There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
In the context of religion, we are familiar with the quotation from Galatians, even if in the Catholic Church we are unwilling to take the words literally, and apply them to ordination. From the world of science though, it is becoming clear that there is a truth in the words that goes way beyond a theological concept, and is instead, a substantial measure of quite literal truth. It may well be that there really is “neither male nor female”, at least not in the absolute binary sense that modern Western culture assumes. This has major implications for Christian sexual and gender theology.
Judith Butler’s “Gender Trouble” was a seminal work in the early development of feminism and queer theory, and later of queer theology. Butler’s central achievement was to demonstrate the fluidity of gender, which she described as “performance”. The fluidity of gender however, also extends to biology. Far from a simple binary world composed of biological males and females, with perhaps a smattering of people with indeterminate gender (once described as hermaphrodites), modern science has shown that there are a far greater range of conditions that may be loosely described as “intersex” than previously realized – and that there are a surprising number of these people, some of whom will not even know of their true sex until they meet a need for some kind of medical testing (as with the case of the South African athlete Caster Semenya, who had no idea she was not fully female until she won a medal at the Beijing Olympics, competing as a woman). The same problems beset Sally Gross, who was raised as a male and ordained a Catholic priest, until the discovery that biologically she was in fact primarily female.
What is a Male?
To illustrate some of the complexities around biological sex, I want to share with you some extracts from two books that I have found helpful in extending my own understanding, Brian McNaught’s “Sex Camp”“, and Virginia Mollenkott’s Omnigender.
“Sex Camp” is a fictionalized presentation in novel form, of a real-life program that used to be run in New York state, in which groups of people from diverse backgrounds were brought together in a secluded rural setting each summer, for serious training and discussion of matters around sexuality, gender, and faith.
In one chapter, ”Bill” delivers a presentation to the group on “Gender Identity & Expression”. This is from his introduction to the topic:
“When we talk about “Biological Sex,” and ask the question, we’re asking about it chromosomally, hormonally, gonadally, as well as with reference to the internal and external genitalia, and to brain dimorphism,” he said, writing the words on the whiteboard. Chromosomally, we are talking in terms of xx equalling a girl, and xy equalling a boy. Hormonally, we’re talking about ovaries for girls, and testicles for boys. With regard to internal genitalia, we’re talking about the Mullerian Structures for girls (fallopian tubes and uterus), and the Wolfian structures for boys (prostate, seminal vesicles, and vas deferens). Externally, we’re talking about the clitoris for girls, and the penis for boys. Brain dimorphism refers to the differences in the male and female brains.”
Let’s pause, to digest this. I count six different methods of determining a person’s sex.
- chromosomes
- hormones
- gonads
- internal genitals
- external genitals
- brains
The results of applying all of these to a single person will not always co-incide. If they do not, how are we to decide, is this person “male” or “female”?
Furthermore, these measures do not yield simple binary opposites.
The problem with all of this is that not all girls are XX or boys XY, we all have the same hormones but in different level, we’re all born with clear gonadal or genital differences, and brain dimorphism isn’t a reliable indicator. So the question remains, “What is a male?”
Hormones
Some of this is familiar. External genitalia can be ambiguous (as they were at birth for Sally/Selwyn Gross, whose story I presented earlier). In these cases, parents and doctors typically make a decision to impose one or other gender on the child, and raise her/him accordingly. But the assigned gender may differ sharply from the other, less easily visible determinants. But let’s consider for now, just those hormones.
The male hormone testosterone and the female hormone oestrogen are familiar, and popularly taken as markers for masculinity or femininity. (Just consider the verbal espression, “testosterone-fuelled….”) to describe actions taken to be unequivocally masculine). Some men take testosterone hormone supplements to adjust their physical appearance to a more conventionally “masculine” model, or to excel at masculine sports. For transsexuals, hormone therapy is commonly a major part of the transitioning process. But we all know that “men” differ in their degree of testosterone – and have a modicum of oestrogen too, and “women” differ in their oestrogen levels – but have some testosterone, too. Using hormonal measurement alone as a criterion, does int make any sense at all to even think of someone as wholly male, or wholly female?
Chromosomes
Chromosome patterns also do not fit the simple “xx” or “xy” binary split we are familiar with. In addition to x and y chromosomes, there are “blanks”, indicated as “o” – and some people have more than the usual two.
