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Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Nun who loved a countess in 17th-century Mexico City

Last Updated on November 11, 2023 by

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was a 17th-century Mexican nun whose critically acclaimed writings include lesbian love poetry. She is considered one of the greatest Latin American poets, an early advocate of women’s rights, and some say, North America’s first lesbian feminist writer. She is so important in Mexico that her face appears on the national currency.

Sor Juana (Nov. 12, 1648 – April 17, 1695) was born out of wedlock near Mexico City in what was then New Spain. She was a witty, intellectually gifted girl who loved learning. Girls of her time were rarely educated, but she learned to read in her grandfather’s book-filled house.

When she was 16, she asked for her parents’ permission to disguise herself as a male student in order to attend university, which did not accept women. They refused, and instead she entered the convent in 1667. In her world, the convent was the only place where a woman could pursue education.

Sor Juana’s convent cell became Mexico City’s intellectual hub. Instead of an ascetic room, Sor Juana had a suite that was like a modern apartment. Her library contained an estimated 4,000 books, the largest collection in Mexico. The portrait from 1750 shows her in her amazing library, surrounded by her many books.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz by Miguel Cabrera, 1750 (Wikimedia Commons)

She turned her nun’s quarters into a salon, visited by the city’s intellectual elite. Among them was Countess Maria Luisa de Paredes, vicereine of Mexico. The two women became passionate friends. It’s unclear whether they were lesbians by today’s definition, but Maria Luisa inspired Sor Juana to write amorous love poems, such as:

That you’re a woman far away
is no hindrance to my love:
for the soul, as you well know,
distance and sex don’t count.

“Sor Juana and the Countess” (Sor Juana y la Virreina) by Felix d’Eon. Prints are available at his Etsy shop.

Sor Juana and the countess kiss in a painting by Felix d’Eon. Sor Juana holds a handwritten poem in her hand as they share a kiss in her extensive library. Based in Mexico City, D’Eon describes himself as a “latinx painter and activist dedicated to the art of queer love, romance, and sensuality.”

Church authorities cracked down on Sor Juana, not because of her lesbian poetry, but for “La Respuesta,” her classic defense of women’s rights in response to opposition from the clergy. Threatened by the Inquisition, Sor Juana was silenced for the final three years of her life. At age 46, she died in Mexico City after taking care of her sisters in an outbreak of plague.

She is not recognized as a saint by the male-dominated church hierarchy that she criticized, but Sor Juana holds a place in the informal communion of saints honored by LGBTQ people of faith and our allies.  She is especially revered as a role model by Latina feminists.

Progressive artists and writers portray Sor Juana

Sor Juana has a rainbow halo in an icon created by queer Lutheran artist and seminarian Katy Miles-Wallace as part of her “Queer Saints” series. It appears at the top of this post. In the icon, Sor Juana holds a book displaying a verse from her poem “My Lady,” which translates as:

“Let my love be ever doomed
if guilty in its intent,
for loving you is a crime
of which I will never repent.”

Behind Sor Juana is a prayer flag with a Spanish phrase that she used as her signature when the church forced her to repent: “Yo, la Peor de Todas,” (I, the worst of all).

In her Queer Saints series, Miles-Wallace presents traditional saints with queer qualities and heroes of the LGBTQ community. The icons are rooted in queer theology and in Miles-Wallace’s eclectic faith journey that began at a Baptist church in Texas and led to study at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California. She drew many of them on the altar of a seminary chapel. For more info, see the Q Spirit article “New icons of Queer Saints created by artist Katy Miles-Wallace.”

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz icon by Jen Casselberry

A solemn Sor Juana looks like a living contemporary woman with a halo in a realistic modern icon by Chicago artist Jen Casselberry. She created it for a commissioned series of seven activist/contemplative icon paintings. Giclee fine art prints of her original oil paintings are available through the Jen Casselberry Etsy Shop.

The romance between Sor Juana and Maria Luisa has long been an inspiration for authors and film makers. Poet and Chicano studies scholar Alicia Gaspar de Alba writes about it vividly in her novel “Sor Juana’s Second Dream[image error].” Her idea of Sor Juana as a lesbian is discussed in “Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Feminist Reconstruction of Biography and Text” by Theresa A. Yugar.” The novel became the basis for the play “The Nun and the Countess” by Odalys Nanín.

The possibility of lesbian love among nuns is part of Juana de la Cruz’s life story as told in in the illustrated book “Heavenly Homos, Etc.: Queer Icons from LGBTQ Life, Religion, and History” by Jan Haen, a Dutch artist and Roman Catholic priest in the Redemptorist order.

Gaspar de Alba also writes about Sor Juana in her 2014 book “[Un]framing the ‘Bad Woman’: Sor Juana, Malinche, Coyolxauhqui, and Other Rebels with a Cause.” It was published in 2014 by the University of Texas.

Sor Juana Inés de la CruzBy Lewis Williams, SFO. Prins available at Amazon or trinitystores.com

An icon of Sor Juana was painted by Colorado artist Lewis Williams of the Secular Franciscan Order (SFO). Sor Juana sits between Mexico City’s two volcanoes, the male Popocatépetl and the female Iztaccíhuatl, symbolizing the conflict between men and women that she experienced in trying to get an education. She holds a book with a quote from her writings: “The most unforgivable crime is to place people’s stature in doubt.”

Sor Juana on stage and screen

Juana’s romantic relationship with another woman comes alive in the opera “Juana”, which had its world premiere in November 2019 at the University of California Los Angeles. It is based on the novel “Sor Juana’s Second Dream” by Alicia Gaspar de Alba. Music is by Carla Lucero.  A series of photos inspired by Sor Juana’s life and loves was created by Alma Lopez in conjunction with the opera and exhibited at UCLA’s Kerckhoff Art Gallery. Gaspar de Alba and Lopez, who married each other in 2008, are both known for their work exploring lesbian connections with Our Lady of Guadalupe, a Mexican vision of the Virgin Mary. UCLA also hosted a scholarly symposium on Sor Juana in November 2019 exploring the many ways that Juana has been represented from the 17th century to today.

Sor Juana de la Cruz inspired this 2019 photo by Alma Lopez

María Luisa Bemberg, one of Latin America’s foremost female directors, explored the love between the nun and the countess in “I, the Worst of All.”  The 1990 film was Argentina’s Academy Award entry for Best Foreign Language Film that year. The DVD cover uses a quote from the Boston Globe to describe the film: “Lesbian passion seething behind convent walls.” It includes woman-to-woman eroticism without objectifying the women. The movie is based on “Sor Juana: Or, the Traps of Faith” by Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz of Mexico.

Recent interest in Sor Juana was sparked by the 2016 television series “Juana Inés,” which was produced in Mexico and available on Netflix.

Prayers

Q Spirit’s Litany of Queer Saints includes this line:

Sor Juana de la Cruz, great literary nun who advocated for women and loved a countess in 17th-century Mexico City, pray for us.

Books by and about about Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

“Poems, Protest, and a Dream: Selected Writings” by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (Penguin Classics)

“Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Feminist Reconstruction of Biography” (2014) by Theresa A. Yugar with a foreword by Rosemary Radford Ruether

“Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Selected Works” (2015), translated by Edith Grossman with an introduction by Julia Alvarez

“Queer, There, and Everywhere: 23 People Who Changed the World” by Sarah Prager (author) and Zoe More O’Ferrall (illustrator). This hip history book for teens includes Sor Juana. Published by HarperCollins (2017).

Books about lesbian nuns

“Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy” by Judith C. Brown

“Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World” by Catalina De Erauso

“Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence” by Nancy Manahan and Rosemary Keefer Curb (editors)

Lesbian nuns from history

Q Spirit’s LGBTQ Saints series includes the following lesbian nuns:

Brigid and Darlughdach: Celtic saint loved her female soulmate

Jeanne Cordova: Lesbian nun who “kicked the habit” to be an activist

Hildegard of Bingen and Richardis: Medieval mystic and the woman she loved

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Nun who loved a countess in 17th-century Mexico City

Walatta Petros: African nun shared a lifetime bond with a female partner in 17th-century

Coming to Q Spirit in the future:
Remembering Jeanne Deckers, Lesbian Catholic Who Won Fame as “The Singing Nun” (New Ways Ministry)
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To read this article in Spanish, go to:
Sor Juana de la Cruz: La monja le encantó la Condesa en la Cidade do México en el siglo 17 (Santos Queer)
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Top image credit:
“Queer Saints: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz” by Katy Miles-Wallace.

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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBTQ martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.

This article was originally published on Q Spirit in April 2017, expanded with new material over time, and most recently updated on Nov. 11, 2023.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.

Icons of “Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz” and other activist saints are available as prints at the Jen Casselberry Etsy Shop

The post Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Nun who loved a countess in 17th-century Mexico City appeared first on Q Spirit.

Grant-Michael Fitzgerald: Pioneering black gay Catholic brother advocated LGBTQ rights in 1970s

Last Updated on November 9, 2023 by

Grant-Michael Fitzgerald was an openly gay African American Roman Catholic brother who advocated for LGBTQ rights in the 1970s and ‘80s. He was diagnosed with AIDS and died in a Wisconsin hospice on Nov. 10, 1986 at age 39.

Renowned black gay professor and minister James Tinney described Fitzgerald as “the first openly gay black Christian in a public role in the U.S.” in the eulogy at his memorial service.

This brave LGBTQ-rights pioneer faced double discrimination not only due to his sexual orientation, but also because of his race as a black man in U.S. society and one of the few black members of his Catholic religious order.

“The church needs to be where people are hurting, ministering to their needs, willing to fight against the sins of sexism, racism and homophobia. So I find myself working with groups struggling around those issues,” Fitzgerald said in a 1981 interview in “Insight: A Quarterly of Lesbian/Gay Christian Opinion.”

Called to ministry before he knew he was gay

Grant-Michael Fitzgerald was born Sept. 11, 1947 in Kingston, New York. He was baptized in a Catholic church in Philadelphia in May 1953, grew up in a black neighborhood and always went to Catholic schools.

In 1967 he entered the Society of the Divine Savior, known as the Salvatorians, an international Roman Catholic order of brothers, priests, nuns and lay people. Their U.S. headquarters is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Another significant Salvatorian is Robert Nugent, who cofounded the LGBTQ Catholic organization New Ways Ministry in 1977. Fitzgerald made his profession of vows in 1969. He studied at two Wisconsin colleges, Mount St. Paul in Waukesha and Dominican College in Racine, earning a degree in human relations.

“As a brother, my role and vows are similar to a priest’s, but I can’t administer the sacraments…. Some people see brothers as ‘male nuns’ because we do so much teaching, counseling and other work with people,” he explained in his Insight interview.

Fitzgerald’s life story is told in the 2023 book “Heavenly LGBTQ+: : Queer Icons from LGBTQ Life, Religion, and History” by Jan Haen, a Dutch artist and Roman Catholic priest. He includes scenes that are rarely if ever portrayed by artists, such as Fitzgerald discovering that he had a rainbow identity under his religious role (pictured above). It is the sequel to his 2022 graphic non-fiction book “Heavenly Homos, Etc..”

Fitzgerald went on to say that he “felt a call to ministry at a very young age,” but it took much longer for him to realize he was gay. He came out to his family and then to the Salvatorians at age 24. Church officials told him that it was not a problem as long as he could live his vow of chastity.

Fitzgerald co-founded Gay Ministry Task Force in 1972

Fitzgerald was one of the original seven members who founded the Salvatorian Gay Ministry Task Force in 1972. “And with that announcement the Catholic church in America stepped into the issue of ministering to lesbians and gay males,” he told Insight. He co-authored the 1974 book “Ministry/USA: A Model for Ministry to the Homosexual Community” by Salvatorian Gay Ministry Task Force — two years before publication of the landmark book “The Church and the Homosexual” by gay Jesuit priest John McNeill.

Grant-Michael Fitzgerald co-authored a book on LGBTQ ministry in 1974.

In 1978, this task force helped establish the first parish ministry to gays in inner-city Milwaukee. Later the task force was reorganized as the National Center for Gay Ministry. Fitzgerald became a leader in the Milwaukee branch of the Council on Religion and the Homosexual and was featured as a black gay person of faith in the news media, including an article in the Advocate, a national LGBTQ magazine.

Grant-Michael Fitzgerald’s book and ministry were discussed in the cover story for the Gay People’s Union (GPU) News in April 1974.

Over the years Fitzgerald ministered in a wide variety of settings and locations. His odyssey included service as a teacher at the Harambee Education Center, a predominately black high school in Milwaukee; resident counselor at Southeastern Wisconsin Homes, a group home for teen boys in Milwaukee; supervisor of a U.S. Army child-care center in Stuttgart, Germany; teacher at a Philadelphia day-care center; service provider for the elderly and needy in Philadelphia; case worker with immigrants; counselor at a Catholic Charities youth home in Washington, DC. He also worked in New York and Alabama.

He was diagnosed with AIDS and in 1984 he moved into the Salvatorian retirement community in St. Nazianz, Wisconsin. He died on Nov. 10, 1986 and is buried in the Salvatorian community cemetery in St. Nazianz. The eulogy at his memorial service in Philadelphia was delivered by James Tinney, black gay professor who founded an African American LGBTQ church in Washington DC in 1982.

A chapter on his life and ministry, titled “The Disavowal of Brother Grant-Michael Fitzgerald,” is included in the 2016 book “Not Straight, Not White: Black Gay Men from the March on Washington to the AIDS Crisis” by University of Illinois history professor Kevin Mumford. He analyzes how social-justice movements both marginalized and inspired Fitzgerald and other black gay men of his time.

Links related to Grant-Michael Fitzgerald

Bro. Grant-Michael Fitzgerald: An interview with a Catholic brother (“Insight: A Quarterly of Lesbian/Gay Christian Opinion,” special issue “Black, Christian and Gay” with guest editor James Tinney, Vol 4 No 4, 1981)

Brother Grant-Michael Fitzgerald SDS profile (LGBT Religious Archives Network)

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Top image credit:
Grant-Michael Fitzgerald

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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBT and queer martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.

This article was originally published on Q Spirit on Dec. 4, 2021, and was updated with new material on Nov. 9, 2023.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.

The post Grant-Michael Fitzgerald: Pioneering black gay Catholic brother advocated LGBTQ rights in 1970s appeared first on Q Spirit.

Queer saint Matrona / Babylas of Perge founded 5th-century convent of nuns who dressed as men

Last Updated on November 9, 2023 by

Saint Matrona of Perge, who lived as a eunuch named Babylas, founded a convent where nuns dressed as men in 5th-century Constantinople. The feast day of Matrona / Babylas is Nov. 9.

Nuns under the leadership of Matrona / Babylas were granted a unique privilege by the local abbott: “He did not give her woolen girdles and veils such as women were accustomed to wear, but men’s wide black leather belts and men’s white mantles. And these they wore continuously,” says an early source quoted in “Passionate Holiness: Marginalized Christian Devotions for Distinctive People” by Dennis O’Neill. The book covers many queer saints and has a whole chapter on “Saint Matrona of Perge and Her Other Nuns Who Dressed as Men.”

