My church has been an important part of my life and the family has been in a single one for over 20 years now... Will I still be able to attend after transition?

You might wonder at the teaser there. More likely it was so boring you never even got this far. But for the dozen that did, I'll explain where that relates to my meandering trail toward myself.

A few weeks ago, our pastor (for most of that 20 years - close to a record in the Methodist Church) announced that he would be assigned elsewhere in the conference (sorta like a "state" in the Methodist church) and we'd be getting a new pastor this summer.

My wife leaned over and suggested that it was probably a good idea to let them know about my forthcoming transition as it might impact the choice of pastor... So, I made an appointment to see him the next afternoon. (Okay, it wasn't quite that simple... It took a few exchanges of e-mail, and in the process I discovered my 62 yr old pastor used an android phone - and did e-mail there. But, I did get a meeting scheduled for Monday afternoon...)

Turns out my wife didn't quite expect me to move so fast. But, she also had no real problem with it. I guess she'd realized I'd been having issues with the slow rate of movement... That conversation is still in the future. But, back to my chat with my pastor.

He welcomed me into his office, and asked what he could do for me. Whereupon, I simply said "I'm transgendered and will be transitioning within the year." To say he was surprised puts it mildly. But, it wasn't that he didn't know what it meant or was unaccepting. His first question was "How could he help?"

What I was expecting? No. I'm not sure what I was expecting. He's a VERY welcoming person - as evidenced by our multi-racial congregation (including several multi-racial families)... But, several lesbians (that I'm aware of) have felt that they had to stay "in the closet"... In retrospect, perhaps they were wrong. Time will tell...

In any event, the reason he knew what being transgendered means is that I'm not the first he's run into. About a decade earlier, he and his wife had rented their "summer home" (a condo... It's how they built equity living in a parsonage) to a couple - two men, one of which was the former "wife" of the other, yes F2M. They rented the condo to them for five years, and are still in touch (they moved to AZ). Small world...

The long and short (maybe) is that, he talked to the District Superintendent (between the bishop & local pastors - the job my pastor will have in another part of the conference) about the "issue" and will talk to the new pastor about it... After he's talked to the new pastor, the three of us will get together and talk about things...

Meanwhile, he's already begun "addressing" the issue through sermons, and has talked to our Christian Ed director about adding LGBT information into the Sunday School curriculum in September (we don't have Sunday School in the summer. The CE director knows SOMEONE in the congregation plans to transition, but not who (age, gender, etc.).

The goal is to allow me to transition and remain a member of the church family, without breaking the family to pieces. (I told him I'd rather find a new congregation that cause that...)

So, what I expected? No. To be honest, it has gone FAR BETTER! Will it work out? Only time will tell. But, it does tell me that there’s the beginning of a plan, and a time frame. The latter has been a big help in my outlook! I suspect nobody's really surprised at this.

How will it go? Only time will tell. It does give me hope though... which IS a good thing. The only problem… I keep waiting for one of those Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad reactions/occurrences I hear so much about. Sooner or later, it's bound to happen, I guess.

Thank you for the dozen of you that got this far. I hope I didn't disappoint.

Thanks for listening (okay, reading).
Anne