I was born and raised in a Christian home in British Columbia, Canada, in the ’80s. I had always loved Jesus and followed him with a childlike faith.
I can remember, at 3 or 4 years old, being abused by an elderly family member. Through my mom’s quick response, it never happened again. But my difficulties were not over. I began to feel confused about my gender. I can still hear my mother’s voice: “You’re not a boy, Kyla. You’re a girl. Do you understand?”
Once, I was sitting by the ice rink where my hockey team practiced. I was no more than 5 years old. My parents had just been informed that I would no longer be allowed to change in the general locker room with the boys. As the only girl on the team, I would need to change in the girls’ washroom. My little mind couldn’t take it in.
As far back as I can remember, I loved what my brother loved—BMX racing, G.I. Joe, exploring in the woods, fishing, camping, and ice hockey. I wanted to dress and talk like my brother. The struggle with my identity intensified through my teenage years and grew into full-blown gender dysphoria. I found myself attracted to other women, which filled me with guilt and shame.
Around that time, my parents divorced suddenly, and my family was ripped apart. Both of my parents remarried, and I was forced to divide my time between them.
By age 16 or 17, it was becoming evident that I was no longer welcome in my dad’s home with his new wife and children. My stepmom didn’t want me to be part of their tight-knit unit, and I began to tiptoe around what was once my carefree home. I happily shared a room with my new stepsister, but from one weekend to another my personal belongings began to disappear.
One Friday evening when I arrived at my dad’s, I looked around my room and saw only my bed. Where had all of my stuff gone? I frantically searched the house and finally ventured to the basement. There I found it all. Every one of my possessions had been packed into storage boxes. No word of explanation came that weekend from my dad. Tears of sorrow overcame me as I asked my mom if I could live with her full-time. I didn’t stay at my dad’s home after that.
From that point forward, ice hockey became my driving passion. I played competitively and made it onto a professional team.
I started drowning my stresses in alcohol when I was 19. Blackouts, partying, gambling, and a trail of failed same-sex relationships followed. Before long, my faith was nearly nonexistent. I chose the life I thought I wanted above my relationship with God. But when alcohol fueled a dangerous downward spiral, I chose to enter a Christian recovery center.
I got sober there, but my battles with same-sex attraction and gender dysphoria continued. To try to win the war raging inside of me, I decided to transition from female to male. Two years later, after hormone therapy, surgeries, and sweeping lifestyle changes, I could finally pass unnoticed in the world as a man.
I changed my name from Kyla to Brycen. I had arrived. With each step of the process, I eagerly awaited the satisfaction and relief that would surely follow. But they never came. Altering my body hadn’t healed the brokenness inside.
Through my connections with the recovery community, I had kept some loose ties with a local church, even though my faith had unraveled. After living life as Brycen for more than five years, I remember sitting in a church service one summer night, contemplating life. God only knows why I was there. Yes, I had loved Jesus as a kid, but after the devastating events of the previous decade, I was done with God and done with difficult people. I wanted what I wanted, without any pushback from Christians.
I was about to leave the church that night and never return, when I noticed a woman—who moved like a force of nature—heading straight for me. I wanted to bolt, but I stood my ground. Jess, the new pastor’s wife, introduced herself, and I quickly felt at ease around her. Accepted. Seen. That introductory conversation became a catalyst for the change of a lifetime.
Jess introduced me to her husband, BJ, and a core group of Christians who became my friends. These people were different than any churchgoers I had ever known. They were more like Jesus. Getting close to them made me rethink my life. But I still believed I could fly under the radar as Brycen, the Christian man.
Not long after, I found myself confiding to Jess that I had been born Kyla—a female—and had transitioned to Brycen years before. Jess was quiet as she listened intently, sympathizing with every word of my lifelong struggle with sexuality and gender. I had never felt so safe in the hands of another soul. It strengthened our bond, and I began to fully share my deepest secrets, one by one.
My path forward happened through baby steps. Truths, bathed in love. Questions asked—about faith, love, truth, and identity—and answered with total honesty but with kindness and care. Months later, Jess told me that if ever I wanted to detransition, she and BJ would love to have me stay at their home. Detransition? I just smiled and thanked her for her gracious offer but politely declined.
Meanwhile, I had renewed my interest in God’s Word, searching the Scriptures voraciously. And God was speaking to me through his words and through my friends. I read verses like Genesis 1:27: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” His design.
It was an out-of-body experience when God broke through and started to show me intimate truths I could never see before. And it was becoming painfully clear that I had to choose which life I wanted: his or my own. Would I embrace the design he had given me or cling to the identity I had created?
God was asking me to trust him, to have him be my safety net. I wasn’t sure I could physically be a woman again. Yet if I continued in unrepentant sin, always telling God that I knew better than him, would I truly be his forever?
One night I was overwhelmed in the darkness, sobbing in bed. Needing to know God’s mind, I climbed out and crumpled to the floor, crying for relief, for clarity. Not a half-hearted cry like the ones I had made so many times before without being willing to change or surrender, but a deep soul-cry from a place of abandon—a cry for him to rescue me.
After six years of living as Brycen, I cried out, “What do you want from me?” There on my bedroom floor, I heard God speak into my heart so clearly that I will never forget it: Return to me, Kyla.
Kyla. I hadn’t used that name in almost a decade. It was attached to so much pain and discomfort. But this time, when he used it, it felt like home. Like I was safe. I asked him, “Can’t I stay as Brycen and follow you?” He spoke deeply into my soul: No.
I argued. “But God, I don’t know what that would look like, or if I can ever be female again.” He spoke to my heart: Whatever it looks like, are you willing to trust me? All I could do was cry out, “Yes!”
That night, I sat on the floor in the presence of the living God for what seemed like hours. And when I got up, I knew I’d never be the same. God himself had met me, remade me—clearly and vividly. Everything had finally fallen into place. I knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
I moved in with Jess and BJ for a powerful year of transformation. The reconstruction of my mind, body, and soul was sometimes painful and sorrowful, filled with monumental struggles almost beyond my ability to bear. But God sustained me. And my friends walked with me, laughed with me, and cried with me every step of the way. I was becoming whole.
All my life I had searched for congruence, for some kind of deep, lasting peace. And I found it only in Jesus, the one who saves.
Can I tell you that I never struggle anymore? Oh, no. Some days are cloudy and dark. But others are filled with so much light that it floods my soul. And has it been worth it? Without question. The living God has met with me profoundly and powerfully, and I’ll never look back.
I am Kyla, restored.
Kyla Gillespie is the founder of Renewed & Transformed, a ministry dedicated to sharing Christian teachings on faith, sexuality, gender, and identity, and the author of TransFormed.
This article appeared in the March/April 2026 issue of Christianity Today as "Testimony".
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