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Story of Joseph Cluse- Journey out of Transgenderism
It was 1954, on a hot July day in a small hospital in Louisiana. A young woman had just delivered her new baby, but worry overrode joy.
Mrs. Cluse was scared. It wasn't time, it was too soon.
She fell back against the pillows, wrung out with exhaustion, barely able to register the white coated doctor approaching her bed.
"It's a boy!", he announced placing the tightly wrapped bundle in her arms. But just as quickly, her son was whisked away to the nursery, to be placed in isolation for the next six months. Little Joseph had been born three months before his due date. His little life hung in the balance; his parents wrought with pain.
For the next several weeks, his mother was only permitted short visits, as he struggled to live and to grow.
Joseph is convinced today, that the separation between he and his mother at birth, the lack of physical and emotional contact between them as mother and son, has had a great impact and had greatly contributed to the painful story of his life. His life as a trans-sexual.
Joseph had always struggled to fit in, to be the man he was to be. Even as a child, he recognized himself as someone different.
At the age of seven, he was molested by a male relative. This continued for several agonizing years.
At the age of 10, at a kid's camp, a group of boys, gang raped him. This traumatizing experience only fed the fire of his anger towards men. His self-esteem plummeted, he felt immense shame that began to drive him further into gender confusion.
In junior high, he began experimenting with numerous boys, even a few adult males. Though he knew it was wrong, it was a twisted way of receiving the attention and affection that he craved. He found that using sex as the outlet for inward pain was pleasurable. He didn't have to think, he didn't have to feel.
Even as he engaged in this degrading behavior, time and again, he never thought of himself as a homosexual. That was something other people, weird people were.
He had strong feelings, negative feelings about both men and women, and it was his perception that women was stronger and more in control of their feelings than men. He began to desire that strength. Not only to play the role of a female, but to actually become a female.
In 1970, he and his family moved to another part of town, where he was enrolled in high school. The two years that followed spiraled him into confusing chaos. He had joined several clubs in school, made lots of friends; maintained good grades-everything seemed to be going great.
Then the trials came. A house fire engulfed their home, burning it to the ground. As a result, his family began to split. His parents divorced and he moved in with his mother in their previous neighborhood.
Within that year, he began experimenting with drugs. It wasn't long before he had his own place, and had entered a short term relationship with an older man.
Joseph craved the affection and attention the man provided, his heart, not his head leading him deeper and deeper into the friendship. But then he learned that of the man unfaithfulness and that he had left him for a friend of his.
Joseph was devastated. His world was crumbling all around him. His heart began to harden and the anger and the hatred increased until it took over his soul.
He graduated from high school, bitter and feeling more and more alone. He hated his past. He hated himself and all that he had become.
Moving to New Orleans, he began working and living as a woman in a nightclub.
He began taking drugs on a regular basis to keep that feeling of numbness, so he didn't have to think, to feel or remember. Soon he began adding female hormones as well.
Satan now had such a stronghold on his life that he could see no way out. He had to have a sex change operation. He believed in his heart that God had made a mistake and given him the physical attributes of a man, but the desire and heart of a woman. He was determined to "set things right."
In late 1975, Joseph moved to San Francisco and began to undergo counseling for the much desired operation.
As the years progressed, he began to move around. He couldn't stay in one place too long, he would begin to remember.
He delved into more drugs and eventually entered the black web of prostitution. He started drinking until be became a full fledged alcoholic. Ironically, it was this long-term addiction that eventually brought him to his knees and to salvation later in life.
Determined to be the "woman" Joseph felt he should have been created to be, he had breast implants inserted. He was one step closer to the complete physical transformation he lived for.
In the fall of 1979, he underwent the sex change operation in Trinidad, Colorado. It was here that he became, JoAnna.
In the spring of 1980, his lifelong dream came true. He met and married a wonderful Jewish man.
'JoAnna's' husband adored her. He showered her with love and appreciation. He was everything 'JoAnna' could hope for. But the novelty of being committed to one person for the rest of her life, wore off quickly. 'JoAnna' felt it was far too early in her life as a "real woman" to settle down just yet and set out to prove that to herself. She began cheating on her husband, sneaking around behind his back to meet other people. Until finally she realized how unfair it was to put her husband through this pain and suffering. She then asked for a divorce.
A short time later she became engaged, yet again. Only to have it end when her fiancée' discovered the truth of her past.
The next few years 'JoAnna' moved deeper into the world of drug use and alcoholism, becoming fully immersed in it.
She felt more lonely and depressed than ever. She began to think, for the first time about death and the aftermath. Raised Catholic, she knew all about heaven and hell and there wasn't a doubt, should she die, that she would go to hell. This realization greatly disturbed her, causing sleepless nights, an uncomfortable unsettling about her spiritual condition, but it wasn't enough for her to change from her ways, ways that had grown comfortable and familiar to her.
In 1986, 'JoAnna' returned home to LaFayette. It was a horrible experience. She applied her usual method of self-medication to ward off the emotional and spiritual pain. Her promiscuity reached new heights as she strove to find ways to fill that empty void in her heart. She felt all alone; no one cared.
