I have the intention to make a more detailed (and less personal) post later but, in order for that to make sense for some readers, I need to make this update as it has been such a long time since I last posted on here. Not only has Covid come and (partly) gone but a very significant personal change has also taken place: I have socially transitioned gender! After a few years of gradually telling friends and family I came out publicly as nonbinary and transgender (albeit with my own personal slant on the terminology!) in the summer/autumn of 2021, writing the following:

“I write with a mixture of hope, a little trepidation, and significant relief at finally feeling able to speak publicly and tell you (with circumstances meaning you include many dear ones who I’d rather have told personally) that I am nonbinary and transgender. I am currently transitioning to nonbinary i.e. I am moving from (seemingly) male to somewhere in between male and female, quite possibly much nearer the female. This may seem confusing but I hope that you will be patient with me. For me “nonbinary” is a shorthand for the crossroads I have reached. Though I got here along the path of seeming to be conventionally male (my deep feminine undercurrents largely unseen), nonbinary applies to whichever path I might take from here:

1. a life of swapping between gender roles (“genderfluidity”)
2. as full a gender transition to female as our healthcare technology currently permits (still nonbinary as recognising my male past)
3. continuing long term to mainly seem male but known to have gender issues

All the paths are nonbinary but with different emphases. From here it might seem like nothing is happening for a while – I might still be at the crossroads! – but I really need to open up about this part of my life and I’d like to take any further steps more in the open but with less fanfare.”

Since writing the above I have socially transitioned (January 2023) and have lived expressing a feminine gender presentation (essentially pursuing option ii above). I currently identify as a “nonbinary trans woman” and would appreciate the kind use of she/they pronouns when being referred to. I am honoured to remain Minister at Upper Chapel (Unitarian) in Sheffield and am grateful to all those there, and elsewhere, who have adapted to my changes, to the extent they have felt able to in all conscience (and am grateful also to those who have found ways of politely working round them, when they couldn’t adapt). I am also proud that the UK Unitarian national organisation (the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches) passed a trans rights resolution in 2022 (amongst other things affirming that trans rights are human rights).

Still I have taken an incremental and cautious approach relative to some of my trans contemporaries. I think those who have experienced my ministry recognize that I have not routinely centred preaching on gender issues, though of course I understand the value of my visibility to other trans and gender non-conforming individuals. With the decision today (16th April 2025) of the UK Supreme Court regarding the definition of a woman I recognise that I will need to be more outspoken. While my previous approach is certainly open to criticism I have had very few outright failures of friendships as a consequence and that, at least, is a win. I hope anyone for whom the perspectives I subsequently express diverge from their own will at least give a fair hearing to what I say.

Today the crossroads I alluded to earlier are still present in that, for all my trans feminine identification, I continue to own the nonbinary heading* as I refuse to reject, or dismiss the validity of, the person I once was. I see myself as an organic continuation of that person into the feminine. I hope you will continue to travel alongside me.

*I recognise that I may be using terminology differently from some other trans or enby folk, and indeed it is under review due to my own attempts to bring some rigour into thinking about such matters. More of that in due course.