Jerry Leach was an American ex-transgender activist. Leach was active in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Background
Jerry Edward Leach was born on November 23, 1941 to Jim and Maxine (Boatright) Leach. Leach had one sibling, Clifford. According to a 2015 obituary:
Jerry was raised in Omaha, Nebraska with his younger brother, Cliff. His father worked for the Omaha Transit Company and his mother owned a neighborhood hair salon, Maxine’s Beauty Salon. Jerry was an industrious newspaper boy with a reputation of strong work ethic and one of the largest routes in his area. Following high school, he enlisted in the Navy where he became a corpsman that sparked a lifetime interest in medicine. Once out of the Navy, Jerry was a first generation college graduate and eventually worked as a surgical scrub tech during the week and in church ministry during the evenings and weekends. Later in life he attended seminary, earning his Masters of Divinity degree and becoming a pastoral marriage and family counselor.
Leach wore feminine clothes as a child until being caught and beaten by parent Jim at age 17. Leach enlisted in the US Navy after high school and served as a corpsman, but was discharged after discussing gender transition with a psychiatrist. Leach attended college and got married to Charlene, who knew about Leach’s interest in expressing a feminine identity. They had two children, David and Amy. After college, Leach trained to be a minister.
After getting married, Leach would socialize in public using the name Jennifer. By the late 1980s. Leach and spouse separated for a time, and Leach began taking hormones. Leach scheduled bottom surgery but felt guilt about the strain everything was putting on their family, eventually reuniting with Charlene.
Leach had a religious epiphany while contemplating suicide. Leach then found Christian counselors and joined ex-trans group Crossover in 1988. In 1999, Leach founded ex-trans support group Reality Resources, which also did business in Lexington, Kentucky as Jerry Leach Counseling, LLC. Leach reportedly earned a master’s degree but was not licensed as a therapist. Leach claimed a 100% cure rate among clients.
Leach was a member of the American Association of Christian Counselors, an ordained Christian minister, and a participating Member Ministry of ex-gay group Exodus North America.
Leach died on December 9, 2015.
References
Obituary (December 10, 2015). Jerry Edward Leach, 1941 – 2015. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/legacyremembers/jerry-leach-obituary?id=23098708
Schwartzwalder, Rob (April 08, 2015). Understanding the Definitions of the New Sexual Tolerance. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission https://erlc.com/resource/understanding-the-definitions-of-the-new-sexual-tolerance/
Robinson, C. M., & Spivey, S. E. (2019). Ungodly Genders: Deconstructing Ex-Gay Movement Discourses of “Transgenderism” in the US. Social Sciences, 8(6), 191. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci8060191
Lunt, Holly (March 3, 2009). Nature vs. Nurture: Is Gender a Matter of Biology or Environment? https://lunt888.wordpress.com/english-2010/nature-vs-nurture-is-gender-a-matter-of-biology-or-environment/
Cowan, Zagria (January 31, 2009). Jerry Leach (1941 – ) pastor, counselor. A Gender Variance Who’s Who https://zagria.blogspot.com/2009/01/jerry-leach-1941-pastor-counselor.html
Kennedy, John W. (February 2008). The Transgender Moment: Evangelicals hope to respond with both moral authority and biblical compassion to gender identity disorder. Christianity Today https://www.christianitytoday.com/2008/02/transgender-moment/
Staff report (February 19, 2007). Can One Be A Transgender Christian? Ex-Gay Watch https://exgaywatch.com/2007/02/can-one-be-a-transgender-christian/
Gilbert, Elizabeth (June 1996). Queer and Loathing. Spin, pages 77ff. https://books.google.com/books?id=JpJ-kK1j2_MC&pg=PA77#v=onepage&q&f=false
Foster, David Kyle (1996). An Interview With A Former Transsexual and Transvestite. http://masteringlife.org/index.php?view=article&catid=43%3Atransgender-disorders&id=129%3Ainterview-with-a-former-transsexual-and-transvestite&option=com_content&Itemid=29 [archive]
Selected writing by Leach
Leach, Jerry (1993). Jennifer or Jerry? http://leaderu.com/stonewall/pages/jerry_l.html [archive]
Media
SBM Worldwide / Straight Talk Radio (March 24, 2020). Dealing with Reality: the Testimony of Jerry Leach. https://sbmworldwide.com/2020/03/24/dealing-with-reality-the-testimony-of-jerry-leach/
Books
Leach, Jerry (2001). Flight Toward Woman. [alt title Cowboys Don’t Cross-dress]. Reality Resources Publications [no ISBN]
Resources
Reality Resources (realityresources.com) [archive]
LinkedIn (linkedin.com)
Trans Christians (transchristians.org) [archive]
- transchristians.org/people/jerry-leach [archive]
- transchristians.org/people/jerry-leach/leach-interview [archive]
LeaderU (leaderu.com) [archive]
- redirects to https://campus.cru.org/
- www.leaderu.com/stonewall/pages/jerry_l.html [archive]