Chimes of Freedom? X-Men, Ex-Gays and “The Cure”...

Being the avid movie-goer that I am, almost a season past its copiously-hyped release I finally got to see "X-Men: The Last Stand" yesterday - and boy did I get caught up into it! Now, I’m not a movie critic or analyzer. I can’t even name all the actors and actresses that appeared in this one, ‘cept for that alluring Halle Berry, (whose portrayal of the character "Storm" left me utterly smitten). But I will declare, as probably a thousand before me have already elucidated, that this movie, faithful to the Marvel saga’s tradition it hails from, was all about acceptance and equality. Equality for an odd, misunderstood, but very powerful minority who could not help what they were. That is, until a certain contingent proclaimed near the front of the flick that they had invented a "cure" for the misfit mutants.So here was the golden opportunity for the "freaks" to be normal; to end the hatred and discrimination by taking a serum that would permanently suspend the traits of unwelcome diversity such that any mutant could then quietly be mainstreamed into the general populace. No more drama, zip, zing or zap! Just mundane sameness. Complete assimilation into the milieu that once despised them.Do the mutants unanimously accept The Cure? No - in fact, it causes a schism within their ranks and pits brother against brother as the "normal" people end up mounting an offensive against the whole lot of them for reasons I will not get into here.As I watched the thrilling and quite jolting special effects unfold continually before me, all the while I could not get out of my mind the day not long after the Turn of the Century (the year 2000), when certain friends of mine from Focus on the Family approached me with what they proclaimed was more or less a cure for my Transgenderism, plus any Homosexual tendencies I might obviously have. (They mistakenly teach that both are due to a gender identity problem and can’t seem to get it right that the two conditions can exist mutually exclusive of one another).As I considered the fact that my once very happy marriage was well into an emotionally explosive retrograde by then simply because I’d confessed that I was really a woman inside, a line from a Bob Dylan tune quickly shot through my mind. It went: "As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sound - seeming to be the Chimes of Freedom flashing." Since I deeply loved my spouse and family, and would do anything in order to not lose them; unlike most of the mutants in the X-Men story I opted to cash in my "troublesome" diversity in a last-ditched effort to just be normal. I went for The Cure - and was offered a personal invitation to the next "Love Won Out" conference that was held at the Focus on the Family campus. All I had to do was show up there (not in girl mode, of course) - so I did.I got to meet all the front-runners of that seminar including its chief at the time, the now fallen John Paulk, whom I met with a couple times later during a year’s time for additional direction. The last time I saw him, he was fresh from wiping off the dust of an alleged Ex-Gay relapse scandal, and had stepped down from the helm of the Dobsonian Cure Machine for regretful LGBT-ers. He told me that this was not a cinch to beat - this Gay Thing - but it could indeed be put down. Even in his own failure, he maintained that we could be changed... if we REALLY wanted to be changed.Unlike the anti-mutant Cure on the movie, that instantly neutralized the unwanted tendencies and characteristics of its own accord, I quickly learned that this Cure put the onus upon me. If it failed, I would be saddled with the blame...Therefore, I enlisted in other more invasive and extensive forms of "Reparative Therapy" offered by other nationally-known ministries here in Colorado Springs and elsewhere. Some of these, especially the anti-Transsexual one, cost me a good bit of money before all was said and done. When that didn’t work, I upped the anty and threw myself into "Aversion Therapy". This is where some form of negative stimulus is purposely affixed as a penalty to the undesirable activity, to diminish whatever pleasures you may derive from that "sin". For instance, if I "cross-dressed" (I put that in quotes because a Transsexual woman in a dress is never cross-dressed); my penalty would be to eat hot sauce, which I really cannot tolerate well. Finally, I went through a 12-step course designed for sex addicts because my anti-LGBT handlers assayed to convince me that Transsexuality was some kind of sexual addiction.By Spring of 2004, I was rapidly heading for what would have been the sequel of the nervous breakdown I’d suffered over my gender identity dysphoria back in 1999. The Cure obviously was not working, no matter how hard I wished it would. Like some benevolent version of the all-powerful, dark Phoenix inside the mutant Jean Grey, the girl within me - who actually was the Real Me - could not be held in check anymore. But right before I totally lost it mentally, this time I said "That’s it - enough is enough!" I stopped fighting against myself, cast off the self-imposed chains, fired or walked away from every doctor, "friend", or relative who opposed the woman I was - and never looked back.That date was March 26, 2004. And oh, yeah - that mental collapse I was hanging upon the very cusps of, suddenly never did befall me. All the internal raging sound and fury subsided. Instead, a deep, deep peace rose up from within. I finally felt like I was headed home, as I accelerated down the road to Transition, which I glibly dubbed "Womanhood Drive".I am still upon that highway, walking in a strength and confidence I never ever had before. And even when this hateful society has "rewarded" my Transition with instant firing from my former place of employment back on February 1 - and impending homelessness even now as I speak; I do NOT regret my "decision" to scrap The Cure in order to walk in the truth of who and what I really am.Do I deny the fact that some may have been able to pull away from Gayness or Transgenderism? It is not for me to judge another’s experience. All I know is that The Cure did not work on this "mutant" girl!So call us LGBT-ers weird, queer, or even "X-Men" (in the case of Trans-women) if you like. But there are countless numbers of us out there who did not choose our original state of being. However, we are opting to come out from hiding to be who we truly are no matter what everyone else thinks. The general populace did not need our permission to be who they are - so why should we need theirs to be our beautiful, diverse and powerful selves? I am not promoting any militant coup d’etat like the one I saw depicted in the movie house. The issue here, plain and simple, is Equality - period!"Let the Puppy Moo!" and LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION!