SEXUALITY & GENDER: Gifts from God (Youth Conversation with Mentors)
Sue Senior | Facilitator
The goal of this session is to engage participants in an interactive learning experience that includes
activities and opportunities to ask questions (even anonymously, if that’s helpful) related to sexuality
and gender, especially as both the church’s and society’s understanding of them continues to deepen.
This will also include discussion of a meaningful response to The PCC’s Confession to God and LGBTQI People
regarding the harm caused in the church by homophobia, transphobia, heterosexism and
hypocrisy. This conversation will help inform and intersect with how we as a faith community can be
inclusive of all marginalized and minoritized people. Our time together will explore ways in which
communities of faith can be truly welcoming to all.
Session Facilitator, Sue Senior is a retired high school educator with 30 years of experience teaching
within the WRDSB. Through her career as a Physical & Health Educator, with a focus on Human
Sexuality (grades 9-12), Sue is well qualified to facilitate conversations and provide educational insights
about the joys and challenges of relationships, intimacy, attraction, self-care, consent and safety.
After retiring from teaching, Sue has continued to work part-time at the University of Waterloo and as
an Appointed Designated Minister with the Clergy Support Memorial Church. Sue married her wife,
Dawn Charlton, in 2011 at Knox Waterloo, where Sue also serves as an Ordained Elder and as
Representative Elder at the Presbytery of Waterloo-Wellington.
Having served as co-convener of Rainbow Communion, (National Special Listening Committee re:
LGBTQI People – appointed by PCC in 2017), Sue continues to lead conversations in the PCC around
addressing the harm done – and ensuring that harm does not continue – due to homophobia,
transphobia, heterosexism and hypocrisy. Rainbow Communion developed a model to hold
covenanted Listening Spaces that enabled participants to share their stories in a safe and respectful
environment. Those 139 stories (most shared in-person) led to 30 recommendations that were fully
adopted in 2021 and are now part of PCC polity.