I posted this picture on the photography forums I subscribe to with the following comment, "now you know where to shop for all your transgendered needs."

Another member responded with this post:

Why would transgenders need such a store? They could buy their clothes in any ordinary clothing store. I find it rather disgusting.

There is a store in the beach area where I live, called "Leathers and Lace." It caters mostly to gays, selling porn and sex toys as well as kinky leather outfits. They had a sign outside (now changed): "If you don't like our sign, don't look at it." I guess they must have had some complaints. I did take a picture of it but didn't keep it because the whole thing is so repulsive.

My response:

I'm not quite sure why you need to be digusted at the idea that transexuals would want their own stores, but just to alleviate your fears, Trani is a store I saw in Boston in June, which happens to be an ice cream parlor. While I'm sure that they would not discriminate against the LGBT community, I don't think they actually cater to them.

His response:

I thought you were serious about the store being for transsexuals. I'm not disgusted with the store even if it really was for that purpose, although my words might have made it seem that way. I'm disgusted with the phenomenon of transsexuality. And I have no "fears" which need to be alleviated because I'm not afraid of transsexuals.

At this point, I felt we needed to take this offline, so I sent him a private message:

I'm sorry, I should not have challenged you in the public forum, and I'll be happy to remove my posts if you'd like, but I am a little curious why you would find transexuals so disgusting

He sent me this long email that just blew my mind. People really think like this? I make jokes, but this truly makes me feel so sad.

Greetings, Jocose:

The person, I have no problem with, nor do I judge them. As with homosexuality I am naturally repulsed by the actual act. I do discern between the person and the offense and do not condemn the person because of the offense

I am a Christian (please forgive me for throwing that at you) and I see that God also condemns such acts as cross-dressing and homosexual sex but he does not condemn the persons. It breaks my heart to see people having sex change operations, just as it also breaks God's heart. It suggests that God made a mistake when He created them, but that is not so.

Long before I became a Christian and even as a long-time atheist, I was repulsed by these things. I first learned of them when I was about eleven years old and felt sick to my stomach when other boys described the details to me. At first I did not believe them yet still felt great repulsion. I hasten to add that I have not been abused by such persons but I have been approached for homosexual sex, as an adult. It is hard to describe the feeling when homosexuals do that.

Transexuality and and homosexuality go hand in hand, that is why I am including homosexuals in this matter.

Now, as a minister, for the past eight years I have been helping such people, among others. This is something I do six nights a week after I come home from work. It involves exorcisms because both transsexuality and homosexuality are spiritual problems, not mental, nor natural. I deal with human pain night after night, caused by sexual, physical and mental abuse. Sexual abuse is one of the world's biggest problems.

Many of the homosexuals and transsexuals who come to me have been sexually abused as children. Some became that way from sexual experimentation. Either way, tremendous hurt is caused. It leads to broken families, severe depression, suicide or suicidal thoughts, voices in the head, visions of apparitions etc. All of these things are considered to be "mental illness" but it is not so.

In the eight years I have done this, I have often gone to bed and wept over the pain that people endure. I see what pornography does to people and it is condemned by God but supported by the U.S. Supreme Court who say it is protected by the Constitution. So the people who indulge deeply in their Constitutional porn, later end up facing a judge at their trial for rape or other sexual abuse. It is porn which leads a person to become a pedophile, rapist or a murderer. The help given to children is a joke because the depth of sexual abuse is not understood by those committed to helping the kids. And even if they did understand, there is little they can do about it.

The bright side of all this is, the homosexuals and transsexuals who come to me become heterosexual, just as they were when they were first born. Nobody is born homosexual, despite their beliefs that they were. And nobody was born with the wrong body. God does not create such beings and then condemn their sex lives.

Now imagine what a transsexual must feel when they have been delivered of the spiritual side of their problem but is still in the body that they changed. Imagine a man who became a woman but now realizes that he really is a man. It is much harder to change back to his original form than it was to change his gender for the first time.

One person with a similar problem came to me just a couple of months ago. This person said he was a man in a woman's body. "He" was in his thirties when we spoke. I knew right from the start that this was really a woman who believed she was a man in a woman's body. By time that evening was over, the woman was free in her spirit and rejoicing, hardly able to believe what had happened to her. The cause? Sexual abuse when she was a child. She was actually in the midst of talks with her surgeon about a sex change operation.She had been evaluated by a psychiatrist and was preparing for the change.

God calls homosexuality a "perversion" and "an abomination." It is the perverse part of a person's nature which repulses me. The actual person, my heart grieves for even if they are happy for a while in their new form.

he suicide rate among homosexuals is higher than that of heterosexuals. I know I keep talking about homosexuals but that is what transsexuals also are. A man becomes a woman and begins a sexual relationship with a man. The transsexual's spirit is still the male spirit which he was given at conception, therefore it results in two men having sex.

There is more which I could describe but I think I have said enough. Perhaps I am overly sensitive to these problems but until you listen to the person's terrible story, it is hard to imagine such grief caused by one human to another. Of course, not all homosexuals or transsexuals remember what happened to them as children. They just feel they were born that way.

I apologize for my hasty remarks in the forum. I do not mind if you remove them but please do not remove your picture. I now understand the humourous side of it.