TRANSitions: Gender-diverse faith leadership from the transfigured self

Overview Description

In the summer of 2021, I began showing up as the senior pastor of the United Methodist Church for All people more authentically—as a transgender woman. Initially, my Sunday attire of men’s muted, collared shirts made way for more colorful androgynous attire. I did not initially feel safe to preach as my fully authentic feminine self, and I wasn’t yet publically out, but the observant eye noticed. On one occasion, I came out to a church member who responded that she had already figured it out. When I asked how she knew, she said, “I don’t know, it could’ve been the eyeshadow, the blouse you are wearing, or the mermaid necklace.”

As I began to explore how to publicly live out my gender expression, my largest concern was how I would be received as a pastor. I did not personally know any other transgender clergy. I found some support from online groups with Transmission Ministry Collective and QueerTheology; and, read the few books available on transgender faith by authors such as Austen Hartke, Melissa Wilcox, and Shannon TL Kearns. However, the amount of material available to guide me in the journey of serving as a transgender pastor was limited. I saw my gender as a renewed call to ministry. As Melissa Wilcox writes, “Considering gender identity to be a divine calling makes being transgender intrinsically good and holy.” But, I did not have guides to help me live it out.

I asked myself, what new work might God be doing through me? How can the journey of transitioning inform my ministry? Instead of seeing myself as a person to be defended or an issue to be solved, what unique gifts can I bring to the church? And not only me, but how can transgender people develop a voice, theology, and praxis similar to those of Black, Womanist, or Latinx liberation theologies born in the 20th Century.

These questions led me to work on my doctorate of ministry with Pacific School of Religion. From these studies and experiences I centered my work on the hypothesis: Out, transgender clergy are a relatively recent manifestation in church leadership. As a result, distinctive transgender theologies, hermeneutics, and pastoral practices, have not been fully developed. In order to equip transgender faith leaders to operate out of their unique and distinctive gifts, I will create a series of online and print resources for gender-diverse ministerial leadership.

In exploration of this hypothesis, I have created resources for transgender faith leaders in a capstone portfolio, primarily using practical disciplines studies.