The Episcopal Church has its first transgender dean

The Episcopal Church has its first transgender dean of a cathedralThe Very Rev. Micah Cronin in August became dean of All Saints’ Cathedral in Milwaukee. The Wisconsin faith leader told the Episcopal News Service in an interview published earlier this month he grew up in a conservative church in rural New York State that didn’t accept his transgender identity, but converted to being Episcopalian at 19 after finding an affirming church in Olean, New York. Now, the 30-year-old is leading an LGBTQ+-affirming congregation with an average Sunday attendance of around 70 people.He said his position should show there’s a place for LGBTQ+ people in faith spaces.“The way I see our moment in The Episcopal Church right now is being a church that has taken a stand to welcome and include because of its Christian faith,” he told the news service.Related: Meet the transgender Lutheran pastor preaching acceptance: 'Nothing is wrong with you'“Just by me existing as a trans person and as a priest, I get to have conversations with people that very few people get to have. I think we have a chance to preach the Gospel in places it wouldn’t otherwise be heard.”Cronin previously served as a transitional deacon in the Diocese of New Jersey, where he wrote publicly about the need for greater tolerance in Christian faith or all groups, and also to engage in conversation with those who resist tolerance.“We are to seek and serve Christ in those whose political attitudes appear repugnant, even dangerous, to us,” Cronin wrote for Earth & Altar in 2022. “We are to seek and serve Christ in those who are bigoted, prudish, homophobic, anti-transgender, uncaringly promiscuous, self-centered, and in those who would never seek and serve Christ in us. We promise to do this, not to affirm bad behavior, but because it is only by our cooperation with the cleansing love of God that evil is overcome.”Related: Blessed be our rights: 20 American Christian churches, ranked on LGBTQ+ suppo