By Carol Joyner (From Seeds February – March 2026)

Towards the end of last year, Sarah Jones’s Everyday Normal tour came to Edinburgh, hosted in the sanctuary of St Columba’s by the Castle Episcopal Church.

The Revd Canon Sarah Jones, the first post-gender-change person to be ordained in the Church of England, is priest-in-charge of St John the Baptist Church in Cardiff. She is also a gifted public speaker and folk musician.

Having already received positive reports of Sarah’s entertainment value, the evening exceeded all my expectations, and some more.

The first half was dedicated to her outing as a transgender priest by the Daily Mail back in 2004, and the furore that followed, despite the support of her diocesan bishop in Hereford, Anthony Priddis. The second half, following a cake-enriched interval courtesy of St Columba’s Revd Juliet Stephenson and co, focused on Sarah’s current role at St John’s in Cardiff, and the public response to trans issues. Sarah then took questions from the audience.

Unsurprisingly, Sarah spoke to last year’s Supreme Court decision to define a woman as biologically female at birth, articulating several key arguments against the move, with a series of erudite and humorous takes on the topic.

I particularly enjoyed her well-made point around dangers and threats to women, which do not come from the tiny pocket of vulnerable trans women in society, but from cisgendered men. This has historically always been the case. The presence of intersex bodies and, therefore, identities that challenge biological and gender binaries is a further reality ignored by the political and evangelical right. The problem, as Sarah explained, is that the liberal left has not mobilised itself as successfully as anti-trans campaigners, often lacking the political nous to respond effectively to the wilful ignorance and hatred directed toward trans women.

Sarah’s humour proved an effective vehicle for making her points around both the vitriol of the right-leaning press and its public, and the sometimes self-defeating response of trans campaigners and their supporters, who are often disorganised and, at times, woefully naïve in their counterattacks. A recent TERFS versus Trans demonstration in central Cardiff was discussed, in which the trans side did itself no favours by becoming embroiled in petty jibes, suggesting on one protest sign that TERFS should be drowned in the River Taff. When invited to speak at the event, Sarah found herself at the centre of an X troll-fest, in which she was variously described as a ‘Christian lunatic’ and a badly turned out Darth Vader lookalike!

While Sarah’s presentation of her X-feed gave rise to much mirth among us, it did highlight the polarised views of the public towards trans issues and, to a lesser extent, the lack of respect afforded the clergy in today’s secular society.

What I particularly enjoyed about Sarah’s performance was her warmth and humanity. My wife and I arrived early to the event and Sarah was quite happy to chat away to us while setting up, and indeed mixed with the audience during the interval. She also took the time to respond thoughtfully to questions from the audience.

There was a refreshing lack of ego on display and she was unapologetically herself – clever, witty, erudite but also very, very human. Very everyday normal, in fact.