Earlier this year, Patricia King was presented with a prayer shawl by the Vista Grande Community Church in Colorado Springs that is typically given to women at their baptism. But this wasn’t a baptism; it was a Christian renaming ceremony signifying Ms. King’s spiritual passage from Peter to Patricia.

“The heart I gave to Christ is still the same, it’s the outside that is changing,” said Ms. King, 35, a transgender staff sergeant in the Army infantry. “It was so affirming for me to be recognized as a woman by my church. I don’t have the words for it.”

Source: – The New York Times