Megan Rohrer (born 1980) is an American

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

minister and activist. Rohrer was the first openly

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

minister ordained in the Lutheran tradition. Following their reception as a minister in the

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is a mainline Protestant Lutheran church headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA was officially formed on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three Lutheran church bodies. , it has approxim ...

, Rohrer served the church as bishop of its

Sierra Pacific Synod The Sierra Pacific Synod is one of the 65 synods of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). It covers central and northern California and northern Nevada and supports ELCA congregations throughout that region. It was headed by bishop ...

from 2021 until resigning in June 2022.

Early life and education

Rohrer was born on April 3, 1980, in

Sioux Falls Sioux Falls () is the most populous city in the U.S. state of South Dakota and the 130th-most populous city in the United States. It is the county seat of Minnehaha County and also extends into Lincoln County to the south, which continues up t ...

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota people, Lakota and Dakota peo ...

. In 1998, they graduated from high school and enrolled at

Augustana University Augustana University is a private Lutheran university in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The university identifies 1860 as the year of its founding, the same as its Rock Island, Illinois Swedish-heritage sister school, Augustana College. It derives ...

to study religion. In college they came out as gay, and became president of the

gay–straight alliance A Gay–Straight Alliance, Gender-Sexuality Alliance (GSA) or Queer–Straight Alliance (QSA) is a student-led or community-based organisation, found in middle schools, high schools, colleges, and universities. These are primarily in the United ...

. They encountered resistance, threats, and attempted "cures" by fellow students for their sexuality. Rohrer graduated from Augustana in 2001. Rohrer moved to the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

in 2002 to continue their studies. By this time they had come to identify as transgender. Rohrer attended

Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary (PLTS) is a private Lutheran seminary in Berkeley, California. It is affiliated with California Lutheran University and is a member school of the Graduate Theological Union. History Pacific Lutheran Theolo ...

before transferring to the

Pacific School of Religion The Pacific School of Religion (PSR) is a private Protestant seminary in Berkeley, California. It maintains covenantal relationships with the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, and the Disciples of Christ, ensuring the schoo ...

(PSR) in

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, earning a

Master of Divinity For graduate-level theological institutions, the Master of Divinity (MDiv, ''magister divinitatis'' in Latin) is the first professional degree of the pastoral profession in North America. It is the most common academic degree in seminaries and divi ...

degree from PSR in 2005 and a

Doctor of Ministry The Doctor of Ministry (abbreviated DMin or D.Min.) is a professional doctorate, often including a research component, that may be earned by a minister of religion while concurrently engaged in some form of ministry. It is categorized as an advanced ...

degree in 2016.

Personal life

Rohrer claims to be related to

Nicholas of Flüe Nicholas of Flüe (german: Niklaus von Flüe; 1417 – 21 March 1487) was a Swiss hermit and ascetic who is the patron saint of Switzerland. He is sometimes invoked as Brother Klaus. A farmer, military leader, member of the assembly, councillo ...

in the 16th generation.

Career

Rohrer was ordained in 2006, later becoming the first openly transgender person to serve as a minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. In 2010, Rohrer and six other Bay Area gay and transgender pastors were reinstated into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, after the national assembly voted to allow partnered gay people to serve as clergy. The pastors' churches had previously been removed from the denomination for ordaining gay and lesbian ministers who refused to adhere to the denomination's document guiding clergy conduct, "Visions and Expectations". At the time "Visions and Expectations" required that candidates for and persons on the clergy roster remain celibate outside of legal marriage and monogamous within marriage. In 2014, Rohrer was installed as pastor of Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in San Francisco. In 2017, Rohrer was hired by the San Francisco Police Department as their first

chaplain A chaplain is, traditionally, a cleric (such as a Minister (Christianity), minister, priest, pastor, rabbi, purohit, or imam), or a laity, lay representative of a religious tradition, attached to a secularity, secular institution (such as a hosp ...

from the

LGBTQ ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

community. On May 8, 2021, Rohrer was elected

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

of the

, becoming the first openly trans person to serve as bishop of a major US

Christian denomination A Christian denomination is a distinct religious body within Christianity that comprises all church congregations of the same kind, identifiable by traits such as a name, particular history, organization, leadership, theological doctrine, worsh ...

. On September 11, 2021, Rohrer was installed as bishop. On December 11, 2021, the Sierra Pacific Synod terminated the employment of Nelson Rabell-González, who presided over Misión Latina Luterana in

Stockton, California Stockton is a city in and the county seat of San Joaquin County, California, San Joaquin County in the Central Valley (California), Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. Stockton was founded by Carlos Maria Weber in 1849 after he acquir ...

