Lutherans elect first transgender bishop

The Rev. Megan Rohrer was elected bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Sierra Pacific synod last Saturday, becoming the first transgender person to serve as bishop in the denomination or in any of the U.S.’s major Christian faiths.

Rohrer, pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in San Francisco and community chaplain coordinator for the San Francisco Police Department, was the first transgender person to be ordained in the ELCA in 2006 and the first to serve as a pastor when called to Grace Lutheran in 2014.

Well known for advocating for LGBTQ rights in street activism, preaching and writing, Rohrer,

41, who uses the pronouns they and them, is also recognized for their work with the homeless. They have also attained minor celebrity status stemming from appearances on the television series “Queer Eye” and in profiles in Time magazine and Cosmopolitan, where they recounted their struggles as a young LGBTQ Christian and as a person coming to terms physically and spiritually with their gender.

“It’s an honor to be called to serve the Sierra Pacific Synod,” Rohrer said in a written statement. “During this time when some imagine trans people at their worst, Lutherans have once again declared that transgender people are beautiful children of God. Thank you to everyone who has been praying for me and my family as I accept this call.”

Raised in South Dakota, Rohrer has recounted being expelled from the youth group at the church they attended in Sioux Falls when they came out as a lesbian and told a California public radio station that in college at the Lutheran Augustana University, “The people who were in my religion classes with me would sing hymns when I walked by, to try to get rid of my gay demons. And I would just sing harmony. I didn’t know what to do.”

A campus pastor at Augustana, however, encouraged Rohrer to consider ministry, and in 2002 they moved to San Francisco to attend Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and later transferred to the LGBTQ-friendly Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. Ordained in 2006 under an “extraordinary candidacy process” designed to sidestep the national ELCA’s policy on LGBTQ ministers at the time, Rohrer’s ordination was officially accepted in 2010.

In San Francisco, Rohrer has been an outspoken defender and counselor to LGTBQ people, especially transgender homeless and Christians.

While gay bishops have served in mainline Protestant denominations since Bishop Gene Robinson was named a bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire in 2003, transgender priests and ministers are only slowly finding acceptance. In 2007, Drew Phoenix was permitted to remain as pastor of a Baltimore United Methodist parish after coming out as transgender; the UMC appointed its first transgender deacon in 2017. The Episcopal Church approved transgender priests in 2012.

The Sierra Pacific Synod encompasses 180 congregations in northern California and northern Nevada.

Meghan Rohrer The Rev. Megan Rohrer is the first transgender person to serve as bishop in the denomination or any major Christian faith in the U.S.