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Speaking as someone who has actually tried to evangelize a transgender person and witness properly to a group of transgender/LGTBQA individuals, the big thing is avoiding pride (that’s what they do with them gay pride events, so that’s not what we should do, heh). We should not ride in on our proverbial white horses and announce the superiority of our esteemed moral position over the lowly unbeliever. That would go for LGTBQA as well as the “other religion” debate (which has seemed to get lost in the LGTBQ debate thing, but that’s okay).

The common denominator between the two is that we are asking people to accept a whole new reality and a whole new view of themselves. It’s really hard to describe how hard and even painful that this can be, but I kind of have a handle on it due to having experienced abuse by my dad all of my life. That was all I knew: it was normal for me. Now I’m free of it and I walk around in my life confused. I have to remind myself that most people don’t actually feel like punching you if you do something wrong, and part of my mind actually looks for ways to plunge myself back into the darkness, like getting myself involved in an abusive relationship, for example, because it’s what I’ve known. Intellectually, I use my scriptural knowledge to “catch” myself when all of this surfaces, and say as a daughter of the King that I don’t deserve to be treated like that, but it still affects my feelings.

The same idea can be applied to the LQTBQ and those suffering from false religions. For many of them, the false religion is all they’ve ever known. False religions make a background drip of fear: what happens if I don’t keep the rules? What if what I’m believing is a lie? What if I’m not good enough? But this fear is all they’ve known, so they mistakenly assume that everyone else has the same background drip of fear and the same worries – or if they don’t, something is wrong with them. Then they look to everyone else to reassure themselves that they are right. When they can’t handle their reality because of trials and hardships, they blame themselves for not being good enough (and listen to other people blame them for not being good enough) and try again.

I have actually read a book written by transgender people on their perspectives on their own lives, and I am developing a story right now to take back into that situation to attempt to evangelize. While I agree with what @sarah-inkdragon said here:

And what someone else – I think it was @karthmin? said about fear and Christians hiding away from the world (maybe that was just me) – those unbelievers are sharks who hate us and are out to get us with the EVIL!!! They quote John 15:18-24 and hang out in terror, and forget that Jesus said that he has overcome the world. The world’s hatred is not something to be feared – the worst thing they can do to you is kill you, and yo, free ride to heaven. Pinpricks for immortals.

How we got there was a string of paranoid and abusive parents who were scared that their children wouldn’t accept the Gospel so they decided to make sure they believed by never giving them any sort of alternative form of thought. Now those people have grown up and have been taught to believe that outside the Safe Christian Bubble is the Evil Empire. Ooo, scary. Credible threat, sure: thousands of souls delivered to hell daily, but it’s not a threat to me, and it won’t ever be, because I’m permanently outside the machine. Thus, it is better to be out fighting the Evil Empire because that actually helps me uncover the lies inside my own heart, see them, and get rid of them. The sin nature is already here, and the Evil Empire is already among us, so we’re better off out fighting.

Which brings me to my main point – if I’m doing writing for a secular audience (false religions and LGTBQA) I would need to put things in my writing to appeal to that audience to get them to read it that would be absolutely revolting to Christian audiences. That doesn’t mean that my message has been compromised. That’s because people do horrible things before they come to Christ, and so my work would likely include those horrible things for an operating contrast against what life in Christ would do for them. I would also need to show the benefits of the truth from their perspective, not an internal Christian perspective. For example, transgender people live in a lot of fear and sustain a lot of abuse from other people, including people from their closest relationships. Accepting the truth would allow them to break free of that and leave it all behind. They will be able to have their lives back. Another cost is sterility, which is evaded if they merely realize who they are.

But it has to feel real – otherwise they’ll never read it. The first sell is the book, and you have to sell ’em that before you can sell them the Gospel. And transpeople won’t read your book because of the Gospel – they will read it because of the transgender assassin character that murders her sexual abuser on page 94. However, if this person goes into a depression after the triumph has worn off, looks for meaning and purpose in life, and accepts the Gospel on page 200, then we have a story that might make a difference. But no Christian will ever read that story. Personally, I think that story is worth writing and will happily support writers of similar stories, because if one person gets saved from that book, it’s worth it.

Others may not be so willing to write that, and that’s okay. But I’m a strong advocate of getting out of the Safe Christian Basement and going to war, and I would hope that some of you might be inclined to join me.