TR3: Queer and Called

After a years-long battle wherein Methodist church officials publicly interrogated M Barclay's private life, including their gender identity and sexuality, M Barclay is now Reverend M Barclay, the first openly non-binary queer and trans person to be commissioned as a deacon in the United Methodist Church. Today, M is able to provide a visible and enthusiastically queer ministry to people of faith, but that wasn't the case a year ago, when M stood amid the aftermath of the Pulse nightclub attack in Orlando, Florida, desperate but unable, within the confines of their own church doctrine, to do what they knew they had been called to do in that moment: Minister to queer people in grief. Not because M wasn't faithful, not because M wasn't educated, not because M didn't know how, but because, the church said, M's sexuality prevented them from inviting others into the presence of God. On this episode of Traitor Radio, M gives listeners a heartfelt, and often heartbreaking, first-person look into their journey to ministry and, on the second half of the show, talks with host Andrea Grimes about how people of faith can make their own church communities places where queer and trans people -- especially queer and trans children -- can flourish. For a full transcript of this episode, visit TraitorRadio.com.