“With chromosomes”, Bill continued, “the male sperm determines the outcome. What happens, however, if instead of adding an “x” or a “y” chromosome to the female’s “x”, the male shoots a blank sex-determining chromosome and the child is born “xo?”
The answer is – Turner’s syndrome. There are many other variations from the simple xx/xy of popular understanding.
One out of every 1600 live births are “xo”. You can also get “xxx,” which will be a female, but there are a significant number who may have mental retardation. You can also get an “xxy”, which will often be a tall, infertile male. We call this Klinefelter’s Sybdrome. You can get an “xyy”, and you can get an “xxyy”, which is a pure, bilateral hermaphrodite.”
And you can get an “xyxo”, which will be a short male whose gender and orientation are up for grabs”.
“The point is”, Bill said with a satisfied look, “that nature is not neat. Biological sex is not an easy issue. Further, when we talk about “male” and “female”, we’re talking about “sex”, “sexual identity”, and “sex role”. When we ask the question, “What is a male?” we’re not just asking about chromosomes, hormones, gonads, genitals and differences of the brain. We’re asking about sexual identity and sex role. We’re asking about both the assignment and rearing, as well as gender identity differentiation. ”
“Sex Camp”” is about much more than the ambiguities of biological sex and gender identity – this topic is just one of many in a a book which is packed with helpful, reliable information about sex and sexuality, and is also (as you would expect from the title) great fun to read.
I turn now to another book, in a more conventionally serious manner, by a respected theologian – and focussed exclusively on this topic.
Omnigender
Intersex is just one of several terms sometimes included in the umbrella term, “transgender”. In her book “Omnigender”, the theologian Virginia Mollenkott provides a useful summary of the distinctions between these several descriptors.
“The transgender movement is still so relatively new that trying to supply definitions is like aiming a cannon at a moving target.
At first, the term transgender referred only to people who had changed their gender, but not their genitals. (Now, such a person would be called a non-operative transsexual). But gradually, that definition has been extended to include intersexuals, transsexuals, cross-dressers, drag queens and kings, androgynes, and anyone else who feels “otherwise” from society’s gender assumptions.
I do not want to go into the definitions and distinctions between these – but I do want to explore Mollenkott’s description and explanation of the range of intersex conditions.
According to the best estimate of the Intersex Society of North America, “about one five intersexed children have their genitals cut into in US hospitals every day for cosmetic reasons. Some operations are necessitated by life-threatening conditions…..but Western medicine has taken pains to protect the male-female binary from the challenges of intersexuality.
The fact is that “anatomical sex differentiation occurs on a male/female continuum”. And it seems to me that the anatomical continuum forms a good model for an omnigender paradigm in which people locate and enact the gender presentation that seems fulfilling to them at any given time….
To complicate matters further, “intersex” is not a single continuum, but several. For example, let us begin with what “everybody knows” about biological sex: that males have an XY chromosomal pattern, and females XX. In fact, one person in every 500 has a type which differs from that pattern.
About one in 1000 women has three X chromosomes instead of the usual two; some people have had as many as four X chromosomes – plus two Y’s.
Noting that there are seventy different intersex syndromes, Mollenkott names and describes five major categories.
- Androgen Insensitity Syndrome
- Partial Androgen Insensitity Syndrome
- Progestin Induced Virilization
- Adrenal Hyperplasia
- Klinefelter Syndrome
“Heidi”
Born in 1961 (genetically male but with a tiny penis), Heidi has contemplated suicide more than once, not because she is intersexual but because of unrelenting medical pressure to make her appear “normal”. When she was three months old, doctors cut open her abdomen to inspect her reproductive system. At seventeen months, they went back into her abdomen to remove her ill-formed testes. When she was five years old, her penis was removed without her prior knowledge. But as a teenager, she refused to let doctors create a vagina. She lives now as a lesbian but has never had an orgasm, since a lover’s touch feels like “40-grit sandpaper”.By contrast, twelve adults with intact micropenises reported having normal erections and orgasms.
“Angela”
Angela, an intersexual who seemed to be a “normal” girl until her clitoris began to enlarge into a penis when she was twelve says she loved that penis and remembers the six months before surgery as being “in the pleasure garden before the fall ” She regards the loss of that penis (which the doctors describe as giving her a normal -looking female clitoris) as the loss of her “unique hermaphroditic sexuality”.
