Delivered from Gender Dysphoria

Dannah Gresh: God delivered Laura Perry Smalts out of a transgender lifestyle. During that process, she learned some pretty incredible facts about God’s design for gender.

Laura Perry Smalts: Did you know that there are over 6,500 biological differences between male and female, and that's only what scientists know about. That doesn't include everything God knows that we don't. 330 billion cells are replaced in your body every single day. You have trillions of cells, but every single day 330 billion cells are replaced and regenerated.

That means that your DNA that has your sex chromosomes in every single cell is like the information code in your body. So every single day billions of your cells are recognizing that you are female and then regenerating those cells based on that information. So every day, over and over and over, your body is telling that you are a female.

So can you have a male brain in a female body? We hear this all the time in this trans culture. But the reality is, if your sex chromosomes are in every single cell of your body, including your brain, then that's biologically impossible.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Lies Women Believe: And the Truth That Sets Them Free, for May 25, 2026. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Today and tomorrow, we’re listening to a powerful testimony from Laura Perry Smalts. The transformation God has worked in her life is truly stunning, and I have a hunch that, after these episodes, you’re gonna be extra in awe of your womanhood. She shared the message we’re about to hear at a True Woman conference. The theme of that conference was “Heaven Rules.” It’s time to explore with Laura how that theme applies to our God-assigned gender.

Laura: It’s interesting, I was thinking about the fact that I’m teaching a breakout on the joy of embracing biblical womanhood is hysterical, if you know my story.

For anyone who doesn’t (I kind of assume that everybody does), but I lived as transgender for about nine years and had surgeries and hormones and all kinds of other mess. 

But the Lord delivered me out of that mess, and so I’m just incredibly grateful to the Lord, because I didn’t think I’d ever look like a girl again. I didn’t ever think I’d feel like a girl again. I just couldn’t image. There was just so much pain there in being a woman, and I think for so many of us, even if you’ve never had a thought of wanting to be a man, I think there are so many of us that sometimes it’s just painful. Sometimes it is just hard for various reasons.

So I think that the fact that I am teaching this breakout is really just about what the Lord has been teaching me. 

I’m not a doctor or an expert, but what I have . . . I tried to live as a man, and I tried to be someone else. But as I have come into this place where I’ve learned to trust the Lord and in who He made me, and as He’s healed me, I’ve begun to understand that His design is really good. That’s kind of where I want you to come on this journey with me.

I was just to tell you just a little bit about my story. It just a little over six years that I came out of that lifestyle. I was trusting my feelings of who I wanted to be rather than who God had created me to be.

You can see I was born female, and I had lived as a male. I had a job where I was only known as male, so fully passing as male. I had no desire to leave that lifestyle. I was convinced that I could never be a woman again, because there was just so much pain there and I didn’t know why. 

I knew I was living a lie. Eventually, I realized that transition wasn’t real, that none of the surgeries or anything else had made me a man . . . and didn’t know why. I couldn’t put my finger on it. 

I remember standing in this group of guys one time. They all thought I was a man. I was at a job where I was only known as a male. They didn’t even know I was trans. And yet, I knew there was a difference there, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I couldn’t understand why, but there was something so profoundly deep in me that was telling me that I was a woman. 

But still, the very thought of identifying as a woman was just too painful to bear. Every time I thought about it, it was as if a knife was being plunged into the depths of my soul, ripping my heart out. I had undergone a double mastectomy, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, all the legal changes. I had a beard, lower voice, I had hair all over my body, but the conviction of the Holy Spirit was growing in me. I had gotten saved in October of 2014, and I was convinced that I was going to be a man of God. 

I was really on fire for Jesus. God had radically transformed my life, and yet, He didn’t leave me there. The Lord just really began to pursue me more and more. But eventually I was under so much conviction that I felt like I was in this deep dark pit that I just couldn’t get out of. I was like, “God I cannot. I will give you everything in my life.” And I really surrendered everything in my life to the Lord. But I said, “I cannot go back to being a woman. It is too painful.” And I didn’t even know why. 

All I knew is that when I thought about being a woman, all I could think about was pain. That’s what I hear about from so many of these young women. But the Lord asked me to leave it. He reminded me of the verse that says,

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? (Matt. 16:24–26)

I knew then that the Lord was just asking me to walk away. And so, when I first left the lifestyle, it was the hardest decision I’ve ever made. I honestly thought I was going to be miserable the rest of my life. I just want to die. I had no expectations of transformation, I really thought that I was just going to live in misery for the rest of my life. 

But I knew that one day God had promised me a redeemed body. He promised me that I wouldn’t have a sin nature. So, I knew in heaven that one day it would be okay. I thought if I could just hang on for the next forty to fifty years, however long I live, and just be miserable, then one day it would be alright. 

That was about the expectation of my life. So I really thought that the rest of my story would go something like this: “Laura sat at home with her mom and dad and cried her eyes out about how painful it was that everybody knew she was a woman.” I just really thought that would be the rest of my life.

But when Nancy asked me to speak about the theme this year, I was so excited. God had put this idea of being heaven-minded on my heart over the last couple of years. What does it mean that heaven rules over our lives? And specifically for this breakout, over our understanding of embracing our gender as female, and further, over embracing biblical womanhood. 

Even if you’ve never had a single thought of wanting to transition to a man, you’ve probably not liked being a woman at times. And you know, what does it mean that heaven rules over our lives? And specifically, over this idea of biblical womanhood. Because a lot of times that’s just hard. I think it’s really about learning to trust the Lord and that His design is good. But that’s not always easy. 

I could have told God that Jake rules. Jake was my transgender name. I know at least one person in this room is happy that I didn’t. 

When I look back, I thought I was happy identifying as a man. I was happier than I had been before, when I was under so much rejection and all the pain that I had suffered from men that treated me like trash. I just had no worth or value as a female. 

I didn’t know the joy of embracing biblical womanhood yet, nor was I interested. But I had chosen to say that heaven rules, to say that God knew better than I did. 

Sometimes, people hear my story and say that I was so brave and I had this great faith. Not at all, not at that time. I mean, God had really built my faith over a couple of years, but I cried hysterically as I went through shaving my legs and my face and buying female clothes. In fact, the first time I tried on female clothes, I cried so hard I couldn’t drive home for twenty minutes because I was just crying hysterically. I just thought that there is no way I can do this, Lord. 

I didn’t really trust the Lord. I had no expectation of transformation, and the pain was just more than I could bear. But the only thing that kept me going was the knowledge that God is on the throne, that heaven rules, that He is sovereign, and that He had a reason for making me a woman. 

Proverbs 3:5–6 is one of the most popular verses in the Bible. In fact, I looked up on Google and I looked up like most popular Bible verses. In the first seven results that came up, all of them listed this verse. And yet, I don’t think most of us act like we believe it. I mean, if we really trust in the Lord and not lean on our own understanding? Do we submit to Him in all our ways? 

I think we like the part where it says He will make our paths straight, because we all want to know the will of God. But do we really live this first part? 

When I first came home, it is kind of hard to see in that picture there, but that’s the first day I came home to my mom’s Bible study. I was amazed as these women embraced and loved on me. I really began to feel loved by women and feel accepted as a woman. I still looked so masculine. I mean, even there I looked softer than I had just a few days earlier. I think it was just the Lord beginning to do that healing work. He just began to transform me. 

This is me and my husband. We were just married four months ago. God has just done an incredible work, but it’s been just a miracle of the Holy Spirit. I didn’t figure out how to fix all of this, and it wasn’t an intellectual thing. 

