Unfortunately the “shame” surrounding these things stem from the concept of sin and living as a “sinner” in a “fallen world”. I’ve been shamed countless times because of things the church did not agree with. I don’t know if he ever preached any transphobic ideas in his time, but biblical ideologies are rife with gender roles and toxic ideas about women and masculinity. Even if he didn’t preach any of that toxic garbage, he must have been struggling a lot with his own identity, even though he said it’s only for fun and stress relief (paraphrasing). Small towns don’t act gracefully towards people experimenting with their sexualities like this. Can only imagine the rejection he must have experienced having all of this play off on the grand stage of his life in that little town, since literally everyone there knew him.