Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Are Transgender People in the Bible?

Transgender Flag
This blog is mostly about the ancient world and the Bible in light of trans* identities (and gender identities in general).  

The question I get the most about this research: "Are there transgender people in the Bible?"  The answer is "No."  And "Maybe."  Perhaps "Yes"?

Why is this question so hard to answer?  Mostly because ancient people had really different ideas about what sex and gender were than we do today.  For instance, ancient Greeks and Romans thought that male bodies were hard, warm and dry.  They thought that women's bodies were soft, cold and moist.  If a male body became cold and moist, then clearly that male was effeminate, or worse, a foreigner.  We just don't hold to these same values today (hopefully not, anyway).  So gender characteristics were used to identify a wide range of identities beyond gender (like ethnic origin).  Interesting, but we don't think about bodies and gender quite in the same way today.

I'm sure that some people in the ancient world DID feel that their internal gender did not match their outward appearance and gender assignment.  But they didn't talk about it that way, so it's hard to know.  In fact, in general not a lot of characters from the ancient world talk about how they feel, so we have to take our cues with a little grain of salt.

So back to the original question: Are there transgender people in the Bible?"  Let me transform the question.  "Did some people challenge gender norms in the Bible?" or "Does the Bible show that God loves lots of gender expressions?" or "Hey, can we see some gender-bending in the Bible?"  The answers to these questions are absolutely "Yes," "Yes," and "Yes."   

That's what this blog is all about, y'all.  

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