Exodus International - A Man Reclaimed

I was born one sultry July day, in a small Louisiana town in 1954. “It’s a boy!” the doctor announced as he handed me to my exhausted and frightened mother who had delivered me three months too early. She held me only briefly before they whisked me away to the hospital nursery to be in isolation for the next six months

They sent my mother home and only allowed her short visits with me as I struggled to survive and grow. People did not know then about the significance of bonding between a mother and child the first few hours and days for a child’s development. I am convinced that the separation and isolation I experienced at birth helped to set the stage for the direction my life would take in years to come.

At some point in my family’s history, an initial intrusion of sexual molestation of a child had taken place. That child had grown to perpetuate sexual abuse on the next generation, therefore instituting a generational curse on my family. An older male relative victimized me beginning at the age of seven and continued for years. This event marked the beginning of a dark journey that would take me as far from God as anyone can be.

Until very recently, I remembered little about my early childhood and adolescence. I found a pattern in my past that mirrors that of many who are sexually broken: poor or no relationship with mother and/or father, early sexual trauma resulting in great shame and low self-esteem, and a number of circumstantial events which served to drive me farther into my gender confusion.

At the age of 10, some boys at camp gang raped me. This experience compounded the deep-seated hatred and anger I already felt toward men. Yet it was a twisted way to receive someof the affection I craved, so I embraced it as a tool. In junior
high, I had sex with a number of other boys and some adult males. Even while engaging in such behavior, I did not see myself as homosexual. I had strongly negative feelings about both men and women, and perceived that women were stronger and more in control than men. Desiring that strength, I believed that I needed not only to play the sexual role of female, I needed to actually become female.

In 1970, my family moved to a new part of town and I began high school. The next two years turned out to be the “eye of the storm” for me. I loved school, joined several clubs, made friends and good grades and all was well. Then, our house burned down. My family subsequently split up, my parents divorced and I moved with my mother back to the old neighborhood.

During that year, I became involved with some drug use. I soon had my own place, and entered a short-term relationship with an older man. He provided the attention and affection I had been seeking, but soon left me for a friend of mine. I was devastated and my heart began to harden with more hatred and anger.

When I graduated from high school, I decided to break awayfrom everything I hated about my past and myself. I moved toNew Orleans and began living and working as a woman in the nightclub scene. I was taking drugs all the time to stay as numb as possible and soon added female hormones. Satan’s stronghold on my life was such that I could see no other course for my life than a complete sex change operation. I believed God had made a mistake and given me the physical attributes of a man, and I determined to set things “right.”

In late 1975, I moved to San Francisco to undergo counseling for a sex change operation. Over the next few years, I moved around, got into more drugs, and entered into prostitution. I picked up a new habit: alcohol. I began a long-term addiction that ironically would one day bring me to salvation.

In the mid 1970s, that day was far in the future. Determined to experience my metamorphosis, I had breast implants done to move me closer to my complete physical transformation. In October of 1979, I underwent a sex change operation at a hospital in Colorado, and became JoAnna.

In the spring of 1980, a lifelong dream came true for me when I was married for the first time in a beautiful Jewish ceremony. My husband adored his new bride, but the novelty of a monogamous relationship wore off for me quickly. I was still early in my life as a “real woman” and felt that I had to prove myself as such. I was constantly unfaithful until I realized how I was being unfair; so I asked for a divorce.

A second engagement ended when my fiancée found out the truth of my past. The next few years were a downward spiral of drug use and alcoholism. I felt more lonely and depressed than ever, and remember thinking for the first time about death and what happens afterward. Raised a Catholic, I believed in life after death and in heaven and hell. At that time in my life, I was convinced that if I were to die, I would go to hell. It was a disturbing realization but I was still not ready to seek the change that was coming.

In 1986, I returned home to LaFayette. It was a horrible time. I practiced my usual method of self-medication to keep the spiritual and emotional pain at bay and my promiscuity reached new heights as I desperately tried to fill the emptiness in my heart. I was alone in the world.

On Halloween of that year, I was involved in a car accident while under the influence of alcohol. Nearly killing myself and my passengers, I faced criminal charges of DUI and found myself, finally, at the end of my rope. I cried out in desperation to God, confessed my need and begged Him to show Himself to me.

