Shick Will be a Featured Speaker at the Safe Exit Summit, Hosted by Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays on
October 2-3
RICHMOND, Va.--The TV lineup is certainly filled with programming that both normalizes and glorifies the transgender lifestyle. But for Denise Shick, who grew up with a transgender father, life was anything but entertainment. It was more of a nightmare.
As a 9-year-old, Shick was hiding a secret—her father had told her that he wanted to become a woman. That revelation affected Denise for the rest of her life, and she is one of many with firsthand experience about how transgenderism hurts families.
Shick will be one of the featured speakers at the third annual Safe Exit Summit on Oct. 2-3 in Washington, D.C., co-hosted by Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX, www.pfox.org), the nation’s leading advocacy organization that offers love and support to families and friends of individuals with unwanted same-sex attractions and gender confusion.
“Denise’s story is an amazing testament to how redeeming and saving grace can truly heal and restore,” said PFOX Executive Director Regina Griggs. “We are looking forward to welcoming all of our passionate speakers to the Safe Exit Summit, where they will help other families with similar backgrounds and struggles, as well as motivate churches to become safe exits for those who have left the homosexual lifestyle or are envisioning a new and different life for themselves.”
Friday, Oct. 2 will feature a legislator education day on Capitol Hill for those who support ex-gays and individuals with unwanted same-sex attraction, as well as a time of praise and the viewing of the documentary “Such Were Some of You,” produced by Safe Exit Summitspeaker Dr. David Kyle Foster. Then on Saturday, Oct. 3, numerous expert speakers will address several issues to encourage, educate and edify church leaders, family members and friends, as well as those struggling with gender confusion and unwanted same-sex attraction.
Today, Shick is an author and the founder of the ministry, Help4Families.org, which gives support to those affected by a loved one’s gender confusion. Denise’s story is also featured on the PFOX web site. But before she found healing and restoration, Shick discovered that her father’s struggles would impact her directly.
Due to the lack of love she received from her father, Shick chased relationships as a way to fill that gap. By the seventh grade, Denise had been in relationships with 13 boyfriends.
“I was so empty inside and seeking the love and the attention of a father, and I couldn’t find that,” she said. “Right about that time, I thought, ‘Is life worth going on for? Is there possibly a better life if my life were to end, and I could end this pain?’”
Shick eventually met a trustworthy and loving man who became her husband; they married when she was 18. By the time Shick was 27, her father had left the family to live fully as a woman. Thirteen years went by before Shick’s father entered her life again, now diagnosed with terminal cancer. Before his death, she discovered the root of some of her father’s struggles. He was rejected by his father, he had been sexually abused, and his mother was an alcoholic. Townspeople called him “the little lost boy.”
“Although my father looked like a woman and lived as a woman,” Shick continued, “on his death bed, he had told my mother, ‘I thought this would give me the satisfaction that I sought after, but it didn’t.’ And that’s why it’s so important to treat the person for what’s going on in the heart. It’s an issue of the heart. We so often can get lost in everything happening on the outside when God wants us to focus on the person and what’s going on inside.”
October 2-3
RICHMOND, Va.--The TV lineup is certainly filled with programming that both normalizes and glorifies the transgender lifestyle. But for Denise Shick, who grew up with a transgender father, life was anything but entertainment. It was more of a nightmare.
As a 9-year-old, Shick was hiding a secret—her father had told her that he wanted to become a woman. That revelation affected Denise for the rest of her life, and she is one of many with firsthand experience about how transgenderism hurts families.
Shick will be one of the featured speakers at the third annual Safe Exit Summit on Oct. 2-3 in Washington, D.C., co-hosted by Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX, www.pfox.org), the nation’s leading advocacy organization that offers love and support to families and friends of individuals with unwanted same-sex attractions and gender confusion.
“Denise’s story is an amazing testament to how redeeming and saving grace can truly heal and restore,” said PFOX Executive Director Regina Griggs. “We are looking forward to welcoming all of our passionate speakers to the Safe Exit Summit, where they will help other families with similar backgrounds and struggles, as well as motivate churches to become safe exits for those who have left the homosexual lifestyle or are envisioning a new and different life for themselves.”
Friday, Oct. 2 will feature a legislator education day on Capitol Hill for those who support ex-gays and individuals with unwanted same-sex attraction, as well as a time of praise and the viewing of the documentary “Such Were Some of You,” produced by Safe Exit Summitspeaker Dr. David Kyle Foster. Then on Saturday, Oct. 3, numerous expert speakers will address several issues to encourage, educate and edify church leaders, family members and friends, as well as those struggling with gender confusion and unwanted same-sex attraction.
Today, Shick is an author and the founder of the ministry, Help4Families.org, which gives support to those affected by a loved one’s gender confusion. Denise’s story is also featured on the PFOX web site. But before she found healing and restoration, Shick discovered that her father’s struggles would impact her directly.
Due to the lack of love she received from her father, Shick chased relationships as a way to fill that gap. By the seventh grade, Denise had been in relationships with 13 boyfriends.
“I was so empty inside and seeking the love and the attention of a father, and I couldn’t find that,” she said. “Right about that time, I thought, ‘Is life worth going on for? Is there possibly a better life if my life were to end, and I could end this pain?’”
Shick eventually met a trustworthy and loving man who became her husband; they married when she was 18. By the time Shick was 27, her father had left the family to live fully as a woman. Thirteen years went by before Shick’s father entered her life again, now diagnosed with terminal cancer. Before his death, she discovered the root of some of her father’s struggles. He was rejected by his father, he had been sexually abused, and his mother was an alcoholic. Townspeople called him “the little lost boy.”
“Although my father looked like a woman and lived as a woman,” Shick continued, “on his death bed, he had told my mother, ‘I thought this would give me the satisfaction that I sought after, but it didn’t.’ And that’s why it’s so important to treat the person for what’s going on in the heart. It’s an issue of the heart. We so often can get lost in everything happening on the outside when God wants us to focus on the person and what’s going on inside.”