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Article updated: 9/16/2012 4:06 PM

Gender change gives McHenry pastor unique insight

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His transgender status had no effect on the unanimous vote to hire Rev. Sean Parker Dennison as the new minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation that recently moved from Woodstock to McHenry.

Brian Hill | Staff Photographer

One of the monumental events in the life of Rev. Sean Parker Dennison took place 12 years ago, when he was ordained as a Unitarian Universalist minister.

Courtesy of Rev. Sean Parker Dennison

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Comfortable with being a man after spending his first 31 years as a female, Rev. Sean Parker Dennison is still getting settled in his new office as the minister at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation that recently moved from Woodstock to McHenry.

Brian Hill | Staff Photographer

People who hear the story of how he used to be a single mom "get it very quickly that what I'm about is being a minister," says Rev. Sean Parker Dennison, the new minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Woodstock that recently moved to McHenry.

Brian Hill | Staff Photographer

About this Article

Facing the challenges of moving from their old church in Woodstock to new digs in McHenry, parishioners at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation unanimously voted to hire Rev. Sean Parker Dennison as the pastor to lead them through the transition. An ordained minister since 2000, Dennison is uniquely equipped to handle whatever transitions come his way. He not only understands the middle-age man and the teenage girl, Dennison has been both. “I feel as if I've been male for as long as I was female,” says the smiling transgender preacher in his 15th year as a man after living his first 31 years as a less-than-happy female. “They figure out the gifts my transgenderness means. I can relate to the single mom or the old 46-year-old white guy. Been both. Seen both sides. I have this whole vast world of experience.”