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The Radical Reverend - for the 1in6 by 2030 global photo project (2024)
“You don’t have to leave your faith to be queer-positive.”
Rev. Dr. Cheri DiNovo, 73, is a queer activist, United Church minister, and former Member of Provincial Parliament, living in Toronto, Canada.
After the deaths of her father and stepfather as a child, Cheri dropped out of school in grade 10 and became a “street kid,” couch-surfing and sleeping in parks for the next four years. She once smuggled LSD into Canada from the US using hollowed-out bibles, an ironic prelude to her future career as a minister.
Cheri identifies as bisexual, and performed the first legalized same sex marriage in Canada in 2001. As MPP, she passed laws that added trans rights to the Ontario Human Rights Code and banned conversion therapy for LGBTQ2+ youth. In 2017, she passed the Trans Day of Remembrance Act.
For the past seven years, Cheri has been Minister at Trinity-St. Paul's Centre for Faith, Justice, and the Arts in Toronto. As of December 24, 2024, she will finally be hanging up her collar— but not retiring.
Cheri has hosted a radio show for many years called “The Radical Reverend.” After leaving the church she will be focusing on the radio show more, as well as taking on more public speaking engagements. She will also continue to perform marriages and funerals.
Cheri has published two books and is working on a couple more that she hasn’t had time to finish while working full-time. She loves to travel and has visited over 100 countries for work and for pleasure. Right after leaving the church she has a multi-country holiday planned with a friend, before diving back into working life.
Why are you retiring from the church but choosing to still work?
“I retired from full-time ministry because I feel the most important pursuit for me now is to save children's lives. I know that sounds dramatic but queer kids, and in particular trans and gender-diverse children, are under threat everywhere." -
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Cheri is pictured by the stained glass windows of her church in Toronto on December 8, 2024.
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Cheri takes a moment to greet and acknowledge her congregants during service at her church in Toronto on October 20, 2024.
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Cheri makes a note during a regular staff meeting in her office at her church in Toronto on October 8, 2024. She’d been working since the morning and had more work and meetings booked until 8PM. "This is kind of crazy for anybody at any age.”
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A banana sits on Cheri’s desk at her church in Toronto on October 8, 2024. At 1:45PM, she hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
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Cheri and her friend Emma Wakelin, a liberal strategist and pundit, record an episode of Cheri’s radio show, “The Radical Reverend,” on October 8, 2024. The show broadcasts from University of Toronto campus radio station CIUT-FM, but Cheri wants to get it syndicated after she retires from her church.
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Cheri and her friend Emma Wakelin, a liberal strategist and pundit, record an episode of Cheri’s radio show, “The Radical Reverend,” on October 8, 2024. The two discussed a Universal Basic Income, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and the potential outcomes of the Canadian and US federal elections.
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After recording an episode of her own radio show, Cheri speed-walks down the hall to call into a conservative-leaning radio show on October 8, 2024. She says she guests on the show because she believes in incremental change, and that it’s better for her to be a voice in that room than to not be.
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Cheri sits in an office at University of Toronto campus radio station CIUT-FM, waiting for her turn to speak on the phone to a conservative-leaning radio show on October 8, 2024.
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Cheri’s countdown to retiring from the church hangs on the wall of her home office on November 17, 2024.
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Cheri uses her stepping machine in the morning before heading off to work on December 11, 2024. At 74 years old, she stays active by doing lots of walking.
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Cheri orders a drink at the Glad Day Bookshop in Toronto’s LGBTQ2S+ neighbourhood, known as “The Village,” on October 31, 2024. She wore her full priest garb for Halloween. “Why should only the boys get to wear the pretty dresses?”
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Cheri cheers on the runners as a marathon passes by her church in Toronto before service starts. October 20, 2024.
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A stained glass painting of transgender pianist and music producer, Toby Dancer, is displayed in Cheri’s office window at her home in Toronto on December 11, 2024. Toby was a friend of Cheri’s, and died in 2004. In 2012, Cheri introduced a bill that added gender identity and gender expression to the Ontario Human Rights Code as a protected entity. The bill passed, and is known as “Toby's Act.”
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Cheri goes over her notes before service at her church in Toronto on October 20, 2024. The sermon that day discussed the Book of Job, and why bad things happen to good people.
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Cheri prepares for service at her church in Toronto on October 20, 2024.
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The pride colours lay across Cheri’s bible before service at her church begins in Toronto on October 20, 2024.
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Cheri climbs the stairs to her church in Toronto before service, on October 20, 2024.
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Cheri dons her priest collar before heading off to work on December 11, 2024. She says that while the collar has fallen out of fashion in the United Church, she wears it because it’s meaningful to people to see a queer, progressive, female minister in the traditional garb.
