High on
prescription drugs and four days without sleep, Michael
Berke of Delray Beach, Fla., raced his Harley to
the megachurch where he had found a home.
He barged into
the church office, wearing a mesh shirt printed with
profanity. In his hands he held a picture of a curvy woman
with long red hair and pouty lips.
''This is who I
used to be,'' he said. ''And this'' -- he gestured to his
flat chest, bald head, and red goatee -- "'is who I've
become.''
He was born a
man. After a lifetime as a social misfit, he had
transformed himself into Michelle, a saucy redhead. Then,
three months ago, he had become Michael again -- with
the financial aid and spiritual encouragement of
Calvary Chapel of Fort Lauderdale.
Now he wanted to
be Michelle again, and he blamed Calvary for making him
the man he had become.
*
* *
It has never been
about sex. And the new clothes and 45 pairs of shoes
were fun but not fulfilling.
Berke wanted
friendship -- the kind women have.
He dreamed of
shopping together and gossiping in the bathroom. ''I always
admired how girls can hold hands, girls can hug, cuddle, and
there's nothing abnormal about it. It's not sexual,''
he says. ''The whole girl lifestyle is just so much
more social and caring and loving and understanding.''
His life had not
been a happy one. Kids at school teased him because he
was different, so he rebelled and often got in trouble.
Michael left home
and a strained relationship with his parents at 19,
living on the streets and flitting from job to job. He
worked as a techie for Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson,
followed by odd jobs at a veterinarian's office, at a
tanning salon, and as a nail technician. He drank,
used drugs.
Berke has never
felt comfortable around men -- he was repelled by the
angry, macho, emotionless male stereotype. He isn't
attracted sexually to men either and says he has never
had sex with one.
In 2003, at age
39, he became Michelle.
He spent about
$80,000, maxing out his credit cards on surgery and
provocative women's clothes. He got a nose job, a brow lift,
and fat injections in his cheeks. His primary care
physician gave him hormones, and after a year he got
breast implants.
Michael kept his
penis; that surgery cost too much, and he still
identified himself as a heterosexual. (He's had
relationships with women and says he's still hoping to
meet one with whom he could spend his life.)
The
transformation was easy, a dream. He had few friends as
Michael and no steady job, so there was no awkward
explanation to coworkers.
Michelle loved
pretty things. She made friends easily and was a great
dancer; Michael would have never stepped on the dance floor.
Michelle talked
to her mom and sister for the first time in years. She
even flew to Cincinnati one Thanksgiving holiday and met her
niece and nephew for the first time. She went to
Narcotics Anonymous meetings for women and
''completely emotionally understood and identified with
their feelings.''
But even as
Michelle, the same old problems crept in.
''I was still the
same person inside. Michelle was just the exterior,''
Michael says.
She was depressed
and suicidal and prone to cutting herself. She threw up
her food trying to fit into her jeans, eventually dropping
from a size 12 to a 7. She struggled with drugs and
alcohol, just like Michael.
By 2005, Michelle
had tried everything else, ''so why not God?'' A friend
invited her to church.
*
* *
An evangelical
church with about 20,000 members -- one of the largest in
the state -- Calvary Chapel has a local reputation for
embracing gay parishoners. Its several gay and
transgender participants are not allowed to serve in
church leadership but are welcome to attend services where a
Bible-based message teaches sex is supposed to be reserved
for marriage between a man and woman.
Many evangelical
churches have evolved from fire and brimstone preaching
against gay and transgender people and now view those
members as having a psychological illness much like
depression -- something that must be dealt with
spiritually, says Melissa Wilcox, assistant professor of
religion and director of gender studies at Whitman College
in Walla Walla, Wash. Of course, the psychological
establishment has long disputed the notion that
homosexuality is a mental illness.
''The churches
that only see it as sin would not be welcoming to someone
like Michael at all,'' said Wilcox, author of Coming Out
in Christianity: Religion, Identity, and
Community. ''It's a way of living out their beliefs of
you love the sinner and you hate the sin. Since the
early '90s that's increasingly been the direction that
a lot of evangelicals have moved in ... because it
offers hope.''
