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Liberia Journalist Rufus Divine Brooks Jr. Writes an Open letter to transgender Karishma
I believe that vulnerability is a sign of courage. I know you have lost your cool several times in the past, screamed your lungs out of anger, with your heart racing like a fast car, hands trembling due to the outburst and talking frantically.
You must understand that anger is a secondary emotion. There are several reasons why you gets angry, either due to pent up emotions, wanna encourage your followers or an impending situation which hasn’t been dealt with and its frustrating you from within or may be at times when you have been treated badly by another man and anger is the only way to curtail that behavior then later you open “IT UP”. I literally watched how you dragged people and their personal life on this blue App in the name of gaining fame with that achy anger of yours. With that anger, you have damaged others relationship, you have dragged innocent people into your HE/SHE life
What have you learnt from it? It’s been years you have been facing this issue, have you sat down and wondered why its so easy to set you off? Have you looked deep within yourself and questioned enough to understand the root cause of this boiling state of yours?
May be you are trying to cover up your vulnerable feelings from emerging? I’d like you to know that anger is not necessarily a bad emotion, anger can be your friend. But how can you befriend it? By damaging other homes?
First step would be to identify the situations that lead to this kind of outburst. Is there any similarity in the situation? Is it a particular person that drives you nuts or pushes your patience level? Probably you are a jealous partner in your relationship that in which I won’t go deep cause a full paragraph is written below 👇
You can’t change a situation from unfolding in a certain way, (its not in your hands), but what really is within your control is to change the way you react to a situation or people. Change your perspective about things and your feelings and emotions will follow suit including your followers who takes your HE/SHE act as money gaining situation. It’s definitely not easy, but neither is losing your temper with a racing heart. Another thing you don’t realise are the hidden suppressed emotions that have been bothering you for very long and it shows up in the form of a raging tiger. Calm the tiger down. Tame it. Give it some water to cool off.
Dive deep into your subconscious mind and reexamine your childhood, perhaps. What you don’t realise is that you may actually be projecting your feelings (unhealed, unacknowledged parts of you) onto others. Like Carl Jung said, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
So if a particular person triggers angry emotions, that person is just another being showing up in your life as a mirror, pointing out the unacknowledged aspects of your own self.
When you don’t or can’t acknowledge your feelings or accept something about yourself, it’s a sign that deep down you don’t love yourself. And when you don’t love yourself, you will try to find faults in a situation and reasons to be angry with others, because you don’t feel completely at peace with yourself and the world around you. This is the way to befriend your anger. Learn to let go, take your mouth from in people things, learn to accept the kind of person you are even if it’s the “HE/SHE”accept yourself, gain the ‘will’ to surrender and most importantly, love yourself. Only when you love all parts of you, can you love others, including your husband and maybe unborn 🫢.
And when anger decides to pop up and declares its presence now and then, be willing to walk the path with it! Use it as a guide and befriend it.
Now, let me address the main issue:
One of the most worrying discussions between me and my friends has centered around the numerous anti-LGBTQ+ bills being proposed around the world especially the United States of America 🇺🇸. These bills — focused on limiting education of LGBTQ+ peoples’ issues, existence, and struggles — single out LGBTQ+ teens and threaten the safety and space for education on queer issues schools should provide.” Coming out – the process by which LGBTQ+ people disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity – is difficult.
It is not a one-and-done event. It is not a single conversation or three-word summary,that, once complete, marks the beginning of a person’s new life.
Coming out is a process. For him, that process lasted many months. A friend of mine came out to his mom last year on a vacation to Liberia, just a few days before my 24th birthday. He came out to my house a day later. Then, over the next few days, weeks, and months, He came out to most everyone else. Close friends, family, co-workers, teachers. Even writing this now, I know that there will be people in his life who still do not know that he’s a gay. This piece of writing will serve as a “coming out for him and everyone who’s willing to leave but “ I NA FORCING YOU OHH”.
