Former Trans Person Describes How Faith Led Her to Detransition

Published: June 10, 2026

diana-vargas-ZySVEbGBNxA-unsplash — Photo by Diana Vargas on Unsplash

By Movieguide® Staff

Author Laura Perry Smalts shared how a relationship with faith led her away from transgenderism.

“I grew up hearing a lot about God…but I really didn’t understand the gospel, and I think a lot of it was because I had a warped perception of God,” she said during an episode of TAKEAWAYS WITH KIRK CAMERON. “I didn’t understand the love of God.”

She explained that, due to a complicated relationship with her mother, she “really turned away from God. I was angry at God, and I was giving myself away to anyone and everyone who would pay attention to me.”

This eventually led Smalts to turn to transgenderism.

“I went by the name Jake,” she recalled. “I had to go to a counselor for three sessions to be diagnosed with this condition…[she] just gave me what I wanted, gave me that diagnosis.”

Smalts explained that, while the initial feelings were “amazing and exciting,” she later “started feeling like this wasn’t real.”

“It allowed me to suppress the pain because I had deep self-hatred…I hated myself as a woman because I had felt so rejected as a girl,” she said.

Things began changing for Smalts once she saw how her mother had changed following a strengthened relationship with God. Smalts started pursuing faith as well, saying, “When I got saved, I was so transformed…it wasn’t until I really humbled myself [that I found a relationship with Christ].”

“As God began to transform me by the word, I began to see that this was not His will,” she continued. “I had to learn to deny myself and take up my cross and follow Him.”

Smalts “walked by faith” and “let go of all the bitterness,” saying, “The Lord just began to transform me, and the Lord began to change my heart, and I began to like being a girl.”

Today, Smalts is happily married, telling The Baptist Messenger that “God has used him [her husband] to bring so much healing.”

“It’s such a reflection of the Gospel and how God begins to reveal Himself to us,” she continued. “We have to stop looking at God through the lies that we believed in the past and start choosing to believe His Word. This is very powerful to me.”

She details her story further in her book, Transgender to Transformed: A Story of Transition That Will Truly Set You Free.

“My story is not about transgenderism. It is about the gospel,” she told WNG. “I didn’t know how to fix myself. I didn’t know how to detransition…I came to the end of myself, and God redeemed me.”

Praise God for the change He made in Smalt’s life. Let’s pray that other people in the LGBTQ movement come into a transforming relationship with Christ.

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