Stories
Linda
‘… at the end, he brought up a programme for healing us. He also emphasised a connection between queerness and sexual abuse and made lots of biblical references. He said, “When God comes in, your queerness goes out.” There was a lot of guilt, a lot of shame. I was terrified.’
Linda, a trans woman in her early twenties, was taken by her parents to a seminar conducted by an ex-trans pastor, Edmund Smith in May 2016.
‘A lot of queer kids were there, dragged there by their parents. The parents were clinging to every word he said, and the kids were just crying…He was saying he [became] a trans woman because his mom said feminine things into the womb. He plays into where people are not educated, plays on their fears and experiences. I was heartbroken. Everyone was crying and upset about being queer.’
She described his sermon:
‘[He said] I was trans because I hated my penis. He presented gender as an influence from the outside, he conflated sexuality and gender identity, he kept emphasising his marriage to a woman, he kept portraying LGBT as a lifestyle, how he’s sick and tired of the “lifestyle,” emphasizing queer people get HIV, gays have sex in parks – and people were just eating it up. At the end, he brought up a programme for healing us. He also emphasised a connection between queerness and sexual abuse and made lots of biblical references. He said, “When God comes in, your queerness goes out.” There was a lot of guilt, a lot of shame. I was terrified.’