, and defunded the congregation. The congregation was uninformed about the decision and Rohrer, who attended the service there the next day, declined to provide an explanation. Members of the congregation protested the decision and left the building with a statue of the

Virgin of Guadalupe Our Lady of Guadalupe ( es, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe), also known as the Virgin of Guadalupe ( es, Virgen de Guadalupe), is a Catholic title of Mary, mother of Jesus associated with a series of five Marian apparitions, which are believed t ...

to worship elsewhere. Rohrer also allegedly threatened to call the police on a father and child who remained in the sacristy. Later that month, the

Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM), founded on October 31, 2007, is an organization committed to the full participation of persons of all sexual orientations and gender identities in the life and ministry of the Lutheran church. History and b ...

suspended Rohrer from their membership for alleged "racist words and actions". In February 2022, the synod announced that Rabell-González was removed for "continual communications of verbal harassment and retaliatory actions from more than a dozen victims," which Rabell-González has denied. On May 27, 2022, Presiding Bishop

Elizabeth Eaton Elizabeth Amy Eaton (born April 2, 1955) is the fourth Presiding Bishop, and the first female Presiding Bishop, of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). She was first elected to this post in 2013 and was re-elected for a second term ...

called for Rohrer's resignation, but initially declined to pursue disciplinary actions. On June 3, 2022, the governing body of the Sierra Pacific Synod considered a resolution asking for Rohrer's resignation but, if Rohrer refused, for them to be dismissed through formal adjudication. Out of the 324 legal votes cast, 183 voted for the resolution and 138 voted against. Since passage of this resolution required a two-thirds majority the resolution was defeated. On June 4, following an announcement by Eaton that she would be "initiating the discipline process immediately including suspension of Bishop Rohrer, based on additional information that has come to light", Rohrer resigned as bishop.

Activism

Rohrer has helped the homeless in San Francisco, serving as Executive Director of the Welcome ministry to the homeless and hungry, leading the Singers of the Street choir, distributing sandwiches, and participating in a night ministry with other local pastors. Rohrer has also helped to grow and distribute thousands of pounds of free food from

community gardens A community garden is a piece of land gardened or cultivated by a group of people individually or collectively. Normally in community gardens, the land is divided into individual plots. Each individual gardener is responsible for their own plo ...

. In 2015, Rohrer started a fundraiser to raise bail for Meagan Taylor, a black

trans woman A trans woman or a transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity, may experience gender dysphoria, and may transition; this process commonly includes hormone replacement therapy and so ...

who was held in isolation in an Iowa jail. In the wake of the

2016 Oakland warehouse fire The Ghost Ship warehouse fire was a fire that occurred in a former warehouse in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland, California, that had been converted into an artist collective with living spaces. The fire occurred on December 2, 2016, at ...

, in which at least three transgender people were killed, Rohrer was called upon by the city of Oakland to provide support and assistance to the community. Rohrer has advocated for trans people who would be negatively impacted by proposed " bathroom bills" that seek to restrict restroom usage based on

sex assigned at birth Sex assignment (sometimes known as gender assignment) is the discernment of an infant's sex at or before birth. A relative, midwife, nurse or physician inspects the external genitalia when the baby is delivered and, in more than 99.95% of bi ...

. In 2021, Rohrer shared their experiences of being a pastor during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, and advocated for LGBTQ community members to get

vaccinated A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious or malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verified.< ...

Awards, honors, and recognition

* 2012 — "Pastor Megan Rohrer Day" declared on August 12 by the

San Francisco Board of Supervisors The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is the legislative body within the government of the City and County of San Francisco. Government and politics The City and County of San Francisco is a consolidated city-county, being simultaneously a c ...

* 2014 — Honorable Mention, Unsung Hero of Compassion (awarded by the

Dalai Lama Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current Dal ...

) * 2014 — Award of Merit for ''Zanderology: Disability 101'' (director), International Film Festival for Spirituality, Religion, and Visionary * 2015 — Distinguished Alumni/ae,

* 2015 — Soldier of Social Change,

San Francisco Magazine ''San Francisco'' is an American monthly magazine devoted to the people, culture, food, politics, and arts of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published monthly by Modern Luxury publications. History There have been two separate ''San Francis ...

* Honorary Doctorate,

Palo Alto University Palo Alto University (PAU) is a private university in Palo Alto, California that focuses on psychology. It was founded in 1975 as the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology. Palo Alto University offers two undergraduate degree programs: a Bach ...

Lambda Literary Award Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ literature.The awards were instituted i ...

finalist, transgender nonfiction

Selected publications

Through Grace Lutheran Church and Wilgefortis Press, Rohrer has written a number of books for children in the Good News Children's Book Series. Adult titles authored or co-authored by Rohrer include: * * *

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rohrer, Megan Living people 1980 births 21st-century American Lutheran clergy Augustana University alumni Transgender non-binary people American LGBT rights activists Religious leaders from the San Francisco Bay Area LGBT people from South Dakota LGBT Lutheran clergy LGBT people from California People from Sioux Falls, South Dakota LGBT Christians Lutheran chaplains Homelessness activists Non-binary activists Religious leaders from South Dakota 21st-century Lutheran bishops 21st-century LGBT people Pacific School of Religion alumni