Similarly, Heidi describes the destruction of hermaphroditic eroticism as genocide, not through k illing people, but through taking from them that which is unique to them. To Angela, this was the theft of her “sacred sexuality”.
Applying the Golden Rule
Morgan Holmes, who was subjected during childhood to “clitoral recession” surgery that removed most of her clitoris, writes that she would have liked to have grown up in the body she was born with. “Someone else made the decision of what and who I would always be before I even knew who and what I was.” The vast majority of intersex surgery involves normal little girls whose clitoris has been deemed too large by doctors, often because the doctors fear they girls will grow up to be masculinized lesbians. In the context of the Golden Rule, I wonder how many surgeons would like to have been rendered sexually dysfunctional for no other reason than to fit cosmetically into a binary male/female social contstruction.
A handful of anecdotes about real people put flesh on the theory – but do nothing to upset the popular misconception that intersexuality, or gender ambiguity, may affect only a tiny number of people (who might once have been thought of simply as “freaks”, and easily dismissed. The reality is that while intersexuality is clearly a minority condition, it is one that affects a surprisingly large proportion of the population.
William O. Beeman, associated professor of anthropology at Brown University, has written that “between 3 million and 10 million Americans are neither male nor female at birth”. Beeman quotes Dr Anne Fausto-Sterling’s estimate that intersexul births range from one percent to four percent of all children today. Therefore, says Beeman, “there are perhaps millions of XX males and XY females living in the United States today. There are cultural males with male genitalia who are genetically female, and cultural females with female genitalia who are genetically male.”
Social Implications
When I wrote about Selwyn / Sally Gross and her difficulties as an ordained Catholic priest when it emerged that she was not, in fact, genetically male, as she had been raised and as her documnents and external genitalia indicated, but primarily female, I put the question: If the priesthood is to be restricted to “males” – which criterion shall apply? The same question should be applied equally in the secular realm, in every instance where biological sex is currently assumed top be important. The most obvious of these are in the laws governing marriage, and regulations governing sport.
What is “Same-sex” marriage?
I am fascinated by Beetman’s observation that there probably exist millions of people who are culturally and genitally of one sex, but genetically of another. A large proportion of these, just like any other group, will be in conventionally heterosexual marriages. Some may even be prominent in the campaigns against gay marriage. Genetically however, if testing were to be done on them, it would be found that they are in fact in same-sex marriages themselves.
We already know that an obsession with preventing same-sex marriage creates a difficult legal conundrum for some states when it comes to transsexuals who marry. If the birth gender is taken as definitive, then a transsexual person is free to marry a person of the same gender as that in which s/he lives and identifies. If the current, lived gender identity is paramount, then a transsexual is free to marry someone of the same birth gender. Either way, any marriage of a transsexual, unless to another transsexual of opposite gender, will be in one or other sense a “same – sex” marriage. Perhaps the best way to illustrate the futility of the current gender restrictions on marriage would be to require all prospective brides and grooms to undergo genetic testing before being granted a marriage licence, just to ensure that the prospective brides and groom really are of the biological sex they appear to be. The results would produce many surprises – and a number of very red faces among the opponents of equality.
The Intersex Challenge for Sport
The difficulties of the binary sexual divide in sport were brought into sharp and very public focus when Caster Semenya won the gold medal in the women’s 800 metres at the 2009 athletics world championships. When questions were raised about her gender, she was (controversially) subjected to medical tests, amid vociferous complaints of racism. (These tests found that although she is not male, she is also not “fully” female”. The delay in releasing the findings led to her exclusion from a later athletics meeting in South Africa – but she was happily able to compete (as a woman) in the next world championships in 2o11, where she won silver. One can only imagine the impact of the fuss on Caster herself, who had been raised in simple rural surroundings, and had never for a moment considered herself to be anything other than fully female.
Well before the Caster Semenye debacle, athletics bodies had already been forced to grapple with the issue. In 1996, eight women in the Atlanta Olympic Games tested as “not women”. But some of these at least really were female, with atypical chromosomes. One of them later gave birth to a healthy baby, after being disqualified from competition as “not female”.
One in every five or six hundred female athletes has the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, which means that she is genetically male, possessing both X and Y chromosomes. But as this confers no competitive advantage, it is cruel to disqualify her. Such cruelty is typical of what occurs when a culture attempts to force everyone into a single Procrustean bed of binary gender.