Michelle loved
the upbeat music and the feel-good sermons.
Everybody seemed
so nice. They put her in a special women's Bible study
group, so Michelle would feel more comfortable. Her new
friends showed her videos about a gay man who became a
woman and then a man again, and married a woman with
whom he had children and lived happily.
You can have that
too, they said.
They said
''you'll be able to meet a wonderful woman and get married,
and that's what pulled at my heartstrings because I
really wanted that,'' Michael recalls. ''I thought I
was doing the right thing.''
By the time
Michelle first met Calvary Chapel pastor Bob Coy, she was
self-conscious about the D-size breasts she had had for over
a year and had started wearing baggy men's shirts to
hide them.
During the altar
call one Sunday, Berke found God. And several weeks
later, Michelle told church leaders she wanted to become a
man again.
''This is a man
with tears in his eyes who asked for help,'' says Coy, a
bearded, charismatic leader whose own story is one of
redemption from drinking, drug-taking, and the
excesses of life in the music industry.
Church leaders
spent weeks counseling Michelle. They brought her to their
thrift store, allowed her to pick out a new wardrobe of
men's clothes for free, says Craig Huston, a church
employee. And they arranged for a plastic surgeon, a
member of the church, to remove her breast implants at
no charge.
When do you want
to have the surgery? the doctor asked.
''Tomorrow,''
Michelle joked.
The doctor
penciled her in for 10 a.m. And just like that, Michelle was
gone, Michael says sadly.
*
* *
The regrets came
quickly.
Michael turned to
the Bible and other theological books but found more
questions. He questioned the validity of the resurrection
and the belief that there was only one true religion.
Three months
later he stopped going to church and started partying again.
He downed handfuls of pills and chased them with vodka in
what he said was a suicide attempt.
That's when he
rode his Harley back to the church and confronted the
leadership. Michael, now 43, says he was cajoled into the
decision to become a man again; he was the church's
''pet project.''
Coy says the
church had no agenda with Michael. He asked. It helped.
''I'm aware of
the legal ramifications and the spiritual ramifications if
someone was forced to do anything,'' Coy says. ''Anything
that we have helped Michael with, he's asked for. The
hours of time that different leaders have spent
pouring into his life ...''
Like the time
Michael bought a motorcycle and lit it on fire. The church
sent the bike ministry over to help. One of the guys even
lent Michael his bike, says Huston.
''He goes in
these waves where he goes from one emotional extreme to the
other,'' Huston says.
He says Michael
was the one who asked for the surgery and pressed to have
it done quickly.
''We encouraged
him, but he initiated it,'' Huston says.
*
* *
Looking at
Michael today, it's hard to tell Michelle ever existed or
that he still longs for her.
His head is
shaved. There is a faint, rainbow-shaped scar on his
forehead where he had the brow lift.
His red goatee is
long and gnarly. He favors jeans, muscle tees, and
black combat boots. His mannerisms aren't feminine; his
voice is low, his gaze direct.
He attends a
couple of Narcotics Anonymous meetings a day, just to get
by.
Sitting in the
home his estranged father bought him, Michael listens to
opera and chain-smokes Camel Reds. He talks about Michelle's
favorite strappy heels and pink lingerie like they are
old friends. She loved to shop and nearly bankrupted
Michael, he says. Her clothes went to her best friend,
Rachel; it's too painful to keep her finery around now.
The only
reminders are in Michael's bathroom -- a hot pink rug,
butterfly towels, a vase of flowers, and a white
vanity mirror where Michelle did her makeup.
Realistically, he
knows he can't become Michelle again.
''If I do it
again people are going to think I'm even more unstable,'' he
says. His mom and sister stopped talking to him, he says,
when he switched back to Michael.
He talks about
going back to college to study psychology or maybe writing
books about his life. He doesn't work, relying on money from
his father and disability checks because of a knee
injury.
He vacillates
moment to moment, between depression and hope.
''I still
struggle just living on a daily basis,'' he says.
Then, minutes
later: ''Maybe I just need to meet the right woman and have
a relationship. Really, I'm without any sense of direction
right now.'' (AP)
