PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The Rev. Donnie Anderson completed her transition to a woman this summer, but the roots of her decision go back to a moment four years ago when she stood alone before her reflection.
“I looked in the mirror and I said out loud, ‘Admit it, you’re a woman. That’s who you are,’” recalled Anderson, executive minister of the Rhode Island State Council of Churches.
She didn’t decide then to tell her wife of 24 years, her children or anyone else about her realization. She had built a life as a man, a husband and a father, and she wasn’t willing to risk everything by coming out as transgender.
“At that point, I intended to take that to my grave,” she said.
But her ability to compartmentalize the different facets of her identity, honed over a lifetime of conforming to societal norms, started to falter. She found it more difficult to hide who she truly was. And with the stress mounting and her health suffering, she resolved to make the change.
“I had to do something,” she said.
Anderson, 70, spoke Tuesday morning on her first day back at work after a three-month sabbatical in which she changed her name from Donald to Donnie and continued hormone therapy that she started last year. She has not undergone surgery, but she has not ruled it out in the future.
As the face of the Council of Churches for 11 years, Anderson, a Baptist minister, has become a well-known social activist who has advocated for the poor, the homeless and the LGBTQ community in Rhode Island. She was excited to be back in the office and spoke enthusiastically about an educational program the council is designing on white privilege.
The Council of Churches fully supported Anderson’s decision, with its governing board granting the sabbatical and taking a vote of confidence in her, both unanimously, at a meeting last fall. Chontell Washington, president of the board, announced Anderson’s leave in May, writing that the “council is appreciative of Dr. Anderson’s ministry and totally supportive of her transition.”
Anderson grew up in a strict Methodist family in Cranston in the 1950s and '60s. From childhood, she had questions about who she was and never felt like she fit within the traditional binary gender system. Although she felt like a woman, she was never attracted to men.
She remembers a fascination with her aunt’s makeup and clothes and recalls a conversation with her mother when she was 9 years old and more or less told her that she identified with the women in the family. Her mother responded kindly but discouraged her.
“I don’t remember the exact words, but I got the message: ‘There are two teams. I love you very much, but you play for the other team,’” Anderson said.
Over nearly six decades, until that instance in front of the mirror, she kept her true feelings inside. Her faith sustained her over that time, she says.
The first person Anderson came out to was her wife, in August of last year. The news was “devastating” for her, Anderson says, but they have sought professional counseling and they remain together. She told their children afterward and shared the news with the Council of Churches in a letter last September.
The support has been deep and overwhelming, Anderson says, starting with her family and continuing with the council and the wider faith community in Rhode Island.
When she told a rabbi friend in Israel about her decision, the rabbi immediately sent her a $50 gift certificate to J. Jill. When she came into the office Tuesday morning, she found another gift certificate, this one for $250 at Nordstrom, from a group of five Rhode Island rabbis.
There has been criticism, especially on social media, some virulent and some on the verge of threatening. But her children and their spouses have come to her defense. And for that she is grateful.
She also says she owes a lot to people in the transgender community who came before her.
“If we were doing this 20 years ago, I wouldn’t be here. The world wasn’t ready yet. We have made amazing strides. And I’m the beneficiary of that,” she said.
Anderson knows that she’s in a unique position. Not only is she transgender, she also made the transition at an advanced age. And, of course, she is a religious leader, one who is prominent in Rhode Island.
In August, she attended the Philadelphia Trans Wellness Conference, where she focused on workshops related to faith. She knew of only one other transgender member of the clergy at the gathering.
“In talking to the other transgender person who was there, who was a pastor, he and I realized that there are not many of us who are out who are clergy,” she said. “I’m sure there are a bunch of people like me but nobody knows about. In fact, when people say, ‘You’re the first transgender person I know.’ I say, ‘Well, that you know about.’”
For the past several years, the Council of Churches has worked on transgender issues, spurred in part by the high suicide rate in the community. Anderson plans to continue that work, and she hopes that her own struggles can help others.
She also believes that there is a place for her within Christianity.
“Never once did I question that God loved me and cared for me the way I am,” Anderson said. “And as I got clarity around what it means to be transgender, I also realized this is the way God made me. I am not a mistake. This is the way I was made, and I celebrate that.”
— akuffner@providencejournal.com
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