prefer telling her the truth.
What a relief, what a luxury being able to share my feelings!
Reality hit when she found out that my second self had a
name, she was reading one of my replies to someone on the TGC list
and saw the signature. I
understand that from that point she realized that there really was a
second spirit involved.
I still find that both sides of my personality are present.
I am more comfortable with myself and Nancy. I am more physically and emotionally demonstrative and loving
with her and others. Things
have in general settled down a lot.
T* issues tend to be a secondary topic of discussion.
Nancy is slowly becoming more comfortable with the whole idea
in general and with seeing Sandi dressed in specific.
Three factors are involved.
Time: She has
met in person some of the people who are on the CDSO list.
Primarily we have found a Tri-ess group in Lansing that we
are comfortable with (Lambda Mu).
This includes a number of Christians with very similar
backgrounds and concerns.
I have
been blessed with a number of very special friends on the internet
and in person I will mention Kristy, Jade. Jeanne, and Jeanne,
Heather Jae, Nancy, and so many others who make me not so alone.
Love
Sandra (Sandi) Stewart.
