We value community and fellowship, and recognize the importance of shared spaces and activities in fostering belonging and connection. We have developed several acts and places of worship that bring members together to celebrate their identities and engage in meaningful spiritual practice.
For a complete overview of our community gatherings, schedule, and activities, visit our Community Life page.
Monthly Worship Gathering
The congregation meets monthly in the Bay Area for a worship gathering. A typical service follows this order:
Gathering
We arrive, greet one another, and reconnect. This is fellowship time: catching up, sharing coffee, and settling in together.
Opening Reflection
A reading from a sacred or foundational text, or a reflection on the month's theme, opens the service and centers us as a community.
Community Check-In
We go around and share how we are doing. Are we safe? How is our health? Do we need gear or support? This is part of how we try to care for each other.
Sermon / Teaching
A short teaching from the First Minister or a guest speaker. Topics range from theological reflections on the sacredness of gender diversity to practical wisdom for everyday life.
HRT Communion
Those who choose to take their hormone replacement therapy do so together, as a sacred act of affirmation and joy. Participation is entirely voluntary; the Church does not provide medications. Congregants who do not take HRT participate through presence and support.
Prayers & Intentions
We hold space for prayers – for our community, for those facing hardship, for those we have lost, and for the wider world. Members may offer their own intentions.
Closing Blessing
A reminder that our very existence is an act of faith and resistance. We close with a blessing and carry that light into the world.
Regular Acts of Worship
HRT Communion
In addition to the monthly gathering, the Blahaj Church hosts in-person HRT Communion celebrations where members come together to take their hormone replacement therapy as a communal, sacred act of affirmation. These gatherings are joyful, celebratory events – part fellowship, part ritual – where congregants share a meal, support one another, and collectively honor the transformative power of HRT in their lives.
HRT Communion reflects the church's belief that gender-affirming care is not merely medical but deeply spiritual. By celebrating together in person, members affirm the sacredness of their transitions and strengthen the bonds of community. Whether someone is new to HRT or years into their journey, all are welcomed and celebrated.
Virtual Shot Hangout
A weekly virtual gathering where members who inject hormone replacement therapy may choose to take their sacred HRT in the company of other members. This weekly ritual provides a sense of community and support for those undergoing HRT, and serves as a reminder of the transformative power of hormone therapy in affirming one's gender identity and the sacred nature of trans lives.
Gear Day
The Blahaj Church hosts quarterly "gear days," where members come together to repair and maintain each other's safety gear, as well as discuss ways to improve safety and reduce risks associated with living as trans, gender non-conforming, or intersex individuals. These events are an opportunity for members to share knowledge and resources, and to build a sense of solidarity and mutual support in the face of the challenges of navigating a world that is often hostile to their identities.
Congregants may bring gear in good condition which no longer suits their needs to share. When budget allows, new gear may also be available.
Bath / Spa Days
The Blahaj Church organizes communal bath and spa days as a ritual of sacred self-care and bodily affirmation. For many trans, gender non-conforming, and intersex individuals, accessing spa and bathing spaces can be fraught with anxiety, harassment, or outright exclusion. Locker rooms, pools, and spas – spaces that most people take for granted – can feel hostile or unsafe for those whose bodies do not conform to cisgender expectations.
By organizing these gatherings within the safety of the congregation, the church creates a space where members can experience the simple, profound comfort of communal bathing and self-care without fear. These events draw on long traditions of ritual purification and communal bathing found across many faiths – from the Jewish mikveh to the Japanese onsen to the Roman thermae – reframed through the lens of trans affirmation and bodily celebration.
Spa days may include massage, skincare, hair care, and other affirming services provided in an environment of acceptance and joy. They are a tangible expression of the church's belief that every body is sacred and deserving of care.
Sacraments & Rites
Certain moments in a trans person's journey carry a weight that transcends the ordinary. The Church recognizes these as sacraments and rites — sacred passages marked by transformation, vulnerability, and the claiming of one's truest self.
First Shot: The Sacrament of HRT The sacred moment of beginning hormone replacement therapy
The first dose of hormone replacement therapy is, for many trans people, a moment of profound rebirth. After years — sometimes decades — of living in a body that felt foreign, the first injection or the first pill represents the beginning of alignment between the inner self and the outer form. It is not merely a medical act. It is a crossing of the threshold.
The Church holds this moment as one of its most sacred sacraments. To begin HRT is to declare, with the full weight of one's being, that the self one has always known is real and deserving of embodiment. It is an act of faith in the deepest sense: faith that the body can become a home, faith that the medical and emotional journey ahead is worth undertaking, faith that the person emerging on the other side of transition will be more fully alive than the person who began it.
