Why "Regeneration"?

When a family member transitions from one gender to another, the rest of the family often has to reform or recreate itself too. A family's adjustment to a transgender parent or child unfolds as a process over time, not a single event.[¹] Transition affects the whole family, not just the person transitioning — whether or not everyone is ready for it.[²] Family members may find themselves renegotiating the relationship terms they use for their loved one — father, mother, brother, sister.

 

In a Christian context, "regeneration" also carries a second meaning: spiritual rebirth or conversion. For Christian families with a transgender member, these two meanings can intersect — in working through change within the family, many find themselves renewing or remaking their relationship with God as well.

 

The Family Resource Center Model

The Regeneration Resource Center is built on the family resource center model — typically a physical facility, often housed in a community setting like a church, that provides services to help families care for their members. This Center adapts that model for Christian families with a transgender member, in a virtual format, with a focus on empowering families rather than simply directing them to services.

 

Our Mission

To support and strengthen families with a transgender member by providing information, resources, referrals, and education from a Christian perspective — for family members, clergy, churches, and mental health clinicians alike. The Center aims to build protective factors for families: emotional and spiritual resilience, strong social ties, and comfort self-initiating a referral to clinical support when it's needed.

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How to Use These Resources

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Disclaimer: The content on this site is for general information only. It isn't medical or mental health advice, and it isn't a substitute for care from your own physician, therapist, counselor, or other licensed health care professional.

 

These resources are designed to meet you where you are — starting from your own current understanding of gender identity and your own beliefs about how it should be expressed. Because this is a genuinely contested topic, and the underlying science is still developing, the resources here intentionally represent a range of perspectives rather than a single position. Even within one family, it's common for different members to hold more conservative and more progressive views — and it's common, too, for a person's own view to shift over time as they move through their own process of understanding and acceptance. Christian views also diverge on whether gender identity is linked to biological sex.[³]

 

Wherever you land, it's possible to hold firmly to your own religious convictions while still being supportive of a family member with a transgender identity (Matthew 7:1–3; Romans 3:23) — and both conservative and progressive perspectives alike can be sharpened by listening closely to family members' own lived experience.

 

Let's Get Started

• Family member with a transgender relative? Start here →

• Clergy or church member? Start here →

• Mental health clinician? Start here →

 

The citations on this page come from the research literature and other publications and are available upon request.

1. Lev, 2004; Emerson & Rosenfeld, 1996

2. Connolly, 2006; Whitley, 2013

3. Adams, 2017; De Jong, 2017; Green, 2015; Miller, 2015

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Have a resource we're missing, or want training or consultation? Reach out here.

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