Gender variance in Christianity: Difference between revisions

* '''Saint Apollinaris''' (also called Saint Appollinaria). A monk who was assigned female at birth, and lived as a man.<ref>Conner, Sparks, and Sparks. ''Cassell's Encyclopedia of queer myth, symbol, and spirit, covering gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender lore''. 1997. P. 65.</ref><ref name="FeinbergWarriors68" />  

* '''Saint Athanasia''' (also called Saint Alexandria) was assigned female at birth, and lived as a man.<ref name="FeinbergWarriors68" />

* '''Saint Eugene''' (also called Eugenia) was a priest who was assigned female at birth, and lived as a man.<ref name="FeinbergWarriors68" />

* '''Saint Euphrosyne''' was assigned female at birth, and lived as a man.<ref name="FeinbergWarriors68" />

* '''Saint Galla''' was a woman with a full beard.<ref name="FeinbergWarriors68" />  

* '''Saint Hilaria (Hilarion the Eunuch)''' was assigned female at birth, and lived as a man. They are honored as a Saint in the Coptic and Syriac Orthodox churches.<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_Hilaria</ref>

* '''Saint Joan of Arc''' ('''Jeanne D'Arc''', or '''Jehanne''') (c. 1412 - 1431) led an army of French peasants against the English during the Hundred Years War. Although she exclusively chose to wear masculine dress and hairstyle, this was not a disguise, and she made no secret that she was assigned female at birth. She told her ally, Prince Charles, that God had commanded her to dress in this way. Charles stood by her side, until after her victory, she was captured by the Burgundians, who called her ''homasse'' ("man-woman"). The French nobility betrayed her by offering no ransom for her, so she was sold to the English. Henry VI, the King of England, referred to Deuteronomy 22:5 as a reason for the Inquisitors of the Church to condemn her. Initially the Inquisitors tried her for witchcraft, but dropped that charge due to lack of evidence, and condemned her for cross-dressing instead. Her judges claimed they gave her the choice to either give up cross-dressing, to face a sentence of life in prison on bread and water, or to be executed if she again wore men's clothing. She chose men's clothing of her free will. The court records show that cross-dressing, based on Deuteronomy 22:5, was the actual charge for which she was burned alive at the stake. In [[English neutral pronouns#Ze|hir]] history book, ''Transgender Warriors'', the genderqueer activist [[Leslie Feinberg]] (1949 - 2014) argues that the historical evidence shows that this saint was not just a warrior woman who took up armor for practicality, but was genuinely transgender, and the court documents about her refer to local peasants' beliefs that her gender variance was sacred in and of itself, which was part of why the Catholic Church saw her as so threatening to its power.<ref name="FeinbergWarriors31">Leslie Feinberg, ''Transgender Warriors: Making history from Joan of Arc to RuPaul.'' Beacon: Boston, Massachusetts. 1996. P. 31-37.</ref> Joan was popularly accepted as a saint for centuries, until finally being canonized in 1920. Saint Joan is patron of France, martyrs, captives, prisoners, soldiers, military personnel, and people ridiculed for their piety.

* '''Saint Joseph (Hildegund)''' was assigned female at birth, and lived as a man.<ref name="FeinbergWarriors68" />

* '''Saint Theodora''' was assigned female at birth, and lived as a man.<ref name="FeinbergWarriors68" />

[[File:Hl kuemmernis museum neunkirchen.jpg|thumb|Saint Wilgefortis is often shown as with one shoe off, and a fiddler. Legend says a silver shoe miraculously fell from her statue to help this poor pilgrim.<ref>{{Cite news|last=King|first=Jade|url=https://artuk.org/discover/stories/saint-wilgefortis-a-bearded-woman-with-a-queer-history|title=Saint Wilgefortis: a bearded woman with a queer history|date=2021-08-13|access-date=2025-05-25|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250324223605/https://artuk.org/discover/stories/saint-wilgefortis-a-bearded-woman-with-a-queer-history|archive-date=2025-03-24}}</ref>]]

Leslie Feinberg reflects on the reasons why so many saints on the female-to-male transgender spectrum in particular were canonized, even though the medieval Church specifically condemned female-to-male crossdressing in its contemporary laws: