[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: Everyone knew Wanda Jo Taylor preferred

jeans over dresses, they just didn't know why.

Boys were rough and tough like myself,

and the girls was dainty and pretty,

and I was attracted to them.

I knew that as a young age.

NARRATOR: Her mother, Opal, thought her youngest child

was going through a phase.

I know she was a tomboy, but everybody

said just leave her alone, she'll grow out of it.

NARRATOR: But Wanda couldn't change what she was feeling.

Back then, I was like I feel like a boy trapped

in a girl's body and I didn't understand me.

NARRATOR: Wanda Jo embraced her identity as a boy,

and started having sexual contact with other girls.

She managed to keep it a secret until at 18 she got

caught with a neighbor girl.

I came out to tell the whole world I was gay

and I was proud.

And I live my life the way I wanted to live life.

I couldn't live my life for my mother, nobody.

I did what Wanda wanted.

I did my will, what I wanted to do.

It hurt.

I cried every day.

NARRATOR: After high school, Wanda Jo

landed a good paying job as a computer programmer

and dove into the homosexual lifestyle.

I went to clubs, gay clubs, gay parties, gay parades.

I did it all.

I walked into a topless club looking

like a man, dressed like a man, smell like a man.

I prayed all the time, hoping that she would change,

but she went through so many women.

NARRATOR: For the next 30 years, Wanda Jo pursued many women,

and had a few serious relationships,

but they were chaotic, at times, violent.

You're fighting, no trust, the jealousy, the envy,

the drama that's in that lifestyle that I was in.

NARRATOR: None of them gave Wanda Jo

what she really wanted.

I was searching for love in all the wrong places.

That's what I was searching for.

NARRATOR: The one thing Wanda Jo never indulged in

was drugs and alcohol, but when she nearly

died after one of her lovers stabbed her,

she found crack cocaine eased the physical and emotional

pain.

I was just tired.

I was so tired, I don't know what to do.

NARRATOR: For 2 and 1/2 years, she

lived at the mercy of a crack cocaine addiction

and dropped down to a mere 98 pounds

Finally, Wanda Jo remembered something

she learned in church as a child, that in times of despair

she could always call on God.

Next thing you know, I was so broken.

My God, I was broken.

I was tired of so much, just everything.

I went home and got on my knees and I cried out to God,

and I said, "God, take this away from me.

Jesus, help me." when [INAUDIBLE] he did,

he snapped a finger, a blink of an eye.

NARRATOR: Wanda Jo says her desire for cocaine

was completely gone.

And that deliverance by God fueled a hunger

to return to church.

She found one that accepted her just as she was.

Never forget a day I was in the church.

Had been going there in my man suits.

They loved me, so they let me come in the church broken,

lost, as the sinner that I was.

I was like, wow.

They was treating me with so much love,

and now he's talking the truth, the word, and now

I'm getting this word in my heart.

NARRATOR: Wanda Jo continued going to church,

and reading the Bible.

For the first time, after 30 years living as a man,

she discovered her true identity.

WANDA JO: Opened up my Bible to the scripture that he gave me,

and the scripture was Isaiah 43:18-19 and it says,

"Remember not the former things.

Neither consider the things of old."

God said, "Behold, I do a new thing,

and a new thing should spring forward, shall ye not know it.

I'll make a road in the wilderness and a river

in the desert."

But I read it the third time, and when I read it

the third time, He said, "Remember not

the former things, all the gay stuff and all that."

He was right there at the time. "Neither consider

the things of old, on drugs, and crack, and all that,

and hoe mongering, fornicating, committing adultery, lying,

cheating."

NARRATOR: Right at that moment, her mother called.

Wanda Jo told her everything God had showed her

in the scriptures.

WANDA JO: Who are you, then?

My mama heard, for 30 years, I was gay, I was butch,

and I was a stud.

She said, "Wanda Jo," 12:00 midnight, "Who are you then,

Wanda Jo?

I said the old Wanda Jo is gone.

I'm the new Wanda Jo.

Scared myself.

I said "Woo!"

NARRATOR: Wanda Jo gave her life to Jesus Christ

that night in 2007.

WANDA JO: When people see me now,

they know they're looking at a miracle.

I said I'm just like Jesus, his first miracle.

Turning water into wine.

The old Wanda Jo was the water, the new Wanda Jo is the wine,

and I said I'm miracle.

Hallelujah.

I said I'm a miracle to myself.

He took that desire away.

I don't desire women no more.

He took that desire away.

NARRATOR: Today, she works in full time ministry,

sharing God's truth and love to people

she meets in Dallas, Texas.

WANDA JO: I have a true and a personal relationship with God.

And that's why I was searching for love

in all the wrong places.

All the time, it was Jesus who I was such for.