I preach occasionally at The Village Church, a wonderful post-evangelical congregation in Atlanta. My friend Ray Waters is the pastor. Ray and I have similar interests and backgrounds. We both worked as radio station announcers back in the day, and we sang and maintain a love for Southern Gospel music. Get us into a conversation about The Stamps, the Oak Ridge Boys during their Southern Gospel days, or any iteration of the Imperials, and we will talk until the cows come home.

I spoke at The Village Church earlier this month. When I got into town Ray said, “Ernie Haase and Signature Sound are in Gainesville tomorrow night, doing their Christmas show at a Baptist Church. Interested?”

When it comes to traditional Southern Gospel, they are one of my favorite groups. Since it was their Christmas show, I knew they’d be singing What Child Is This, so I figured, “I’m in.” Then it occurred to me, I’d be at a Southern Baptist Church in Gainesville, Georgia, not exactly the most welcoming environment for a transgender woman.

Unless people know of my circumstances before we meet, around 99.9 percent of the time I am identified by others as female. I am very rarely misgendered. But about nine million people have seen one of my TED Talks. I’ve been on Good Morning America, NBC, CBS and a host of other media likely viewed by Southern Baptists. I thought, “What if I am recognized?“

Ray was good with whatever I decided. He understood the problem. I decided to go. We got to the church just as the concert was beginning and sat safely toward the back. I had to use the restroom as soon as I got there, which was a little surreal – using a women’s restroom at a Southern Baptist church in Georgia. Not something I do every day.

The vast majority of the people were very white and very old. Come to think of it, I am very white and very old. It’s been ten years and three months since I was in an evangelical church. The last one was a megachurch and I was preaching.

It felt unsettling to be in a place in which, had they known who I was, I most certainly would have been asked to leave. It felt especially ironic to know that all of that would likely happen even though I am still a Christian and still a pastor.

As it turned out, no one knew who I was, and all was well. As I expected, the concert was excellent. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and yes, they did sing What Child Is This. I waited around afterwards as people quickly filed out. Not many CDs were being sold. Turns out even old people download their music nowadays.

Ray knows Ernie Haase, so I waited until they had a chance to talk. I took a picture of Ray, his wife and mother-in-law standing with Ernie. He wanted me to join them, but that didn’t feel right. We went to Cracker Barrel afterwards, because, well, we had just attended a Southern Gospel concert, and that’s where you go to eat after a Southern Gospel concert.

Evangelicalism is very removed from my current existence. It has been a long time since I’ve been in a big traditional Southern Baptist church building with very Southern Baptist people. I grew up on Southern Gospel music. I started my own group when I was 17. I joined another at 18, and started yet another at 21. We made five albums and managed to earn a living singing for the better part of a decade.

I do not read music well, but I do hear parts. I did vocal arrangements for all of the bands of which I was a part. I could have sung pretty much every part at the concert that night, though the tenor and bass lines might have been a stretch every now and again. I would love to sing that kind of music again, but since pretty much everyone singing it is a fundamentalist Christian, I’m thinking my chances are pretty slim.

When I transitioned I lost a lot. At the concert I was reminded I have lost the ability to feel comfortable in a church building where I once would have been very much at home. I would not be allowed through the door of any of the churches I attended as a child, or those I served before my transition.

Sometimes I wonder why I keep writing about this stuff. Maybe I’m gonna be working through these losses until the cows come home.

And there it is. I managed to work in the line, “until the cows come home” twice in a single post. I mean, I spent a good bit of my growing up years in the rural south. Those metaphors stay with you.

And so it goes.