Even as I was trying to figure out how to describe the joy of embracing biblical womanhood, I kind of had chosen the topic before I had thought about it too deeply. I’ve had all of this joy, but I’ve struggled with how to communicate this. One of the reasons is like, how do you describe to an unbeliever what it’s like to be in the presence of God? How do you describe what the transformation Jesus has done in you is like?

Imagine telling a dead person what it’s like to be raised from the dead? That’s what we’ve all experienced in salvation. And so I think ultimately this is what this has all been about, a healing work that the Lord has done in me, and it’s not an intellectual knowledge. It’s a deep working of the Holy Spirit that has been within me. 

But we all have to make this decision, does heaven rule or do I? 

What I didn’t know then was the healing redemption and transformation God had in store for me. I am so thankful He didn’t leave me in that darkness. I didn’t understand the great things that God had for me in store. 

I was willing to obey God, but I was completely untrusting of His ability to make biblical womanhood a blessing and not a curse. Are you convinced if you embraced biblical womanhood that you would be confined, restrained, and undervalued? What if the Lord wants to heal the pain that caused you to reject His design and intent for womanhood that could be a great joy instead of pain?

And again, even if you’ve never struggled with wanting to be a man or something like that, but I think sometimes it’s just hard to be a woman. Sometimes we feel like we don’t quite know how to do it, or we feel like God’s design is restraining. 

So, I am sure most of you in this room, like I said, are not desiring to be that way. I think so many times, we’ve been sinned against so much. Whether it’s a bad relationship with our father or maybe girls that are bullied, things like that.

This breakout will cover biblical womanhood a little differently than you may have heard before. I know this ministry is all about biblical womanhood, so I was very intimidated when I thought about teaching this. And this ministry has so much material on this that has really changed my life. Because when I came out of the transgender lifestyle, I was okay with identifying as woman because that’s the way God made me, but I didn’t like being a woman. 

It was about a year later. I was in this discipleship group, and about six months in they were going to do this study from Nancy and Mary called True Woman 101: Divine Design. That’s the last thing on this earth that I wanted to read. I was not interested.

But I was already invested in this discipleship group. I thought, Fine I’ll go ahead and do this study. Really, the first chapter, I was like, “These questions are so dumb. This doesn’t really apply to me. They just don’t get it, that I’m this trans person.” But by the second chapter, it was interesting. I don’t know if anybody remembers what the second chapter is on, but it’s about how God created man. 

I remember reading that and going, “I am not a man.” The Lord really began to soften my heart and open my heart to the fact that I was created different. I was like, “Okay God, well, if I am really created differently, then You’re going to need to teach me, because I don’t understand.”

Sin has really distorted male and female relationships. I think sometimes we project something on manhood by someone who has hurt us. 

This happens all the time. Maybe there is a man that’s really hurt you in your life. You’ll say men are all jerks, or you’ll say men can’t be trusted, or men are not protective, or whatever it might be. And in fact, that revelation actually is what started me on this quest of God. Male and female design is so much more profound than we understand. 

Why is it that when somebody sins against us, we project it on the entire sex? Half the population. And yet, I hear this all of the time. Often it goes back to one person in your life and sometimes multiple people. A lot of times what happens is there’s unforgiveness in your life. A lot of times, you will project those same things on other people. 

Do you ever hear people talk about how people push their buttons? Well, a lot times people are pushing your buttons. There’s unforgiveness there that the Lord is trying to highlight to you. He is trying to say, “This needs healing.” But we just keep acting like this is just the way I react or that just sets me off. We want to blame it on other people, but the Lord is saying there’s a hurt here, and He’s constantly trying to remind you of. 

So, this started me on this quest: Lord, what is male and female really? I mean, I know what the Bible says our roles are, but I began to get this sense that there was something deeper. 

So, is there really a difference between male and female? I think some of that is obvious, but some of it is probably not so much. The Lord had given me this example a couple of years ago about a detective. He is called to this crime scene, and it is his best friend’s house. His best friend said he doesn’t have any knowledge of what happened, and he gives him an alibi or whatever. 

