Last Updated on January 12, 2024 by Kittredge Cherry
Vivid personal memories of intersex priest Sally Gross are shared by a queer clergy colleague who recalls her as “incandescent” and “a legend.” Gross was defrocked as a Catholic priest in the 1990s when she revealed that she identified as female. Here she is remembered by queer Anglican priest / theologian Michael Worsnip. They were both anti-apartheid activists who ministered in South Africa.
This reflection is posted on Aug. 22, 2022 in honor of her birthday. For a full biography of Sally Gross (Aug. 22, 1953 – Feb. 14, 2014), see the Q Spirit article Sally Gross: Intersex South African priest led legal reform after being defrocked.
Remembering Sally Gross
by Michael Worsnip
I knew Sally, both as Selwyn and in her later incarnation as, Sally. When I knew him as Selwyn, we were both priests, Catholic and Anglican. We taught theology in different theological colleges in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.
As a man, Sally was rather odd. He had violently orange hair and would squeeze his rather large rounded frame into over-tight black clothing. He was extremely light footed. And would talk while sort of skipping ahead of you. People would look, believe me!
He had a loud, deep, booming voice. You would be treated to a tsunami of information – on whatever thing had taken his interest for the day. Unless you were fluent in Latin, or Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic, you would be lost. Sometimes you would get a bit of Italian. Sometimes Chaucerian English. Sometimes Swahili. One way or another, you would be lost. Selwyn’s knowledge was vast. He was a world authority on the works of St Thomas Aquinas. And when he would perorate on any subject, he seemed to assume that you had knowledge to the same measure as he had.
It was like meeting a large, orange and black whirlwind. That was Selwyn Gross.
We kept in contact over the years. Fr Selwyn had a large hand in facilitating a first meeting between the outlawed African National Congress (ANC) and the apartheid Nationalist government, in Dakar. He was a Jew; a Catholic Priest; a monk of the Dominican Order; a Communist. All rolled into one.
When the Dominicans kicked him out of their Order, (unable to cope with the fact that what they had on their hands was a fully ordained woman) Selwyn (now Sally) was left with absolutely nothing. On the streets, with a suitcase in her hand.
She wrote an email to her friends throughout the world, asking for any help that could be given. I thought the action of the church was reprehensible and immediately suggested to my boss (I was working in the field of restitution at the time) that we find a job for Sally, using her immense knowledge and skills. My boss (also an activist) immediately agreed, and Sally was given a job as a restitution researcher in the Western Cape Province in South Africa.
Now, let me explain: Sally burst into the restitution scene like some kind of missile from outer space. She now wore female clothing and, in appearance, she made a far more credible woman than she had made a man. But her large, deep, booming voice came with her female form. And many a claimant who had spoken to her on the phone previously, would be entirely disbelieving when they met her in the flesh.
“But I spoke to a man!” They would whimper.
“My name is Sally, and I’m a woman. Now just get over it!” She would boom.
She would devour an extra-large pizza every lunchtime. She kept a two-litre bottle of Coca Cola under her desk, and would finish that during the course of the day. If she was irritated by a junior researcher’s work, she was known to start shouting at them from her office and even, on occasion, attack them with her walking stick!
Sally could be incandescent. You certainly could not ignore her.
When my partner, of 6 years killed himself, Sally called me the moment she heard. “Can I say Kaddish for Brian?”, she asked. I will never forget that kindness. She spoke to my ruptured being.
And I fear that I was not so good a friend to her as I could have been. She could be completely overwhelming. The vastness of her intellect could wear you down. If ever you had a good idea and brought it up in discussion with her, you would find that not only had she already thought of it, but she had read 20 books on the subject and written a couple of academic texts on it as well. Often, the tendency was to keep a safe distance.
And so she died alone. I was not there. None of her friends were there either. She died alone and lonely.
But the mark she made on this country’s legislation; the restitution claims she brought to settlement; the theological scholarship she left behind – like her bodily form – was vast.
I miss her terribly. I know she would have easily forgiven my neglect in our friendship. She was, and remains a trailblazer. A legend.
About Michael Worsnip
Michael Worsnip is a queer Anglican theologian who has:
* lectured in theology at the Federal Theological Seminary of South Africa
* worked in HIV/AIDS
* worked in Restitution and land reform
* was programmed manager for the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site and built the two visitor and exhibition centres
* ran the social cohesion element for the 2010 FIFA World Cup for the Western Cape
* ran the Cape Town Carnival
* authored “Between the Two Fires: The Anglican Church and Apartheid” (University Of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 1991) and “Michael Lapsley: Priest and Partisan” (Ocean Press 1996)
He grew up classified “white” in apartheid South Africa. He has since discovered that both his parents were actually classified “mixed” or “coloured.” They both successfully hid this fact. “I wrote a novel called ‘Remittance Man’ (UKZN Press 2007) about one member of my family who was considered too dark — and who was thus exiled to the UK and told never to return,” he said.
In 1979 Worsnip refused conscription and fled the country to live in Lesotho, where he joined the banned African National Congress.
“I’m now retired and, as I say, not granted a licence to officiate because I’m Queer, married and happy! We live in Cape Town,” he concluded.
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Top image credit:
Sally Gross in her office at the Commission for Restitution
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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBT and queer martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.
This article was originally published on Q Spirit on Aug. 22, 2022.
