Episcopal Church celebrates first trans dean — woman in lesbian marriage to trans-identified pastor
A Wisconsin cathedral has installed what is believed to be the first trans-identifying dean in the history of The Episcopal Church.
The Very Rev. Micah Cronin, a woman who identifies as a man, took the helm of All Saints' Cathedral in Milwaukee on Aug. 16, according to Episcopal News Service. The cathedral draws an average of just 70 worshippers on a given Sunday.
Cronin is married to a woman who goes by the Rev. Elias Henry, also a trans-identified pastor, who serves at The Corner House, a Lutheran, LGBT-affirming campus ministry at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Cronin laid out her story in an introductory email to the congregation last month: raised Methodist, she joined TEC at 19, the same year she decided to self-identify as trans.
“For clarification, this means that I was raised as a girl. For my whole adult life, I have been known and loved as myself — Micah,” wrote Cronin. “The churches I was raised in were not able to receive me as I am. But as a young person, I heard through the grapevine that the Episcopal Church would accept me.”
“I knew that no matter what I had to follow Jesus. The small Episcopal parish I walked into years ago made it possible for me to do that, through their kind, steadfast, gentle acceptance, and above all, their love.”
Cronin's appointment lands amid a decades-long freefall for The Episcopal Church. Like most U.S. denominations, it's bleeding members, and its progressive turn has driven much of the exodus.
When TEC consecrated the Rev. Gene Robinson as its first openly gay bishop in 2003, scores of congregations voted to leave in protest.
In 2010, the denomination reported that the number of active baptized members in their churches had dropped just below 2 million. By 2023, that number decreased to approximately 1.547 million people.
For its 2024 Parochial Report, released last October, TEC omitted a membership tally, explaining that there were questions about how to properly chart the numbers.
The report noted 19,624 baptisms of children and adults in 2024, a considerable decline from 2014, when the denomination reported over 28,000 total baptisms.
In 2024, three Episcopal dioceses in Wisconsin were merged into a single regional body, in large part because the entities had suffered considerable membership decline.
The decision, which was given final approval by the 81st Episcopal Church General Convention in Louisville, Kentucky, was technically a reunification, as the three dioceses were initially founded as one statewide body in 1847.
At the time of the reunification, the new Diocese of Wisconsin included 101 congregations and approximately 11,500 baptized members, with Bishop Matthew Gunter serving as its leader.
