A counter-cultural personal testimony of a drag queen whose life was turned around when he became a follower of Jesus, showed how a loving group of Christians reaching out to gay people brought the message of real peace and joy to 35-year-old Kevin Whitt.
Growing up with divorced parents, Kevin’s father was abusive, verbally, physically and sexually. His father’s intention in his own words was to teach Kevin ‘how to be a man’. The result was that he was left struggling to form relationships with anyone and was then further abused by someone who initially appeared to be a friend.
His grandmother, however, had taken him to church and through this he had always believed in God, but not followed Him. She encouraged him to open up about whatever terrible thing that had happened to him as she saw how much hate he had in his heart. After hearing about the abuse, rape, and bullying, they cried and prayed together.
Nevertheless, after recognising and announcing that he was attracted to other males, for the first time in his life he was considered as normal – a ‘cool kid’.
He began working as a drag queen, and as a transsexual prostitute earning up to $1,000 a day. However, he soon found he could not do the drag act, or the prostitution, without being drunk.
As a result, he believed that he would just die young from contracting AIDS, and that he was destined for hell. But God intervened.
Kevin took up the invitation of a friend to go to church where, he said: ‘God grabbed my attention … [my] lifestyle was not honouring to Jesus … I bowed my head. That was the first day of my walk with Christ.’
Real hope
Kevin then turned to Living Hope, a ministry to reach the gay community for Christ. He said: [contrary to ‘gay-conversion’ propaganda:] ‘Anti, ex, cure, or hate does not describe the heart of their ministry. Proper adjectives to describe this ministry would be loving, caring, kind, agape, and the list goes on and on. They love people into a closer relationship with Jesus Christ and the rest is left with him. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”’
