I call the period from 1996-2006 the “transgender spring,” that is, the first decade of transgender Christian publishing. While not intended to be a detailed history, I do want to highlight a bit about what it meant to be writing about transgender concerns in that period. Every sighting of a transgender Christian was precious through those years. Continue reading “The Transgender Spring, 1996-2006”
Pilgrim Press, affiliated with the United Church of Christ, played a remarkable role in the time period that I call the “transgender spring” (1996-2006). These five books were an unprecedented and unparalleled contribution to the emergent conversation about transgender experience:
Trans-Gendered: Theology, Ministry, and Communities of Faith by Justin Tanis is one of the two most influential books in transgender theology (the other being Omnigender). First published by Pilgrim Press in 2003, this book was originally Tanis’s D.Min dissertation. It was out of print for a time and was republished as Trans-Gender: Theology, Ministry, and Communities of Faith in 2018, now by Justin Sabia-Tanis under the umbrella of Wipf and Stock. Continue reading “Trans-Gendered: Theology, Ministry, and Communities of Faith, 2003 and 2018”
Vanessa Sheridan’s Crossing Over: Liberating the Transgendered Christian was released only a few months after Virginia Mollenkott’s Omnigender in October 2001. Continue reading “Crossing Over: Liberating the Transgendered Christian, 2001”
Virginia Mollenkott’s Omnigender: A Trans-religious Approach was the first book on transgender spirituality/theology by a mainstream press. Pilgrim Press (associated with the United Church of Christ) published Omnigender in May 2001.
The Other Side‘s May/June 2001 cluster of articles on transgender concerns was published almost simultaneously. Vanessa Sheridan’s Crossing Over was published a few months later in October 2001 by Pilgrim Press.
Previous relevant books included two self-published books by Vanessa Sheridan (The Cross and the Crossdresser and Cross Purposes) and the Fall 1996 issue of Open Hands. However, none of the earlier publications was widely available to the general public.
Continue reading “Omnigender: A Trans-religious Approach, 2001 and 2007”
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