http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9864-6915
ABSTRACT
This collection of essays arose from the conference “Sex on the Margins: Navigating Religious, Social, and Natural Scientific Models of Sex Differences,” February 24–26, 2017, at Boston University. Scholars examined how our growing knowledge of sex, gender, and sexual diversity impacts binary models of sex that continue to hold sway in most religious and natural scientific examinations of human nature, including their practical application in medical approaches to differently sexed and gendered bodies. The authors call for a nuanced, interdisciplinary approach to sex difference which respects and protects minorities without eliding statistically significant binary patterns of human experience.
Introduction
This collection of essays arose from a conference held at Boston University on February 24–26, 2017, entitled “Sex on the Margins: Navigating Religious, Social, and Natural Scientific Models of Sex Differences.” Scholars gathered to examine how our growing knowledge of sex, gender, and sexual diversity impacts binary models of sex that continue to hold sway in the majority of religious and natural scientific examinations of human nature. Without the generous support of our sponsors and host this conference would not have been possible: the Boston University School of Theology, the Danielsen Institute, the College of Arts and Sciences Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, a regional development grant from the American Academy of Religion, and the Institute for the Bio-Cultural Study of Religion (now rebirthed as the Center for Mind and Culture).
“Sex on the Margins: Navigating Religious, Social, and Natural Scientific Models of Sex Differences” set out to explore several questions. How does our growing knowledge of sex, gender, and sexuality impact binary models of sex within religion, science, and medicine? How do religious and theological traditions influence conceptions of sex and gender? How do advancements in science problematize notions of stabilized categories of sex and gender? And finally, what does our growing awareness of and appreciation for the dynamics and diversity of individual’s experiences reveal about our religious, scientific, and medical institutions and the theories of gender and sex they endorse?
Attempting to answer such questions with adequate nuance and in ways that honor lived experience requires conversations across disciplines; however, academic approaches to sex, gender, and sexuality tend to differ by discipline. On the one hand, sociologists and gender scholars typically highlight the marginalization of women, sexual minorities (e.g. bisexual, lesbian, gay, etc.), gender minorities (e.g. genderqueer, non-binary, and transgender persons), and sex minorities (intersex people/people with differences of sex development and DSDs). They emphasize differences and diversity in order to understand and correct past and present social and religious marginalization. The method often entails deconstructing the binary anthropological model, which defines men as male, masculine, and gynephilic and women as female, feminine, and androphilic. These scholars stress diversity among men and women, including the presence of those who cannot be categorized as male or female, adjudicating an inadequacy in the binary as a theoretical model for advancing human knowledge. On the other hand, scholars in the physical and evolutionary sciences base much of their research on binary patterns of sex difference facilitated by reproductive complementarity. In looking for broad patterns of sex difference, exceptions to the binary model can be viewed as marginal – inconsequential statistical outliers insufficient to challenge the basic view of humans as naturally dimorphic. An emphasis on statistical majorities and minimizing of exceptions can be seen to run counter to efforts to understand human diversity and protect minority groups. Contrastively, a focus on diversity can be seen to skew the data by presenting the sex spectrum as evenly distributed, rather than a spectrum with two majority patterns. While both approaches have their benefits, a more integrated methodology would advance understanding of sex, gender, and sexualities from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Within popular culture, religion and science seem to be strange bedfellows, operating in separate spheres as, in Stephen Jay Gould’s words, “non-overlapping magisteria.” But a closer look at history and a more thorough understanding of the interconnectedness of culture demonstrates that this characterization is far from reality. Religion plays numerous roles in the exploration of human sex differences. Academics, scientists, and physicians raised and educated in cultures influenced by the opening narratives of the Book of Genesis are born into a culture which assumes the male/female binary as “given by God.” While scientists aim for objectivity and tend not to recognize having been affected by this tradition, these religious narratives continue to influence scientific and medical approaches to sex difference – particularly the pathologizing and medical treatment of bodies that do not measure up to the binary ideal. Despite decades of advocacy from intersex people calling for the end of medical attempts to fix intersex bodies (e.g. castration and medically unnecessary surgeries on the genitals intersex infants and children under the age of consent), the medical establishment in the United States has been slow to change. Even while the United Nations is calling for an end to such surgeries, some of which they classify as torture, most physicians continue to view healthy intersex bodies as pathological simply because they do not conform to binary sex expectations. Could it be that religious beliefs and the influence of religion on American culture is keeping physicians from hearing the voices of intersex people and international calls for change?
