Sister Nancy’s Trans Ministry Is a Learning Experience for All

At her home with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in St. Louis, Missouri, Sister Nancy Corcoran, CSJ, has spent two years hosting an unexpected Friday night dinner: Catholic parents of transgender children who seek to affirm their kids rather than deny them. Outside the house’s dining room, a sign with a rainbow background reads “Save Trans Lives.”

At 81, Corcoran tells St. Louis Public Radio that for most of her life she was comfortable with the Catholic teaching on sex and gender. But ten years ago, while teaching a college course, Corcoran met a transgender student for the first time, which she said was “a moment of revelation.” As she was approaching retirement, she decided  to take a sabbatical to educate herself more about transgender people and issues.

Sister Nancy Corcoran, CSJ

“Nancy, you’re blind and stupid in an area that is making a big difference to people’s lives, and so you need to learn,” Corcoran remembers telling herself. So, in her 70s, Corcoran spent two years traveling to conferences and speaking to trans people and their families. When she returned to St. Louis, she began attending meetings with TransParent, a support group for affirming parents of trans children. 

At first, Corcoran spoke to no one at the meetings. She said that when she did introduce herself, it was  a “moment of grace.”

“I just said, ‘I need to tell you all that I’m a Roman Catholic nun, and I have so learned from you all.’” she remembers. “I’d never learned about unconditional love in the convent, but going to the TransParent meetings, I learned about unconditional love.”

Later, a Catholic parent from the meeting contacted Corcoran. “She deeply loved her church, and she wanted to meet other Catholic parents who affirmed their children,” Corcoran says. “She looked at me, and I’m thinking, really, what can I do?”

With that question, Corcoran’s regular meetings at the motherhouse in St. Louis began. Though they are not a secret, the Archdiocese of St. Louis does not endorse them. Corcoran says roughly two dozen Catholic parents attend. “They eat, they talk about being Catholic, work and being affirming parents.” There is no talk of praying that children will stop being trans or gay. 

There are occasionally heavier moments. Corcoran remembers one meeting where the parents compared the approaches of pronoun use  of  different Catholic high schools in the area .Another woman struggles because her child isn’t ready to publicly transition. Corcoran says that some parents feel they have to “take on the shame” that others project on their children.

“They have to realize it’s not about them, it’s about their child,” Corcoran says. “Do they want their child to become the best person that they can be, whoever that is, whether it’s male or female?”

Parents of trans kids need more support than ever, especially in places like Missouri, where the state government is introducing legislation that limits access to gender-affirming care, participation in sports, and even bathrooms.

Corcoran describes the terror she sees families in her group live with daily:

“I know 40 families who have already left the state. These are good, hardworking people. Every family of a trans child knows how long it will take to get across the river into Illinois, how long it would take to get to Canada, and, if they can afford it, they all have passports. That’s the kind of terror that they live in. When you think that when a child goes to school, they have to worry about where they’re going to go to the bathroom. Really?”

In April, Corcoran joined with other faith leaders in the St. Louis area “to deliver a collective message as the LGBTQ+ Faith Alliance.” 

In the statement, Corcoran says “We declare all people are beloved and created in the image of God, holy and whole.”

Standing next to Corcoran while she read this statement was the Rev. Eli Anthony, assistant pastor at the Metropolitan Community Church of Greater Saint Louis. For him, the support of a Catholic nun was “significant.”

“I come from a strict Catholic family background,” Anthony says. “It took five or so years, but my own family is now very accepting of me….But I think I understand the pain and fear that parents have, they want their kid to go to heaven, they want their kid to belong in this world. I can’t imagine hearing state legislation, seeing social media, that fear.”

Both Anthony and Corcoran believe that faith and affirmation are the paths forward. 

“I think the work of faith leaders in the church is to help people lean into that trust and lean into that love,” Anthony says. “And [to] know that God is so wholly just and so wholly loving.”

Corcoran has plenty of hope for the future of the Catholic Church. “Our archbishop has been fabulous, educating all of us, encouraging the archives in the archdiocese to look and to see who we were and who we never want to be again,” she says. “Yes, of course the Church will change. It always gets better.”

—Lynnzee Dick, New Ways Ministry, May 30, 2026

Further reading:

In 2017, Sister Nancy penned a blog post for Bondings 2.0 entitled “Nuns As Queer” about her early explorations into transgender ministry.