On Saturday December 13th, Dignity Washington was privileged to host a talk on Transgender Spirituality and Ministry by Rev. Allyson D. Robinson, at the Dignity Center. For Rev. Robinson the transition has brought her inner peace, wholeness, and a closer relationship with God. The essence of her message revolved around the importance of allowing people to present themselves socially as they wish, without gender-policing of any sort. Rev. Robinson further underscored the diversity within the transgender community by pointing that “if you have met one transgendered person, you have met just one transgendered person.”

A nationally respected, award winning social entrepreneur and movement strategist, Rev. Allyson Dylan Robinson has built a career advising and leading organizations on the vanguard of social change. She is founder and principal of Warrior Poet Strategies, a Washington, D.C. based consulting firm advising select clients in organizational design, diversity and inclusion, and social and civic entrepreneurship.

Since June, 2014 she has also been Transitional Pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, an ecumenical, multi-racial, multi-generational congregation that has served Washington, D.C. for over 150 years. Previously, she led internal and external diversity initiatives at the Human Rights Campaign and was the first transgender person to lead a national LGBT organization as executive director of OutServe-SLDN. She’s also served as an Army officer and Baptist pastor, studied at West Point, Arizona State, and Oxford University. She has earned degrees in physics and theology.