The story of Matrona / Babylas is similar to more than a dozen queer saints who are venerated as women who cross-dressed in order to serve God and avoid marriage. An overview of them is presented in “Trans Saints? Early cross-dressing monks and martyrs.”

Q Spirit is pleased to share the following profile of Matrona / Babylas by Terence Weldon, a gay Catholic expert on queer saints. Language for describing transgender experience is changing quickly. This article maintains all of Weldon’s original wording, even though some vocabulary may already seem outdated.

Nov 9th: St. Matrona/Babylas of Perge

By Terence Weldon

(Reposted from Queering the Church with permission)

St Matrona /Babylas of Perge is one of a number of female saints in the early church who dressed as men to be admitted to all-male monasteries. The stories and motives of these women are remote from our time, and ‘transvestite’ is not to be confused with ‘transgendered’. Still, whatever the full historic truth, it seems to me these are useful stories to hold on to as reminders of the important place of the transgendered, and differently gendered, in our midst. Many of us will remember how difficult and challenging was the process of recognising, and then confronting, our identities as lesbian or gay, particularly in the context of a hostile church. However difficult and challenging we may have found the process of honestly confronting our sexual identities, consider how much more challenging must be the process of confronting and negotiating honestly a full gender identity crisis. Their stories collectively also carry a sobering reminder of the differing regard given by society of the time to male and female lives – else why would women have sought out male monasteries, in spite of the risks and discomfort to themselves of their lives in disguise, if not expectation of some greater spiritual reward than in a female convent?

Our Holy Mother Matrona (492 AD):

She was from Perga in Pamphylia, and married very young, to a youth named Domitian, to whom she bore a daughter. The couple settled in Constantinople. Matrona became so constant in attending all-night vigils in the city’s many churches that her husband suspected her of infidelity and forbade her to go out. This was unbearable to Matrona, who fled the house with her daughter. Determined to embrace monastic life, she gave her daughter into the care of a nun named Susanna, disguised herself as a eunuch, and entered the monastery of St Bassian (October 10) under the name of Babylas. Though she amazed all with her zeal and ascetic labors, Bassian one day discerned that she was a woman. Though he reprimanded her severely because of her zeal, he was unwilling to drive her away from monastic life because of her zeal; so he directed her to go to Emesa in Syria to enter a certain women’s monastery there.

Matrona continued to advance in the virtues, and once healed a blind man by anointing his eyes with myrrh from the head of St John the Baptist (which had been miraculously discovered around that time). The miracle became widely-known, and because of it Matrona’s husband learned of her whereabouts. When he came to her monastery she escaped to Jerusalem, but he pursued her there too. She fled from place to place, even living for several years in an abandoned pagan temple in Beirut, where she was constantly assaulted by the demons that inhabited the place. In time several pagan women, seeing her struggles, asked to be her disciples, and a small monastic community sprang up in the pagan temple. After a few years she and her disciples made their way back to Constantinople, where St Bassian received her joyfully and helped her to establish a monastery. There she was visited by the Empress Verina, wife of Leo the Great, and many other noblewomen of the City, some of whom left all to join Matrona in monastic life. Saint Matrona lived to be almost one hundred years old and reposed in peace, having foretold the day of her death.

–“God is Wonderful in His Saints“

(For much more on the history of Matrona / Babylas, see the “The Life of St. Matrona of Perge, as given by Symeon Metaphrates”, (available on-line at the Medieval Sourcebook).

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Terence Weldon is an openly gay Catholic who blogs at Queering the Church. Originally from South Africa, he is a partnered father and grandfather based in the United Kingdom.

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Is this what the cross-dressing nuns looked like? Detail from a painting by Il Sodoma (WikiGallery)

Editor’s note: I searched hard a painting of Matrona / Babylas with the nuns dressed as men, but couldn’t find any. This image of androgynous monks may give some sense of their style. It is painted by the Renaissance artist known as “Il Sodoma,” a reference to his reputation for homosexuality.

Books and links related to Matrona / Babylas of Perge

Reading Matrona: The Sixth Century Life of a Trans Saint (doctoral dissertation by Rebecca E. Wiegel)

“Passionate Holiness: Marginalized Christian Devotions for Distinctive People” by Dennis O’Neill

“Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints’ Lives in English Translation” by Alice-Mary Talbot

“Women of Bible Lands: A Pilgrimage to Compassion and Wisdom” by Martha Ann Kirk

Medieval society was fascinated by female-to-male cross-dressing. “Clothes Make the Man: Female Cross Dressing in Medieval Europe” by Valerie R. Hotchkiss has a wonderful “Hagiographic Appendix” with short bios of no less than 34 “transvestite saints.” All of them involve some form of cross-dressing to serve God, protect their virginity or avoid marriage.
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Top image credit: Matrona of Perge from the Menologion of Basil II, an 11th-century illuminated Byzantine manuscript with 430 miniatures, now in Vatican library (Wikipedia)

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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBT and queer martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.

This article was originally published on Q Spirit in November 2019, was expanded with new material over time, and was most recently updated on Nov. 9, 2023.

The post Queer saint Matrona / Babylas of Perge founded 5th-century convent of nuns who dressed as men appeared first on Q Spirit.

Thomas(ine) Hall: Intersex in colonial America

Last Updated on November 7, 2023 by

Thomas(ine) Hall was an intersex person in 17th-century colonial America who caused controversy by switching back and forth between genders. The Jamestown court ruled that Hall was both “a man and a woman” and ordered him/her to wear male and female clothing simultaneously.

Hall’s story is presented here for the “Fourteen Days of Intersex” between Intersex Awareness Day (Oct. 26) and Intersex Day of Remembrance (Nov. 8).

“Thomas or Thomasine Hall” by the Corpse Debutante

A baby was born in England around 1603, baptized by the name Thomasine and raised as a girl. Hall began alternating between male and female identities upon reaching adulthood. Hall cut his/her hair and served as a in the English military, fighting in France against Catholic persecution of the Protestant Huguenots.  Next Hall earned a living as a woman doing needlework and making lace.

Hall heard of job opportunities in North America. Around 1626 s/he switched to male attire and took a ship to Virginia, where he worked as a male servant. Gossipy neighbors noticed that Hall changed between male and female dress and mannerisms, and rumors spread that Hall had both male and female sex partners.

Neighbors tried to settle the gender question with careful inspections of Hall’s body during sleep and at other times. Results were indeterminate, since Hall lacked a “readable set of female genitalia” and had a “small penis” (one inch long). Apparently Hall had the condition that modern society calls intersex or hermaphrodite.

An official inquiry was begun and reached the court of Jamestown, Virginia in 1629. With Governor John Pott presiding, the court heard from Hall and several witnesses. In the first such decision in early colonial history, the court ruled on April 8, 1629 that Hall had a “dual nature” and was both “a man and a woman.”

In Europe such cases had been resolved by forcing the person to adopt one gender permanently. But Hall was ordered to pay a fine and wear a mixed-gender outfit men’s clothing with a woman’s s cap and apron. The court’s goal was to subject Hall to shame and ridicule with this hybrid attire. Nothing definite is known about what happened later in Hall’s later life.

Hall’s history is told in “Thomas(ine) Hall, Gender Non-conforming in Colonial Virginia,” 2020 video and article from the New York Historical Society.

“The most alone soul in the world”

A portrait of Hall in her/her unisex attire was sketched by an artist who blogs under the pen name Corpse Debutante. “All we can really know is that Tom Hall must have been the most alone soul in the world at that moment, and furthermore, that s/he looked ridiculous,” Debutante wrote when  posting the portrait on her blog.

There was no church yet in Jamestown at the time of Hall’s trial, but Jamestown settlers were members of the official Church of England. In contrast, the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts was founded by Puritans, who opposed the Church of England. Puritan theologians generally considered intersex people “abomination unto the Lord” (based on Deuteronomy 22:5) for threatening society’s use of clothing to distinguish men and women.

Journalist Don Floyd wrote a historical novel based on Hall’s life titled “The Captain and Thomasine: Jamestown’s Intersexual Outcast Redeems A Patriot’s Dream.”

Historians describe Hall’s life in books such as “Founding Mothers and Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society” by Cornell University history professor Mary Beth Norton, a chapter by Kathleen M. Brown in “The Devil’s Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South” and a  chapter by Mary Norton in “Through a Glass Darkly: Reflections on Personal Identity in Early America.”

Fourteen Days of Intersex

Intersex Awareness Day (Oct. 26) commemorates the first public demonstration by intersex people in North America. On Oct. 26, 1996, protesters gathered in Boston outside the annual conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Organizers had intended to speak at the conference to challenge the assumption that intersex children need cosmetic surgery, but security guards forced them out so they protested with a sign saying, “Hermaphrodites With Attitude.”

Two intersex-affirming hymns were written by Daniel Charles Damon in 2022 for a worship service observing Intersex Solidarity Day at The Table, an LGBTQIA+ centered faith collective in Nashville, Tennessee. Damon pastors First United Methodist Church in Richmond, California. The hymns are “Intersex People” and “O God, You Share Your Beauty.”

Intersex Day of Remembrance, also known as Intersex Solidarity Day, occurs on Nov. 8 for the birthday of French intersex person Herculine Barbin. Philosopher Michel Foucault published her memoirs in “Herculine Barbin: Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth-Century French Hermaphrodite.”

Intersex Awareness Day tends to be celebrated in North America, while Europe emphasizes Intersex Day of Remembrance.  Some countries honor both events and the whole period between as “Fourteen Days of Intersex.”

Intersex theology emerges and inspires

Innovative theologians are developing theologies that affirm intersex people and explore how intersex conditions can inspire church and society by challenging rigid religious assumptions. Their books include:

“Religion and Intersex: Perspectives from Science, Law, Culture and Theology” by Stephanie Budwey.

Theology provides reasons to open up the gender binary and embrace intersex people in a scholarly study that is built on interviews with German intersex Christians. The author is assistant professor of worship at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee. Price warning: Kindle book is under $50, but print book is more than $100. Published by Routledge.

 

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BESTSELLER AT JESUS IN LOVE
“Sex Difference in Christian Theology: Male, Female, and Intersex in the Image of God” by Megan K. DeFranza.

Recommended in the Intersex Christians group on Facebook. Solid theological analysis challenges the gender binary with Biblical resources on eunuchs and critiques various models of sexuality and gender based on images of Christ and God. Author Megan K. DeFranza shows that all people are made in God’s image: male, female and intersex. She has taught at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. This was her first book, published by a major academic religious press (Eerdmans) and endorsed by queer scholars such as Susannah Cornwall.

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“Sex and Uncertainty in the Body of Christ: Intersex Conditions and Christian Theology” by Susannah Cornwall.

Theological implications of physical intersex conditions and their medical treatment are examined. The book expands the meaning of incarnation and argues for a theology that encompasses stigmatized and marginalized bodies. This is the first systematic theology of the intersexed body, published in 2014. The author teaches theology at the University of Exeter in England.

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“Intersex, Theology, and the Bible: Troubling Bodies in Church, Text, and Society” by Susannah Cornwall (editor).

Intersex people have been considered troubling because they are not easily classified as male or female, challenging the binary sex system of Western societies. Here scholars suggest that intersex people provide positive value by challenging dubious assumptions in religion and society. Writers consider intersex conditions from a range of perspectives, including constructive and pastoral theologies, biblical studies of eunuchs, and sociology of religion. The book features essays by Megan Shannon DeFranza, Joseph A. Marchal, Nathan Carlin and more. Cornwall is an advanced research fellow in theology and religion at the University of Exeter.

“Intersex in Christ: Ambiguous Biology and the Gospel” by Jennifer Anne Cox. Published by Wipf and Stock, 2018.

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Related links:

“Seeing Eye to ‘I’: Celebrating Intersex Awareness Day with Thomas/ine Hall, an Intersex Virginian” by Ren Tolson (colonialwilliamsburg.org)

Jemima Wilkinson: Queer preacher reborn in 1776 as “Publick Universal Friend” (Q Spirit)

Sally Gross: Intersex South African priest led legal reform after being defrocked (Q Spirit)

“Intersexuality and Scripture” by Sally Gross, 1998 (Engender.org)

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Top image credit: Video still from “Thomas(ine) Hall, Gender Non-conforming in Colonial Virginia,” a 2020 video from the New York Historical Society.
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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBTQ martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.

This article was originally published on Q Spirit in November 2016, was expanded with new material over time, and was most recently updated on Oct. 31, 2023.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.

The post Thomas(ine) Hall: Intersex in colonial America appeared first on Q Spirit.

Malachy of Armagh: Same-sex soulmate to Bernard of Clairvaux

Last Updated on November 2, 2023 by

Malachy of Armagh is an 11th-century Irish saint who died in the arms of his more famous soulmate, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. Their monastic community honored the male couple as “two stars of such surpassing brightness” and a “twofold treasure.” Bernard showered Malachy with kisses during his lifetime and they are buried together, wearing each other’s clothes. Malachy’s feast day is Nov. 3.

This pair is of special interest to the LGBTQ community because of their close, loving same-sex relationship.

Malachy is also the attributed author for the “Prophecy of the Popes,” which predicted that there would be 112 more popes before the Last Judgment. Most scholars dismiss the document as an elaborate 16th-century hoax. Still it’s sobering that the 112th and final pope in the prophecy is the current pontiff, Pope Francis. The prophecy remains popular with doomsday fanatics.

Malachy (1094 – Nov. 2, 1148) was born in Armagh in Ireland and rose to become archbishop.In Middle Irish his name is Máel Máedóc Ua Morgair. He became Ireland’s first native-born saint to be canonized.

Bernard of Clairvaux by Rowan Lewgalon

He was primate of all Ireland when he first visited the French monastery at Clairvaux around 1139. The abbott in charge was Bernard (1090-1153), a mystical author, advisor to five Popes and a monastic reformer who built the Cistercian order of monks and nuns. Bernard is considered to be the last of the Church Fathers. They soon became devoted, passionate friends. Malachy even asked the Pope for permission to become a Cistercian, but the Pope refused.

Malachy traveled to see Bernard again in 1142. They were so close that Bernard covered him with kisses in a scene that is described well by Orthodox priest Richard Cleaver in “Know My Name: A Gay Liberation Theology”: “Bernard’s account makes deeply romantic reading for a modern gay man. “Oscula rui,” Bernard says of their reunion: “I showered him with kisses.”

Their relationship had lasted almost a decade when Malachy reunited with Bernard for the third and final time. Malachy fell sick when he arrived in Clairvaux in 1148. He died in Bernard’s arms on All Soul’s Day, Nov. 2. Again Cleaver tells the details based on accounts by Geoffrey, Bernard’s secretary and traveling companion:

“Geoffrey of Auxerre tells us what happened later. Bernard put on the habit taken from Malachy’s body as it was being prepared for burial at Clairvaux, and he wore it to celebrate the funeral mass. He chose to sing not a requiem mass but the mass of a confessor bishop: a personal canonization and, incidentally, an example of using liturgy to do theology. Bernard himself was later buried next to Malachy, in Malachy’s habit. For Bernard, as for us today, this kind of passionate love for another human being was an indispensable channel for experiencing the God of love.”

