Erin Swenson broke new ground within mainstream Christian Protestant faith
groups on October 22, 1996, when the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta, by a vote of
186 to 161, sustained her ordination as a Presbyterian minister. Erin had
transitioned from male to female in 1995/96 after 23 years of ordained service,
and with the Presbytery’s vote in 1996 she became the first mainstream minister
to make a gender transition while remaining in ordained office.
Erin was born Eric Karl Swenson in Buffalo, New York, in 1947. She moved to
Atlanta, Georgia with her family in 1957 and attended Sandy Springs High School
before entering the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1965. She met her wife in
1967, and entered Columbia Theological Seminary in 1970, just four months after
the birth of their first daughter. After graduating from Columbia with honors in
1973 and completing a clinical internship, Erin became Minister of Education at
First Presbyterian Church of Dalton, Georgia. After the difficult birth of their
second daughter in 1976, which left her severely disabled, the family moved back
to Atlanta where Erin completed a graduate degree in Pastoral Counseling while
working as a Clinical Chaplain at the Georgia Retardation Center.
Erin joined the staff of the Atlanta Psychiatric Clinic and Center for
Personal Growth in 1981 as a pastoral clinical psychotherapist after completing
her Th.M. in Pastoral Counseling at Columbia Theological Seminary. In 1984, she
became Director of the Center for Pastoral Care, a joint ministry of Peachtree
Presbyterian Church and the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta. Erin
co-founded, with Karen Faulk, the Brookwood Center for Psychotherapy in 1987,
where she kept her practice until her gender transition in 1995. In 1995, Erin
was awarded the Distinguished Service to the State award by the Georgia
Association for Marriage and Family Therapy for her work in advancing Georgia’s
professional licensing legislation. She also co-founded, and for ten years led,
the Premarital Workshop, a ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, during
which time nearly 1,000 couples were assisted in preparation for life
together.
While studying for her doctorate she was listed in Who’s Who in American
Colleges and Universities, and completed her Ph.D. in Psychological
Services at Columbia Pacific University in 1989.
Erin’s gender transition was a turbulent time for her personally. Her
marriage ended in 1995, at about the same time that the church challenge was
beginning. Her clinical practice took a sharp nosedive because of the local
publicity of her gender transition, and by the end of 1996, she was all but
unemployed. She began the slow reconstruction of her counseling by specializing
in gender and gender identity issues for individuals and couples.
In 1999, Erin co-founded, with Raja Qasim, the Southern Association for
Gender Education, Inc. (SAGE), an interfaith educational agency devoted to
providing gender education for colleges, universities, medical groups, and faith
organizations. Through SAGE Erin has presented her program across the country
since 1999 in settings both large and small, from Massachusetts to San
Francisco. In 1991, she was elected to the Board of More Light Presbyterians, an
organization devoted to the full inclusion of GLBT people in the life and
ministry of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Erin continues to maintain warm relationships with her former spouse and
their two daughters as well as her extended family. In 2003, Erin became the
chair of the Health Ministries Committee of the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta.
According to Erin, “My ministry is about bringing full understanding and
compassion not just for people who are differently gendered, but for everyone
who lives in a culture where rigid gender roles impose unhealthy and unrealistic
expectations for abundant living.”
(This biographical statement provided by Erin Swenson.)