Susan DeGeorge

May 4, 2025

[This webpage and interview record was created by Ashe Engebretson in collaboration with the Westchester LGBTQ+ History Project as part of a practicum course called “Queering the Library” taught by Benjamin Zender, PhD (Endeavor Foundation Public Humanities Fellow, Sarah Lawrence College and Yonkers Public Library) during the spring 2025 semester.]

Since being welcomed by the Presbyterian Church at a young age, Susan DeGeorge has believed that part of a church’s mission is to advance social issues while providing support and community for marginalized people.

Susan and her colleagues at South Church in Dobbs Ferry, where she worked until 2013, came under fire several times for their support of gay and lesbian marriages. They frequently faced pushback surrounding the terminology used in the ceremonies, and, ultimately, the fact that the ceremonies were held at all.

Through South Church’s perseverance and insistence on conducting ceremonies their own way, they were able to weather the storm and continue to provide a welcoming space for all.

“Jesus was political. The prophets in the Hebrew scriptures were political. I mean, just across the board, one organization after another, and quite honestly the Christian nationalists are political too. They’re just not my view of where we should be. But politics and churches should be going hand in hand, not separately. So, that’s a major thing the churches are going to have to conjure with for the next little while.“

Susan’s work is far from over. Presently, she is a Stated Clerk at the Hudson River Presbytery, where she and her wife, Kathy Dean, helped organize the group HRP Queer. Through her involvement in HRP Queer and as a minister, Susan is able to educate both ministers and congregations on LGBTQ+ topics, and makes herself and her LGBTQ+ identity visible to a wider audience.

In this interview with the Westchester LGBTQ+ History Project, Susan discusses the struggles she faced in the early legal battles surrounding gay marriage, the slow yet steady progress of religion and people in general, and her anxieties and hopes surrounding the forthcoming years under the Trump administration.