The Rev. Vicki Gray, the first openly trans person ordained in the Diocese of California, died Aug. 3 at age 86. Photo: Facebook
[Episcopal News Service] The Rev. Victoria Gray, a deacon in the Diocese of California and the first openly transgender person to be ordained there, died on Aug. 3. She was 86.
Gray, who was known as Vicki, was ordained to the diaconate on Dec. 2, 2006, following her graduation from the diocese’s School for Deacons. Her death was announced by TransEpiscopal in an Aug. 6 blog post paying tribute to Gray.
TransEpiscopal, a group of transgender, nonbinary and allied Episcopalians, called Gray “a proud deacon and passionate advocate for social justice in manifold intersecting forms.” The tribute said she also had been a longtime member of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship’s Palestine Justice Network and had supported numerous resolutions in support of Palestinian justice at California’s diocesan convention, as well as at The Episcopal Church’s General Convention.
Gray served at St. James Episcopal Church in San Francisco after her ordination and then for many years at Christ the Lord Episcopal Church in Pinole, California, as well as the San Francisco Night Ministry’s Open Cathedral. She was a member of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Benicia, California, before her ordination and was attending there when she died.
Born Feb. 16, 1939, in New York City, Gray was formerly a political scientist, having earned a bachelor’s degree in science from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1962, a master’s degree from Boston University in 1971 and a doctorate from the University of Maryland in 2002. She worked for a time as a member of the U.S. Foreign Service and served in the U.S. Navy, including a tour in Vietnam.
TransEpiscopal said she “was haunted by the violence she encountered and participated in” during the war, and it prompted her later efforts working for “the eradication of war, poverty, racism, sexism, xenophobia, transphobia and their intersections.”
She became associated with TransEpiscopal in 2008 and was a part of the organization’s team at the 2009 General Convention, when resolutions on non-discrimination against trans people were debated. That effort came to fruition in 2012, when the church voted to add “gender identity and expression” to the canon on non-discrimination in access to the discernment process for ordination in The Episcopal Church.
Gray was one of the Episcopalians featured in the 2012 video, “Voices of Witness: Out of the Box,” which recounts the experience of several trans people within the church. In it, she described her decades-long marriage to her wife, Mimi, who died in 2000.
In an Aug. 7 Facebook post, the Rev. Susan Russell, canon for engagement in the Diocese of Los Angeles and herself a longtime proponent of the rights of LGBTQ+ people in the church, called Gray “one of the great siblings in the struggle for LGBTQ equity and justice.”
The Rev. Kenneth Parris, a deacon at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, on Aug. 5 wrote on Gray’s Facebook page, “in life you were a vocal advocate for those who had no voice. You would engage in ‘good trouble’ on behalf of the poor, the weak, the sick and the lonely. And you always strived to live a life full of the Gospel of Christ.”
In response, Sarah Lawton, a longtime General Convention deputy from the Diocese of California, replied, “Vicki was the best of us! Stalwart, so intelligent and accomplished, fierce and also gentle. I’m sure she is glad to be joining her beloved wife Mimi in God’s love for us beyond the grave. I hope we can take strength from her voice and witness now to face these times — as she would urge us to do.”
Funeral services for Gray have not yet been announced.