Gender variance in spirituality

Gender variance in spirituality is a topic that many religions address, whether their view about it is positive, negative, or open to interpretation. This article should collect information about how religions and spiritual paths view gender variance, particularly nonbinary and other transgender people, as well as intersex people. (It can be open to interpretation whether a person described in old religious writings as having both female and male qualities would be intersex, transgender, or nonbinary. It can also be open to interpretation whether a mythological figure described as a woman in men's clothing is a transgender man or a gender nonconforming woman.) It should collect information about gender variant deities and mythological beings, as well as religions' policies about actual gender variant people. Ideally, it should have a practical focus on what nonbinary people need to know in order to safely interact with religion and spirituality.

Content warnings: This article may talk about cases of religious teachings being used as justification to oppress, abuse, or kill gender variant people and other minorities. It also tells religious stories that contain sex, rape, self-harm, suicide, and violence. Nudity in art.

A note on language: In religious and folklore studies, the word "mythology" means a religious story, such as one about deities and miracles. In this field of study, "mythology" doesn't mean that the story is untrue or less valid than others. Another problematic word is "hermaphrodite," which is often used in mythology. It is impolite to use this word for real intersex people today, many of whom see it as a slur.

Common themes

The "primal androgyne" is a motif that appears in mythology around the world. Primal androgyne stories say that the first human was both female and male, and was for this reason more complete and powerful than anyone today. Another common version of this motif holds that the deity who created humans or the whole world was a primal androgyne, because this one being was able to create or give birth to life without anyone else's help.

Africa

Kemetic (ancient Egyptian) religion

Hapi.

Gender-variant deities and figures in Kemetic religion:

• Hapi, god of the Nile River, often depicted as a man with breasts, representing the fertility of the river.
• Isis, a goddess, was said to have answered a mortal's wish for a change of sex. The mortal was Iphis, child of Ligdus and Telethusa. Telethusa raised Iphis as a boy, because Ligdus said he would kill the child otherwise. Isis answered Iphis's pleas to change into a man, so that Iphis could marry and live happily ever after.
• Neith (Nit), sometimes depicted as a woman wearing an artificial phallus.
• Osiris (Asar, Wesir, Usire) was castrated and given an artificial phallus
• Ra, who castrated himself
• Set, who was castrated
• Shai (Shait), who was sometimes portrayed as male, or as female
• Tatenen, male or androgynous mother of the gods
• Wadj-wer, sometimes depicted as androgynous or a pregnant man

Other African and African diaspora religions

Gender variant deities in other African and African diaspora religions:

• Baron Samedi, a dandy who sometimes wears a combination of masculine and feminine clothing at the same time
• Ghede Nibo, feminine gay man or dandy
• Obatala (in Brazil: Oxala, in Haiti: Blanc-Dani), both male and female. Creator of humankind. Depending on the story, gave birth to humans by self-fertilizing, or by dividing into a man and woman.
• Olokun. In the religion of Santeria, Olokun is the hermaphroditic deity of the ocean, "who wears very long hair and who lives in the depths of the ocean floor with a great retinue of mermaids and tritons."
• Legba (Ellegua), usually male, but changes sex in some stories, and is sometimes portrayed by a girl wearing a phallus.
• Mawu-Lisa, combination of male Mawa and female Lisa
• Mwari, both male and female
• Nana-Buluku, in Fon tradition, is creator of the world, a god both male and female. This Creator gave birth to the sun (male Liza) and moon (female Mawu).
• Pomba Gira, patron of drag queens, might be the female version of Legba.
• Vondu, a god both male and female

Americas

The Aztec god Huehuecoyotl, in the Codex Telleriano-Remensis (16th century).

Gender variant figures in Zuni traditions:

• He'e, a male kachina who wore feminine clothing. He defended his pueblo while wearing a mixture of men’s and women’s clothing, with one side of his hair dressed in the women’s style.
• Ko'lhamana, a Zuni Two-Spirit kachina who peacefully mediates between different groups of people.

Figures in Diné (Navajo) traditions: Note that Navajo traditions include a third gender role, called nadle (Nádleeh), which includes people who are intersex, as well as people in the transgender spectrum.

• Changing Woman (Ahsonnutli, Estsanatlehi, Asdzą́ą́ Nádleehé) a Diné Two-Spirit deity. She changes to a different age with each season. In the creation epic, she gives birth to heroic twins, fathered by the Sun, who she marries.
• Turquoise Boy (Turquoise Hermaphrodite, Ashton nutli, Ashton nadle) a two-spirit person, specifically a feminine man (or in some versions intersex), in the creation story (Diné Bahaneʼ). He helped the people escape the great flood. Later, Turquoise Boy became the sun (Jóhonaaʼéí, The One Who Rules the Day), and then he fathers children with Changing Woman, and marries her. In a different story, Turquoise Boy is instead the child of Changing Woman and the Sun; Changing Woman created him as the first two-spirit person because she couldn't decide whether she wanted a son or a daughter, and decided to make a child who was both.
• White Shell Girl (White Shell Hermaphrodite), a two-spirit person, in this case a masculine woman, in the creation story who helped Turquoise Boy save the people from the flood. She later became the moon (Tłʼéhonaaʼéí, The One Who Rules the Night).

Figures in Aztec traditions:

• Huehuecoyotl, an Aztec trickster god who was usually male but sometimes female

Figures in traditions of other Native peoples of North America:

• Coyote, usually male, but changes sex in some stories.
• Double Woman, in Lakota tradition, appears in a young man's dreams holding out women's tools, and if the dreamer takes these, the dreamer accepts the trans feminine gender role of winkte, meaning "would become woman."
• Frog Earrings (Toad Earrings), a female spirit in Mandan tradition who appears in people's dreams to tell them to adopt a different gender role.
• Red Woman (Hicicawia) a spirit in Crow tradition who created two-spirit people.
• Holy Women, in Hidatsa tradition, appear in people's dreams to tell them to adopt a different gender role.
• Moon deity, in Omaha tradition, is said to appear in a young person's vision quest or dreams, holding out men's tools in one hand, and women's tools in the other. Which one the dreamer grasps for will determine the dreamer's gender role. For this reason, the Omaha word for a two-spirit person is mexoga, meaning "instructed by the moon." "This type of vision, conferring high status because of instruction from the Moon spirit, was also reported ... among the Winnebagos, Lakotas, Assiniboine, Pawnees, Mandans, and Hidatsas"
• Nih'a'ca, in Arapaho mythology, was the first person who was two-spirit (haxu'xan). Nih'a'ca is a trans feminine trickster who married the mountain lion.

Asia

Abrahamic religions

The Tree of Life juxtaposed upon Adam, in which Adam is shown as a Primal Androgyne.

Saint Wilgefortis is often shown with one shoe off, and a fiddler. Legend says a silver shoe miraculously fell from her statue to help this poor pilgrim.

Originating from southwest Asia and spreading worldwide, the Abrahamic religions include Judaism, Christianity, Islam, the Bahá'í Faith, Rastafarianism, and others. They have certain teachings in common, particularly the belief in one God (Jehovah), and how the world was created.

The Six Genders in Classical Judaism

According to Rabbi Elliot Kukla:

• Zachar/זָכָר: This term is derived from the word for a pointy sword and refers to a phallus. It is usually translated as “male” in English.
• Nekeivah/נְקֵבָה: This term is derived from the word for a crevice and probably refers to a vaginal opening. It is usually translated as “female” in English.
• Androgynos/אַנְדְּרוֹגִינוֹס: A person who has both “male” and “female” sexual characteristics. 149 references in Mishna and Talmud (1st-8th Centuries CE); 350 in classical midrash and Jewish law codes (2nd -16th Centuries CE).
• Tumtum/טֻומְטוּם A person whose sexual characteristics are indeterminate or obscured. 181 references in Mishna and Talmud; 335 in classical midrash and Jewish law codes.
• Ay’lonit/איילונית: A person who is identified as “female” at birth but develops “male” characteristics at puberty and is infertile. 80 references in Mishna and Talmud; 40 in classical midrash and Jewish law codes.
• Saris/סריס: A person who is identified as “male” at birth but develops “female” characteristics as puberty and/or is lacking a penis. A saris can be “naturally” a saris (saris hamah), or become one through human intervention (saris adam). 156 references in mishna and Talmud; 379 in classical midrash and Jewish law codes.

Gender variant figures in Abrahamic religion

• The exact nature of the God of Abraham is much disputed, even within one particular religious sect. God is often thought of as a male patriarch, but there is also a long history of seeing God as partly or entirely other than female or male, or as both. Jehovah's wife or female aspect is Shekinah. Many Jewish and Christian sects have called God by the title Father-Mother. Jewish mystics saw God as having been originally an androgyne, noting that the name "Eve" is derived from "Jehovah".
  • Most Christian sects believe in God as a trinity, having three parts: God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. The latter is an abstract entity depicted as a dove that flew down to be born as Jesus, and it is said to be neither male nor female.
• Jewish and Christian teachings often interpret the first human, Adam, as having been created as both male and female, before God extracted Eve from him. Jewish Gnostics said that dividing this complete human was what made humans mortal, and that if they could be a complete "hermaphrodite" again, they wouldn't die anymore. This is an example of the Primal Androgyne motif.
• In Jewish mysticism, Lilith is a supernatural masculine female demon. God meant her to be the first human woman, creating her before Eve, but she refused to be submissive to Adam. She left him, and wanders the world making trouble for humankind. Some scholars think Lilith was a goddess introduced from another Southwest Asian religion.

Several Christian saints were people who were assigned female at birth and lived as men. As with many gender variant historical figures, it's open to interpretation whether they were passing as men for practicality, or if they were transgender men, or something else. Saint Eugene lived as a man, as did Saint Marinus (also called Maria or Marius), in order to enter the priesthood.

• Saint Wilgefortis (also called Saint Uncumber, Saint Librata, or other names) was a bearded woman. She's thought not to be a historical figure, but a folklore figure that came about because locals who, being unfamiliar with the robes in foreign icons, misinterpreted images of Christ crucified as bearded women. Saint Wilgefortis is the patron of women who wish to be freed from abusive husbands.
• Saint Joan of Arc (Jeanne D'Arc) took up a male gender role in order to join in war. The Church feared and persecuted her largely because of her gender variance. She may have been not only a warrior woman, but some vestige of a pre-Christian shamanic nonbinary gender role that was still known to the common folk.

Hindu and Buddhist religions

Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (Guanshiyin) statue from China, 11th-12th century CE.

Figures that are gender variant or patrons of gender variant people:

• Avalokiteśvara, a male bodhisattva, sometimes shown as an androgynous man, who can appear in a form of any gender
  • Kwanyin (Guanyin, Kannon), originally a male bodhisattva (derived from Avalokiteśvara) who was reinterpreted as female or androgynous. There are only hypotheses about how and why this happened.
• Purusha, a primal androgyne
• Ardhanarisvara (aspect of male Shiva, with female consort Parvati, Deva, Shakti, or Uma), both male and female in one body. Patron of gay people, intersex people, and transgender people
• Bahuchara Mata, goddess, patron of Hijra, who are members of a trans feminine nonbinary gender role.
• Brahman, transcends male and female
• Indra, who cursed a king to become a woman. The king was Bhangashvana in the ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata. The king ended up with "two sets of sons—those who called him ‘Father’ and those who called him ‘Mother.’ Indra caused the two sets of children to fight and kill each other. When Bhangashvana pleaded for mercy, Indra asked which set of sons he would like back. ‘Those who call me mother,’ said Bhangashvana. When asked whether he wanted a male body or a female one, he replied, ‘A female one, so that I can get more pleasure.’”
• Iravan (Iravat, Iravant, Aravan), patron of hijra.
• Samba, who became a woman and gave birth
• Shikhandi (Śikhaṇḍī, Shikandi, Srikhandi), a warrior in the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata, who was born a girl and lived as a man. He was destined for military victory. He married a woman, but she rejected him when she found out that he was a trans man. Shikhandi contemplated responding to this with suicide, but instead made himself fully physically male by trading his sex with Sthunakarna, a forest spirit (a yaksha) who wanted to become a woman.

Taoism

Ancient woodcut of Lan Caihe.

Gender-variant figures in Taoism:

• Lan Caihe (Lan Ts'ai-ho), one of the eight Taoist immortals, whose gender has never been agreed upon. Lan Caihe could appear as—or be interpreted as—a boy, girl, old man, old woman, or anything.

Other Southwest Asian spiritualities

Gender-variant deities and patrons of gender variance in other Southwest Asian spiritualities:

• Enki, a Sumerian male god, creator and patron of several kinds of intersex, transgender, and gender nonconforming people, and of their gender roles.
• Inanna, a Sumerian goddess who was described in some hymns as both male and female, and whose worship included ritual cross-dressing
• Mylitta, Babylonian, depicted as both male and female
• Zurvan, a Zoroastrian primal androgyne

Australia and Oceania

Gender-variant deities and patrons of gender variance:

• Bathala, Phileppine primal androgyne
• Ta-aroa, Polynesian primal androgyne
• Ungud, Australian aboriginal rainbow serpent god, androgynous

Europe

Greco-Roman religions

Hermaphroditus or Aphroditus in skirt-lifting (anasyrma) pose, a magical gesture to ward off bad luck.

Eros as a winged androgyne. Red-figured kantharos, Italy, 320 to 310 BCE.

Hermathena, painted by Federico Zuccaro, circa 1566.

Caeneus fighting centaurs. Attic black-figure lekythos, 520–510 BC.

Tiresias transformed into a woman by Hera for striking at copulating snakes.

Also called Classical religion, the ancient Greek (Hellenistic) and Roman religions featured mythology about the many gods, goddesses, and supernatural heroes. Although these are often seen as dead religions, the Classical deities are still worshiped today by Hellenistic Pagans.

Gender variant deities and patrons of gender variance in Greco-Roman religions:

• Adonis, a beautiful young male god, was sometimes called both male and female.
• Greek mythology with Phrygian origins described Agdistis, who was both male and female. The other gods feared the power of this complete being, and so castrated Agdistis, removing Agdistis's penis. From their blood sprang a tree that bore either almonds or pomegranates, depending on the version of the story, but both of these fruits symbolize the vulva and womb. The fruit of it fertilized Nana, who gave birth to Attis. Agdistis brought chaos to the wedding of Attis, so that Attis went mad, castrated himself, and died. In dismay, Agdistis asked the gods to preserve Attis's body, and founded a festival in his honor. There are several very different versions of the story of Agdistis, but these basic events remain similar between them. In some versions, Agdistis a relation or aspect of the goddess Cybele.
• Aphrodite had male or male-female aspects. Servius said, "There is in Cyprus an image of the bearded Venus with the body and dress of a woman, but with a scepter and the sex of a man, which they call Aphroditos (Male), and to which the men sacrifice in a female dress and the women in a masculine one." Also called Aphroditus or Aphrodite Urania. This deity was other times depicted as a woman with a penis, rather than with a beard, and was worshipped by men and women cross-dressing. The Roman counterpart of bearded Aphroditus, Venus Barbata, an aspect of the goddess Venus, grew a beard and dressed as a man in order to court a gay man. This deity was patron of sex workers and of socially taboo love and sex, particularly homosexuality. Venus Biformis was both male and female. Another aspect of Venus was Venus Castina, who was associated with "the yearnings of feminine souls locked in male bodies." Her followers included men who dressed as women, and she’s said to have turned some men into women.
• Athena, goddess of war, chose to never marry, and wears men's armor.
• Cybele, a goddess who was in some interpretations both male and female. Her priestesses were trans-feminine eunuchs called Gallae.
• Dionysus, a male god of wine, who spent some time as a feminine eunuch priestess of Cybele, a galla, and was called the Womanly One. In some origin stories, Dionysus was raised as a girl.
• Eros, the god (daemon) of love, was usually male. In Apulian vase painting of the Hellenistic period (323 BC–30 BC), Eros was depicted as androgynous, with breasts and a penis. This Eros wore feminine figure and attire, the hair worn in a top-knot tied with ribbon, wearing earrings, necklaces, bangles and ankle bracelets. According to Cicero in his Nature of the Gods, a Cupid was born of Mercury and Venus, thus an aspect of the deity Hermaphroditus.
• Hercules was a masculine male demigod who wore feminine clothing for three years as part of his servitude.
• Hermaphroditus was a Greek deity who was both male and female, who was shown in art as a beautiful woman with a penis. One version of this deity's origin was that Hermes (the messenger god) united with Aphrodite (the goddess of love) to become Hermaphroditus. Another story said instead that Hermaphroditus was originally the beautiful male son of Hermes and Aphrodite. The lake nymph Salmacis raped him, wishing to the to never separate again, so the gods made them one being. The gods also granted the victim's wish that anyone who bathed in that lake would lose their virility. This is the origin of the word "hermaphrodite."
• Hermathena was a composite form of the Greek god Hermes and the goddess Athena. Being unified they symbolized Academia and presided over knowledge, eloquence, the arts and sciences.
• Janus (Ianus, Jana). The month of January is named after Janus, the gatekeeper ("janitor") deity who oversees beginnings and endings. Janus has two faces, usually one old man and one young man, but originally these were depicted as one male and one female, the latter being "the Jana who was assimilated to Juno. […] Having accepted the all-male Janus as the New Year god, however, medieval writers continued to refer to him as the archetypal duality." Janus is the god of time, space, movement, gateways, bridges, growing up, aging, change, beginnings/endings. Janus represents transition and liminality between different places, phases, conditions, and concepts.
• Leto, a goddess who answered a plea to change a mortal girl into a boy. That was Leucippus, child of Galatea and Lamprus. Leto granted Galatea's prayers to change Leucippus from a girl to a boy in order for Lamprus to accept the child.
• Pales, a trickster god sometimes called male, sometimes called female, or both, and/or with the head of an ass.
• Phanes, a primal androgyne.
• Zeus Arrhenothelus, a hermaphroditic aspect of a male god

