Today I am coming home – as a transgender female and as a priest: both of these together. I preside at this eucharist integrating, with those vital parts of my identity finally united, and my heart dances. It has been a long journey. For I was ordained priest in London thirty years ago last month, and I presided at the eucharist for the first time, but with much brokenness in my heart and pain in my soul. Only men could be priests in England at that time and, whilst I was, or seemed to be, a male, it really, really, hurt. It cut so deep because of all that was rejected, not least my wife, with whom I had shared exactly the same priestly formation and whose vocation was as clear as mine. It cut deep too, I now recognise, because something inside me knew that there was something not right about who and what I was. I could not put that into words properly at the time. We were still so impoverished back then. I did not have the language, the awareness, to recognise that I was myself female, never mind the self-acceptance. So it was more than solidarity that made me resist, almost to the last moment, full acceptance of my priestly ordination. I wrestled hard in my soul about how I could go forward when I was doing damage to my heart. In the end, I did not delay it. I told myself that I could do more good for inclusivity and women inside the men’s club, with a vote and an active, articulate voice in the house of clergy. I told my heart too that, irrespective of the politics of gender, God had called me first and I had no right to delay that vocation, even on the terms offered, for it was of God. I was right on both counts. Therefore I chuckle now that a female was indeed ordained priest in me thirty years ago, and by a bishop who was the most ardent episcopal opponent of women’s ordination at the time. I hope, and trust, that, in the renewing space of heaven, Bishop Graham Leonard is also dancing with joy For thirty years ago last month, whilst part of me truly rejoiced in God’s gift, a sword also pierced my soul. Today that wound is finally healed....
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