Vicar will keep job after gender redesignation

The Rt Revd Barry Rogerson called a press conference on Monday, after Mr Stone's announcement to the congregation of St Philip's, Upper Stratton, on Sunday. The Bishop had been present at the service, and the announcement followed earlier consultation with the churchwardens, standing committee and PCC of the Swindon church, where Mr Stone has been Vicar for the past four and a half years. He is warmly supported by the congregation.

Bishop's backing: the Revd Peter Stone,
with the Rt Revd Barry Rogerson, on Monday.
Photo Jay Williams

Doctors have diagnosed Mr Stone as having gender dysmorphia, a medical condition in which the sufferer feels trapped in a body of the wrong sex. "I don't like the words 'sex change' because it's not. It's just basically putting my heart and my head together with the rest of my body," he said on Tuesday. He has been divorced twice and has an 18-year old daughter: all support his intentions.

The action he had taken in telling the Bishop that he wished to undergo surgery was a "step of faith" and a "colossal risk", he said.

"The thought of all the eggs broken in going forward was so formidable that it's taken me a lifetime to do what I'm doing now. I guess that's a reflection of the desperation that this condition leaves you in," he said on Tuesday.

The "avalanche of support" from the parish had been overwhelming, he said. "I've never known the like. They're lovely people, genuinely good people, and the level of care that I've been privileged to offer them for the last few years they've just paid back with dividends."

The Bishop acknowledged the steep learning curve he had been through on the subject of transsexuality, but concluded: "As far as I could see, there was no ecclesiastical law why he should not continue to be a priest in the C of E. I don't believe there's a moral issue here: this is a medical condition and can be dealt with medically, now. And it's a pastoral issue about him as a person, and also about the parish."

The Bishop had agreed to Mr Stone's suggestion that if the parish would not accept his change to woman, he would resign. "But the parish has said yes. It brings tears to your eyes when you stand in front of a congregation and discover they love their vicar and accept what is an immense change in perception," said the Bishop, who will not have to create a new licence for the Revd Carol Stone.

Mr Stone who was ordained in 1978 and was previously Chaplain and Head of Religious Studies at Dauntsey's School, West Lavington, is the first active parish priest to undergo gender redesignation.

The news comes as the Home Office is beginning a consultation about allowing transsexuals to change the gender stated on their birth certificate. The Evangelical Alliance (EA) is opposing any such move (News, 19 May), and describes transsexuality as "largely concerned with a state of mind - of desire and psychological identification, rather than any concrete set of facts." It opposes changes to gender by surgery, the ordination of transsexuals, and transsexual partnerships.

A statement from Reform accused the Bishop of Bristol of sanctioning scandal, and called for decisive action against giving in to a "nightmarish liberal vision of the Church". Keith Tiller, who runs the Parakaleo Ministry to transsexuals for Youth With A Mission (YWAM), said the medical thinking to support gender-redesignation surgery was highly contentious. Of the Bishop's action, he said: "It's almost as if the Church is condoning a behaviour by allowing someone in authority knowingly to alter what was, in fact, God's created intent."

But Bernadette Rogers, a scientist and lifelong C of E member, who was diagnosed with the condition as a child in the 1930s and underwent surgery in her fifties, applauded both Mr Stone and the Bishop.

"There's no question now, in any of the medical circles that have studied the matter, that this is purely a birth defect, and there is only one way out of it."

Bishop Rogerson acknowledged that he had received "a very nasty fax from 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells': I think the next three or four months are going to be quite stressful for Peter.

"But the fact is that he has a loving, praying congregation. You can't ask for more than that."