Archive of "Ex-homosexual to share experience", The New Paper, 18 March 1989

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Ex-homosexual to share experience

Sy Rogers went “to hell and back”. He was a homosexual, a transvestite prostitute prowling the streets of Honolulu, and lived life as a woman for 1½ years.

Then in 1980 he decided it was all enough. He couldn’t live as a woman any longer. He went “straight”. About two years later, he married and is now a father.

Today, Sy Rogers, 33, who is from the US, wants to tell everyone about the terrible life he led. And he hopes they will listen and change their ways.

Sy is coming to Singapore in May to share his story, at a seminar on ministering to homosexuals, transvestites and transsexuals. Another former homosexual, also from the US, will speak at the seminar.

Sy’s story was published as a tract by a Christian organisation, Last Days Ministries of Lindale in Texas. The New Paper obtained a copy of the tract. Here is Sy’s story.

Born in 1956, the only child of a middle-class couple in the American Midwest, Sy started feeling like a homosexual when he was eight. He said that even then he knew he wanted men to desire him.

His alcoholic mother died when he was five and Sy went to live with an uncle and aunt who had a daughter about his age. He started identifying with her little-girl life.

When he was 11, his father remarried. He had a good relationship with his parents, but in his adolescence, his “dark desires” began to flourish.

His parents tried to swing him away from them, but it was too late. His mannerisms were effeminate, and he was already trying out make-up.

“I played football, went out for track and the swim team. I even had a couple of motorcycles,” he said. “All these failed to make me macho.

“My life at home and in school became a miserable endurance course.”

Then he went to Brazil as an exchange student. There he found that homosexuals were actually accepted. “I was even popular," he said.

His host parents in Brazil were actors in the theatre. Their colleagues included homosexuals.

Exposed to a homosexual life-style, he felt free to accept, and even like, his inner desires.

Then he returned to the US and was pushed by his parents to join the navy. Surprisingly, he became quite popular there for his effeminate nature, and he became in his mind a woman.

After boot camp and specialised training, he was stationed on a ship in Pearl Harbour, Hawaii.

There, he says, he “totally pursued darkness”, immersing himself in the homosexual scene, getting into prostitution and drug abuse.

“I felt like a vampire, out night after night, on the hunt for the elusive Mr Right who could fulfill me.”

While in Hawaii, Sy joined two of his closest homosexual friends at Honolulu’s Metropolitan Community Church which welcomed them.

The church once married two of his homosexual friends, and Sy was best man.

But he had his doubts. “I knew something couldn’t be right when I could freely attend church socials in drag,” he said.

In 1977, Sy completed his navy tour and returned to his parents “a burned out, used up case at age 21”.

“I watched their shoulders sag. I must have been a pathetic sight.”

When he started college near his hometown he suffered another swing in status.

He became “the focal point of hatred”.

Nobody wanted him in their dorm, and he was not allowed a roommate. He lasted two semesters there and reached what he describes as “a crisis point”.

(Sy and Karen Rogers: Married after Sy went “straight.)

He signed up for the sex-change operation. Sy went through psychotherapy sessions and tests to find out if he could go for the operation.

He said he did research on the tests and knew which answers to give the psychiatrists to be deemed suitable for the “reassignment” surgery.

While waiting for the operation Sy lived and worked as a woman for 1½ years. He had a good office job with a contracting firm near Washington DC.

He said he was desirable, attractive and popular at parties.

But, he says, he felt “a growing sense of incompleteness”. The longer he waited for the operation, the harder he found it to keep to his role as a woman 24 hours a day.

Then it was time to check into the hospital.

“With my bags packed and my bottle of prescribed female hormones in hand, I was on my way at last”

But while waiting, he turned to the church, and saw that the operation was not going to solve life’s every problem as he had once believed.

Then the hospital unexpectedly announced that they would not do any more sex reassignment surgery and cancelled Sy’s operation.

Sy took that as a sign. He gradually began to pick up and reassemble the pieces of his life.

SEMINAR TO HELP HOMOSEXUALS A seminar on ministering to homosexuals, transvestites and transsexuals will be held in Singapore from May 30 to June 2. A spokeswoman for the organiser, Asian Teen Challenge, said yesterday the seminar will look at how to help those “who desire to overcome homosexuality”. The guest lecturers will be Mr Sy Rogers and Mr Frank Worthen who were homosexuals once and went straight. Both are from	the US. The New Paper asked two homosexual males what they thought of the idea of the seminar. One of them, a 27-year-old money broker, said: “I think I would go to the seminar just to see what this Sy Rogers guy is like. The seminar might help if it makes the community more aware of what we go through.” The other person, an advertising executive, said: “I would go for the seminar, too, but I’d find it hard to identify myself as a gay. But if there were other gays there, I suppose I would be more comfortable.” Asian Teen Challenge, a volunteer rehabilitation centre, is a non-profit organisation. The seminar may be aimed at counsellors but it is open to all. Call Asian Teen Challenge at 345-1577.

=See also=
 * Sinclair Rogers
 * Ex-gay movement in Singapore

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=Acknowledgements=

This article was compiled by Roy Tan.