Pioneering transgender minister lets her light shine

The Rev. Dr. Erin Swenson tells her story of faith and transition on ‘A Matter of Faith’ podcast

by Rich Copley | Presbyterian News Service

The Rev. Dr. Erin Swenson is the first known mainstream minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to change gender and remain in ordained office. (Photo courtesy of Erin Swenson)

LEXINGTON, Kentucky — The Rev. Dr. Erin Swenson finally met someone who shared her experience of being a transgender woman in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

“I grabbed her hands, and I held her close, and I said, ‘How wonderful to meet a fellow transgender Presbyterian. I’ve needed this for a long time,’” Swenson recalled. “And she looked at me and she said, ‘Oh, but I’m not a Presbyterian.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean? You love this church. They love you. Why are you not a Presbyterian?’

“And she looked at me and she said, ‘I, I didn’t think God wanted me to be in the church because of who I am, what I am.’”

At that time, in the mid-1990s, Swenson was in the midst of a bruising battle to remain in ordained office after her own transition. A committee in the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta was considering the question, and word was it was not going well for her. So, she took it upon herself to meet with every member of the committee to make her case, answer any questions, and tell that story.

In a remarkable turn of events, she said, the committee unanimously upheld her ordination, and in a close vote the presbytery did as well, making Swenson the first known person to change gender and remain in ordained office. She tells her story this week on “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast,” which is produced by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program and Unbound: An Interactive Online Journal on Christian Social Justice.

This is the second week in the past month that “A Matter of Faith” has featured a pioneer of inclusion in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The Oct. 21 episode featured the Rev. Dr. Margaret E. Towner, the first woman ordained as a Presbyterian minister.

“It is the folk who have paved the way for many of us in the church that sometimes aren’t remembered, and I think that this podcast can be a space of remembrance to those people who have done so much for the church,” co-host the Rev. Lee Catoe said.

Co-host Simon Doong added, “On the podcast we try to promote voices that aren’t normally heard from as often, and one of the best ways to do that is to just give those folk the mic and a question and let them talk and tell their story.”

Click here to listen to the “A Matter of Faith” episode with Rev. Dr. Erin Swenson

Swenson, who was born Eric, told her story about growing up in the church but realizing in fifth grade, “I wanted to be a girl and not a boy.”

“It was very disturbing, because it was a novel idea,” Swenson said. “I had not heard of anyone even close to resembling anything like that.”

It was the 1950s, and she learned to submerge her desire to change, which fostered a deep and obvious depression that lasted for years. Swenson went on to study at Columbia Theological Seminary and was ordained in November 1973, completing requirements to be a pastoral counselor.

“I certainly wanted to do the best psychotherapy and counseling that I could do, being informed by my Christian faith and my Presbyterian background, and succeeded in doing that,” Swenson said. “It worked really well.”

But she lived with a deep sadness, and in the early 1990s began the process of gender transition. While one of her fears was losing her family, including a wife and two daughters, that did not happen. Swenson remains close with her family, including her now ex-wife, and she says they were all happy to see her depression lifted when she made the decision to live as a woman.

Swenson changed her name from Eric Karl to Erin Katrina, in part to keep her initials. In one of a number of amusing stories, she talked about how just changing the last letter of her name helped smooth over some awkward moments — such as jury duty, where she was still listed as Eric.

“I went up and said, ‘Oh, no, no, no. I’m Erin Swenson, and I think there’s a typographical error,’” Swenson said. “He looked at me and said, ‘Oh, of course.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of changing it for you.’”

But changing her name with the presbytery was the biggest challenge and brought about the most grief. Hopes to quietly approve the change were dashed when a minister in the presbytery opposed it, brought Swenson’s ordination into question, and it became an ordeal that wound up making national news. Swenson said it destroyed her therapy practice, which she has never been able to build back to its former state.

Despite the trauma of that period and its impact on her life, Swenson said, “It was a rich and worthwhile experience, and I would not trade it for anything in the world. It was all very worthwhile. I learned that I had way more friends in the church than I thought that I had.”

In the past 25 years, Swenson said she has seen the vocal conservative groups in the church move on to other places and the Church as a whole “move on with the mission the Church has been called for in this age.”

Swenson has remained active in the Church, particularly in the LGBTQIA+ community of the church, at one point serving as a co-moderator of More Light Presbyterians, a queer advocacy group in the PC(USA).

For all the progress though, Swenson still has disappointments with how the Church has treated her and the transgender community in general.

“I would have loved to be able to say that over the last 25 years, I’ve been invited, that I’ve spent 20 or 25 weekends a year traveling about the country to various Presbyterian churches everywhere, helping people come to understand what it is to be transgender and Christian,” Swenson said. “Of course, that has not been, in spite of my wishes for it. I’ve even had pastors of progressive churches say to me, kind of in an embarrassed tone, that they’re sorry that they haven’t invited me to come to their church, that they really have meant to, but that they were afraid that there were these members of their church who were very unhappy about my ordination, and they were afraid of what those members would say to me — as if that would make any difference to me, like I hadn’t heard people say anything nasty. There still is a lot of fear about being transgender.”

And she laments that her experience is not unique among transgender ministers.

“The people who are transgender and in ministry are simply candidates for the ministry,” Swenson said. “They’re waiting on a call to be able to be ordained. Or they have become staff members of seminaries or presbytery staff. They’ve done just about everything there is to do except be a pastor in a church, and for many of these people, that’s what they dearly desire.”

“I’m fortunate that I got to have that experience before I transitioned,” Swenson said.

Though not as often as she’d like, Swenson does preach, and every time she does, she said she starts with a familiar song to almost anyone who has ever been to Sunday school: “This Little Light of Mine.”

“It’s the song that I remember from the youngest days in my childhood, that taught me that in spite of everything inside of me, that there’s light,” Swenson said. “It might be hidden, but it’s still light. And my job in life is to find a way to use that light and show it to the world.”

New episodes of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” are released on Thursdays and can be found here or wherever you get your podcasts.