Pastor Megan Rohrer

Photo by Vince Donovan

Megan Rohrer, is a native of Sioux Falls, SD. A graduate of Augustana College in Sioux Falls, Megan received a master of divinity at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California where Megan is currently a candidate for the Doctorate of Ministry degree.

The first openly transgender pastor to be ordained in the Lutheran church, Megan has been the Executive Director of Welcome (a ministry to the homeless and hungry in the Polk Gultch District of San Francisco, CA) at Old First Presbyterian Church since June of 2002 - and has been called to this ministry by a joint call from herchurch (Ebenezer Lutheran), Christ Church Lutheran, St. Francis Lutheran and Sts. Mary and Martha Lutheran. Megan was ordained extraordinarily on November 18, 2006.

Known for creative leadership and ministry, Megan has worked with congregations across the Bay Area to transform unused land into community gardens. The most notable of these gardens is the Free Farm, a 1/3 acre farm on the former site of St. Paulus Lutheran Church which is expected to harvest 12,000 pounds of free food that will be given away to local residents.

Preaching and teaching across the country, an author for the Human Rights Campaign's (HRC) Out In Season: A Transgender Encounter With the Church Year and as a facilitator of HRC's Gender Identity and Our Faith Communities- A Congregational Guide for Transgender Advocacy, Megan is known as a leader in transgender theology.

Currently, Megan is working in partnership with the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco on the Vanguard Project. Tenderloin street youth founded the organization Vanguard in 1966 with the support of liberal ministers, and in the context of a federal anti-poverty campaign. It is considered to be the nation’s first gay liberation organization and first gay/transgender youth organization. This project creates a series of opportunities for people living in poverty and those working on anti-poverty campaigns, to consider their place in the city vis-à-vis creative engagement with Vanguard Magazine, published from 1966-68.

Megan also serves as the Director of Candidacy for Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, on the board of Soujourn Chaplaincy at San Francisco General Hospital is an associate of the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls, MN.

Megan's Sermons

Publications & Productions

• The exhibit Man-i-fest: FTM Mentorship in San Francisco from 1976 - 2009, currently on display at the GLBT Historical Society and online at Out History, where it won the Since Stonewall Local Histories Competition.
• Megan Rohrer and Zander Keig, Letters For My Brothers: Transitional Wisdom in Retrospect, Wilgefortis, 2010.
• Queerly Lutheran, Wilgefortis, 2009.
• "Queer Soteriology" Stand Boldly: Lutheran Theology Meets the Postmodern World, Three Trees Press, 2009.
• "Life, Death and Resurrection," Simul: Lutheran Voices in Poetry," Xulon Press, 2007
• Megan's "Ordination Song" is on the CD: Out of the Extraordinary: Benefit Album for Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries that Megan produced with Amalia Vagts (2007).