Former trans child tells how he overcame trauma

Erin Brewer began identifying as a boy after being sexually abused at age six. This led to self-hatred and eventually caused her to turn to pornography before finding peace through God and accepting His infinite love.

After the assault, Brewer wore her brother's cast-off clothes and cut her hair short, thinking that if she were a boy, the assault would never have happened. Brewer's detachment from her own body often expressed itself in a strong feeling of anger, and she did things like hitting herself on the head with a brush when she saw herself in the mirror.

A teacher referred the girl to a school psychologist, who encouraged Brewer's mother to portray femininity in a positive light and expose her daughter to strong female role models. The school psychologist also recommended that Brewer join a group for children who have communication problems. These interventions helped the girl come to terms with her identity as a woman.

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The girl struggled with not wanting to be a woman for most of her teenage years, but the guidance she received and her period – a biological development that is clearly female – helped her stop denying her gender.

“It happened gradually, but I was tired of fighting reality,” Brewer told the Christian Post about why she no longer identified as a boy.

She thanked the teacher who recognized that something was wrong and referred her to the school psychologist because she feared that if she were a child struggling with her gender identity today, the school would have encouraged these feelings.

“It breaks my heart for the little girls who don't get the help they need and are instead told they were born in the wrong body,” she said, crying. “Especially because so many of these children were actually victims of sexual assault, and instead of giving them the help they need to process what happened, that sexual assault is brushed aside, and it's almost like they're being attacked again every time their gender confusion is reinforced.”

Brewer is now a public speaker who campaigns against social transitioning or mutilating surgery for children suffering from gender dysphoria. Five years ago, the activist posted a video talking about an artificial male body part that young girls who want to identify as male can buy and wear in their pants to give them a bump. The video has since gone viral.

“The tails aren't even as bad as they can be,” she said. “There are puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones that undermine a child's fertility and sexuality for the rest of their life and set them on a path of self-destruction.”

Although the activist never took drugs or underwent gender reassignment surgery when she was struggling with her identity, Brewer eventually asked her teachers to call her “Timothy.” She is afraid to even imagine what her life would have been like if her desire to identify as a boy had continued. Today, she is a mother of three and is very aware that she may never have had a child if she had taken that path.

Coming to terms with the fact that she wasn't a boy isn't the end of Brewer's story, however. The lawyer's insecurities about her body and her need for male attention continued to trouble her as an adult. In her forties, she began making pornography, which for a time made her feel valuable and loved.

Men would send Brewer requests and she would do things like pee on a flower if they asked. She admits she went through a rough time where she struggled with her self-confidence and couldn't find a career. One therapist she spoke to even encouraged her to keep doing porn, comparing Brewer to a social worker because she was offering a service to men who needed it.

“I'm a pretty quirky woman, and I think pornography fills that void of wanting male attention,” she said. “Suddenly all these men were telling me I was attractive and beautiful; they thought I was a princess and wanted to marry me. I'd never experienced anything like that before, and it was like a drug.”

Brewer produced pornography until September 2019, when she got the opportunity to speak in Washington, DC, for the Eagle Forum, a conservative group founded in 1972 by the late activist Phyllis Schlafly. Brewer said she never felt pornography was wrong until that moment.

“When I was with the women at the Eagle Forum, I suddenly had a sense of God that I hadn't felt my whole life,” she said. “I've always been more of an atheist and agnostic, but just being with these women, with these women who were so deeply rooted in love, I felt truly unconditionally loved by people for the first time.”

After telling members of the Eagle Forum that she had consumed porn, Brewer expected scorn, but instead the organization expressed concern for her well-being. Members of the organization warned her that pornography was dangerous, and she eventually stopped using it.

“I think it was the unconditional love that God has for us that I have never felt before,” Brewer said.

She was surrounded by a loving Christian community that encouraged her to see herself as God's daughter and to recognize that the Lord did not want anything to happen to His child. Before she surrendered to God, Brewer had over 400 videos on Pornhub, which she deleted after she found Christ.

After all her experiences, Brewer advises parents and school administrators to stop allowing children to believe they are inherently flawed and for authority figures to stop reinforcing the discomfort young people sometimes feel about their bodies.

“Treatment is designed to help them deal with and overcome these feelings so that they can then feel good about themselves without harming themselves,” she said.