In June 1982, my oldest sibling boarded a bus from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to San Francisco. We never heard from her again. She was 28.

April 1983, I was in my dorm room at Princeton Theological Seminary when the hall phone rang. “It’s for you, Brenda.” I stepped out in socked feet and picked up the receiver. Mom was sobbing in the background. My father said flatly, “We have something to tell you.” Mom interrupted, her voice high-pitched and quivering, “Martin is dead.”

My sibling’s disappearance and mysterious death haunted me for decades. In 2018, after my parents’ deaths, I recommitted to finding answers. I received seven boxes, heavy with papers, pictures and letters that had belonged to my parents and grandparents. I discovered a letter, typed in 1983, disclosing that my grandmother had hired a private detective. I found an envelope containing the autopsy, a police report that she had been found wearing a dress, and a life insurance document confirming the name change “Martine.” I deciphered my coded teen diaries, delved into family documents, interviewed people who knew Martine. I traveled to San Francisco to piece together her final months. I set out to “solve” an unsolved mystery; instead, I learned my sister was transgender.

As I uncovered details about her life, confronted my own denial, and came to terms with the past, I found a new mission: helping faith communities become informed advocates and safe spaces for transgender people and their loved ones.

Compassion is a matter of life and death