Trans/imagining God: Articulations of individualised spirituality among Muslim and Christian transgender men

ABSTRACT

Malaysian transgender people often experience suspicion, discrimination and rejection from their religious institutions. This article, written at the intersection of transgender and spirituality studies, aims to decipher the complexities of trans/imagining God, or formulations of individualised spirituality, in the lives of four transgender men. Using a constructivist grounded theory methodology, and assisted by Pargament’s notion of spiritual transformation and Tanis’s ideas on transgender spiritual traits to analyse and interpret the narratives of research participants, this article suggests that a trans/imagination of God is built on a reconfiguration of official religiosities, negotiations with romantic relationships, and a sense of obligation in terms of reaching out to others and acting ethically towards them.

KEYWORDS:

• Christian
• Malaysia
• Muslim
• transgender
• trans/imagination
• spirituality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Approval granted by the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee (Project ID: 7422). Names used throughout are pseudonyms selected by the research participants themselves.

2 Muslim participants almost always used ‘God’ rather than ‘Allah’ during interviews, which were predominantly held in English.

3 The research participants featured in this article speak English with varying levels of proficiency.

4 Peranakans are Malaysians who manifest a ‘“hybrid culture” mixing elements from their Chinese and Malay ancestries’ (Lim 2015, 154). They profess various religious beliefs.

5 My research participants often do not demonstrate detailed familiarity with sacred texts and thus allude to them in a vague manner.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joseph N. Goh

Joseph N. Goh is a Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies at the School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia. He holds a PhD in gender, sexuality and theology, and his research interests include queer and LGBTI studies, human rights and sexual health issues, diverse theological and religious studies, and qualitative research.