Friday, September 7, 2018

On the Streets of Babylon: Transgender Priests

Babylon is fallen, is fallen,...  Come out of her, my people,
Revelation 14:8/18:4

They seem to be  "Transgender Priests" on the Streets of Babylon...


"Klee’s hands trembled as she blessed the bread and wine, an unaccustomed nervousness for an Episcopal priest who has performed the ritual hundreds of times in parishes across the mid-South.

But Klee has only rarely celebrated Mass since retiring abruptly in 2010 from St. Stephens Church in Blytheville, Ark., rather than tell the congregation she had begun sex-hormone therapy to transition
from bearded George Klee into Gillian, George’s long-held alter ego.

Since then, she had been on a “supply” list of priests available to fill in for priests on leave or vacation.
Then, in 2017, Klee ran into Roger and Margery Wolcott at an LGBT conference at an Episcopal camp in Mississippi and was invited to serve as chaplain at Constance Abbey, the New Monastic community the Wolcotts had founded in two century-old brick houses near St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral.
It feels wonderful to have an altar again,” Klee said. Klee leads a roughly 30-minute course on human sexuality for the abbey’s guests, after a scuffle between straight and transgender people broke out recently on the grounds.
I feel sort of a mother-of-the-bride proud,” said Roger, a retired investment banker who relocated with Margery to Memphis from San Francisco. “First of all, Gillian is a friend, so I am happy she can be our chaplain. I’m happy that a transgender priest can be welcome in this city, in this place.”
RNS