Transgendered minister addressed YADs, Theological Task Force
By Paula R. Kincaid, The Layman Online, Posted Wednesday, June 25, 2003
Erin Swenson, the transgendered Presbyterian minister, has called the 215th General Assembly “the assembly where transgender Presbyterians really made their denominational debut.”
Erin SwensonIn her Reflections, posted on the More Light Presbyterian’s Web site, Swenson lists several reasons for her conclusion. She said that “perhaps the best occurred on Tuesday evening, when I was invited to address the Youth Advisory Delegates (YADs) to tell them about a new organization devoted to educate and advocate for the full inclusion of gender-different/transgressive people in the PCUSA.”
The new organization she was promoting to the youth was Presbyterians for Gender Concerns (PGC), a group she said that will be “allied with the goals of More Light Presbyterians, That All May Freely Serve and The Shower of Stoles Project.”
“The YADs were delighted with PGC’s presentation, and many sought me out in the hallways later to express thankfulness that transgender folks are included in our work for love and justice in the Presbyterian Church,” she said.
Swenson also reported on a meeting she attended as a representative of More Light Presbyterians with members of the PCUSA’s Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity.
Swenson said she and six other More Light officers and staff left the meeting “hopeful that this task force will find new ways of being together as church in the years ahead. It was meaningful to me, after telling the story of how my presbytery dealt with my gender transition, to be asked to voice the closing prayer by one of the co-moderators of the task force.”
Her week at the assembly also included testifying at two public hearings held by assembly committees. She appeared before the “General Assembly’s Committees on National Issues (for the family report) and Church Orders (the deletion G-6.0106b), making certain that I introduced myself as a Presbyterian minister who is transgender. In both committees, I was able to ask the committee members to support our efforts to create a church where the Gospel could be preached in an atmosphere friendly to truth, rather than a place where people use the comfort of tradition to hide from the truth. While a few of these committee members responded to my testimony by examining their laps, many responded with smiles and nods of support.”
Swenson was the first person to address the National Issues committee, where she introduced herself as a minister member of Greater Atlanta Presbytery, a marriage and family therapist and a transgendered woman. She told committee members the report was an “important thing to have,” adding that the church was “under siege” from special-interest groups wanting to narrow the church’s ministry and that the denomination did not have “real resources for real families in real times. … I do have a family. It is a diverse family … I pray you adopt this report to keep the doors open to those who need to join this diverse family of our Presbyterian Church.”
Before the Church Orders committee, Swenson introduced herself as the “T-person that you probably thought you never thought you would meet.” Once the Rev. Eric Swenson, a male clergyman, she said she decided years ago to become a woman.
Swenson called for the repeal of G-6.0106b. Her experience, she said, is that the “church is not the place to hide from the truth.” Without G-6.0106b, she argued, people won’t have to hide.