Other gender variant figures and myths:

• Caeneus (also called Caenus, Caenis, or Kaineus) was a mighty warrior who had been divinely changed from a woman to a man. When Caeneus was female, the god Poseidon had raped him, and then offered a wish. Caeneus wished to become a man with the power of being impenetrable by anything, so that he could never be raped again in any way. As a result, Caenus also became supernaturally invulnerable to being penetrated by any weapon, such as swords and arrows. A centaur found out Caeneus's secrets, and so mocked him, and then defeated Caeneus by burying him under logs and boulders.
• Tiresias (Teiresias), a man who was changed to a woman for several years and back again. He settled a dispute between Zeus and Hera about whether men or women experience more pleasure during sex. He said women did, which angered Hera, so she blinded him. To make up for it, Zeus gave Tiresias the power of prophesy. Some consider Tiresias to have those powers because of having experienced life as a man and as a woman.

Norse religion

Loki dressing Thor, the thunder god, in feminine clothing. Illustration by Carl Larsson and Gunnar Forssell in the Poetic Edda, 1893.

Gender-variant deities in Norse religion:

• Friga, usually female, but sometimes both male and female
• Loki (Loke, Loge, Loptr, Hveðrungr), usually male, a shapeshifter who became female and gave birth on occasion. He transformed into a mare to birth Sleipnir, an eight-legged horse that became the swift steed of the god Odin.
• Odin as Jalkr, usually male, but in one story was a eunuch in feminine clothing in order to study women's mysteries.

Other spiritualities

This section is for spiritual and religious paths that are not best categorized by world region of origin.

Gender-variant deities in other religions, spiritual paths, and mythologies:

• Baphomet, a primal androgyne said by the mystic Eliphas Lévi (1810-1875) to have been worshiped by the Knights Templar. This primal androgyne is an alchemical allegorical figure, made of a mixture of human (female and male) and animal features, representing the spiritual and physical realms, with a flame over its head representing enlightenment. This is the figure on the Tarot card called "The Devil," but it's debatable whether it's synonymous with the devil.

See also

• Gender-variant identities worldwide
• History of nonbinary gender
• Fictional depictions of nonbinary gender