And through all of those dozens of coming-outs, he has realized – and reaffirmed again and again – how lucky He is. Everyone in his life has accepted him , understanding that his identity as a gay person is but a small piece of the mosaic that is his life – that is he.
I did not fully understand that gay people existed until during a car ride home from town. My friend yelled to her mom in shock and horror that two men – definitely men, not a man and a woman – were kissing behind a store. This physical manifestation of homosexuality was surprising – jarring, even. But I knew then and even a bit before, in the face of this shocking scene, that the way gays felt towards their male friends was different than it was supposed to be. Girls were not crushes; they were friends. Boys were always something else. Not to keep my readers boring, Before I say anything else, I want you to know that you’re deeply loved by God and you’re very precious to Him. You are the apple of His eye (Psalm 17:8).
I know you don’t feel this way right now—not when God just told you to stop pursuing a gay relationship. You feel like your only hope at happiness has been crushed. There’s pain in your heart and you’re crying out, “How can something that feels so right be so wrong?”
I get it. It does feel right and natural. Since you started having romantic and sexual desires, it has only ever been for guys. It’s all you’ve ever known, and it feels like a natural part of you. It feels like acting on these desires can lead you to a wonderful relationship that will finally make you happy.
Oh yes, I remember, Karishma. How can I forget the first major crush you had in Liberia on that guy the minute you laid eyes on him? Your heart would leap whenever he so much as glanced in your direction and you’d long for him to hold your hand one day.
I remember your first boyfriend, whom you met four years later. I know how happy you felt with him.
So you’re wrestling with lots of questions now. You’re asking, “How can all of this be wrong? Why would God forbid me from pursuing happiness? How can God be so cruel? What kind of God would tell me to deny something that’s so natural to me?”
You will find this hard to believe right now, but I want to tell you that it’s precisely because God loves you that He’s calling you out of homosexuality. Far from being cruel, your Father is acting out of His love, grace, and mercy for you. He cannot bear to see you wrecked by a life of sin and brokenness.
Please hear me out. I finally saw the truth of what God was doing after 10 years, and I want to share with you what I’ve learned—what you will eventually come to see for yourself.
Being gay is not who you are. When you became a Christian, you became a child of God. That’s the deepest truth of your identity, and that’s how your Father always sees you. He calls you “son”. Yes, you experience attraction towards guys, but that’s what you have, and not who you are: you have gay desires, but you are not gay. You are—first, foremost, and forever—God’s beloved son.
I know this attraction feels natural to you. They still do to others. But God showed them —as He will show you—that these desires aren’t as natural as they feel.
Remember how you always wanted an elder brother to show you the ropes of life when you were growing up? In upper primary, you looked up to this older boy in your class as a kind of big brother and wanted his attention. Do you also remember how you hated your secondary school years because of how much you wanted to fit in with the guys in your class, but couldn’t? You didn’t think these two things were connected, did you? Well, God showed others that they both stemmed from a longing to be taught by a man on how to be a man.
It wasn’t a coincidence that just when you were struggling intensely with not belonging with the other boys, you started to have crushes on some of them. Your desire to be like these boys, during the sexual awakening of puberty, turned into a desire for them.
In recent years, God helped me to understand that what I really craved was male identity and intimacy, which I should have received from Dad when I was growing up. What you long for, deep down, is Dad’s attention, affirmation, and affection. I know he wasn’t perfect, but he was the best father he could be. (We’ll talk about working on a better relationship with family/girls in another letter.)
And because your gay desires aren’t a natural part of you, pursuing a gay relationship won’t actually bring you true happiness. In fact, it would bring you further away from your real needs. What you actually need is learning how to develop a secure masculine identity and to receive male intimacy in healthy—non-romantic and non-sexual—ways.
