Navigating the Religious Gender Binary

• In Event: 1163 - Gender in Cultural Contexts

Abstract

The present article advances efforts to theorize the religion/gender nexus by introducing the “religious gender binary” as a useful way to conceptualize the gender bifurcation of religious liturgy, ideologies, and practices. This study utilizes interview data from forty-four religious and formerly religious non-binary people, who identify as neither men nor women, in order to 1) illustrate the regulatory impact of the “religious gender binary” and 2) advance efforts to theorize the re/doing of gendered religion. Results indicate that non-binary people who wish to maintain religious ties must either “redo religion” to accommodate their non-binary gender or sometimes “do cisgender” to accommodate their religious tradition, with very few alternative options. The difficulty with which non-binary people do both their gender and their religion illuminates the inextricability of gender and religion as systems of accountability.

Author

• Helana Darwin, Stony Brook University