A trans minister’s journey to acceptance
RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J. — Her transformation at church was slow, but noticeable.
She let her wavy hair grow out, and occasionally allowed herself to replace the transparent nail polish she wore on her manicured hands with a more vivid pink. Her eyebrows were thinner and more defined, and her cheeks seemed rosier, drawing puzzled looks from congregants at the church she had led for 15 years.
She was known as Peter Strand then, the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Ridgefield Park. A married man and the father of two.
But after a year of hormone replacement therapy, Strand, who now uses the name Petra, decided in April 2015 to let the congregation know what she had known for some time. She was a woman.
She addressed a four-page letter to the members of her church to explain the physical changes they may have noticed.
She invited them to a meeting after a Sunday service, where she offered to talk to them about her transition.
And she leaned on her faith to get her through.
“My struggle then was how to face the world, not knowing how others would react, and feeling ashamed and humiliated in their eyes,” Strand recalled. “I found the courage to do so from my prayer life, from my stronger relationship to Christ.”
At the meeting, there was silence as Strand poured her heart out, one former member of the church recalled.
Most members were supportive, Strand said. Many said they weren’t surprised. “They asked why it took so long,” she said.
Others, though, pushed back, saying Strand’s transition was an affront to family values.
That response may have contributed to Strand’s departure from the church just a few months later.
Strand, who stresses that the church’s finances played a role in her decision to leave, is now going through the discernment process in the Episcopal Church, a first step toward her goal of becoming ordained as a priest. She also occasionally preaches at other churches as a guest.
Across the country, quietly and sometimes more publicly, religious leaders have come forward as transgender in Christian and Jewish denominations.
One of the first was Rev. Erin Swenson, who successfully fought to retain her ordination in the Presbyterian Church of the United States in 1996.
“It’s surprising to me that it is still surprising when I tell people that I was the first openly transgender person to have her ordination upheld through my gender transition, and that it happened in the 1990s and it happened in Georgia,” Swenson said.
It’s unclear how many transgender people are serving as clergy members in the United States, but Swenson said their numbers remain modest. “It’s too difficult, it’s too hard for people to go through,” she said.
Most denominations don’t have policies prohibiting transgender people from being ordained, but the cultural and political realities can make it difficult, said Chris Paige, executive director of Transfaith, a national organization led by transgender people that focuses on faith and spirituality.
The Episcopal Church approved the ordination of transgender priests in 2012, while the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ordained its first transgender minister in 2015. Transgender people serve in the clergy of the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church.
Even where there are policies allowing transgender clergy members to serve, in the end, it’s how members of a congregation feel about the issue that ultimately determines whether transgender clergy members are able to stay and continue their religious work, Paige said.
“It can be a shock to folks’ system, and some congregations are more ready to adapt, than others,” Paige said. “Even in the Episcopal Church, where there are explicit non-discriminatory policies, there have been examples of folks who have transitioned in a church where they were successful clergy functioning in the role, and the church just wouldn’t have them.”
As long as Strand can remember, she has identified more closely with women than men, and as a child wished she had been born a girl. She always felt different, but the thought of changing her gender hadn’t crossed her mind.
“It took a long time to sort things out, it took a really long time,” said Strand, 60. “Inwardly I felt one way; outwardly I’m living another role. I’m always living this role, and was just trying to do the best I could.”
Growing up, she was not familiar with the word “transgender.” She said she was motherly toward others and became interested in the bible and Jesus at a young age.
In 2010, she said, she began to see books about people who had changed genders. The books fascinated her and spurred her to do some research.
“I didn’t know it was possible,” she said. “Then I started to look at more clinical type books, I wanted to read what therapists said ... and the more I read, the more it described what I was feeling.”
Strand, who was married at the time, decided she needed to see a therapist who could help her understand and resolve what she was feeling.
“I knew I wanted to talk to a professional and find out if I was crazy,” she said.
After meeting with the therapist in December 2013, Strand said her suspicions were confirmed. She was transgender.
“It was like everything fell into place,” Strand said. “My understanding is that I was in denial. My stereotypes of a transgender person was like everybody else’s. I knew I wasn’t gay, I knew I wasn’t into cross dressing or any of that stuff . ... So when I began to understand it, it was like, ‘Oh, so the stereotypes had to break down.’”
Once she accepted that she was transgender she said she felt free to be stronger in her faith and closer to Jesus.
“I am who I am, but my inner gender and my outer gender are in contradiction,” she said. “I’ve been female; that is who I have always been.”