TransPreacher Podcast

TransPreacher Podcast

Transitional Grace

7 min · 15. apr. 2026
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Today is a day of big feelings. Tomorrow, I have top surgery. Right now, I am swirling with all the emotions of that reality. The feelings are overwhelming, probably fueled by the fact I had to stop taking estrogen weeks ago after having it in my system for the last four years. Nothing like a hormone crash right before surgery. I am feeling gratitude, fear, relief, disbelief, joy, and awe that this is really happening. In 2010 I ran my first marathon and remember standing at the start line I kept repeating the line out loud, “holy s**t, this is actually happening.” That is how I feel today. This feels like a threshold. It feels like I am stepping into something I never thought was possible. I can remember not that long ago looking at pictures of trans women on social media and thinking none of this would be possible for me. I never imagined that I could have long hair and painted nails. Something like top surgery felt as realistic as winning the Boston marathon. Something I would love to do, but not in the realm of possibility for me. I lived with a quiet, persistent fear that if I stepped into my truth, I would lose everything. That the church would turn its back on me. That my family would not understand. That I would have to choose between authenticity and safety. That fear was real. It shaped how I moved through the world. And yet, here I am. This may be the last major step in my gender transition. That carries its own significance. Not as an ending, but as a metamorphosis that has been unfolding for years. My family did not disappear. My sons have been my greatest allies and even my mom responded to a picture of me wearing implants by saying how nice I looked. The church did not universally reject me. In many places, it opened its arms wider. Today I have become one of the leading voices for Trans justice in the global denomination. I’ve published one book on transgender faith and have another on the way. There is a part of this journey that I can hardly put into words. Eighty-three different people donated to my gofundme. People who gave what they could so that I could access a surgery my insurance would not cover. Eighty-three acts of grace. This is not just fundraising. This is community. This is people saying to me, your life matters. Your wholeness matters. You matter. This surgery is not something I am doing alone. Even though it is my body, my decision, my journey, it has never been just mine. This is what it looks like when a community journeys together. When people celebrate one another. When they refuse to let someone carry the weight of becoming on their own. What I am stepping into tomorrow has been made possible by grace. Not abstract grace, but embodied grace. Grace that looks like a donation notification. Grace that looks like my phone blowing up today with words of encouragement. Grace that looks like someone not only choosing to stand with me, but taking action to help me grow. I am overwhelmed by that. This moment is not just about changing my body. It is about witnessing what is possible when fear does not get the final word. When we give God the space to move. God loves me too much to have left me in my self-loathing but has worked through community to make transformation happen. Every Sunday at Church for All People we say God loves us just the way we are and God is not finished with me yet. Today, that statement is everything. In scripture, grace is often described as gift. Something unearned, something given freely, something that transforms us. I am seeing that so clearly right now. Every person who gave, every person who supported, every person who is praying for me, they are part of that grace. They are part of my becoming. So today, on the eve of this surgery, I am holding all of it. The past version of me who could not imagine this. The present moment that feels almost too big to fully take in. And the future that is opening up on the other side of tomorrow. In this moment, I am giving thanks. Thanks for a body that has carried me this far. Thanks for a community that refused to let me walk alone. Thanks for a God whose grace keeps showing up in ways I never could have predicted. Tomorrow, I step into something new. Today, I pause here. In awe. In gratitude. In the presence of a grace that has brought me all the way to this moment. This is not the completion of a transition, but the beginning of living fully into my givenness, into joy. Get full access to TransPreacher at transpreacher.substack.com/subscribe [https://transpreacher.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

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episode Wisconsin Annual Conference Adopts Trans Rights Resolution artwork

Wisconsin Annual Conference Adopts Trans Rights Resolution

Ben Weger, clergy, Stoughton UMC Board Member, Reconciling Ministries Network Siblings in Christ, I rise to speak in favor of this resolution. I rise, because, for me, this is not an abstraction. It is personal. I am a transgender man. I am also a United Methodist pastor. There was a time when I did not believe those two realities could coexist. I knew the gifts God had given me. I knew the call I had heard. But I also knew the fear of rejection, exclusion, and wondering whether there would be a place for me in the church I loved. And those fears came to life when I began my transition from female to male in 2016, while I was serving on staff as laity at a United Methodist Church in Florida. After promising their full support for my transition - the clergy couple co-pastors came to my house after church, the Sunday following my top surgery - as I sat there with surgical drains hanging at my sides, this couple, who had served communion at our wedding just one year prior, sat on my lanai and in front of my beloved wife, as our daughters napped - told me the church just wasn’t ready. They gave me the option to resign or be fired, and if I resigned there would be a severance check. They were willing to pay me a significant amount of money to go away, rather than back up the beliefs they proclaimed with their actions. Suddenly, our ability to finalize the adoption of our girls was at risk, as I was now unemployed. Would I be able to find another job while in the middle of my transition? Where would we worship and where would we find community, when we had relocated there for the sole purpose of being in ministry with a church that had promised the whole of its support for exactly who we were. There was, at that time, no ability for me to challenge this discrimination - after all, the conference office was stroking the severance check given in exchange for me signing the separation agreement they had crafted. Our faith begins with the conviction that every person is created in the image of God. The question before us is whether transgender, non-binary, and gender-diverse people will hear that promise from us—not only in our words, but in our actions. This resolution affirms what our denomination has already recognized: that gender identity is not a barrier to ministry, leadership, or participation in the life of the church. I stand before you today because people in this conference and throughout this denomination chose courage over fear. They chose welcome over exclusion. They chose to trust that God’s grace is bigger than their uncertainty. And because they did, I have had the privilege of preaching the gospel, welcoming new members into God’s church, sitting beside hospital beds, burying the dead, serving communion and so much more. My inboxes still fill weekly with hateful sentiments and proclamations that I am a heretic and an abomination. But God calls me and all of my trans and gender nonconforming siblings: beloved. I am not asking you to make a political statement. I’m asking you to uphold your baptismal vows to resist evil, injustice and oppression in all its forms. I am asking you to support for the teenager wondering if God still loves them. For the fearful parent trying to keep their child safe. For the person who has given up on the church because they have only heard rejection. And yes, for people like me, who have discovered that God’s call remains steadfast and God’s love remains true. If we are created in God’s image, as we claim to believe, then the more diverse we are gathered around any table, the more full a picture of who God is, we get to see. Friends, this resolution is an opportunity to proclaim with both our words and our witness that every person is of sacred worth, deserving of dignity, protection, and belonging. Thank you. Get full access to TransPreacher at transpreacher.substack.com/subscribe [https://transpreacher.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Yesterday7 min