But the detective is going through the scene, and he realizes he had caught his friend in several lies. The evidence is not matching his friend’s story. He realizes in horror that his friend actually has murdered his wife. He doesn’t want his friend to go to jail, so he alters the entire crime scene to make it look like his friend is innocent. 

But he hasn’t actually changed what actually happened. All he’s changed is the evidence of what has happened. 

What we have today is people who are changing their gender. They’re transitioning, but all that they are changing is making the evidence look like something different than what is stamped so deep inside.

Because the reality is, did you know that there are over 6,500 biological differences between male and female? And that’s only what scientists know about. That doesn’t include everything that God knows that we don’t. 

In fact, there are about 330 billion cells that are replaced in your body every single day. You have trillions of cells, but every single day you have 330 billion cells that are replaced and regenerated. That means your DNA that has your sex chromosomes in every single cell is like the information code that tells your body how to make those cells. 

So every day, your body is going to billions of your cells, recognizing that you are female. And then your body is regenerating those cells based on that information. Every day, all day long, your body is telling you over and over and over that you are a female. 

Can you have a male brain in a female body? We hear this all the time in the trans culture. But the reality is, if your sex chromosomes are in every single cell in your body, including your brain, then that’s biologically impossible. 

It’s not possible to have a male brain in a female body, or vice versa. 

I want to go through some of the differences. It’s a little bit of a longer study, that’s not really the focus of today. But there so many differences between male and female. I love to study this because God’s design was so incredibly intentional. 

Have you ever heard Nancy and Mary talk about how women are created relational? Women are created from the side of man. We were created to be in relationship. I think that’s really the essence of what it means to be a woman. We are relational by nature, and we are to create and foster and nurture relationship.

I think to help men understand relationships better, especially with the father, I think women can connect in a way that men struggle to.

Girls respond more readily to faces; they begin talking earlier. Boys respond earlier in infancy to perceptual discrepancies in their visual environment. In adulthood women remain more orientated to faces and men are to things. Men are much more object orientated, much more task oriented. Even women, some of us are career focused, but we are still very relational. We’re wired so different, with different needs, and different basic ways of functioning. 

I love this. There is a difference in the hearing between men and women. Women have better high frequency hearing. They are particularly adapted to a baby’s cry. They are able to discern between a broader range of emotional tones in the human voice. These things are so cool to me. 

But men are better about blocking unwanted and repetitious noise. 

In fact, this was so funny to me when I was studying this. I asked Perry when he was over at my house doing some work in the backyard. I’m in the house studying, and there was this barking dog that was driving me out of my mind. I finally went out, and I was like, “Hey, are you tired of this dog? Is this bothering you? Like I can’t stand this, I just want . . .” not that I would ever hurt an animal, but I just couldn’t take the barking. And he was like, “Oh, I think I heard it earlier,” but he hadn’t noticed it in a while. I was like, “How do you not notice this dog?” 

They are better at sound location, detecting changes in the audio environment. Just think about the way that God designed them and the roles that He gave them, for men to be the protector. 

So, men are able to tell where sound is coming from a lot better than a woman. They’re able to sense danger a lot easier. 

But of course, we are designed to where we can’t tune out a baby’s cry. God gave us that for a reason, and then men are able to detect predators, danger, whatever it might be. 

Women tend to function better when they are sleep deprived. Again, that goes back to babies. But remember, even if we haven’t had babies, like I don’t have my own children and won’t be able to. I had the female organs removed. But even if we don’t, this points to the greater reality of how we are to nurture and foster life. If you say, “Well, I may not be able to have kids, or I’ve never had kids, or something like that, the fact that is pointing to how God designed us to be able to care for babies, but it’s actually pointing to a greater reality than that. 

Our taste and smell are different. Again, this goes back to women have better senses of taste and smell. They have on average 43 percent more cells and almost 50 percent more neurons in their olfactory bulb. This is the part of the brain that’s responsible for processing smells. 