This may all sound rather abstract and foreign to you at the moment. Maybe I can put it another way. You know how you’ve been looking for that perfect relationship with a guy, but never seemed to find it? How you’d think a guy you’d met was the one, but when you got to know him better, one thing or another would make you feel he wasn’t the right guy? How your heart was broken over and over when your hopes were dashed again and again? It all seemed so elusive, didn’t it? Have you ever thought that maybe the reason no guy ever seemed to be the right one was that a guy is not actually what you need?
In fact, hasn’t that search thrown you into frustration and despair many times? In your moments of intense loneliness and longing for intimacy, you’ve often turned to alcohol to numb the pain, and to one-night stands. You knew they gave you little more than short-lived comfort and a shadow of what intimacy was, but you desperately wanted whatever scraps you could get. Then the guilt and the shame would come, and you’d plead with God for His forgiveness and promise Him you wouldn’t do it again. But it wouldn’t be long before you fell into it once more. I understand the pain you felt going through that cycle, and how deeply regretful you were each time. I know you’re so sick and tired of going down that spiral again and again.
How about the many nights when you’d cry yourself to sleep? I remember that one night when you cried so badly because you were struggling so much with loneliness. You just couldn’t see how you could be happy. Do you remember what God said to you that night? He said, “Trust Me.” I know that for years after that, you didn’t think He could be trusted to bring you the happiness you want. I’m here to tell you that God is faithful. He came through on His promise—just not in the way you think. He who knows better will give you far better.
God will show you that there are many other Christians who have gay desires, but who choose to obey Him by not acting on these feelings. There is a better way to live. He will also bring into your life Christians who can walk with you in this journey. I assure you that, even though there will sometimes still be struggles, there is much joy and peace in living a life being obedient to God and His life-giving ways.
He wants to bring healing to all those broken places in your heart that ache for love and intimacy. Getting into a gay relationship will not make you feel complete; it will only deepen the wounds you have. Trust me, I’ve been there. So I recognize now that God is merciful and gracious when He calls you to stop acting on your gay desires—because when you do, you’re only hurting yourself. How can a good Father do nothing and let His child keep throwing himself into what will bring him more pain?
Instead, God wants to heal your broken heart and bind up your wounds (Psalm 147:3). But in order for Him to do that, you have to stop injuring yourself and stay still long enough for Him to bandage you up. Be still, and know that He is the God who forgives and heals you (Psalm 46:10, Psalm 103:3).
Yes, some are still attracted to guys, but I’ve decided not to act on their same-sex desires anymore. They don’t have to always give in to them helplessly. But you know what? They are much happier and at peace now than They were back then, when They were looking for a gay relationship. You do not understand this yet, but believe it. Or at least, believe me; they have gone through this long enough to know. God is very trustworthy, Aunty Miss. Trust in Him with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. When you acknowledge Him in all your ways, He will direct your paths (Proverbs 3:5–6).
Hold on to God, because He holds on to you. In the coming days, you’re going to feel like Jacob as he was wrestling with the angel of God (Genesis 32:22–32). Don’t let go of the Lord. Don’t let go even when you feel overwhelmed by the struggle, not even when you feel so weak that you want to give it all up. The wrestling will be worthwhile. As God did with Jacob, He will also bless you through this struggle.
As you hold on to God, you will get to know Him up close and personal. You will come to know that God isn’t uncaring and unreasonable, but He loves you so fiercely that He wants to pursue you relentlessly. He cares for your well-being and wants to give you His best. He’s a loving Father who is willing to let you, His precious child, hate Him for a season when you didn’t understand His ways, so as to save you from more pain and anguish.
So don’t misunderstand God’s heart. He isn’t cruel at all. Through His divine intervention in your life, He is actually showing you His love, grace and mercy by calling you out of brokenness into wholeness, out of darkness into His wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9).
Will you trust the Lord? Will you hold on to Him? Will you let your Father bless you? Will you let Liberians leave your name small? Will you stop tweaking on live like you’re a female? Anyways, I rest my case and pray you read this till the end ✊🏿😭
Written By Rufus Divine Brooks Jr. – Journalist
