Prayer beads, steps of change. The Rosary and my transition journey
Dylan's testimony published on the site Twilight People (Gran Bretagna) su fede e genere oltre il binarismo, il 23 maggio 2017, liberamente tradotta da Innocenzo Pontillo
Dylan grew up in North Wales, in an isolated rural setting. Born with a female body, his parents named him Angharad, a name that means “she who is loved.” Today Dylan identifies as a trans man and lives with much more serenity, although he is still trying to make peace with his first 35 years of life, which were not entirely unpleasant.
“There are things I have done that I would never have done if I had been born a man. But those experiences are part of who I am, and I can't throw them away.”
As a child, Dylan spent a lot of time alone and didn't pay much attention to gender differences.
"I didn't grow up in a 'girl box,' but I didn't discover other possibilities until very late either. Once, around the age of eight or nine, I remember that with a friend in the schoolyard, we decided that we didn't fit the roles we had been assigned, we had been given 'the wrong pieces.' So we promised each other that when we grew up, we would exchange them."
Dylan's parents, who grew up in a Christian family, had distanced themselves from religion, but he, as a teenager, felt attracted to faith in a very serious way. He studied theology at university and began the path to becoming a pastor. He has been on the transition journey for about a year and feels that it is essential to complete it before taking on the leadership role in his evangelical church, so as to do so with full integrity and awareness.
"You cannot serve God and serve people with joy unless you know who you are and accept who you are with honesty. It's not a matter of saying 'You can't do that,' it's that otherwise you go crazy. The more I heard this truth, the more that little voice in my head said, 'You can't become a pastor until you make your transition.'"
Dylan asked his church leader for permission to begin the transition, and found great support.
There are very few transgender ministers, and Dylan doesn't know of any other trans men in the role of pastor. His training course, which normally lasts two years, will now take four, to allow for both the transition and the completion of his doctorate. Dylan plans to be ordained as a deacon in June 2018 and as a pastor in 2019.
"At the basis of my Christian faith is the incarnation: God who becomes human without ceasing to be God, who lives 33 years on this earth, dies and is resurrected. The idea that God became human says something: living as a human being is not this miserable reality that it sometimes seems to us. Being an incarnate person, a follower of Jesus, means being fully alive, fully yourself. This is what made me realize that I needed to be fully myself. "
Dylan doesn't want his identity as a trans man to define his entire life and ministry. He wants to focus on justice and supporting others.
The rosary is an important symbol for Dylan. Praying with rosary beads gives him a sense of travel and movement, while the beads always remain the same. For him, it became a metaphor for his transformation journey.
Original text: Dylan: Rosary Beads are a Metaphor for Becoming
