Matt Kailey

Religion can be a huge barrier or a comforting refuge when considering or going through transition. For the very religious, transition can sometimes entail a huge struggle to reconcile the needs of transition with the idea of violating the will of a person’s god. But religion can also be a comfort for those who believe that they are on a path that was designated by their god.

I recently returned from a speaking engagement in the eastern U.S., where I got a few questions from various audiences about religion and spirituality — probably because one of the events involved viewing the film Call Me Malcolm, in which I have a bit part, but which involves a trans man coming to grips with his gender identity and his religious beliefs and becoming ordained as a UCC minister. Another event took place in a church, so religion is naturally on everyone’s mind.

Since I was raised as an atheist, I never had to go through the struggles that others have had to endure over religion versus transition. But I have talked to people who have told me of their struggles, including feelings of being betrayed by their god, concerns about betraying their god, and worries about whether or not they will go to hell if they transition.

I have also been told in the past that God doesn’t make mistakes, and my response is: “If that’s true, then I’m exactly the way I’m supposed to be.”

But while I am still not religious, I have found myself considering my transition in a spiritual sense. Having seen the world from both a female and a male perspective, I have come to realize that there is much more to the world, to the universe, and to life than we perceive on our very limited level.

Both the similarities and the differences between all of us are really just part of one big whole. We all reflect the whole of the universe and how it is supposed to operate. We are not flawed. We are just a reflection of the various types of energy that move through the universe — we can call them masculine and feminine energies if we want, but they are really just energies of many different types that come together to make each thing that exists, and to make it unique and important in its own way.

I am exactly the way I’m supposed to be, as is everyone else. I might wish that the way I was supposed to be was to look like Brad Pitt and to be as smart as Stephen Hawking and to be as rich as Donald Trump, but things just didn’t come together like that.

What did come together was an appreciation of the universal energies that work through all of us and the realization that things are as they are supposed to be. They can’t be any other way. They just are.

I don’t mean that we can’t strive to make changes for the better. I think we’re supposed to do that. I just mean that we are who we are, so we need to be that. One of my favorite quotes (from Dolly Parton, no less) is: “Know who you are and do it on purpose.”

That’s how spirituality figured into my transition.

How about you?