She Lived as a Transgender Atheist for Years — Then She Found Jesus
Haley Furst once identified as a transgender man, embraced atheism and supported some of the most progressive political positions imaginable.
Today, she says she believes in Jesus Christ, has returned to living as a woman and embraces biblical values.
Her journey did not begin with a political campaign, an argument on social media or someone shouting condemnation at her.
According to Furst, one of the pivotal moments came when a coworker simply read Scripture to her.
Now Furst is telling her story publicly and warning parents about what she believes can happen when children and teenagers are exposed to intense conversations about gender and sexuality before they are prepared to understand them.
Fox News Digital published Furst’s story September 12, along with a video interview in which she describes her transition, former political beliefs and eventual return to Christianity.
From a Christian Childhood to a Radically Different Worldview
Furst grew up in Alberta, Canada, in a Christian home and attended a private Christian school until high school.
She told Fox News that entering the Canadian public-school system produced significant “culture shock.”
According to Furst, discussions about gender identity and sexual liberation became far more prominent in her new environment. She specifically recalled Gay-Straight Alliance clubs and conversations about sexuality involving teachers and students.
Furst believes those experiences influenced the way she eventually began thinking about herself.
Over the next five or six years, she identified as a transgender man.
Furst told Fox that she was born female but began presenting as male and taking male hormones.
Her transition eventually became medical.
She underwent a hysterectomy in which her uterus and one ovary were removed.
Her transformation during those years extended far beyond gender.
Furst says she also rejected the Christian worldview in which she had been raised.
She described herself as atheist for part of that period and said she embraced anarcho-communism and extremely permissive views of abortion.
“I really just had a radical perspective change,” Furst told Fox while describing the difference between her former worldview and what she believes today.
But another change was coming.
And this one began with the Bible.
A Coworker Read Her Romans 8
Furst says a coworker helped trigger her return to Christianity by reading her a passage from Romans.
The passage was Romans 8:38-39, where the Apostle Paul declares that neither death nor life, the present nor the future, nor anything else in creation can separate believers from the love of God found in Christ Jesus.
Those words stayed with her.
Furst went home and wrestled with what she had heard.
She eventually decided to pray.
But there was a significant obstacle in her mind.
After everything that had happened—and everything she had come to believe—Furst questioned whether Jesus would still want her.
She prayed anyway.
What followed, she says, was not an instantaneous transformation in which every question and struggle disappeared.
Furst describes it as a gradual work of God in her heart.
“It was a slow heart work,” she told Fox.
Her relationship with Jesus developed over time, eventually changing not merely her religious identification but how she understood herself.
Today, Furst describes herself openly as a woman and says she embraces biblical values.
That transformation has also changed how she views the conversations adults are having with children about gender and sexuality.
Furst Now Has a Warning for Parents
Furst says she is particularly concerned about adults discussing detailed issues of sexual identity with minors.
She contrasts her early Christian-school experience—where she says such conversations were limited and age appropriate—with what she experienced later in public school.
Looking back, Furst believes the constant emphasis on gender and sexual identity affected how she perceived herself.
She now describes some of that exposure as damaging.
Furst specifically questioned whether teachers should be having detailed conversations about sexual practices with children as young as 13 or 14.
She believes those discussions should primarily be left to parents and families, who can determine when and how their children are ready for them.
Her warning arrives amid a much larger cultural and legal debate about parental rights, gender identity and public education.
But Furst’s testimony brings a perspective to that debate that is difficult to dismiss as merely theoretical.
She lived it.
She medically transitioned.
And she now looks back on that period from a radically different perspective.
Fox also published approximately six minutes of Furst discussing her experience directly, allowing viewers to hear her account rather than relying exclusively on secondhand descriptions.
A Christian Perspective: This Story Is Really About Grace
There will be a temptation for Christians to turn Haley Furst’s story primarily into another weapon in the culture war.
That would miss its most important message.
Yes, her warnings about children, schools and gender ideology deserve serious consideration.
Parents have both a biblical responsibility and a legitimate interest in knowing what their children are being taught.
But something even more important happened in this story.
A woman who wondered whether Jesus could possibly still want her discovered that He did.
That is the Gospel.
Christianity does not teach that people must repair themselves before approaching Christ.
Jesus repeatedly encountered people whose lives were confused, sinful and broken.
He did not affirm everything they were doing.
But neither did He tell them to clean themselves up before coming near Him.
He called them to Himself.
Romans 5:8 says:
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Notice when Christ died for us.
Not after we became respectable.
Not after we developed correct politics.
Not after we understood every doctrine.
While we were still sinners.
That is what makes Furst’s recollection that