Within one month, God delivered me from drugs, alcohol, and promiscuous sexual sin. As God began to work in my life, I began to long even more for my old dream of home and family. Although I realize now that it was never God’s will for me to change my gender, I also believe that He used the circumstances to take place in my life to bring me to the truth of His will for my life.

In 1988, I met a single man with two children. We all moved to Marietta, Georgia, where I married for the second time. God allowed me to experience unconditional love for the first time in my life for the next six years. My family and I were very involved in our local church and I set out to recreate myself yet again – into the perfect Christian wife and mother. I attended Bible studies, served on church committees and opened our home to Christian friends and neighbors. No one knew that I was transgendered; they knew and accepted me as a Christian woman raising a family.

As perfect as my life seemed from the outside, I was still struggling inside. As my husband and I grew in our relationship to the Lord, it began to become apparent that our relationship with each other was outside of God’s will for both our lives.

In 1994, in an extremely painful moment, I went to my husband and told him that I wanted to have everything the Bible promised for a blessed marriage and family, and in our relationship, that could never happen. He agreed to seek out God’s will and soon came to the same realization I had, and found healing from his own brokenness. In an act of obedience, we ended our marriage to allow God to continue the healing work in our lives.

Saying goodbye to the man who I believed had rescued me from a lonely life of despair and to his children was one of the hardest things ever. God promised me that He would stand by me throughout my journey to healing and He has kept His word.

I returned to Louisiana continuing to live as JoAnna, but I could feel the Lord moving me toward a new understanding of who I was in His eyes. It took three years, but the morning of May 20, 1997, God spoke clearly to me and showed me that I was worshipping an idol over Him - my false feminine identity. I had been an emotional female for as long as I could remember, and physically a woman for 18 years; in my revelation, I realized that none of that mattered. God had not made a mistake when He created me as a man. In His eyes, I had never been anything else. That supernatural knowledge marked another crucial turning point in my life. I was on my way toward Joseph, the man that God intended me to be.

In 1997, I moved to Kentucky to participate in a ministry program called Crossover to facilitate my healing. Although I was still living as JoAnna, I was honest and open about my past and my true gender. After being at Crossover for a year and a half, I felt the strong call of God to a 40-day fast to prepare me for the next part of my spiritual journey.

The culmination of that powerful time with God was that in January of 1999, I took up my true identity again and began to live as Joseph Cluse. Living as a man for the first time in 25 years was extremely frightening and difficult. It was hard for the people who had known me as JoAnna to accept me as Joseph. It was hard for even my Christian friends to comprehend the brokenness that, with God’s help, I was
overcoming.

Through my experience with Crossover and Exodus freedom conferences, I have come to see the common bond between all people in thier bondage to sin of one kind or another. Those whose brokenness manifests itself in sexual ways - promiscuity, sexual addiction, pornography addiction, frigidity, homosexuality and lesbianism, transvestite or transsexual behavior - all share some common traits and experiences in their lives; common psychological and social patterns that can leave an individual vulnerable to sexual sin. This understanding has opened up for me a new world of understanding and empathy for my fellow man. I desire to share the truth I have learned on my journey so that others may find hope in what I now know to be true – with God nothing is impossible.

I strayed so far from the perfect will of God - abandoning my own identity in an effort to find happiness and peace of mind. Nevertheless, the blood of Jesus delivered me and set me free. My purpose has become to share with the broken-hearted, the despised and rejected, the misunderstood and the miserable.
No matter what the brokenness of your heart – whether sexual sin or some other manifestation of the fallen nature of humanity – until that sin is laid at the foot of the cross of Christ, it holds you in bondage.

I am witness to the incredible truth of the Gospel – you can be free! No matter where you are, He can find you and bring you home. Believe the good news, dear friends; in Christ there is hope!

Joseph Cluse shared his powerful testimony the Exodus freedom Conference 2004. He serves with CrossOver Ministries, an Exodus Member Ministry in Lexington, KY. You can find out about them by visiting www.crossover-inc.org or calling (859) 971- 0006.

This article and photographs are used with permission. Original written by Erin Milburn, printed in The Christian Voice, November 2001 edition, a monthly Christian newspaper in Harrodsburg, Kentucky.

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