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Cherri DiNovo: You know, first and foremost, not everyone want to be inclusive. We tried
to do a lot of educational work in the congregation around that for things as simple as you would
experience as washrooms, washrooms. Where do trans people go when they need to use a
washroom. Is it the male, is it the female? Where?
And what if somebody feels uncomfortable sharing the washroom with somebody who was born a
biological male?
We had women’s retreats where women shared rooms with trans folk and we talked about
that. It was an incredible learning experience and a very exciting one, one that we embrace
as a congregation. And yes we lost some folk who decided this was not the church for them,
but we gained so many more. In fact, one of the parts of my book that I wanted to emphasize
was that we actually grew the church numbers by being inclusive, that it became a successful
church, 1,000 at Christmas Eve. Why? Because we were inclusive.