Women usually have more taste buds than men. Women of child-bearing age taste flavors more intensely than younger or older females, and they may notice increased activity during pregnancy. And this is all about being able to taste and smell and avoid foods that are bad for the baby. 

Skin is about 25% thicker in males. They have higher densities of collagen; they are less sensitive to the cold. They sweat about 30–40 percent more than females. In our society today, a lot of men and women have desk jobs, but originally God created man to till the ground and for much harder physical work. So He’s given them greater protection in their skin, to be able to help them with that. 

There are differences in the heart and even the lungs. Men have larger lung volumes than females. The carrying angle, this is interesting, we’re not as strong as males. God gave us weaker muscles and a different type of muscles. God designed women for different things like the carrying angle for a baby. Her arms come out wider, but it’s to be able to carry a baby in a way that’s different than a man, because our muscles aren’t quite as strong. 

There are actually different types of fibers, women tend to be much more flexible. Men have a lot more of fast switch fibers, so they have this explosive energy. I had been running for several years, and I love to go jogging. Perry had been jogging some but not as much. But I remember I said, I’ll race you to the van, and he shot past me and with such power and I was blown away. I thought, Where did that come from? 

Even if women are better at endurance, men have this explosive power and their muscles are just different. I will never forget that. I was just stunned by this energy. 

And then just the difference in the way our hips are designed, and of course the pelvis is more flexible to allow for the expanding birth canal. Every single part of the body is designed differently, and every part of the body speaks to the roles that God gave us. 

Men have broader shoulders, which speaks to his responsibility for the family’s provision. Shoulders in the Bible even represent the burden of the family. He is responsible for the family’s well-being. He is the protector; he bears the burden for teaching his family as the priest of the home. Universally, across every culture men are almost always taller, usually like four to six inches on average to be able to protect and cover the woman. The woman kind of fits perfectly under his arm. 

He is able to spring into action. He is able to run faster. He has longer legs and a stronger back. And so, Eve is more soft and flexible, and you know she is the helper and the nurturer. She’s responsible for nurturing life. She fits under his arm and at his side. 

Every part of her body is designed to create and nurture life. She has a better ability to recognize facial expression. She has a longer torso to accommodate the extra reproductive organs.

Think about this, this is often the first question when a woman is pregnant, people ask her is it a boy or is it a girl? And why is this the first thing God says, two things about human beings: that they are made in the image of God and they are male and female. 

And so, I began to think, we know they’re human, just because they’re coming from a human parent. But the first thing declared over a child is that they are male or female. 

I began to understand that this was something really profound. We know that this points to the fact that this is all about Christ and the Bride. A man is going to leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh, and for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh, this is a profound mystery but I am talking about Christ and the Bride. (see Eph. 5:31–32)

This is all about displaying the gospel. And really, masculinity and femininity display the full character of God.

One thing that I noticed that the way that God designed us, I was looking up the word for . . . You remember in Genesis where it says that God says that I will make a helper suitable for him? The word “suitable” is the word kenegd, which means “opposite of.” That’s really obvious, I can understand opposite of, but it also means “in front of or on the side of.”

And I was thinking, God that doesn’t make sense, I don’t understand what that has to do with it. And the Lord reminded me, when I was living as trans, I had a partner that was a man living as a woman, and it was so obvious to me that he was a man. He was dressing as a woman but this was clearly a man. I kept thinking why is this not real for him, why do I still feel like this is fake, because this was long before I figured out I was the fake one too. It is all fake. 

He was like a mirror to me. I could see the truth in him that I couldn’t see in myself. And the Lord reminded me, I had shared that so many times and I could see these qualities in him. Even though he’s acting like a women, he’s dressing like a woman, he’s taking the stereotypical women roles, he’s into more stereotypical women things . . . Oddly, this is so interesting, he was so feminine and had all of these effeminate things, until his brother came back into his life and reconnected him with his family. Then all of the sudden he really began to shed this desire to be female. He didn’t want to tell me at first, but he became more and more masculine as he reconnected with his brother. 