It was one evening, on Halloween that 'JoAnna' came to the end of her rope. While driving beneath the influence of alcohol, she nearly killed herself as well as her passengers in the car.
She now faced criminal charges of DUI.
In sheer desperation, she cried out to God. Tears flowing down her face, she confessed the need of her heart, begging God to give her one more chance, to show Himself to her.
God heard and answered that plea. Within one month, 'JoAnna' was delivered of all drugs, alcohol and the promiscuous sexual sin!
As God began to work in her life, longings of having a home and a family began to stir within her once again.
Today, Joseph realizes now, that it wasn't God's will to change his gender, but he also believes that He used the circumstances that had taken place in his life to draw him to Christ.
In 1988, 'JoAnna' met a single man who fathered two children. It wasn't long before they married and moved to Marietta, Georgia.
For the first time in her life, 'JoAnna' experienced the freedom of unconditional love for her family. They became very involved in their local church and loved among many.
'JoAnna' began the journey of recreating herself again- into the perfect Christian wife and mother. She started attending Bible studies, serving on church committees. She even opened their home to Christian friends and neighbors.
No one knew that she was transgendered. They loved and accepted her as what they knew- a Christian woman striving to raise a family.
Their lives appeared to be perfect on the outside, but inside 'JoAnna', a silent struggle waged on.
As she and her husband grew closer in their relationship to God, it became clear to them both that their relationship with each other was outside of God's will.
In 1994, 'JoAnna' knew what she had to do. Her heart heavy with shame, regret and fear, she approached her husband. She shared with him, God's leading. She told him that she wanted everything the Bible promised for a happy blessed marriage and family. But that within their relationship, this could never take place.
Tears were shared between them. 'JoAnna' knew she was losing her husband.
He agreed to seek God's will, concerning their marriage and it wasn't long before he came to the realization as she had-they had to end their marriage.
It was one of the hardest things she had ever done, ending the marriage to a man who held her dreams, her happiness. The man who had rescued her from a life of despair. Leaving his children, their children, to seek God's will in blind faith.
'JoAnna' clung to the promise, God had made to her, as she stepped out in obedience. The promise that He would stand by her through her journey to healing.
He kept His word.
'Jo Anna' returned to Louisiana, but saddenly to continue the charade of her life as a woman.
She could feel the Lord leading her to a life and understanding of who she was in His eyes. A man.
It took three years. On the morning of May 20, 1997, she heard the clear Voice of God as he showed her that she had been unknowingly worshipping an idol instead of Him- her false feminine identity.
She had been emotionally female for as long as she could remember, and physically a woman for 18 years. How could she abandon all that she had known to enter a life she knew would be difficult, if not impossible to acquire?
But she knew that none of what felt right, mattered. God didn't make mistakes, and he didn't make one when he created her as a man. In His eyes, she had never been anything else.
This supernatural knowledge was a crucial turning point in her life. She began the journey to finding her true identity-as Joseph.
In 1997, Joseph moved to Kentucky to participate in Crossover, a ministry dedicated to those seeking healing from transgenderism.
Although still carrying the name 'JoAnna', he was open and honest about his past and his true gender.
A year and a half later, Joseph felt the strong calling to undergo a 40-day fast. Little did he know that he was being prepared for the next step of his spiritual journey.
It was in January of 1999, that he embraced his true identity and began to live as Joseph Cluse.
For the first time in 25 years, he was living as a man. It was a frightening and difficult time, sometimes beyond bearable.
Those who had known him as JoAnna, found it extremely difficult to associate him with this new persona. Even his Christian friends found it hard to comprehend this brokenness.
"I had my breast implants removed as part of the process of walking in wholeness," Joseph says. "I'm not going back to that dreaded identity. I'm going forward to be the man God intended me to be before the fall."
Through his ongoing experience with Crossover and Exodus ministries, Joseph had come to know and see the common bond between those in bondage to sin. Those with any brokenness often find that it manifests itself in sexual ways- pornography, sexual addiction, promiscuity, homosexuality, lesbianism, transvestite or transsexual behavior.
They all share the common traits and behavior in their lives; the same social and psychological patterns that leave them vulnerable to sinning, using sex as their outlet for pain and loneliness and frustration.
With this new knowledge in hand, Joseph felt a strong empathy for his fellow man. He had a sincere desire to share the truths he had learned on his journey out of transgenderism. He desired for others to hear his story so that they too could find hope and know what he found to be true- that with God, nothing is impossible.
"God has touched my heart and showed me the truth," says Joseph. "Relationships are destroyed and everyday I have to live with scars. The mirror is ever before me."
But he goes on to say, "Nevertheless, the blood of Jesus delivered me and set me free."
This story should give any struggler out there hope- Hope that is found in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Hope that change IS possible!
Joseph travels the world today, sharing his glowing testimony of God's wonderful grace. He serves with CrossOver ministries, an Exodus member ministry in Lexington, KY. To find more information on either of these ministries visit their site at www.crossover-inc.org or call them at (859) 971-0006
article by- Jorene Haight
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