Congregation on the slide to memorialize transgenders The Layman Online Thursday, November 3, 2005 Downtown United Presbyterian Church in Rochester, N.Y., a congregation that has lost nearly half of its members in the past 10 years, will observe a "Transgender Day of Remembrance" during its worship service on Nov. 20. An announcement about the event was published on the Web site of the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley, which says its on-line newsletter, "The Empty Closet," is New York's "oldest continuously-published GLBT newspaper." Downtown United Presbyterian Church has been at the center of the debate over the denomination's prohibition against ordaining practicing homosexuals. In 1992, the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission would not allow the congregation to call lesbian activist Janie Spahr as an associate pastor. Spahr, who had previously been ordained as a Presbyterian minister, currently faces an investigation because, contrary to Presbyterian polity, she conducted a marriage service for a same-gender couple in Canada. Spahr, who lives in California and describes herself as a "lesbian evangelist," is still listed as a member of the staff of Downtown United Presbyterian. She is a member at-large of the Presbytery of Redwoods. The congregation has continued its activism to repeal the constitutional "fidelity/chastity" standard – G-6.0106b in the Book of Order. It has also experienced a sharp membership decline – from 657 in 1995 to 337 in 2004, according to denominational statistics. The Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley described the Rochester church as "a progressive congregation of a 'mainline' Protestant denomination [that] will commemorate this day when we pause to remember the transgendered persons who have died violent deaths due to transphobia and homophobia." The alliance said it has observed a Day of Remembrance in the past. "Although not every person represented during the Day of Remembrance self-identified as transgendered – that is, as a transsexual, cross dresser, or otherwise gender-variant – each was a victim of violence based on bias against transgendered people." The alliance does not name the victims, although it does cite one unsolved murder of a transgendered person. The Presbytery of Genesee Valley is one of eight PCUSA presbyteries that have asked the 217th General Assembly to approve overtures to call for a fourth referendum on the ordination standard and to repeal the Authoritative Interpretation that undergirds the ordination standard. In 1997, 54 percent of the PCUSA's 173 presbyteries approved G-6.0106b as an amendment to the constitution. That amendment was affirmed by larger margins later – 66 percent in 1998 and 73 percent in 2001.

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