Taking Off The Mask
by John Paulk
Dressing
as a woman gave me the popularity and acceptance I
craved. I was proud to be a female impersonator. The
ability to be beautiful became all that mattered in
my life.
My
parents divorced when I was five. My Dad took my
sister, Vicky, and me to a park, knelt down beside
us and told us goodbye. It was a traumatic day I’ll
never forget. For the rest of my childhood, I lived
with a continuous insecurity that the people I loved
would always be walking out of my life.
Around other boys, I felt terribly insecure and
different. I just couldn’t measure up to their expectations,
and because I wasn’t good in sports and was effeminate,
they called me names like “fag,” “queer,” and “sissy.”
My friend, Jim, and I started drinking alcohol when
we were 14. From the start, my goal was to get drunk
and I did every time. I drank to numb the pain inside,
and it provided a temporary escape from my feelings
of self-hatred and inadequacy.
When I was 15, a girl from school told me about
the Lord while we were talking on the telephone
one day. I believed everything she said about the
Bible. After hanging up the phone, I knelt down and asked Jesus into my heart.
I sought the Lord fervently after that, but since
no one else in my family was a believer, I backslid
after six months. It would be another ten years
before I cried out to God for help.
When
I was a senior in high school, a friend took me
to a gay bar for the first time. A whole new world
opened up to me. All the attention I got from other
men was overwhelming. I felt like I’d walked into
heaven!
I
soon fell in love with a guy named Curt. Our sexual
relationship seemed so natural, and I slipped into
the gay lifestyle and let go of my childhood dream
of having a wife and family.
But as time went by, my relationship with Curt began
to deteriorate and we split up after a year. Once
again, I lost someone who I thought would stay with
me forever. Our breakup was so hard on me that I
dropped out of college and moved back home with
my mother.
My drinking increased, and I became so miserable
that I tried to take my life. The suicide attempt
failed, and to find help, I sought out a gay psychologist
to help put my troubled life back together.
Due
to my poor self-image, and to pay my escalating
bills, I started working with an all-night escort
service as a male prostitute. I’d be dropped off
at a hotel room and sell my body for $80 an hour.
My clients who couldn’t face their closeted homosexuality
used drugs like acid and cocaine,
and freely gave them to me. It is only by God’s
grace that I didn’t get addicted.
By the end of that summer, I was emotionally burned
out. I remember crying myself to sleep after I came
home from allowing myself to be sexually used all
night.
Another significant event happened in my life that
summer. I saw a male friend in a gay bar, dressed
like a woman. His feminine appearance looked so
real, I could not believe it. I was fascinated and
one night he put makeup and a wig on me. When I
looked in the mirror, I was astonished to see a
beautiful “woman” looking back at me. That night
I got high and went to the bar. My real identity
was hidden. No one knew it was me under my “mask.”
That night completely changed my life. Over the
next three years I threw everything into being the
best woman I could. I was proud to be a drag queen,
and
adopted the name “Candi.” I quickly became popular
in the realm of female impersonation.
In
that world, the ability to be beautiful and look
convincing as a woman was all that mattered. Others
told me I was one of the best, and my reputation
began spreading to neighboring states. But inside,
I still hated myself and one night while on the
dance floor
I said to God, “I know You can help me. Some day
I’ll come back to You.”
In
October 1985, my psychologist confronted me about
my heavy drinking. I began attending Alcoholics
Anonymous meetings. A.A. was the beginning of my
return to the Lord.
After six months of sobriety, my head began to clear.
I opened up my closet door and looked at the rows
of dresses, wigs, high heels, makeup, and jewelry
I had accumulated for three years.
“Candi, I don’t need you anymore,” I said. “I’m
saying goodbye.” I put everything in a cardboard
box and threw it into a dumpster. It felt like ten
tons was being lifted off my back.
‘You’ll
be back,” my
drag friends said to me. "You will
always be a drag queen.
“Just watch me!” I retorted. “I’ll never do drag
as long as I live.” I still haven't to this day.
Very shortly after that, a college pastor asked
if he could talk to me. Tom came to my apartment
and told me about Jesus. I stopped him after 20
minutes.
“I know all about the Gospel,” I told him. “I used
to be a Christian when I was 15. But I was born
gay, so forget it!”
‘No,
you weren’t,” Tom answered and read from Genesis
2: “And God created man...male and female...
And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it
was very good.” The truth came shining through.