Intersex and theology
Omnigender is a book packed with information about biological and gender diversity, and personal stories of the harm that is done to people by ignoring the complexity of this diversity, and the artificiality of an absolute male/ female divide. However, Mollenkott is primarily a theologian not a specialist in biology. The greater value of her work lies in her theological reflection on the implications of these facts of biology. Susannah Cornwall’s ”Sex and Uncertainty in the Body of Christ” is even more closely focussed on intersex issues, and the challenges they present to traditional theologies focus on rigid distinctions between male and female.
That discussion, however, I leave for another time – except to return once more to the opening idea that began this post. As Christians, we (and Biblical literalists who oppose gay marriage in particular) really ought to take seriously the message of Galatians:
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female
The evidence from biological science is that this is, quite literally, true.
Recommeded Books:
Cornwall, Susannah: Sex and Uncertainty in the Body of Christ: Intersex Conditions and Christian Theology
McNaught, Brian: “Sex Camp”
Mollenkott, Virginia Ramey: Omnigender: A Trans-Religious Approach
Thatcher, Adrian: God, Sex, and Gender: An Introduction
Related articles
- How a Woman Became a Dominican Priest, and Teacher of Moral Theology. (queeringthechurch.com)
- Australian PassportRegulations to Reflect Gender Complexities (itsaqueerworld.blogspot.com)
- “All Kids Deserve to Reach for the Stars — and Dance With Them, Too” (itsaqueerworld.blogspot.com)
- Combating Children’s “Confusion” on Sexual Orientation, Gender Diversity (queeringthechurch.com)
- Sex-free British passports to help transgenders mooted | Metro.co.uk (itsaqueerworld.blogspot.com)
- Biopsychology and Transgender Studies (diamondstylz.com)
- Brussels Hosts International Intersex Organizing Forum (bilerico.com)
- François-Timoléon de Choisy, Cross-Dressing Abbé and Priest (queerhistory.blogspot.com)
- Bisexual squid ‘can’t tell mates apart’ in dark waters – Telegraph (itsaqueerworld.blogspot.com)
Fascinating post Terry. The only honest solution is to accept Paul had it right in Corinthians. There is no male and no female. Maybe the powers that be will be more amenable to this concept when they drop the belief that bodies are ensouled to the fact that immortal souls (Consciousness) are embodied. We have all been incarnated, not ensouled.
I like your distinction between incarnated and ensouled, Colleen.
When I first saw Susannah Cornwall’s book on intersex theology in a bookshop, I noted on the dust cover an observation that the simple existence of intersex people throws out serious challenges to the whole of orthodox sexual theology. I was not able to buy the book, but I found that simple idea revelatory, and I have avidly pursued all related material since, wherever I have been able to get hold of it. The simple biology needs to be more widely known, and then discussed for its theological significance.
Ooops, I meant Paul in Galatians. I need another cup of coffee.
This is very interesting but what do you do with people who have a “God made Adam and Eve” philosophy and don’t really believe in these gender variations. They just think it is anti-Bible propaganda.
That’s a good question, Mareczku. The answer – to quote the Bible right back at them. Since publishing this post, I’ve been reading Mollenkott’s discussion of the Bible passages – and they do not say what people commonly think they say. I’ll be writing more on this later, but here’s a preview:
If “male and female he created them”, perhaps that’s exactly what it means: EACH of us, “male and female”.
Very interesting post, Terence. I will follow up your recommended reading. Until we get past the simplistic, heteronormative narrative many people will continue to suffer, whether intersex people from unwarranted surgical interventions or bullying at school or simply the status of second-class citizens.
You’re absolutely right, Malcolm. Even in the LGBT community, the T tends to be overlooked, or simply included as part of “gay”, which they are not. Even less attention is paid to intersex. However, the assumptions behind this sidelining are enormous. Taking them seriously will have major implications for both sexual theology, and for secular law.
EXCELLENT post, very high quality!!!
I love your choice of the rarely used Galatians 3:28. It is over looked specifically because so many christians are incapable of conceiving of something that is not set into a black and white dualistic structure.There is a lot more of this (especially about tearing down the divides in gender) in early christian writings, i will have to go digging in my private library to find them; I believe that there is one at the end of the Gospel of Thomas, though I caution suggesting it because it is easily misunderstood to be speaking against women (which it is not, it actually refers to jesus making woman into men so that they can attain heaven, but only because the people he was talking to understood women to be inferior versions of men. He is actually saying that gender is irrelevant). Excellent research and examples as well. I ESPECIALLY love when faith/biblical statements and science support each other, it is one of the few things that truly excites my heart.
