TRUUsT is happy to announce that three members of our community have volunteered to serve as interim/acting steering committee members and help TRUUsT move forward in our work as a community. After putting out a call for volunteers, exactly the number of folks we needed volunteered: Adrian Ballou, Christe Lunsford, and Andre Mol.

TRUUsT’s current practice is to elect new steering committee members at our annual retreat, which is currently planned for early 2019. So until then, meet TRUUsT’s interim steering committee!

Adrian Ballou is genderqueer, genderfluid, fabulous, and raised UU, recently served four years as the Youth Director at the Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence, Massachusetts, and is a youth minister and a trans community minister who is called to building care collectives and ministry spaces for those who don’t have them. Christe Lunsford is a trans-masculine/non-binary UU candidate for ordained parish ministry and a UU credentialed musician who is currently serving on the Board of Trustees of the UU Musicians Network (soon to be renamed the Association for UU Music Ministries) and is called to de-silo institutions by building bridges, recognizing intersectional relationships, and expanding our collective potential as loving and affirming communities who can draw the circle of inclusion ever wider. Andre Mol is a genderqueer minister who recently received preliminary fellowship, currently serves as the Developmental Assistant Minister at the First UU Society of Burlington, Vermont, and is called to help create collective spaces for connection, healing, and transformation.

They are joining Alex Kapitan and Rev. Chris Rothbauer. Alex, elected to the steering committee in 2016, is a raised-UU genderqueer lay community minister who worked in the UUA’s national office from 2010-2016 and is currently a co-leader of the Transforming Hearts Collective. Chris, elected to the steering committee in 2017, is an agender UU chaplain serving in Louisville, Kentucky, who served as a parish minister from 2015-2018.

The acting leadership of TRUUsT wants to acknowledge that an unintended outcome of the current stop-gap volunteer leadership is that the acting steering committee does not fully represent the diversity of the TRUUsT community. These five leaders are committed to representing the fullness of TRUUsT and will do extra work to be mindful of the needs and perspectives of those in our community who are not currently represented in leadership.

TRUUsT is pleased to be able to move forward in service of our mission to support Unitarian Universalist trans religious professionals, advocate for each other and our ministries, and transform Unitarian Universalism and our world.