I think there were some deep wounds there. But anyway, that aside, the Lord was teaching me about this concept in front of and in the side of—men and women display different characteristics of God. Men represent His strength, His protection, His provision, and things like that. 

And women represent His softer nature, His love, His relationship, His nurturing, how He cares for us. The qualities that men have are ways that women struggle to trust. Think about how we struggle to trust men that they will protect us, because we fear that they will hurt us. We struggle to think that they will provide for us, and things like that.

So, men display these characteristics of God that we don’t inherently understand, and we display that to them. When we are trying to be like men, we’re actually distorting the image of God that He’s created. 

There’s this complimentary nature of men. They are wired to protect, women need to be protected. Men wired to be providers; women need to be provided for. They’re wired to initiate, and we’re wired to respond. God created this beautiful picture to be in perfect harmony together. 

There are various childhood experiences that may play into this. If someone is raised by a father who abuses their mother, they may see being a woman as unsafe. If they are sexually abused as a child, they may only see what her value may only be in what she can give sexually. If she’s not allowed to do things her brothers are allowed to do, she may see being a woman as restrictive and under privileged. If she had a really overbearing mother, she might reject her femininity. If she grew up playing with boys more, she might not know how to fit in with girls, and might think she doesn’t like them. These are just some various things I’ve heard.

But I think it can all lead to a distorted view of what it is to be a woman.

Dannah: What an important message this is, especially for those of us with daughters and granddaughters growing up in a gender-confused culture. Laura Perry Smalts will be back tomorrow to discuss more of the complementary differences between men and women. In the meantime, let’s brainstorm how we can show our girls it’s good to be a woman. 

We’ve got some resources here at Revive Our Hearts that illustrate the beauty of biblical womanhood. As you know, we love to call it True Womanhood. 

Laura mentioned True Woman 101 by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and Mary Kassian. That’s an incredible resource that digs deep into God’s purposeful design for women. 

We’ve also got countless podcast episodes and blog articles in the womanhood category on our website. You can search by topic at ReviveOurHearts.com.You can just get lost in rich, biblical content like you heard today. I could go on and on. 

True Womanhood is one of our core messages at Revive Our Hearts—and twenty-five years later, God is still allowing us to share it. This weekend, we’re wrapping up another ministry year, which means we’re taking a good look at our finances as we prepare for the year to come. At this time, we have a budget shortfall we’re asking God to help us overcome. We’re so grateful for all he’s provided already! You can check out the progress bar at the top of our homepage at ReviveOurHearts.com to see just how generous listeners have been already.

Now, there’s still a ways to go if we’re going to reach our $1.4 million dollar goal and close that budget gap. Maybe, like Laura, you’ve been impacted by Nancy’s teaching on biblical womanhood. Maybe Revive Our Hearts has helped you to embrace your femininity as a good and beautiful thing rather than a limitation. If that’s true and you haven’t given yet, would you prayerfully consider making a donation before the end of the month?

When you do, we’ll gift you Nancy’s latest resource—Called to Thrive—as our thanks. We believe that every woman is called to thrive in Christ, and this booklet expresses that core message in nine brief yet Bible-rich devotionals. When you give, you allow us to keep bringing you this message, but you also help us tell the woman across the globe that she is called to thrive in Christ. That her womanhood is a good and beautiful gift worth joyfully embracing. 

To give and request Called to Thrive, visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959. Thank you so much for asking the Lord how you might partner with us as we seek to call every woman to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. 

Tomorrow, we’re hearing more from Laura Perry Smalts. She’s gonna broach a topic I think we need to talk about more often—and that is emasculating men. It’s become so normalized in our culture, I wonder—do we even realize we’re doing it? It’s gonna be an interesting conversation.

Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.