Megan Rohrer (born 1980) is an American activist for homeless and LGBTQ+ rights and former Lutheran bishop. Rohrer is the first openly transgender minister ordained in the Lutheran tradition and a successful author and finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in 2012 for "Letters For My Brothers: Transitional Wisdom in Retrospect." As an historian, Rohrer has written the book San Francisco's Transgender District. Following his reception as a minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in 2010, he served the church as bishop of its Sierra Pacific Synod from 2021 until June 2022.
Rohrer has been profiled in international and national outlets including CBS News, BBC, and the San Francisco Chronicle. His 2025 book on San Francisco’s Transgender District was described as a significant contribution to preserving trans history and cultural memory.
Rohrer was born on April 3, 1980, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. In 1998, he graduated from high school and enrolled at Augustana University to study religion. In college he came out as gay, and became president of the gay–straight alliance. He encountered resistance, threats, and attempted "cures" by fellow students for his sexuality. Rohrer graduated from Augustana in 2001.
Rohrer moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2002 to continue his studies. By this time he had come to identify as transgender. Rohrer attended Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary before transferring to the Pacific School of Religion (PSR) in Berkeley, California, earning a Master of Divinity degree from PSR in 2005 and a Doctor of Ministry degree in 2016. In 2024, Rohrer successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation titled "Trans The*logy Without Apology." His Ph.D. is in transformative studies through the California Institute of Integral Studies and his dissertation was later published through Wilgefortis Press.
In 2000, Rohrer worked at the Children's Home Society in Sioux Falls.
Rohrer formed the San Francisco LGBTQ Meetup to organize support for the homeless. "We can’t cure homelessness," said Rohrer. "But we can still be present and be visible out in our community. That was a big part of why we wanted to start having these gatherings." Rohrer has helped the homeless in San Francisco, serving as the executive director of The Welcome Ministry, since 2002, which programs serve the homeless and hungry by distributing sandwiches, and has participated in a night ministry with other local pastors. Rohrer has also helped to grow and distribute thousands of pounds of free food from community gardens.
Feeding people, especially seniors and people living with HIV/AIDS, has always been part of The Welcome Ministry. Rohrer managed the hot meal program and food pantry of the historic St. Francis Lutheran Church, near the Castro, in San Francisco. In 2013, the city was actively working to gentrify the Duboce Park and Castro neighborhoods, and began by attempting to close down the food program as a means to reduce homelessness.
Through Welcome, in 2015, Rohrer supported efforts in Kona, Hawaii to benefit homeless people and other low-income people with their vision needs, by making gathering resources and providers in the area to sponsor and support the initiative. At the event, three generations, Megan Rohrer, his mother, Peggy Heard, and grandmother, Darlene Audus, bathed the feet of the homeless at a washing station and applied lotion to the often cracked and ragged feet.
American mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, originally founded the Singers of the Street (SOS) choir, which became a project of Welcome. Singers of the Street is a choir of San Franciscans who have experienced, or are at risk of, homelessness and its mission is to raise their voices for justice, healing and joy. In 2015, Street Requium, composed by Kathleen McGuire, in collaboration with Andy Payne and Jonathon Welch, was performed by von Stade and the Singers of the Street in the Bay Area, as a means of mourning the homeless who have died as a result of being unhoused. The Bay Area Reporter interviewed Rohrer in 2016 during the first Trump Administration when speculation that the city of San Francisco could lose $1 billion in federal funding for housing services, because of his advocacy work with HIV/AIDS homelessness. In 2022, Rohrer was appointed to the Local Homeless Coordinating Board, which advises the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. Rohrer continues to serve as the co-chair of the San Francisco Local Homelessness Coordinating Board. On February 20, 2024, Rohrer's work helped secure over $50 million in federal funding for homeless individuals and domestic violence survivors.
Rohrer was ordained in 2006, during a time when the ELCA did not allow LGBTQ pastors to openly serve. When the policy changed in 2009, Rohrer became the first openly transgender person to serve as a minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
In 2010, Rohrer and six other Bay Area gay and transgender pastors were reinstated into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, after the national assembly voted to allow partnered gay people to serve as clergy. The pastors' churches had previously been removed from the denomination for ordaining gay and lesbian ministers who refused to adhere to the denomination's document guiding clergy conduct, "Visions and Expectations". At the time "Visions and Expectations" required that candidates for and persons on the clergy roster remain celibate outside of legal marriage and monogamous within marriage.
In 2014, Rohrer was installed as pastor of Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in San Francisco.
In 2017, Rohrer was hired by the San Francisco Police Department as their first chaplain from the LGBTQ community.
In May 2021, Rohrer was elected bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod of the ELCA, overseeing nearly 200 congregations across Northern California and Northern Nevada. His election marked the first time an openly transgender person held the office of bishop in the ELCA. During his tenure, he faced both recognition for advancing LGBTQ+ visibility in the church.
Rohrer resigned in June 2022 at the request of the ELCA’s presiding bishop Elizabeth Eaton. He later filed a lawsuit against the Sierra Pacific Synod alleging harassment and breach of contract; the case was settled in 2024.
Rohrer has spoken publicly about the safety risks he faced as a transgender religious leader, including wearing a bulletproof vest on some occasions at the advice of law enforcement.
He is currently on faculty at the Chaplaincy Institute, where he teaches courses on pastoral leadership, chaplaincy with marginalized communities, and care during public gatherings such as vigils and protests.
He is currently on faculty at the Chaplaincy Institute, where he teaches courses on pastoral leadership, chaplaincy with marginalized communities, and care during public gatherings such as vigils and protests.