Trans Church Worker Says of LGBTQ+ Catholics: “We’re Here. We’re Not Going Anywhere”

“We’re here, we’re not going anywhere.” This is the message Michael Sennett and his fellow LGBTQ+ parishioners sent with the annual Mass of Belonging held at St. Ignatius of Loyola Church, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

Until recently, Sennett served as the Director of Communications and Social Justice Programming Coordinator at the parish, where he helped form a committee focused on LGBTQ+ Catholics with the support of then-pastor, Fr. Joseph Constantino, S.J. In an interview prior to leaving his position at the parish, Sennett, who is also a contributor to Bondings 2.0, told WBUR: “It felt very empowering that we could invite people, and to not have them feel excluded.”

Sennett traces his commitment to claiming space for LGBTQ+ Catholics in the church to a confession he made at age 17:

“I came out to the priest, and I said, ‘I’m transgender and I want forgiveness.’ And he looked at me, and he took a minute,” Sennett recalled. “He reassured me that being trans isn’t a sin, and he made me promise that I would always advocate for a seat for myself at the table, even when it got difficult because he said there would be a lot of people who wouldn’t want me in Catholic spaces. And he wasn’t wrong.”

When a member of the Archdiocese of Boston’s committee that is developing a policy on gender identity invited Sennett to speak with them last year, it appeared that he would have a seat at the table for this important conversation. “My worry was that people would paint a picture of trans people as predators, as they so often do,” Sennett said. However, the committee revoked the invitation by email. After the National Catholic Reporter publicized Sennett’s disinvitation, auxiliary Bishop Mark O’Connell called Sennett to say “at the time, he and the committee just weren’t ready to speak to trans people.”

Given the committee’s unwillingness to hear from the people most personally affected by such guidelines, Sennett “worries that a lot of the anti-trans voices will have a bigger seat at the table than that of trans people and that of our advocates and allies.” These concerns are sadly confirmed by the committee’s lack of transparency, which led to the recent resignation of committee member and child protection advocate Maureen DiMilla.

Sennett’s concern about the committee’s potential shortcomings is founded in his own experience growing up in the Catholic Church. When the time came for his First Communion, Sennett said, “Everyone was so excited for me to be wearing this dress. And I fought it so hard. It’s not what I wanted to do. And I didn’t feel comfortable wearing it.”

Sennett wants children growing up in Boston’s Catholic parishes and schools today to have a different experience than he did. He recalls thinking as a child that “God was very judgmental.” He added:

“‘[Children] need to know that they are wonderfully and purposefully made as they are … because that teaching can do a lot of damage, to think that they’re disobeying God or that they’re sinning for being who they are.'”

Transgender parish workers like Sennett are an asset to the church communities they serve. Bishop O’Connell and his counterparts in other dioceses would do well to recognize these workers for the wealth of experience and wisdom they bring. For his part, Sennett continues to be committed to his one-time confessor’s charge to advocate for his seat at the table. The bishops, as shepherds of their communities, should be moving chairs to make room.

—Ariell Simon (she/her), New Ways Ministry, July 24, 2023