New Bos. U. Episcopal Chaplain a Role Model, Cameron Partridge, first openly transgendered chaplain

Pondering a gender change began with his doctoral studies at Harvard Divinity School in the ’90s. “I was out as gay at that point,” he recalls. The run-up to his change was not the turmoil-filled time you might expect. “I’m not a huge fan of the trapped-in-the-wrong-body narrative” of some other transgendered people, Partridge says. “I know it’s true and real for some folks, but I never felt like God made a mistake. I’ve not had a problem with God about this, I really haven’t. I just had a sense of this growing””discomfort, disjunction.” With the change, “I felt like I was able to kind of reclaim the body that God had given me.”

Seeking a unisex name, he was stumped until he went for take-out sushi one day when he was still a woman and the clerk misheard the name, asking, “Cameron?” Partridge looked the name up and learned it meant “crooked,” just the name, he thought, for someone who believes gender is not linear.

As for his agenda as chaplain, he’s exploring ways to involve students in environmental justice, an interest that has come up in conversations with them.

Read it all.

Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, * Christian Life / Church Life, * Culture-Watch, Anthropology, Education, Episcopal Church (TEC), General Convention, Ministry of the Ordained, Parish Ministry, Psychology, Sexuality, Theology, Young Adults

8 comments on “New Bos. U. Episcopal Chaplain a Role Model, Cameron Partridge, first openly transgendered chaplain

  1. Archer_of_the_Forest says:

    Sweet mercy. I can’t believe I’m reading this.

  2. Ad Orientem says:

    I think this is the most revolting thing I have read in a long time, and possible ever on this blog. Words don’t fail me. But Christian ones do. I will confine myself to noting that if you are an Episcopalian, you are in full sacramental communion with this “chaplain.”

  3. Sarah says:

    RE: “I will confine myself to noting that if you are an Episcopalian, you are in full sacramental communion with this “chaplain.”

    [gasp]

    Oh.

    No.

    Why — surely I must flee to one of those many many denominations and “churches” out there who have no such gross examples of non-Christian praxis or belief.

    [roll eyes]

  4. Archer_of_the_Forest says:

    If this “guy” shows up at my parish, he won’t be receiving Communion.

  5. clarin says:

    Your pledge dollars at work.

  6. IamaXian says:

    I know it’s trivial, but I find myself wishing his “wife” had ironed his shirt.

  7. episcoanglican says:

    This does beg the question of those radical activists who insist ex-gay therapy is harmful, ineffective and baseless — is the chaplain’s “wife” a heterosexual now? Is she living a lie? Or will she be moving on to more feminine pastures?

  8. evan miller says:

    How utterly vile. And of course the environment, OWS and economic matters, are “his” reported areas of interest. I suppose that makes sense, since practicing and preaching Biblical Christianity doesn’t appear to be on his agenda.