Our Leadership
Holden
First Minister & Founder
Holden founded the Blahaj Church in 2024 in the San Francisco Bay Area. While on mental health leave, Holden sought to reconcile deeply held spiritual beliefs about the sacredness of trans people with the hostility of the modern world. What began as a personal search for meaning became a calling to build a spiritual home for others who shared those beliefs.
As First Minister, Holden leads worship services, oversees the church's spiritual direction, and works with the board to advance our mission.
Board of Directors
We are governed by a five-member board, the majority of whom are transgender, gender non-conforming, gender variant, or intersex. Board members serve one-year terms and oversee operations, set policy, and ensure the church stays true to its mission.
Current board seats:
- Holden – First Minister (ex officio)
- Board Member – to be filled
- Board Member – to be filled
- Board Member – to be filled
- Board Member – to be filled
As the congregation grows, these seats will be filled by members who share our values. Interested? Get involved.
How We Began
The Blahaj Church was founded in 2024 in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was born out of a deeply personal spiritual journey – a search for a faith community that did not merely tolerate trans people but recognized their existence as sacred.
Existing religious institutions either rejected trans people outright or offered only grudging acceptance. Neither reflected what we knew to be true: that gender diversity is woven into the fabric of human existence, that it appears across every culture and era, and that the divine is reflected in the full spectrum of gender identity.
From that conviction, the Blahaj Church was born.
We are incorporated in Sacramento County, California, and hold monthly worship gatherings in the Bay Area. Though the congregation is still young and small, we carry forward one of the oldest spiritual traditions on earth: the honoring of those who transcend the boundaries of gender.
We are building something real, one gathering at a time.