Irene Monroe

Irene Monroe is a religion columnist, public theologian, and motivational speaker. As an African American feminist theologian, she speaks for a sector of society that is frequently invisible and is a sought-after speaker, preacher, and writer about women’s spirituality and gender issues.

Monroe has written extensively on African American gay and lesbian history, African American sexuality, and anti-Semitism in both the Black Christian and Black Muslim communities. Her award-winning essay, “Louis Farrakhan's Ministry of Misogyny and Homophobia,” was greeted with critical acclaim.

Presently, Monroe writes a biweekly column, “The Religion Thang,” for In Newsweekly, a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender newspaper, and a monthly online column “Queer Take” for The Witness Magazine, an Episcopalian journal that examines church and society in light of faith and conscience. She also writes “Faith Matters” for The Advocate Magazine and a spirituality column for ARISE Magazine. She has been a guest columnist for Open Hands and Venus Magazine and her writings have also appeared in The Advocate, The Boston Herald, and The Boston Globe.

Her columns are an integration of African American, gender, queer, and religious studies. She tries to inform the public of the role religion plays in discrimination against LGBT people. She believes that religious intolerance and fundamentalism not only shatter the goal of American democracy, but also perpetuate other forms of oppressions, such as racism, sexism, classism and anti-Semitism. Her audience is not only LGBT people, but those outside of that community as well.

A doctoral candidate in the religion, gender and culture program at Harvard Divinity School and a Ford Foundation fellow, Monroe was also the head teaching fellow of Rev. Peter Gomes at the Memorial Church at Harvard. She was a board member for the Millennium March on Washington 2000, and is presently a board member for the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, Equal Partners of Faith, Cambridge Family YMCA, and the National Black Justice Coalition.

Monroe has been profiled in O, Oprah Magazine, and on CNN’s Paula Zahn Now and Headline News. She was also profiled in a segment during the Gay Pride Episode of In the Life, which was nominated for an educational Emmy. She is in the film For the Bible Tells Me So, an exploration of the intersection between religion and homosexuality. Her coming out story is profiled in CRISIS: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing up Gay in America.