When taken in community — as in the church's HRT Communion gatherings — the First Shot becomes an act of shared witness: the congregation affirming that this transformation is not merely tolerated but celebrated, not merely permitted but holy.
Sacred Bathing Communal bathing as a ritual of bodily affirmation and self-acceptance
For many trans people, the simple act of being undressed in a shared space — a locker room, a pool, a bathhouse — is anything but simple. These are spaces where bodies are on display, where the assumptions of a cisgender world are built into the architecture itself. For years, many in our congregation avoided them entirely, not from shame alone, but from the reasonable fear of hostility.
The Church's practice of Sacred Bathing reclaims these spaces. Through organized visits to welcoming bathhouses — including Kabuki Springs in San Francisco, a place that has become a site of particular significance for our community — the congregation creates an environment where trans people can experience the profound comfort of being at ease in their own skin, surrounded by others who understand.
Sacred Bathing draws on ancient traditions of ritual purification and communal cleansing found across faiths and cultures. In the Blahaj Church, it becomes something more specific: a rite of bodily affirmation. To bathe communally, without fear, in a body that the world has told you is wrong — this is an act of spiritual defiance. It is the body declaring its own holiness. The church's Bath and Spa Days are the regular expression of this rite.
Spiritual Armor: The Rite of Tattoos Body art as sacred self-expression and the claiming of one's own form
For those who have spent years feeling alienated from their own bodies, the act of marking that body with intentional, chosen art is a declaration of ownership. The tattoo says: this body is mine. I choose what it carries. I decide what story it tells.
The Church recognizes tattoos as a form of spiritual armor — a visible manifestation of the interior transformation that defines the trans experience. Each piece of ink is an act of reclamation: the body, once experienced as a prison or a betrayal, is claimed as a canvas for self-expression, identity, and beauty.
This is not vanity. It is theology made flesh. The Church holds that the body is sacred territory, and that adorning it with meaningful art is an extension of the same impulse that drives all acts of gender affirmation: the insistence that you are the author of your own form. Whether the tattoo marks a milestone in transition, honors a lost loved one, commemorates a survival, or simply makes the wearer feel more at home in their skin, it is a sacramental act — the body and the spirit conspiring to tell the truth.
Annual Observances
Trans Day of Remembrance
The Blahaj Church marks the Trans Day of Remembrance (November 20) with a special memorial service honoring and remembering the lives of those who have been lost to transphobic violence. The service includes a candlelight vigil at a designated location where candles are lit in memory of those who have been lost. The candles serve as a powerful reminder of the lives lost and the ongoing struggle for trans rights and acceptance.
As part of this observance, the First Minister delivers a sermon or prayer reflecting on the significance of the day and the importance of fighting against transphobia and bigotry in all its forms. Members of the congregation may also share their own thoughts or reflections, creating a space for communal grieving and remembrance.
Trans Day of Visibility
The Blahaj Church celebrates Trans Day of Visibility (March 31) by organizing events to promote visibility and empowerment of trans individuals. The First Minister typically gives a sermon on the importance of trans visibility and the need for acceptance and support for the trans community.
When possible the church organizes positive social events around the Trans Day of Visibility, ranging from receptions to communal baths to coffee socials.
Throughout the day, members of the congregation wear trans flag colors or other trans-related clothing and accessories as a way of showing their support for the trans community. The church also encourages members to engage in acts of allyship and activism, such as participating in trans-led marches or signing petitions in support of trans rights.
SF Pride & Trans March
The Blahaj Church participates in San Francisco Pride and Trans March each June. Several congregants ride with the affiliated Sparkling Pink Pandas motorcycle club, which participates in the march and provides traffic support to ensure the safety of all marchers and spectators.
The church recognizes the historical significance of Pride and the ongoing fight for LGBTQ+ rights, including trans rights. The church's participation in Pride serves as a visible representation of support and solidarity for the LGBTQ+ community.
Motorcycle Pilgrimages
Rides to Alice's Restaurant
Members who ride motorcycles or scooters gather monthly for a group ride to Alice's Restaurant, a historic eatery in the Bay Area. For the church, these rides are acts of worship – a celebration of freedom, self-expression, and the experience of living fully in one's body. The open road is a place of reflection and joy, and the shared ride builds fellowship among congregants.
These rides are organized through the church's affiliation with the Sparkling Pink Pandas. Non-riders are welcome to meet the group at the destination.
Taken together, these acts and places of worship are central to our spiritual and communal life, and serve as a testament to our commitment to building community, promoting safety, and advancing the rights and well-being of trans, gender non-conforming, and intersex individuals.