After Malachy’s death Bernard lived on for another five years. During this time he wrote “Life of Saint Malachy of Armagh,” which is his idealized tribute to the man he loved.

Malachy of Armagh in art

Bernard forbid sculptures and paintings at the monastery during his lifetime, but by the late 15th century the altarpiece at the Clairvaux Abbey had a painting of Christ’s baptism being jointly witnessed by Bernard and Malachy.

Bernard and Malachy in the Le Cellier Altarpiece

Bernard and Malachy gather others around the throne of the Madonna and child in the Le Cellier Altarpiece from 1509 by Jean Bellegambe. Bernard stands on the left while Malachy stands on the right. It comes from a chapel in the Cistercian abbey of Clairvaux.

The Irish archbishop gazes from beneath a monk’s hood in a stormy landscape in the striking contemporary portrait of Saint Malachy as a young man at the top of this post. It was created by Rowan Lewgalon, a spiritual artist based in Germany and a cleric in the Old Catholic Apostolic Church.

Malachy and Bernard were men of their time who supported church teachings on celibacy. People today might say that they had a homosexual orientation while abstaining from sexual contact. Medieval mystics created alternative forms of sexuality that defy contemporary categories, but might be encompassed by the term “queer.” They directed their sexuality toward God and experienced God’s love through deep friendship with another human being… such as the relationship between Malachy and Bernard.

A prayer written by Bernard’s secretary Geoffrey shows how the community at Clairvaux understood and celebrated the man-to-man love between Bernard and Malachy. He thanks God for these “two stars of such surpassing brightness” and “twofold treasure.”
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Top image credit: “Malachy of Armagh” by Rowan Lewgalon

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To read this post in Spanish / en español, go to Santos Queer:
San Malaquías de Armagh: El alma gemela de Bernardo de Claraval

To read this post in Latvian, go to:
Viena dvēsele un viena miesa – Bernards no Klervo un visas Īrijas arhibīskaps Malahijs… (www.didziskukainis.lv)

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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBTQ martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.

This article was originally published at Q Spirit in November 2016 and was most recently updated on Nov. 2, 2023.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

The post Malachy of Armagh: Same-sex soulmate to Bernard of Clairvaux appeared first on Q Spirit.

Litany of Queer Saints

Last Updated on November 1, 2023 by

LGBTQ saints and martyrs are remembered in the Litany of Queer Saints from Q Spirit. The prayer was created by Q Spirit founder Kittredge Cherry. She also wrote a major essay on why we need LGBTQ saints.

Both traditional and alternative saints are featured. It is a work in progress, so please add your prayers as comments! This is a living litany that will continue to grow and change.

The litany is partially inspired by prayers posted as comments on social media.  Cherry began by editing and expanding prayers that she found online. To make the litany more diverse and complete, she wrote additional text.

The Litany of the Saints is one of the oldest forms of prayer in Christian tradition.  It has been in continuous use by the Catholic church since the third century in various forms.

Q Spirit also hosts LGBTQ Saints Facebook group. It was launched on All Saints Day 2019. It grew to more than 1,500 members in its first year.

Litany of Queer Saints

Loving God of the rainbow promise, thank you for the lives of the LGBTQ saints and martyrs. May they shine forever in your rainbow light, inspiring us live with courage and compassion..

Saints of Stonewall, who performed the miracle of transforming self-hatred into pride, pray for us. May the saints of Stonewall continue to inspire all who seek justice and equality!

Saint Joan of Arc, courageous queer warrior who defied gender norms, pray for us.

Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus, Roman soldiers united in love and death, pray for us.

Saints Perpetua and Felicity, who shared a kiss before dying, patron saints of same-sex couples, pray for us.

Saint Mychal Judge, gay chaplain who lost his life while ministering in the 9/11 terrorist attack, pray for us.

Our Lady of the Rainbow, Mother of Diversity, we your LGBTQ children call on you.  Comfort, guide, inspire, liberate and protect us.  Wrap us in your rainbow mantle as Our Mother of Pride.

All Saints by Gerd Altmann (Pixabay)

Saint Sebastian, suffering with courage when pierced by arrows, a, pray for us.

Saint Marsha P. Johnson, Stonewall instigator, revolutionary black trans activist, Andy Warhol model, drag queen, pray for us and come to greet us when our mortal life is over.

Saint Francis of Assisi, gender nonconformist who loved all creation without limits, pray for us.

Saint John, Beloved Disciple, apostle who shared special love with Jesus, pray for us.

Saint Harvey Milk, martyred gay rights pioneer and San Francisco politician, pray for us.

Saint Simeon Bachos the Ethiopian eunuch, who was welcomed by the early church as part of God’s creative diversity, pray for us.

Saint Matthew Shepard, crucified by men who hate, young forever, pray for us.

Our Lady of Montevergine, patron of queer people since medieval times, protect us when we are rejected and keep us safe from harm and hate.

Saint Alan Turing, British computer scientist whose wartime codebreaking saved millions of lives, pray for us.

Saint Desmond Tutu, South Africa’s strong LGBTQ ally who taught that racism and homophobia are connected, pray for us.

Dame Julian of Norwich, who celebrated “Mother Jesus,” pray for gender fluidity.

King David and Jonathan, examples of same-gender love in the Hebrew scriptures, whose love was wonderful, surpassing the love of women in the Hebrew scriptures, pray for us.

Madre Juana de la Cruz, genderfluid Spanish saint who said God changed her from male to female in the womb, pray for us.

Sor Juana de la Cruz, great literary nun who advocated for women and loved a countess in 17th-century Mexico City, pray for us.

Saint Aelred, who found divine love through friendships with other men, pray for us.

Saint Brigid and saint Darlughdach, women soulmates whose life together was aflame with the Holy Spirit, pray for us.

Saint John Henry Newman, you are an example of true friendship and Love. Pray for us to appreciate and hold our friends closely even in Death.

Like Saint Bayard Rustin, may we stand up and speak out for our LGBTQ dreams…

Saint Pauli Murray, we join you in asking for a song of hope in a weary throat, and a world where we can sing it.  Pray for us.

Faithful centurion, whose boyfriend was healed by Jesus at your request, pray for us!

Saint David Kato, Ugandan LGBTQ activist and martyr, pray for us.

Saint Valentine, help everyone to find and keep their true God-appointed love. Guide the church to affirm and bless all those whom God has joined together, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Saints Jeanne Manford and Adele Starr, mothers of gay sons and co-founders of PFLAG, thank you for the healing power of your great love!

Saint Philip, who welcomed the Ethiopian eunuch to the early church, role model for LGBTQ allies, pray for sexual minorities and cast your Welcome into their hearts.

Saint Vida Dutton Scudder, educator and welfare activist, help us to be social reformers.

Two-Spirit people, whose indigenous cultures recognized alternative genders and whose tribal nations continue today despite colonization, inspire us to reclaim gender diversity.

Martyrs of the Club Q shooting in Colorado, who died when gunfire shattered love and dancing, pray for us.

Pulse 49 Martyrs of Orlando, shielding those you loved with your own bodies, pray for us and lend us your courage.

Martyrs of the UpStairs Lounge fire, whose memory burns in our hearts, pray for us.

Martyrs of the pink triangle and the black triangle, sent to concentration camps by the Nazis for homosexuality, pray for us.

All who have lived and died for love, peace and justice, pray for us.

All our holy innocents and martyrs, pray for us.  Blessed be all the queer lives lost due to ignorance and hatred.

Jesus, friend and liberator of outcasts, tortured and killed on the cross for loving beyond limits, pray for us.

Prophets in our midst usually get marginalized and thumped down by the powers that be. Thank you, Holy Sophia, for blessing and encouraging them to witness and reveal aspects of your sweet mercy and love!

Thank you, Great Teachers, as we continue to grow in knowledge of those who have gone before us. May you be surrounded by the Divine Light especially as we give thanks for you.

All you LGBTQ saints, named and unnamed, pray for us. Empowered by your spirit and your example, we move forward in solidarity with all creation to embody justice, love, integrity and peace. May your memories be a powerful call to action.

On your shoulders we stand!

Blessed be your memory!

May your rainbow light shine upon us!

Amen. Amen. Amen.

How people use the Litany of Queer Saints

People have used the Litany of Queer Saints for a wide variety of settings. New Ways Ministry, one of the first and largest LGBTQ Catholic advocacy organizations, posted a shorter adapted version in its reflection for the Solemnity of All Saints in 2022.

Matt Nightingale, pastor of The Quest, a progressive church in Novato, California, tweeted the entire Litany of Queer Saints, broken down into 39 short tweets, for All Saints Day on Nov. 1, 2022.  He retweeted the litany  less than a month later after the shooting at the LGBTQ bar Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado. A queer spiritual support group called Breathe at the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center of the Greater Lehigh Valley in Allentown, Pennsylvania, planned to use the litany in December 2022.

Resources for Litany of Queer Saints

Shorter adapted version of Q Spirit’s Litany of Queer Saints (New Ways Ministry)

Litany of Queer Saints by artist Tony O’Connell

DignityHouston Litany of LGBTQ+ Saints

The Queer Divine Praises: A Poem-Prayer by Flora X. Tang

Links related to LGBTQ Saints

Why we need LGBTQ saints by Kittredge Cherry

LGBTQ Saints Facebook group from Q Spirit

Calendar of LGBTQ Saints from Q Spirit

All Saints Day: LGBTQIA+ Community Prayer of Thanks, Reflection and Courage from Q Spirit

LGBTQ-friendly memorial for All Saints, All Souls and Day of the Dead

“A Prayer to the Sainted Aunts” by Anna Onni honors LGBTQ elders and mentors

Litany of Queer Saints is translated into other languages

To read the Litany of Queer Saints in Spanish, go to:
Letanía de lxs Santxs Queer (Santos Queer blog)

To read the Litany of Queer Saints in Portuguese, go to:
Ladainha dos Santos Queer (Litany of Queer Saints in Portuguese)

Books related to LGBTQ saints

Passionate Holiness: Marginalized Christian Devotions for Distinctive People by Dennis O’Neill

Heavenly Homos, Etc.: Queer Icons from LGBTQ Life, Religion, and History by Jan Haen.  (Hannacroix, NY: Apocryphile Press, 2022.)

Heavenly LGBTQ+: Queer Icons from LGBTQ Life, Religion and History by Jan Haen. (Hannacroix, NY: Apocryphile Press, 2023.)

“Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography,” edited by Alicia Spencer-Hall and Blake Gutt. (Amsterdam University Press, 2021)

Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the 14th Century by John Boswell.  University of Chicago Press, 1981.

The Double: Male Eros, Friendships, and Mentoring–from Gilgamesh to Kerouac by Edward Sellner

Sanctity And Male Desire: A Gay Reading Of Saints by Donald Boisvert

The Essential Gay Mystics by Andrew Harvey.  Published by Book Sales, 1998.

Clothes Make the Man: Female Cross Dressing in Medieval Europe by Valerie R. Hotchkiss

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Top image credit:
Pictured in the collage of queer saints are: top, left to right: Sergius and Bacchus by Alessio Ciani, Matthew Shepard by Andrew Freshour, Marsha P. Johnson by Kelly Latimore, David and Jonathan by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld. Bottom, left to right, Joan of Arc by Katy Miles-Wallace of Queerly Christian, Perpetua and Felicity by Angela Yarber of Tehom Center, Sebastian by Il Sodoma, and Sor Juana de la Cruz by Miguel Cabrera.

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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBT and queer martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.

This article was originally published in October 2019, was expanded with new material over time, and was most recently updated on Nov. 1, 2023.

The post Litany of Queer Saints appeared first on Q Spirit.

Why we need LGBTQ saints: A queer theology of sainthood

Last Updated on November 1, 2023 by

It’s time to welcome the queer saints. Many believe that saints and other souls will visit for Halloween, All Saints Day, All Souls Day, and Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos). The LGBTQ saints are important because people are searching for alternative ways to lead loving lives.

LGBTQ saints show us not only THEIR place in history, but also OUR place — because we are all potential saints who are meant to embody love.  We can tap into the energy of our ancestors in faith. We can absorb different ways of being when we see how the LGBTQ saints interacted with the world and with God. By showing us what is possible, they can inspire us to find our voice and be our best. By learning about their human struggles, we engage in a process of wisdom and discernment. They can protect us from harm, such as psychological damage inflicted by anti-LGBTQ attacks in God’s name. They shed light on our resilience and open new channels in our hearts and minds.  For some, the queer saints become friends and helpers, working miracles large and small, some as simple yet profound as a reminding us that “you are not alone.”

LGBTQ people have always existed, in every time, place and culture.  We are part of God’s fabulous plan. Our history is our power. Remembering it and passing it on is a sacred responsibility that shapes the future. Telling the truth about the past creates justice now. The history of our queer saints is precious and hard to find, so I am sharing as much as I know, even though it remains work in progress. Churches have tried to control people by burying queer history, so we have to search extra hard for small clues — and make a big deal out of what we find — to compensate for past bias.  We need to see as many images of LGBTQ holiness as possible, to counteract all the hate and erasure. They can inspire us to trust our divine intuition, even when it leads to unfamiliar, uncomfortable, unconventional places.  I feel called to help everybody have access to LGBTQ saints. It has been said that if you think of a saint, that means there was already a connection and that saint approached you first.  We as LGBTQ people need to see our own sacred worth, and other Christians need to see us as part of the church too.

Most lived before the idea of LGBTQ evolved and many details of their lives are unknown, so they are saints **of special interest** to the LGBTQ community, while not necessarily being LGBTQ themselves.  It is not necessary to twist history to create LGBTQ saints in order to connect with God or participate in the church.  Those are human rights.  Sometimes I may go too far in labeling historical figures as LGBTQ saints, but I would rather err on the side of affirming LGBTQ people as a way to counteract all the hate and discrimination that was done over the centuries in the name of the God.

Saints tend to be the folk heroes of various groups, cultures, occupations, and nations. For example, there are African saints, Irish saints, women saints — and now LGBTQ saints. As Vatican advisor and Jesuit priest James Martin notoriously told faithful Catholics in 2017, “A certain percentage of humanity is gay, and so were most likely some of the saints. You may be surprised when you get to heaven to be greeted by LGBT men and women.”

At first I thought that LGBTQ saints were rare. Gradually as I researched them over the years, I came to see that they are everywhere throughout all time and they are among us now. We have all met saints in our lives. They are ordinary people who are also extraordinary.

I offer reflections on what I have learned by writing more than 130 profiles of saints in the LGBTQ Saints Series since 2009.  It has been a collective effort as readers informed and inspired me with their suggestions.  I aim to live up to these words about me from James Weiss, Episcopal priest and associate professor of church history at Boston College: “You yourself are an historian of the very best kind, using historical scholarship to provide those on the margin with a heritage they never knew they had — and also correcting and critiquing all the misrepresentations.”

