Update from Chris Paige, Transfaith's Operations Director

After serving 6 years as Transfaith's founding executive director, I am stepping down to support the incoming leadership of Louis Mitchell as Transfaith's new executive director. This change is made as a result of my request to the Transfaith board of directors in July and has my full support and endorsement. I will continue on as Transfaith's operations director reporting to Louis.

When we launched Transfaith as an organization in 2012, it was because we had a deeply felt need for organization that would center the needs of transgender spiritual/cultural workers--and now that organization exists!

I am proud of the work we have done to cultivate a different kind of organization--one that endeavors to be relational, intersectional, and relevant. That has been no small labor within a non profit industrial complex that remains too often structured around binary and often exploitative notions of empowerment.

It has also been painful and exhausting work for me as I have confronted time and again the ways that friends and colleagues alike have been ill prepared to fully engage with powerful non binary leadership. This acknowledgement is not only about my gender, but also about the limitations of identity politics more generally as a remnant of binary colonial influences.

Nonetheless, I have had the extraordinary opportunity as executive director to build relationships with a variety of amazing and inspiring human beings. I am eager to reprioritize my life to get back to spending more of my time and energy writing, learning, exploring, and conspiring with others in ways that are simply not possible while I carry the most public mantle of Transfaith.

While I will continue to work with Transfaith as part-time staff for the foreseeable future, you'll also see a slow launch for my expanded personal coaching and consulting practice under the banner of OtherWise Engaged: Decolonizing the Binary Mind.

Meanwhile, in this critical time of transition for Transfaith, I encourage you to show your support for the leadership of my co-founder and friend, Louis Mitchell. We need your financial support as well as your time, energy, and insight as we work to expand transgender Visibility, Viability, and Vitality in these critical times.

This organization was never intended to be all about me. I am excited about all of the new possibilities on the horizon under Louis's executive leadership.

With great anticipation,

Chris Paige
Operations Director