Reverend Irene Monroe is an American public theologian, columnist and speaker.

Monroe was abandoned shortly after her birth and was discovered by a cleanup worker in a park trash can.^[1] She was raised in Brooklyn, New York and was educated as a Ford Foundation fellow at Wellesley College and the Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University.^[2][1] She studied for her doctorate at Harvard Divinity School.^[3]

Monroe hosts a weekly segment, "All Revved Up!", on WGBH and is a weekly commentator on New England Cable News. She additionally writes a weekly column for Bay Windows and has written content for HuffPost, The Boston Herald, The Boston Globe, and The Cambridge Chronicle.^[4][5][3] She formerly wrote the columns "The Religion Thang" for In Newsweekly, "Faith Matters" for The Advocate, and "Queer Take" for The Witness Magazine.^[1][5] Monroe is the founder of three Christian LGBTQ+ organizations: Equal Partners of Faith, the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry, and Christian Lesbians Out.^[6] She has additionally served on the Religious Advisory Committee of the Human Rights Campaign and as the commissioner of the Cambridge LGBTQ+ Commission.^[7]

Monroe was named as one of Boston's 50 Most Intriguing Women by Boston magazine in 1997, and was nominated for the Bishop Carl Bean Spirituality Award the following year.^[1] That year, in 1998, she became the first African-American lesbian to be the grand marshal of Boston Pride.^[3] Monroe additionally led the vigil for murdered trans woman Rita Hester in 1998.^[8] She received the YWCA Cambridge's Tribute to Outstanding Women Award in 2011,^[9] the GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders Spirit of Justice Award in 2012, the Bayard Rustin Service Award in 2013, and the Fenway Health Susan M. Love Award in 2020.^[10] Furthermore, while serving as a teaching fellow for Peter J. Gomes, she received the Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching.^[2] Prior to her employment at Harvard, she worked as a pastor at an African-American church in New Jersey.^[1]

In 2007, Monroe appeared in the film For the Bible Tells Me So and has additionally been featured on In the Life, CRISIS: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing up Gay in America, and Youth in Crisis.^[2][3]

Monroe served as a visiting scholar in the Religion and Conflict Transformation Program at Boston University School of Theology during the 2018-19 school year.

In 2025, Monroe and her spouse, Dr. Thea James, became the first LGBTQ+ couple to be Embrace Honors MLK Awardees.^[11]

Monroe identifies as a Christian, a lesbian, and as a feminist.^[2] She is a member emeritus of the National Black Justice Coalition.^[3]

Monroe is married to Dr. Thea James,^[11] who works as an associate chief medical officer at Boston Medical Center.^[12] The couple live in Cambridge.^[13]