One of the greatest challenges has been to figure out who is a “saint” and who is “LGBTQ.” It is hard to draw the line for who to include. If the boundaries of sainthood are nebulous, then the definition LGBTQ is even more fluid. This article is my queer theology of sainthood.

Who are the LGBTQ saints?

Many people are eager to know the names and histories of LGBTQ and queer saints. They include same-sex pairs, gender-nonconforming saints, mystics who had holy homoerotic visions of God, and more.  My list also incorporates modern LGBTQ religious leaders and martyrs.  For specifics about this rainbow tribe, visit the LGBTQ saints page, check out the calendar of LGBTQ saints, and join my LGBTQ Saints Facebook group. These individuals represent the contributions of vast numbers of LGBTQ people all over the world.

Prints of “Saints Sergius and Bacchus” by Robert Lentz are available through Amazon and Trinity Stores. Photo by Scott Sella.

LGBTQ saints can be broadly organized into two overlapping categories: religious figures whose queer side has been hidden, and LGBTQ people whose spiritual side has been downplayed.  The mission of finding LGBTQ saints becomes a matter of either queering the saints or sainting the queers.

Historically most mainstream churches refused to canonize any saints who were openly LGBTQ, so we must claim and reframe our own saints. It’s important to re-evaluate familiar figures as well as to recover those who have been lost and to recognize the saints of our own time. The church may seem to have the power to decide who is a saint, but each individual can also choose for themselves. Everyone has the responsibility — and the joy — of discovering the saints in their own way in their own time.  The apostle Paul urges us to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).  Church actions against queer people have caused many in the LGBTQ community to take an anti-religious stance.  Uncovering the spiritual or religious side of secular LGBTQ icons can be just as hard as finding the queer side of saints on the official church roster.

Approach authorized saints with care.  Traditional stories of the saints tend to be overly pious, presenting idealized super-heroes who may seem distant, irrelevant or even hostile. Sometimes saints have been used to get people to passively accept oppressive situations. Queer Quaker scholar Mitch Gould summed up the dilemma well when he wittily warned me, “Sainthood is a devilishly nuanced accusation.” Too often the saints have been put on a pedestal to prop up institutional power while glorifying virginity and masochistic suffering. The emphasis on miracles may disrespect nature, the ongoing miracle of life.

Church leaders have sometimes used saints to impose control from the top down, but the desire for saints springs naturally from the grassroots. People are drawn to the presence of spiritual power in the lives of the saints, and their willingness to use that power for others, even at great cost to themselves. Saints attract others with the quality of their love, even though their personal lives may not be “saintly.”

Feminists have criticized saints as tools of the dominant morality, but with LGBTQ saints the opposite can be true: They can shake up the status quo. We can regenerate the complex reality of saints whose lives are being hijacked by hagiographies and hierarchy to enforce the established power structures. Queer saints can help reclaim the wholeness, connecting sexuality and spirituality for the good of all.

LGBTQ saints inspire and protect

Naming someone a “queer saint” may seem like a contradiction in terms to some, but it is a liberating act in two ways: The most obvious one is that revealing the hidden queer sexual orientation or gender identity of traditional saints can liberate people from sex-negative, oppressive church dogmas. Secondly revealing the unseen “saintliness” of seemingly secular LGBTQ people can liberate people from the tyranny that says sexuality must be separate from spirituality. Phrases like “queer saint” become a handy shorthand — neatly challenging the assumption that sainthood and LGBTQ identity are mutually exclusive.  All saints are queer in the sense that they are counter-cultural, presenting an alternative to compulsory heteronormativity, worldly power, and business as usual.

“Saint Sebastian” by Tony O’Connell

Without the LGBTQ saints, bad things can happen. The queer saints can serve as be a specific antidote to the poisonous theology that drives LGBTQ people to despair and suicide. Religious faith is a source of strength for most of the population, but it’s a hazard for LGBTQ people, according to a 2018 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. It found that LGBTQ people were more likely to consider and actually commit suicide if they were religious. Even those who leave the church usually wrestle with its after-effects.

The healing value of the LGBTQ saints can be seen in the work of gay artist Tony O’Connell.  He portrays a variety of queer saints, especially the martyrdom of Sebastian. “I have been aware for some years that a defining part of my life is the aftershock of having felt rejected by the Catholic Church and the scars that still leaves in me. (Hence the language of my art work),” O’Connell told Q Spirit. He sees himself as one of many LGBTQ people who experience Religious Trauma Syndrome, a form of post-traumatic stress disorder.

The LGBTQ community has a deep hunger for saints that share their experiences.  They express their longing in many ways, including the short prayers written as comments when I post my articles about queer saints on social media.  The prayers were so eloquent and moving that I created an ever-expanding Litany of Queer Saints.

Some readers object that I use the term “saint” too broadly in my LGBTQ Saints series, but most end up agreeing with the the critic who conceded, “If calling someone a saint enables us to emphasize the courage, insight, and importance of his contribution, then yes, I’ll call him a saint!”

What is a saint?

Dictionaries define a saint as “a holy person” or “an extremely virtuous person.”  People have been conditioned to esteem saints as idealized figures, but they were real human beings with internal conflicts and personalities forged in the fires of grief and discrimination.  The fact that they have flaws mixed with their virtues is part of their appeal. Canonizing actual, factual people who combine the sacred and profane affirms the wholeness of life itself. To be an angel implies perfection, but saints push the limits of their humanity.  As Emmy-nominated gay singer Tituss Burgess said in an interview, “Saints are just sinners who fell down and got back up.”

LGBTQ saints struggled like people today to reconcile sex and spirit, and different saints found different answers.  My definition of who qualifies as an “LGBTQ saint” continues to expand. First I included saints officially canonized by the church, but I soon discovered that many have achieved “sainthood” by popular acclaim. They were the people’s choice.  Sometimes we “canonize” our own beloved LGBTQ saints by popular acclaim, apart from any church hierarchy.  This is similar to how sainthood worked in the early church, before the era of popes.  The church didn’t even have a formal canonization process for its first thousand years. I also found that the church has overlooked or actively erased many worthy queer Christians of the past. Hiding our history is another form of oppression.

Saints are often used by the institutional church to promote their own agenda. But there are plenty of saints who stood up against the church hierarchy during their lifetimes. Like today’s LGBTQ Christians, the saints sometimes faced opposition from within the church. Some LGBTQ martyrs, including cross-dresser Joan of Arc, were killed BY the church, not FOR the church! Black gay civil-rights leader Bayard Rustin wrote, “We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.” The church needs its saintly troublemakers too.

Ultimately all believers, living and dead, can be called “saints,” a practice that began in the early church. In the New Testament, Paul used the word “saint” to refer to every member of the Christian community. The terminology continues to be used by church leaders such as Troy Perry, founder of the LGBTQ-affirming Metropolitan Community Churches. I have many fond memories of working with him at MCC headquarters, and one of them involves saints.  Whenever Troy wrote a letter to MCC members, he addressed it as “Dear Saints.” And we always got back some responses protesting, “I’m not a saint!” But in a very real sense, we are all saints.  LGBTQ people can overcome negative religious conditioning and grow spiritually when we stop waiting for official church recognition and name ourselves as saints.

I rather like the concept of sainthood that emerged in comments on my blog during a discussion of the post “Artist shows sensuous gay saints.” New Mexico artist Trudie Barreras wrote: “My definition of saint has absolutely nothing to do with what the hierarchical church defines, and everything to do with the quality of love displayed.” Or, as gay author Toby Johnson commented, “Being a saint means creating more love in the world.”

