KEEP IN TOUCH WWW.LANCASTER.AC.UK/ALUMNI | 5 She talks with admiration at the stability the department provided as her appearance gradually changed and her colleagues accepted her new name and adapted to the need to treat her differently: “ I was held and valued and able to get on do things that I loved and teach people and learn from wonderful seminar students. That’s why I stayed there for so long.” Studying philosophy, she says, allowed her to discover that she was in fact a theologian, but nothing prepared her for the next dramatic life change - her conversion in 1996 from self-styled “God hater” to Christian, with a calling to be ordained as a priest. “I wasn’t just an atheist – I was a Dawkins-style atheist - religion was ‘evil’,” she recalls. “But sometimes those who protest loudest are the most likely to become converts.” Her time at Lancaster had come to an end. She moved to Manchester in 1997 until 2003 to test her vocation for the ordained ministry. She was one of the first two trans people recommended for training to the ministry and the bishops had to work out how to incorporate them, and whether it was even right for a ‘post op trans’ person to be ordained. She did her training for the ministry in Birmingham from 20035 and joined the Manchester Diocese in 2005, until recently as the Rector of Burnage. In June 2023 she took up the role of Archdeacon of Bolton and Salford. In parallel with her work, she has written a number of books (including her autobiography ‘Dazzling Darkness’ and her first novel ‘Gospel of Eve’) numerous chapters and papers and a well-received collection of poetry. She is also a regular broadcaster and media commentator. The higher profile of trans issues is a good thing in her opinion, but she takes a relaxed view of the use of specific pronouns and of the trans loo debate. She thinks that universities need to take a leading role on gender and trans issues, as part of supporting students to learn and develop, whatever their needs. ‘My instinct is that the support of trans students should be the same as for people in wider society,” she explains. “We should respect people when they choose to reveal something so personally important about themselves and offer them the adaptations and support to thrive in a university setting or community.” @RMannWriter Image: KT Photography
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