Meanwhile, religious scholars strive to work at the intersection by bringing theological resources into conversation with contemporary science. However, they often find themselves caught between ethical concerns to protect and care for the marginalized and epistemological questions as to which disciplinary approach provides the most reliable account of what it means to be human as sexed, gendered, and sexual beings. Theological liberals may find themselves drawn to the social scientific accounts because of a shared concern for the marginalized while theological conservatives may look to evolutionary biology as corroborating more traditional, binary readings. A more integrated model of human sex difference, one that acknowledges both the gender spectrum and its statistical binary pattern, would provide a better starting point for theological reflection and enhance our ability to acknowledge, welcome, and care for all people, in our hospitals, educational institutions, communities, and places of worship.Footnote1
We convened “Sex on the Margins” to bring together scholars who could help us navigate these diverse academic voices. At the initial gathering, open to the public, Megan DeFranza commenced by reminding everyone that the theological is personal and the personal is theological. This resulted in our emphasizing the importance of beginning and ending our conversations with attention to their usefulness for those who have been marginalized and/or harmed by current models of sex difference. To this end, members of InterACT, an organization advocating for the legal protection of intersex people, particularly intersex youth, opened the conversation. Executive Director Kimberly Zieselmann and Director of Law and Policy Alesdair Ittelson educated attendees on the differences between intersex and transgender people since these are often conflated in public discourse. While intersex people are advocating the end of medically unnecessary interventions to hide their differences imposed upon them as children without their consent, transgender people are fighting for their rights to access similar medical technologies should they so choose.
DeFranza, author of Sex Difference in Christian Theology: Male, Female, and Intersex in the Image of God (Eerdmans 2015), then described her own work educating conservative Christian audiences on the science of sex difference and providing the Scriptural and theological lenses necessary to integrate new understandings of science with Christian faith. Starting with the presence of intersex people in the Bible and the familiarity of ancient Christians with people with differences of sex development, she has found many receptive listeners even in theologically conservative spaces. Still, she is convinced that it is personal stories and relationships that have the power to bring about cultural change; to that end, she has been directing the development of a documentary film, Stories of Intersex and Faith. Early excerpts of the documentary were unveiled at the conference to reinforce the insistence that academic conversations attend to the lives of real people. Through the screen, the attendees were introduced to two conservative Christians who were born with partial and complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS) and who share their own stories of struggle, confusion, healing, and courage as they work to reconcile their intersex identity with their Christian faith.
Responding to the film was a panel of experts in the fields of gender studies, religion, psychology, and sexuality. Claudia Shippert (Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Central Florida) placed the conversation in the wider context of the study of sexuality, exploring questions of agency, and practical resistance at the intersection of feminist liberation ethics and the emerging discourse of queer theory. Tiger DeVore (Ph.D., intersex activist and Clinical Sex Therapist), who conducted his psychology internship under the supervision of John Money at John’s Hopkins University, shared from his own experiences as a child traumatized by medical attempts to conform his body to male ideals, as well as from his practice counseling hundreds of intersex people. He notes how religious faith can be used to harm intersex people but can also provide resources for healing. Xochitl Alvizo (Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Religious Studies in the area of Women and Religion and the Philosophy of Sex, Gender, Sexuality at the University of Southern California) placed the conversation in the context of church praxis – traditional congregations as well as emerging churches – calling for more theological reflection which includes voices formerly silenced by the church. Hilary Malatino (Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Pennsylvania State University–formerly Assistant Director and Lecturer in the Women’s Studies Program at East Tennessee State University at the time of the conference) drew from her own experiences as an intersex person and gender scholar. She noted the challenge of going beyond reforming of the binary sex model in medicine to inclusion of those with non-binary gender identities.