Omnigender is a good book indeed. I’d also suggest a couple of other good passages in Scripture; Isaiah 56:3-5, Matthew 19:11-12 (particularly useful as these are the words of the Christ Himself) and of course Acts 27-39, which we “assume” to be about your classical harem Eunuch but may be something entirely different… I would also recommend a book I have just read by Deborah Rudacille called ‘The Riddle of Gender: Science Activism and Transgender Rights’. And then of course there is Les Feinberg, ‘Transgender Warriors’ is highly recommended for challenging stereotypes.
In your comment in reply to Malcolm you make a very good point about the lack of inclusion, or perhaps I should say the mere tolerance, of trans people in gay spaces. It would seem that far too many gay people look upon transgender people as mere impersonators, although this seems to be less the case with trans men.
People watching in gay bars is quite revealing, and can severely distort your own perceptions of gender to a greater degree than you might imagine.
Thanks for these pointers, Jennifer. I hope to post more on the scriptural texts later: the OP was already getting too long to include that as well. I haven’t read Transgender warriors myself, but know it by repute – and know that it is highly regarded. “The Riddle of Gender” is new to me, so I’m pleased to learn of it, and to have a personal recommendation.
On a more general note, I should state than the trans/intersex issues are tricky for me to write about, as they are well outside my personal experience or knowledge. I am very conscious of the dangers of misrepresentation, and of showing my ignorance – so I am totally dependent on sourcing and publicizing the work of others. I do what I can for a very simply reason – there can be no such thing as equality and justice for some, and not for all. I dislike the alphabet soup of LGBT / LGBTQIA – but it does have the advantage of reminding us that we are all in this together.
I understand your reticence to speak about trans/intersex issues, Terence. For me, I had only generalised goodwill and no real understanding of intersex issues until a few months ago when Gina from OII Australia gave a presentation. Some of the material can be found on their website: http://oiiaustralia.com/information/intersex/. I came to understand that we LGBTI people are all naturally and regularly occurring minority variants of normalcy which may be expressed by hormonal or brain chemistry or anatomically or some combination of these.
You may be able to point me in the right direction in some research that I am pursuing. As LGBTI people, we do not have a narrative that suggests that we are more than simply ‘not bad’. That is fine if we only want acceptance. My intuition is that we need a narrative that points to our distintive value – that leads to respect and advocacy on the part of straight people and leads to a more positive self-value than ‘we deserve to be treated equally’. Anyone can see the value of procreation and parenthood but we can be as creative, generative and productive in our own way. We may not get to experience reverence as ‘two-spirit people’ but that is the direction I am looking towards.
Do you know of any theological approach or any other approach in that direction?
It’s a really important question you raise, Malcolm. It’s one at the core of what I’ve been trying to do here, but one which I tend to neglect while responding to news reports – or to the passing ideas which catch my attention.
As you refer to “research” you are doing, I assume you are willing to do some proper work, some reading that goes beyond the superficial. As a starting point, I strongly recommend Elizabeth Stuart’s “Gay and Lesbian Theologies: Repetitions with Critical Differences”. which gives a useful outline of the development of lesbian/.gay theologies as celebration, and ways to approach the divine starting from who we are, not from apologies for what we are not, and how “gay and lesbian” theology later developed into “queer” theology,
I found it immensely helpful myself: first, as an introduction to the key ideas themselves, and on rereading later, as a guide to the very extensive literature available. If I understand you correctly, this is exactly what you are looking for.
On the other hand, if what you really want is one or two specific books to help you personally, rather than a more general guide to research, I would suggest almost any of the books of James Alison (eg Faith Beyond Resentment, or On Being Like), or John McNeill (Taking a Chance on God, or Sex as God Intended).
Or browse through my sadly neglected book pages. They’re in dire need of tidying up and a proper overhaul, but should give you some useful suggestions, even so.
I should also point out the obscure verse Jeremiah 31:22; “How long will you waiver , O faithless daughter? For the LORD has created a new thing on the earth: a woman encompasses a man.” The footnote in my NRSV claims the Hebrew meaning is uncertain. Wiggle room for queer people?