Greetings,

I recommend the new podcast So Much More Than Gender by Erin Swenson, who describes it in this way:

“So Much More Than Gender” is about the actual lives of people who are transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC). The point is to present the real lives of the TGNC community. Some of us are exceptional in one way or another, most of us are ordinary in most ways, all of us are human in every way. So the series presents both my story and the stories of many others in the TGNC community. We are moving away from the religious fundamentalist abstraction of the so-called “horrors” of gender variance to the real lives of people who have left behind an obsessive concern over gender.

Erin Swenson is a remarkable transwoman. She is the first Presbyterian minister to retain being a minister after having undergone a gender transition. I have listened to the first episode of her brand new monthly podcast which captures all the wonderful things about Erin, as a transgender pioneer, a superb communicator, a skillful teacher, a human with foibles like us all, a master storyteller about her own life, but most of all someone skilled in reaching out to the world who fear us as being different to convey that we are ordinary people coping with a challenge. Erin Swenson is a living example to me that God loves me just the way that I am. I learned from Erin that I could live my life expressing my true self while fiercely holding on to my faith, just like she expresses her true self and is steadfast in her faith.

I first met Erin as the leader of the open support group, Atlanta Gender Explorations, She became my personal therapist, who guided my transition over twenty years ago. When I was rejected by the church where had been a singles ministry leader, I found the church where Erin Swenson was the minister, that accepted me as my true self. Erin taught me about my already having a family of choice, which helped me endure the crisis of being excommunicated from my birth family.

I hope that you will give the monthly podcast So Much More Than Gender by Erin Swenson a chance . Learning from this remarkable woman made a difference in my life. Listening to Erin Swenson may make a difference in your life, too.

Exploring the impossibilities,
Jo Dora Webster

“That’s the thing about faith…if you don’t have it, you can’t understand it. If you do, no explanation is necessary.”