Ruben Hopwood (M.Div., Ph.D.) transman, counselor, and Coordinator of the Trans Health Clinic at Fenway Health opened the first day of papers to compliment the conference’s beginning focus on intersex experiences and their place in academic explorations of sex differences. Hopwood addressed the connection between spirituality and health for sex and gender minorities. Hopwood detailed the physical and psychological risks of those with transgender identities and the harm that can stem from religious traditions who reject transgender people. Nevertheless, speaking from his personal and professional experience as a clinical counselor, he noted the importance of spirituality/faith/religion for many transgender people and the need for counselors to understand the resources within religious traditions that can aid the healing process.
Subsequent papers were organized into panels. Following Hopwood’s lecture, Katherine Apostolacus (MA Candidate, Women’s Studies in Religion and MA Candidate, Student Affairs & Higher Education, Claremont Graduate University) built upon his theme by exploring the health of transgender young people at conservative Christian colleges. Apostolacus pushed back against the conflation of “gender dysphoria” with “self-hatred,” arguing that this confusion undermines the ability of transgender students to thrive in Christian universities. Siobhan (John) Kelly (MTS Candidate, Harvard Divinity School) examined the ways in which transgender celebrities have been made into religious and non-religious messianic figures. Kelly’s paper, “Monstrous Messianic Logic in Trans* Publicity: Savior Rhetoric in Transgender Celebrity” included in this volume.
The second panel returned to the theme of intersex bodies in medicine and religion. Maren Behrensen (Ph.D., Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute for Christian Social Ethics, University of Münster, Germany) recounted the trauma perpetrated on intersex children and challenged the assertion that any trauma suffered by intersex children was “unintended.” Instead, she explained how shame and silence are harnessed as necessary aspects of the practice of assigning a sex to a child by way of cosmetic surgery in order to discourage future questions. Therefore, she called for more honest and direct language to describe this practice; it is, Behrensen said, “better described as a form of sexual violence rather than as a benevolent but misguided professional activity.” Moving from medical trauma to religious faith, Elyse Raby (Doctoral student, Boston College Theology Department) explains some of the ways in which intersex Christians find healing in the words of the Psalm 139:13, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Raby argues for the pastoral value of this verse but insists that theologians must offer a credible doctrine of divine action in creation to sustain it. Resourcing insights from Thomas Aquinas and Elizabeth Johnson, she asserts
God wills and creates the intersex person through secondary causes, that is, through variations in the human species and the chance interplay of various biological factors. God does not create intersex or any other individuals in an interventionist or deterministic way. This stance provides a scientifically plausible, theologically coherent and pastorally flexible foundation to Cornwall’s claim that intersex bodies ‘are how God made them and intended them to be.’
Over lunch, participants were invited to participate in a roundtable Discussion with Dr Anthony Petro, Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion and in the Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program, Boston University. Dr Petro continued the conversation about healthcare and spirituality as it relates to those on the margins and illustrated themes with reference to his work on the history of care for those with AIDS.
Afternoon discussions turned from gender identity and biological sex to sexuality. Florence Haneke (Ph.D. student, Kirchliche Hochschule Wuppertal/Bethel, Germany) shared research from interviews of LGBTIQ* Pastors in Germany – she analyzed their sense of self and of the office of pastor. Despite the challenges faced by LGBTQI pastors, she illustrates how pastors willing to share their story invite the confidence not only of sex/gender/sexual minorities but of congregants who suffer in other ways. Her findings are included in this volume. Returning to the US context, Trelawney Grenfell-Muir (MDiv, Ph.D., Department of Religion and Theological Studies, Merrimack College) revisited the theological rulings of the United Methodist Church. Despite the efforts of many within the United Methodist Church to end homophobia of some the denomination, she argued that progress cannot succeed until the root of homophobia, patriarchy, is cut out of the ground. Teri Merrick (Ph.D., Professor, Department of Philosophy, Azusa Pacific University) provided analytic justification that traditions that silence marginalized voice undermine their own authority.
Epistemic injustice is itself a systemic injustice, which hinders the hermeneutically marginalized from successfully communicating their experiences, thwarts a collective communal understanding of those experiences and illicitly downgrades the testimony of the marginalized. Therefore, a member of a religious community which is not cultivating testimonial and hermeneutical justice has good reason for not deferring to the authority of her community in the case of We-beliefs, directives and teachings dealing with matters that concern those who have been subject to structural identity prejudice.
The last day of the conference hosted two panels with diverse offerings. Philosopher Lauren Barthold (MCS, Ph.D., Endicott College) argued that “social identities like gender and sexual orientation” can replace the weight of identity historically placed upon sex. Social identities can be “conceived as rituals that allow us to create viable and inclusive communities.” In contrast, Stephanie Arel (Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow, New York University) questioned the stability of sexual identities based on research into sexual fluidity. She argued that the fluidity of sexual interests undermines traditional Christian interpretations of marriage. Her paper is included in this volume. Elizabeth Freese (Ph.D. Candidate, Drew University; Adjunct Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, Kean University) returned conversation to bodies, arguing that “perhaps counter-intuitively, we must see the symbolic dynamics referring to distinct male and female reproductive sex categories,” not blur these distinctions via Gal. 3:20 “in Christ there is no longer male and female.” Freese suggested, only “a poly and diversely characterized – in terms of sex, gender, and sexuality – theism and associated myth and ritual can bring broad bodily justice to religious ethics.”
Looking to the battle-ground of cultural warfare in evangelical organizations, Jennifer Newman (MTS Candidate, Vanderbilt Divinity School) recommended a recovery of the apophatic as a way to hold in tension the complexity of gender “and still believe the Protestant Bible is inerrant and inspired.” Lastly, Samuel J. Dubbleman (MA, STM, Boston University) turned our attention from contemporary debate to ancient creativity, unearthing a polymorphic Christ who is Neither Male nor Female in the Acts of John. “It is likely, then, that such spiritualistic Christologies supported, or were supported by, women converts’ transgressions of gender stereotypes in the name of Jesus … longing for a unification of all things in the kingdom of God … ” “ … such a progressive view on the margins of Christian ‘orthodoxy’ was, nevertheless, still carried out in the inescapable historical confines of a male dominated version of ideal humanity.”
Most of the papers presented at the conference detailed the ways in which patriarchy has and continues to undermine efforts to undo the marginalization of those whose identity, experience, and performance threaten the current hierarchical binary model of sex differences. Recalcitrance is found not only among religious communities but also within mainstream medical practice which continues to prioritize male bodies, ideally sexed bodies, and the power of man over nature to alter the bodies of those whose biology is seen as a threat to the social model. The papers submitted did not address all of the questions which motivated organization of the conference, but the presentations did facilitate fruitful cross-disciplinary conversations which energized attendees as they returned to their own projects in their own contexts. The scholars represented in this volume illustrate the cross-section of themes, the value of multi-disciplinary approaches to the ongoing conversation about sex differences, and the urgency of the task for the well-being of all members of the human family.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Megan K. DeFranza is a Research Associate at the Center for Mind and Culture and Visiting Researcher at Boston University School of Theology. She is the author of Sex Difference in Christian Theology: Male, Female, and Intersex in the Image of God (Eerdmans 2015), co-founder of Intersex and Faith, and co-director of the documentary film Stories of Intersex and Faith with Lianne Simon and Paul Van Ness.
Stephanie N. Arel is an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at the September 11 Memorial and Museum and a visiting researcher at New York University. She is the author of Affect Theory, Shame and Christian Formation (Palgrave Macmillan 2016) and co-editor of Post-Traumatic Public Theology (Palgrave Macmillan 2016).
Kate Stockly is a Ph.D. student studying Religion and Science at Boston University. She employs neuroscience, cognitive science, and evolutionary biology to study religious ritual, affect, and gender/sex.
ORCID
Stephanie N. Arel http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9864-6915
Notes
1 See Wesley, Science and Religious Anthropology, 144, where Wildman labels this as “non-strict dimorphism”.
Bibliography
- Wesley, J. Wildman. Science and Religious Anthropology: A Spiritually Evocative Naturalist Interpretation of Human Life. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009.
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