I emailed to check whether I would be welcome in church

As I stepped up to the lectern, I felt a surge of emotion (Picture: Cleo Madeleine)

‘He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor.’

So goes Isaiah 11, the reading from the Bible that I was invited to deliver at St John’s Timberhill’s carol service two years ago.

I had only recently joined the congregation and felt both honoured to be asked and nervous to be standing in front of a group of people I did not know well.

It is a small church that seems to overflow itself, crowded with candles, icons, and an inexhaustible supply of biscuits.

That night, it was crammed to the rafters with the queer community of Norwich, many of whom had dressed up for the occasion. There were so many glittering and glamorous headpieces that the priest – in his purple chasuble – was in danger of looking underdressed.

As I stepped up to the lectern, I felt a surge of emotion. Here were my people.

As a trans woman and a Christian in the UK, finding acceptance hasn’t always been easy. For a long time my faith and my identity were at odds.

I grew up under Section 28 (Picture: Cleo Madeleine)

The church I grew up in was a new-build with a soft rock choir; the face of a more modern and youth-friendly Church of England. Beneath the facade, however, was a familiar religious conservatism.

Guest speakers would denounce the evils of Islam in videos showing keffiyeh-clad men hurling grenades. Youth groups pondered the ‘problem’ of a friend who confessed homosexual attraction, and how to save them from their fate.

I was too young to know what these beliefs represented, but I knew I didn’t agree with them. I nurtured a growing resentment towards the church until eventually rejecting it entirely in my teens.

This would be the source of blazing rows with my parents as they tried to drag me to church. I spent one Sunday morning in a shouting match with my father, him trying to persuade me I was in spiritual danger (‘demons’ were mentioned) and me screaming that I didn’t believe in any of it.

The older, wiser person I am now wishes I could have understood who I was and why I was angry, and been honest with my parents about it. But at the time, it felt impossible. It felt like I didn’t really know what to be honest about. 

I grew up under Section 28, the legislation now remembered as a ‘gay ban’ for schools and local authorities. I was 13 when it was repealed in 2003.

I had always known that I was queer. I may as well have been born wrapped in a Pride flag. But no one taught me what that was – how could they have? – and so I grew up angry at the church, angry at my family, and angry at myself.

When I was 15, I learned what bisexual meant and thought that that was right for me. A few years later when I went to university, I learned what transgender meant, and realised that that was me, too.

But even as I got older and met other queer people, I felt the shame and stigma I had grown up with. It took me years to come out even to close friends, even longer to my family.

Those years were a miserable time in my life. Lying about who I was made me reclusive, bitter, unkind to myself and to the people around me. I thought that this was all there was: scraping by while I tried to hide from the world.

In retrospect, I was afraid of being judged. Of course, the church was the first place to teach me that I would be, but the militant atheist streak I had developed in self-defence only made things worse. I told myself that there was no point in coming out.

Eventually I sorted out my head, sorted out my life, and came out. I had known who I was since I was 19 – I was 24 by the time I told my parents.

Of course there was some awkwardness, and some trips and hazards along the way. My family took a while to get used to my new name, for instance. Some old friends from the village didn’t approve, and asked probing questions about why I’d done this and what it all meant.

But, honestly, it was fine. With time and patience everyone understood that I was the same person, just happier and calmer. My only regret is not doing it sooner.

I was terrified when I resolved to go to mass for the first time in over 20 years (Picture: Cleo Madeleine)

I had managed to go from an angry teenager to a happy and productive adult and stick the landing. I was certain I had put the question of religion to bed for good. But in falling away from God, I had fallen away from myself.

As a result – at the end of parties – I would sit up with my housemate talking about God.

It was one of those nights in the late 2010s – I was in my late 20s, having gone back to university to study a PhD – when I got upset. We were talking about the importance of a loving God to Christianity, and I recalled the judgement and exclusion of my childhood church.

‘I don’t know if there’s space for people like us,’ I said. ‘There is,’ she insisted. ‘He loves you.’

That was when I resolved to go back to church, but it took me a while to find the right place. The Unitarians (a liberal branch of Christianity with a more relaxed approach to worship) were wonderful people, but I missed the prayers and devotions of traditional worship. Likewise, the Catholic cathedral was beautiful, but an anti-abortion sermon reminded me too much of my old church.

After about a year of searching, a friend told me about St John’s over dinner. This is when I found out that they look after the AIDS memorial book (which commemorates the people of Norwich who have died of HIV/AIDS since the crisis of the 1980s), they do an LGBT carol service, they even have gay priests deliver sermons.

They must be alright, I thought.

Still, I was terrified when I resolved to go to mass for the first time in over 20 years on a cold October morning in 2021. In fact, I was so nervous that I had emailed the priest to check if it was OK to attend.

I was running scenarios in my mind about what to say if someone took offence to a trans woman being there, or asked an awkward question. Of course, it was fine.

This first service felt like coming home. After the Eucharist – in which the priest shares bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ and provides blessings – I sat at the back and cried because I was so glad.

Since then, I have been back every Sunday that I can manage (I have even taken over the administrative behemoth of the tea and coffee rota). When I’m away for work, I miss the community and the sense of spiritual calm until I can get back to Mass again.

The heart and devotion of St John’s makes every Mass special, but the highlight of the church year for me is the Easter vigil. This takes place on the night before Easter in a candlelit chapel.

Congregants come and go all evening to sit or kneel before the altar in silent prayer, remembering Jesus’ words to his disciples shortly before his death: ‘Were you not able to watch with Me one hour?’ There’s something genuinely religious in that room.

Whoever you are, whatever your heartache, you can come into that chapel as yourself. There is lots of talk about inclusion in the news – in sports, schools, and, indeed, churches – but I’ve never felt part of something like I have at the Easter Vigil.

Cleo speaking at London Trans Pride (Picture: Cleo Madeleine)

Next week, I will read at the carol service again.

I have invited my fiancé and our chosen family in Norwich to join us. My fiancé is spiritual but not religious, and we’ve come to a compromise on the role of faith in our relationship and our wedding next year.

They come to Mass on special occasions like Christmas and Easter (where they’re far more popular with the congregation than I am), and while we’re not having a Christian wedding, we’re including prayers and Bible readings. In fact, most of our loved ones aren’t religious (although almost all of them are queer).

The reason I want to have them there is so they can see my faith community and my queer community together in one place.

I want them to see – as that Isaiah reading says – that we will not be judged because of what we look like or who we are. Here, we can find our people.

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After rejecting the chuch in my teens, my first service back in over 20 years felt like coming home.