Growing up in Union, Brandon King attended Holy Spirit Roman Catholic Church with his family. As a boy, he became fascinated with the rituals of the Mass. For example, he used to marvel that the priest could, at the Lamb of God, break up the large host so exactly. Then at one point he saw it up close and learned it was scored to break easily – actually into 24 smaller hosts.
He then thought about becoming a priest and spoke to two parish priests and the director of the religious education program for students in public schools. Eventually he enrolled in Marywood University, a small Catholic school in Scranton, but after two years transferred to Rutgers in New Brunswick. One day, he crossed paths with their Episcopalian chaplain and started to worship with them, which he believed was a better fit for him.
Among the reasons was that he had struggled since he was a boy with the reality that he might be a girl in a boy’s body.
“At Rutgers, I identified a call to the priesthood and discerned the next step,” King told me over lunch on Broadway in Bayonne.
In the Episcopal denomination, he knew he could become a priest but did not seriously consider transitioning until the last year of seminary. As a man, King was eventually ordained an Episcopal priest in 2020. First, he served at Holy Trinity in South River. Then he arrived as Father Brandon at Trinity Church in Bayonne on Palm Sunday 2021, in the midst of COVID. But he wanted to transition when the time was right.
He eventually came out to his parishioners: “I am writing to all of you as your pastor to share something personal with you which I am now making public; I am transgender.”
He felt relieved and accepted when he did.
“It was a source of great pain and sorrow to me through my life and it was only in recent years that it became real to me that I could do something about it,” he wrote to his parishioners in Bergen Point section. “It is a good and godly thing in the Episcopal Church that our ordained ministry includes all the sorts of people God saw fit to make.”
It became official this year on Feb. 10, the eve of the Feast of the Irish St. Abigail, that formerly Father Brandon King became a woman, would now be the Rev. Abigail Bren King and would go by several new appellations: Father King or Mother King or Ms. King and even Father Abigail, a saint she has admired.
At a formal renaming ceremony in the church, the ritual stated: “We honor the name given to her by her parents and acknowledge that the time has come to declare a new name. We honor the name she hath chosen and acknowledge those beloved who have made holy space for a new name to be spoken.”
Asked whether there are other trans priests in the Episcopal Church’s Newark Diocese, Bishop Carlye Hughes issued a statement: “There are more than 100 priests and deacons actively serving in the Diocese of Newark, and Mother Abigail is a wonderful, faithful priest who is one of that number.” Not wanting to isolate any clergy, Hughes added, “We do not share information about gender identity or sexual orientation due to the personal and private nature of such information, and as importantly, they do not prevent or determine a call to ministry and ordination.”
King, now 37, is enjoying her tenure at Trinity, and the people have embraced her ministry and renaming.
“She’s a great asset, very intelligent, knowledgeable and compassionate,” said Lisa Milan, who along with her husband left her Catholic church in Bayonne to join Trinity back in 1990. She has served on their vestry or leadership council and teaches religious education.
King, she added, “is in alignment with the vision of Trinity.”
Trinity has long been known for its service to the vulnerable. HIGHWAYS is the headquarters of their social services programs, the food pantry and outreach. In 1985, the Windmill was created to provide services for the developmentally disabled adult population. The parish website says King “believes in the beauty of liturgy, radical hospitality, daily prayer, and being in the love of Jesus.”
Her vocation was nourished when she took a leave from Rutgers and worked at the Episcopalian ministry. Eventually she was awarded a degree in History and Religion. She did her ministerial studies at the acclaimed General Theological in Manhattan and married her wife, Georgina, who goes by Gigi, in her former life as a man. They live together in the church parsonage.
King knows there was some small rumbling in the church about her transitioning, but it does not deter her. And she is not on a crusade to change any minds.
She wrote on Facebook after she informed her parishioners, “It is a simple and observable fact that trans people who are supported and affirmed in their transition are far happier and far healthier than those who are not.”
And 13-year-old Christian Milan, son of Lisa, gave the best answer when his mother asked what he thought about King’s transition.
“As long as she’s happy,” he said, “that’s what matters.”
If only adults could all follow the lead of children.
The Rev. Alexander Santora is the pastor of Our Lady of Grace and St. Joseph, 400 Willow Ave., Hoboken, which will host its seventh annual Pride Mass at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, June 23. Limited parking will be available in OLG’s Willow Avenue lot; a public garage is located at Fourth and Clinton streets, Hoboken. Contact Santora at padrealex@yahoo.com. Find him on X @padrehoboken.