I was convinced that homosexuality was not something
I was born with or something I had to stay in.
That week, I dug out my Bible arid started to read
it again. After wrestling with the decision for
days, I knelt down beside my bed.
“God, I don’t know how to get out of homosexuality, but I will follow You. No matter how difficult
it gets, I’ll never turn away from You again.” It
was Feb. 10, 1987. I had found Someone who would
never leave me.
I’d been going to a gay A.A. meeting seven days
a week, and had many friends in the group. Even
though I kept going, something inside of me was
different now. One night the topic of whether gays
go to heaven came up. “It doesn’t matter if we’re
gay or straight,” I told them. “If we believe in
Jesus Christ we’ll go to heaven.’
My friends were shocked; they’d never heard me say
such a thing before. This was the start of my separation
from gay life.
I began cleaning up my apartment. I erased porn
videos and threw away hundreds of dollars’ worth
of other homosexual paraphernalia. I wrote a letter
to my gay friends, telling them of my conversion.
Most of them I never heard from again.
My friend Tom stressed the importance of discipline,
especially reading the Bible daily and praying.
But I was still very lonely.
He took me to church, but I was terribly afraid
of rejection by straight men.
Three months later, I found the book Beyond Rejection
by Don Baker. I took it home and devoured it in
one day. In the back was an address for a ministry
called Love In Action, and I wrote for information.
Soon after, I received a packet of information about
their one-year residential program. I completed
an application and began praying desperately that
the Lord would send me there. Love In Action seemed
like my last hope.
Weeks went by. Finally, in October, the phone call
came that I’d been accepted into the program. I
was elated! As I made plans to move to San Rafael,
the Lord reminded me how much I’d grown during that
first year of struggle. When I left for California,
my mother said, “John, you’ve worked hard to change
your life this past year. I’m so proud of you.”
“I only had Christ to lean on,” I told her. “He
did the changing—not me.”
I came to Love In Action in December 1987, and it was so
healing. My entire identity had to be rebuilt from
the ground up. I discovered that my concept of God
was distorted, and I had a difficult time accepting
the reality of His total love and acceptance of
me.
Looking back, I see that God wanted to show me my
true identity as a man. Being an excellent female
impersonator was the only pride I had. The concept
of being loved for just being me was totally incomprehensible.
But something began to change. Even though I made
many mistakes during the initial years out of homosexuality,
I clung to the Lord. And sometime during 1988, I
no longer doubted God’s love and acceptance of me.
I also was finally able to forgive my parents for
their emotional neglect and the ways I felt they
had rejected me. I spoke the words out loud to the
Lord and the bitterness began to leave me. The un-forgiveness
which had held me captive to sin for so long was
melting away.
My process out of homosexuality has been slow, but
solid. I realized people didn’t see me as the drag
queen I used to be; they accepted me for who I was
now. I was still dragging Candi around like a ball
and chain. It was time to let her die.
Over the next few years my male friendships grew
to a place where I felt secure in my masculinity
and knew who I was among other men. My homosexual
desires were beginning to fade.
Although Jesus filled the empty places of my heart,
I still felt there was a place for someone else.
In 1991 I fell in love with a beautiful, godly woman
from my church, who also had come from a homosexual
background. We became friends through our involvement
in our church praise and worship team. I admired
her commitment to the Lord and we began to date.
Since dating was new to both of us, we sought counsel
from our pastor. We went through a lot of tough
times working out our gender roles, since both of
us had come from gay backgrounds. Satan tried many
times to stop us from growing toward each other,
but the Lord guided us through each obstacle.
Anne and I were married on July 19, 1992. 1 cried
all the way through our wedding vows, knowing the
Lord was fulfilling my dream. The Lord’s transforming
power was so evident during our wedding that my
mother and step-father prayed to receive the Lord
that night. In the past, I could never say, “I’m
a man.” But now I’m a new creature in Christ; I
can be loved just because I’m His.
In the past, there were many masks I hid behind
to protect myself from being hurt again. But now
I see that they only stood in the way of God’s love
reaching through to me. In Jesus Christ I’ve found
the love and acceptance I was looking for all along.
John Paulk was on staff with Love In Action
from 1989-1993. He and his wife, Anne live in Portland,
Oregon. They have appeared on national television
and radio programs and continue to share the message
of freedom from homosexuality.
Copyright ©1990, 1993 by John Paulk. For information
on speaking engagements call: (503) 638-0413.
