I recently wrote about David Weekley, a minister in the United Methodist Church who came out to his congregations as a trans man (Female to Male FtM transsexual) and received a delicious reception from church members.
Today Jori Lewis writes about Trangfender faith identities over at Religion Dispatches. In her piece she highlights the stories of transgender Christians including my dear friend and workshop co-facilitator Allyson Robinson.
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Allyson Robinson is an ordained Baptist minister. But until a few years ago, she lived life as a man.
Robinson had struggled with her transgender identity all of her life, growing up as a little boy who longed for dresses. “I grew up in my mom’s closet,” she said.
–snip–
As a man, Robinson pastored a Baptist church in a small town in Central Texas. “We were in the kind of place where a pastor’s coming out, it would have been on the front page of the local paper,” she said. Robinson said that those congregants, nice and well-meaning as they were, would not have been comfortable with a transgender pastor. She worried about how the community’s reaction would affect her children. So when she made the decision to become a woman, she quietly resigned
The piece goes on to outline more of Allyson’s experience and her current role at the HRC. Others featured in the piece are Methodist minister Drew Phoenix and Lynn Walker of the Orthodox-Catholic Church of America.
My play Transfigurations also gets a mention in the piece,
Actor Peterson Toscano was inspired by what he calls the secret history of transgender people in the Bible. He started workshopping a play on the topic almost two years ago. He named it Transfigurations, a reference to the metamorphosis of Jesus to a being with a visible divine radiance. Toscano describes the play as “a biblical magic trip.” It’s a one-man show that explores the stories people of indeterminate gender, of Joseph and his girl-like ways (remember his coat of many colors?), and of Deborah and her man-like ones.
Read all of Transgender and Christian: Finding Identity
hat tip to Diana in the Nutmeg State
I’ll leave you with my video where I talk about transgender rights.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeaQ2V8I-Ic&hl=en&fs=1&]
Drew Phoenix was also one of the preachers here at the 2009 Reconciling Ministries Network’s Convocation!! He preached the morning after I did. GREAT guy!!