Not all religion is totally evil. For instance, I'm grateful to the Catholic Charity that provides transportation to hospital cancer appointments for free.

I was born and raised in Haiti by American United Methodist missionary parents who flew to Haiti on a one-way ticket just before I was born, so my TV engineer dad could build a radio station for the mission.

But being raised in an religious environment wasn't all bad.

The mission built a free clinic,
eventually had a midwife on call,
a dentist,
free elementary through community college level schools with uniforms and free lunch,
a vocational school with metal and wood shops,

an international short and long wave, four-language radio station with both secular and religious programming,

playing a lot of local, original music, training local Haitians to run the controls and work in the French-Creole departments, while other native speakers covered Spanish and English programming.

The entire goal of the mission was to train "nationals" to take over the work, so the mission sent Haitian staff to school, even to the US, to get engineering and nursing degrees, etc.

I seldom heard hell and brimstone except sometimes local Haitian pastors, mentored by the previous strict Holiness mission owners, would rant in church against some popular sin (usually humorously, and acted out),

like drinking local rum (delicious, but 100 proof..needs a LOT of dilution),
or dancing in the Mardi Gras parades, since local dancing is vulgar, "dirty dancing" style. now popular in the US due to black music performers, and whites copying them.

My mom had five kids to keep in line, and she wasn't confrontive, so if she thought I was "sinning" by showing my knees or considering wearing make up, she'd say that I was "making Jesus sad."
I was easily influenced, not wanting to hurt my mom's (or Jesus' feelings.

Besides, as a partial transmale (I didn't know anything about gender issues back then) I barely noticed what I wore, or how I looked. I didn't care if boys noticed me or not, since I considered boys my rivals, and myself as male, in a way, and both adult and peers accepted me as a default boy.

I could out shoot, out throw and catch, out ride, out climb, out lasso, out knife-throw, or out anything else on the mission, no matter the game, but that changed when puberty tipped the scales in the favor of my male "peers."

I remained spindly and feminine while my male friends gained muscle, strength, and height without even earning it through working out. UNFAIR.

I was furious, seeing it as a cruel, unfair Mother Nature trick on me, and my brother, only 11 months older than me, loved to jeer at me about it.

One of his friends told me years later that my brother admitted he could barely beat me in a race, and had to run long enough that his male strength could outlast my superior speed.

I was even followed by a gang of younger MK (missionary kid) boys. I didn't notice it at the time, but girl friends tended to get jealous crushes on me, as though I were a boy, and would fight over who got to sit next to me.

I accepted it as my due, never noticing anything unusual.

Photo is me my freshman year at college, 1970, when I was seventeen.