Hello Saints and Sinners, this article is more relating to my personal experiences rather than doctrinal statements. So there will not be as many verses from the Bible included in this, though I will make an effort to add a few key passages at the end of this entry that relate to what I have been writing. With that said, let’s get right to it.
So as the title says, I, Strawberry Lemon Hansen, am glad I am a transgender woman. That is a controversial belief to hold even in the trans community itself. “Really Strawberry?” You might ask, “your own community thinks it strange to be happy to be a part of said community?” Well, while they may be happy to have found like minded people in the trans community and even the broader LGBTQIA2S+ community, they are often not particularly glad that they have a transgender identity. They may be glad that they are now aware of their true identity, as they can then take whatever steps seem fit to them to align their behavior or physical body with their truer inner self, but they are still not too happy about being trans.
The most common reasons for being frustrated that you were born transgender is the incredibly prevalent experience of gender dysphoria present in the majority of transgender people’s lives. This gender dysphoria can range from experiences like not being happy with your facial hair as an MTF transgender person, to the much more acute pain of being deeply disturbed by your own genitals. Most protestants agree that gender dysphoria is a real phenomena and people who experience that pain are in need of support and help. Most protestants would say that we should not affirm transgender identities, but that we should also not abandon them in their time of need as it were, and that God has something better for them.
My belief is that the affirmative approach is the most God honoring stance to take, the most loving way to care for transgender Saints and Sinners, and what Jesus himself would do were he here on earth today. See my article “What Is Love?” for more context on my views of what true love looks like. (Hint, often people who are “speaking the truth in love” aren’t in reality speaking the truth, nor are the speaking in love.)
Now for a little more about my personal experiences as that’s what this article is really about. When I first realized I was a transgender woman, and fully accepted my new identity (though I’ve always been trans, I simply didn’t know until February of 2026), I was scared. I didn’t know what being trans held for me. I knew that I experienced gender dysphoria, all be it mine is a more mild case than the majority of trans people experience, and for that I am deeply grateful to God. I knew also, that I experienced a deep sense of gender euphoria when I wore “women’s clothing” (I believe clothes are needlessly gendered [anyone can wear anything they are most comfortable or most happy in]) or put on make up, painted my nails, grew out my hair, and many other stereotypically feminine pursuits of beauty. These two factors, along with the fact that my birth name had become incredibly distressing to me, and by that point I had already changed my name legally to Strawberry Lemon, I knew I was trans.
After discovering I was trans I was quick to come out to my coworkers and close friends. Everyone in the first group of people I told about my identity were all incredibly affirming and accepting, and many of those people have gone on to become some of my closest friends. Two months after accepting for the first time that I am a trans woman, I began my medical transition from male to female on April 24, 2026. Two months after that, when I was beginning to show noticeable breast growth and I would soon not be able to hide my identity from those I knew would be less affirming, I came out to the rest of the people in my life, mostly family.
A week ago I hit the 6 month milestone in my medical transition. Now I will write about what “Trans Joy” and “Gender Euphoria” look like for me. Before I started my transition, I would occasionally clutch at my flat chest and wish I had boobs. Now that I have some breast growth when I touch my chest I feel a deep happiness. Not in a sexual way, I am not sexually attracted to myself as some might believe, but in an outpouring of love for the body God has blessed me with, and an intense gratitude to God for giving me the good gift of HRT. That is one experience I often have that qualifies as trans joy. Another is when strangers gender me correctly, seemingly without second thought. This is incredibly affirming. On the slightly darker side, when strangers verbally harass me, calling slurs like “faggot”, or when they view me as a woman and cat call me, not knowing I am transgender, I get what the community calls “ewwwphoria” which is characterized by both thinking “ewww that was a gross thing for that person to say to me” yet also feeling strangely affirmed in your gender identity.
I give God praise often that I am free to wear feminine clothing and present myself to society in the way that best matches my inner being. Some Christians believe that all trans people hate their bodies, and by medically transitioning they are acting on that hate, damaging it beyond repair, and in some cases “mutilating” it. This couldn’t be further from the truth. While many trans people do hate specific things about their bodies, not many of us hate everything about our bodies, and as we align our bodies with our minds we become increasingly relieved of dysphoria and can often later find a deep sense of gratitude for our body after a second puberty has worked its magic.
Most protestants would believe that God created puberty. When a boy “becomes a man”, or a girl “becomes a woman” they see this as a beautiful thing and a natural part of God’s created order. Some teach that we should all be grateful for the bodies God has given us, nourishing and caring for our flesh in a way that glorifies God. This teaching is said with only cisgender (not trans) people in mind. These same people believe that when a trans person goes through their second puberty they are acting in defiance of God’s created order… even though it’s the same process, simply in the opposite direction as the first one. Sex hormones exist in both males and females. Males have both estrogen and testosterone in their bodies naturally, with testosterone being the dominant hormone of the two. Females have both testosterone and estrogen in their bodies naturally, with estrogen being the dominant hormone of the two. So when people call HRT “cross-sex hormones” it’s really quite dishonest. My transition is not an attempt to change my sex or to “cross to the other sex”. It is simply to align my body with my God given gender (woman).
Another common misconception is that all trans people who believe in God believe that he somehow made a mistake in the way he created them. Now, I’m not sure I believe that God exerts complete control over the formation of every person in the womb, I think it’s possible the verses commonly used to back that viewpoint were actually addressed specifically to the people God said those words to, such as David and Jeremiah. My belief is that while God IS all powerful, he acts more commonly by setting courses of events into motion rather than by grand, divine intervention. Anyway, even if I were to believe that God knew me before I was born, and crafted my body in my mother’s womb, I would still believe it is right for me to affirm my trans identity, and pursue medical transition.
I believe God has lead me to discovering my identity, that he has lead me to pursue medical transition, because in doing so I am most happy in him, and he is most glorified. We do not rebuke a Saint who has a bad knee when he gets a knee replacement surgery, we do not rebuke a Saint when she gets Lasik to help her see, we do not rebuke a Saint when they need a C-Section to save the life of their child. These were all at some point cutting edge medical technology, but now they are completely normal to us, we don’t even think twice. In the case of someone born with poor eyesight we do not blame them for fixing that flaw with medical intervention. So why then do we shame transgender people for accepting medical intervention in the form of gender affirming care that very often saves lives?
I will now end this article with some scripture passages that I indirectly referenced previously.
Genesis 1:27 NRSVUE -
So God created humans in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:31 NRSVUE -
God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Deuteronomy 22:5 NRSVUE -
A woman shall not wear a man’s apparel, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for whoever does such things is abhorrent to the Lord your God.
Psalm 139:13 NRSVUE -
For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Isaiah 44:2 NRSVUE -
Thus says the Lord who made you,
who formed you in the womb and will help you:
Do not fear, O Jacob my servant,
Jeshurun whom I have chosen.
Jeremiah 1:5 NRSVUE -
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
Galatians 3:28 NRSVUE -
There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
1 Corinthians 6:12 NRSVUE -
“All things are permitted for me,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are permitted for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.
Acts 13:39 NRSVUE -
by this Jesus everyone who believes is set free from all those sins from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.
Romans 5:20 NRSVUE -
But law came in, so that the trespass might increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,
Romans 6:1-4 NRSVUE -
What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.
John 9:39-41 NRSVUE -
Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.
Romans 2:12 NRSVUE -
All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged in accordance with the law.