The original Observer article was based on the very real experience of a transwoman, whose story, as it was originally submitted was:

Background story

I was born to parents who where deeply religious from a evangelical christian tradition. I first worked out their was something different about me around the age of 4 or 5 years old as I became aware of the difference between boys and girls. Not having the understanding of what a transsexual was, I had no way of expressing how I felt up to around the age 14.

Once I had expressed these feelings to my parents then the nightmare began.

At first it was just my parents praying for me at home. Then they shared it with the church they belonged to and I had many people pray over me to remove the demons (as they called it).

Convinced I was demonicly possessed, my parents made the decision to move to Bedford, because of this woman (Stroud) that had come back from Hong Kong and had the power to set me free!

So I moved away from everything I had known school, friends and my extended family.

Christian counselling with Stroud

From the very first session with Stroud, I found her to be a very different kettle of fish to any other person I had seen. First off she wanted me to know all my thinking was wrong, I was wrong and the so called demons inside me was wrong. The session ended with her and others praying over me calling out the demons.

Over the coming months began to believe this stuff was true, as they slowly brain washed me. You are rewarded for conforming to this stuff so when they prayed you fall over just as you have seen others do for the positive attention they give you. I would hate myself for feeling the way I did about my gender, so I would end up telling Stroud and the praying and being fasted would start up again. Looking back on it they re-programmed me in the same way any cult would of done and taught me to hate myself. The feelings about my gender never went away I just learned to hate them and myself.

I continued with Stroud until I joined the RAF in an attempt to prove I was a man.

The long term effects of all this

The re-programming they did on me made me jump into everything masculine. I was taught to stay away from doing anything feminine that might feed those feelings. So I became a hard drinking 16 pints a session gunner in the RAF regiment a typical Rock Ape as all members of the RAF regiment are called. I did all these thing not because I wanted to but I had to always prove my masculinity so I had to be better than my male contemporaries.

But denying my true self caused me deep depressions too. The first time I attempted to take my own life I was 21 and home on leave. I brought around 80 pain killers, wrote a suicide note and that night I took the tablets thinking I would never wake up again. But I did wake up the next morning and was very sick for the next few days. My family did not know the true reason for the sickness I just told them I must of gotten food poisoning.

On getting out of the RAF, I realised I could not move back in with my parent and go back to living with all their religious mania again. So I got myself a flat and trained to become a maintenance engineer so I would work in a mostly male environment. Then in mid November 2005 I decided I must end my life so I did not eat for over 45 days and when I was still not dead I cut my right wrist. My parents found me and the next thing I remember is waking up in hospital with a respirator tube down my throat, wires everywhere and tongue feeling like it was cardboard. I had been in a coma for two weeks and I spent three further weeks recuperating in hospital before I went back to my flat.

The years of self denial and self hate had caught up with me, and that was the outcome. With the help of a REAL counsellor I was slowly able to undo the damage done by my parents, Stroud, NewFrontiers and Christianity. I learned to except just who I am and opened up that side of me I had learned to deny and hate for so long.

I am now in the process of transition, something my parents have been unable to except to such an extent I need a restraining order against them.

My thoughts on Stroud and her brand of Christianity

Philippa is a very dangerous woman who in her pursuit of saving us all has left many casualties in her wake. In her work in Bedford she has left numerous people broken, two of which have gone on to kill themselves through her form of Jesus induced brainwashing I could have been the third.

She really believes thing like homosexuality, transsexualism, any form of addiction or illness can be fixed just by prayer all in the name of Jesus!

Should a person like this have influence over Conservative social policy in her work for the Centre for Social Justice? Should the ex head of an anti-abortion charity be making decisions on things like gay adoption or even the length of time woman have to abort a unwanted pregnancy?

But most of all should a person who is deluded enough to think she can heal you just by prayer be considered sane enough to become a member of parliament?

- Abi

The original article is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/02/conservatives...

- Jayne xx

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Heaven lies within our hearts and hell is but a figment of your mind...
My blog => http://jaynemorose.wordpress.com/ <= note new address

It is within the realm of reason to believe that the earth was created in six days, when you believe as I do that the definition of day is quite open. Your snarky remarks about religion are pissing me off. Cut it out. This board isn't supposed to be about religion or politics.

People who believe in God aren't inherently stupid, just as those who can't see a world that embraces both both science and faith aren't blind -- just self-limiting.

Angela Rasch (Jill M I)