After the storm, comes the rainbow.

Today is May 17th, International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOBIT), a date chosen in commemoration of the World Health Organisation decision to remove homosexuality as a mental disorder from the International Classification of Diseases on this day in 1990.

Last Sunday I attended and sang with my LGBTS inclusive choir, Choral Confusion, at an IDAHOBIT service St. Anne's Church, an LGBTI inclusive Church attached to the iconic bells of Shandon in Cork.

The address at the service was delivered by Sarah Jane Cromwell, who spoke of a life of rejection and profound suicidal despair coupled with a calling to spiritual ministry that for many years, it was impossible to fulfil in a Christian Church unable to recognise Sarah Jane as a now woman who had once been a girl in a boy's body.

Looking around the small sunlit Church, Sarah Jane spoke of how desperately she had needed allies of faith in the years that everything about her had been deemed wrong and unholy - how much simple friendship and kindness would have acted as balm and comfort through the long and arduous journey to stand as herself, as Sarah Jane, in front of a congregation and be welcomed just as she is and as, in the deepest and most spiritual sense, she always has been.

 Her harrowing story of years of rejection and standing alone yet resolute in her faith and calling strikes deeply at the core of my own spiritual understanding of human interdependence and connection.

What is it that transgender people need, she asked? What all people need, she said. There's no trick or wizardry to it.
To be seen. To be heard. To be understood.  To be accepted. To be welcomed.

What makes a difference, she concluded, is the sharing of a cup of tea.

And there it was again, the human longing for rituals of ordinariness as a path to the connection, care and common humanity that all of us need to soothe the wounds we meet in our personal journeys.

How curious this can be so easily lost in communities that preach love and compassion. How does it happen? Why do we forsake the simplicity of seeing what is truly sacred in the pursuit of the more rigid righteousness of dogma or ideology? How many Sarah Janes have to stand to tell their stories of suicidal despair before we reject religious or spiritual dehumanisation on the basis of sex, sexual orientation or gender?

The sad irony of IDAHOBIT is that, while homosexuality may have been decriminalised in 1990, poor mental health continues to disproportionately impact individuals who identify as LGBT. Sarah Jane's story is not mine, but her rejection on the basis of revealing her true self, standing for and proclaiming her deepest spiritual truths, I understood in every fibre of me, as hot tears fell on my musical score.

After our choir sang "Stand by Me", my small son, watching me from the back of the Church, came shyly to me with a small crumpling piece of yellow paper, on which he had drawn me a rainbow. Someone handed around rainbow lollipops; the church bells rang. And my family and I, in all our own precious broken humanity,  aware of personal storms and thankful for all our many rainbows, went for tea and cake.