An exvangelical writer, speaker and advocate, Chrissy Stroop is (with Lauren O’Neal) co-editor of the essay anthology Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church. A senior correspondent for Religion Dispatches and a weekly columnist for openDemocracy, her work has also appeared in Political Research Associates, Foreign Policy, The Boston Globe, Playboy, DAME Magazine, and other outlets, including peer-reviewed academic journals. Stroop has a PhD in modern Russian history from Stanford University, and was previously a senior research associate with the University of Innsbruck’s Postsecular Conflicts project. In 2019, she came out as a A term used for someone whose gender is not (exclusively) the one they were assigned at birth. Learn more woman and began her journey of medical transition. She lives in Portland, Oregon.