Retired UMC pastor and bishop’s spouse opens up about gender transition

Because she wants to be a witness to others on a similar journey, minister Mary Johnson is beginning to share the story of her gender transition and her choice to now live fully as the person she feels God created her to be.

A retired pastor in the United Methodist Church, Johnson is married to UMC bishop Peggy Johnson, who retired as episcopal leader of the UMC’s Peninsula-Delaware and Eastern Pennsylvania Conferences in September.

“The greatest challenge was living in the closet,” Johnson said. For much of the past decade, she felt compelled to live two lives, pretending to be a cisgender male in most public settings and often silencing her voice so that she would not “become a problem” or a distraction from other ministries.