Can LGBTQ martyrs be called saints? Joan of Arc
by Robert Lentz
TrinityStores.com

Sainthood comes in many different forms. Some become saints by leading an exemplary life, but the surest path to sainthood is to risk or lose one’s life for the good of others. As Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13). Martyrs, from the Greek word for “to bear witness,” are a common type of saint.

Among modern LGBTQ saints, the one who is most likely to be recognized someday by the Roman Catholic church is a martyr: Mychal Judge.  He was a gay man who served as chaplain to New York City firefighters.  Judge was killed in the line of duty during the 9/11 terrorist attack.  A movement to canonize him is underway.  This effort got a boost in 2017 when Pope Francis added a new path for sainthood in the Catholic church:  dying in service to others, even if it was not a religious martyrdom.

Sometimes readers object that my LGBTQ saints series includes modern martyrs whose lives were not “saintly.” My understanding is that martyrs need not be role models, but they are honored simply because they were killed for a particular cause. Therefore I include people such as Matthew Shepard because they were killed for being queer and their deaths became a catalyst for LGBTQ rights, regardless of their personal flaws. A helpful term comes from the Eastern Orthodox tradition. They use the phrase “passion bearer” to honor a person who faces death in a Christ-like manner, even if they were not killed for their faith.

Anyone who is murdered for being LGBTQ can also be considered a martyr because the attack was triggered by their courage to live their socially unacceptable queer lives.  They became targets because they expressed their sexual orientation or gender identity, even if only partially or with some qualms.  LGBTQ martyrs are witnesses to the truth of how God created them, and thereby they reveal God. Traditional religious martyrs are killed due to odium fidei (hatred of their Christian faith), but Robert Shine of New Ways Ministries points out that LGBTQ martyrs are victims of odium amoris, or “hatred of love.” Whether or not they died as martyrs, the lives of the saints were indeed difficult. Our lives are difficult too — and that can become a point of connection.  The presence of martyrs who were killed unjustly may make some people uncomfortable, but it’s important to listen to the voices of the martyrs and join them in the work of righting wrongs.

Did all LGBTQ saints accept their queer identity?

There is debate about whether closeted, self-shaming people should be considered queer saints. The apostle Paul of Tarsus is a good example of this dilemma: He is a famous saint whose words have been misused to condemn homosexuality, but some Bible interpreters believe that he personally struggled against his own homosexual desires. Can people like Paul and Augustine be “queer saints” if they publicly condemned homosexual activity while being queer themselves in orientation if not in action? I include them in my LGBTQ Saints series, over some objections. Some refuse to count them as saints because they did so much damage by perpetuating church-sponsored homophobia and sexism, but others identify strongly with these conflicted saints.

This is also an issue for 20th-century saints who lived through great changes in society’s attitudes toward LGBTQ people.  Christian clergy such as Henri Nouwen and Pauli Murray wrestled with church teachings on homosexuality and never reached the point of full self-acceptance or queer activism. It may be a sign of progress that some people now dismiss their struggles as unnecessary. But I don’t want to negate the integrity that such saints brought to their faith challenges.  The struggle to reconcile sexuality and spirituality is a significant part of the LGBTQ spiritual vocation, and many saints of all sexualities have sublimated their sexual energies into cultural, artistical, intellectual and spiritual pursuits to benefit society. They weren’t just torturing themselves, but rather were tortured by oppressive church teachings that were imposed upon them until they internalized them.

What is an LGBTQ saint?

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer did not exist as categories throughout most of the history in which the saints lived. Their presence on the LGBTQ Saint list means that they are of special interest to LGBTQ people, but it’s often impossible to confirm the actual sexual orientation or gender identity of historical figures. The term “queer” is increasingly used to describe gender-variant or homo-social people of the past, so I often use the phrase “queer saints” and “LGBTQ saints” interchangeably.

I try to be historically accurate and yet accessible while compensating for the way queer history was buried in the past.  Critics make a valid point when they say that it’s anachronistic to call historical figures “LGBTQ” because the concept didn’t exist back then. This is where I boldly go where some careful scholars fear to tread.  Elaborate scholarly and historical terms such as “same-sex desire,” “romantic friendship,” “homophile,” “homosocial,” “homoaffectionate,” “Uranians” and “inverts” are unfamiliar to the general public and can become gatekeepers that prevent ordinary people from getting access to the life-saving info that God loves LGBTQ people.

Harvey Milk
by Robert Lentz
TrinityStores.com

Some deny the existence of historical lesbian, gay and bisexual saints because it’s almost impossible to prove their sexual activity. Likewise is it difficult to decide whether historical figures fit into the contemporary category of transgender. I try to explain these controversies carefully in my profiles of LGBTQ saints.  Same-sex love does not have to be sexually consummated for someone to be honored as an LGBTQ saint. Deep love between two people of the same sex is enough. It’s about sexual orientation, not sexual activity. LGBTQ people today are inspired by the courage of paired historical saints who maintained a committed same-sex relationship even though homosexuality was outlawed.  Some LGBTQ saints are more queer-revered than queer, meaning that they are beloved in the queer community without much evidence of being queer.  Saint Sebastian is an example.

Homosexuality is more than sexual conduct. The American Psychological Association defines sexual orientation as “an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions.” The dominant Christian culture tried to suppress overt homosexuality, so any hint of homosexuality that survives in the historical record should be given extra significance. Many official saints were nuns or monks living in same-gender convents or monasteries.  Naturally their primary emotional attachments were to people of the same gender. The more I look, the more LGBTQ saints I find.  Soon almost all saints seem LGBTQ!

I want to emphasize that people can and do have deep same-sex friendships without an erotic component.  In expanding the boundaries of what it means to be a saint, I don’t want to narrow the definition of friendship.  I do claim same-sex paired saints as inspiration for the LGBTQ community, but I acknowledge that they may not have been queer themselves.  The same applies to saints who inspire the transgender community by breaking gender norms, but may not have been transgender in the contemporary sense.

Naturally various characteristics intersect in each individual, so every LGBTQ saint also has other identities based on their race, gender, nationality, occupation and other qualities and experiences.  I focus on the often under-reported queerness of saints, but in that process I seek to value the whole self of each saint by incorporating other facets that are integral to their being.

Through faith and imagination, we are reunited with those who have gone before. All the saints who ever lived are still right here, and when we tune into them, we are in good company.  Our queer ancestors were organizing long before the Stonewall Uprising sparked the modern LGBTQ movement.  Let us be inspired by the LGBTQ saints who surround us as a “great cloud of witnesses” and commit ourselves to our own queer paths toward sainthood.

Queer saints canonized by and for the LGBTQ community

Each community needs at least a few of its own saints, people who “look like me,” either literally or figuratively. Some of the LGBTQ saints are like local saints because their veneration rose from the grassroots in a specific community. They can be considered “folk saints” or “saints by popular acclamation.”

In Catholic tradition there are local saints who are honored by a specific community and universal saints who are canonized by the official church for widespread veneration. Local saints may not meet the standards for official canonization, but their role in inspiring their own community is crucial. Even after death they continue as active members of the LGBTQ community.

Marsha P. Johnson icon by Kelly Latimore

It’s challenging to find the right balance between history and hagiography when the LGBTQ community is so hungry for positive role models. Regardless of the historical facts, the “myths” about our saints get at archetypal truths. A good example are the “saints of Stonewall.” The LGBTQ community needed individuals to symbolize that decisive moment. Witnesses disagree about which individual triggered the uprising, but all three of the the most commonly named possibilities have denied throwing the first punch or brick at the rebellion. All are queer people of color: biracial lesbian Stormé DeLarverie and two self-professed “drag queens”: African American Marsha P. Johnson and Latina Sylvia Rivera.  Each of them has been called the Rosa Parks of the LGBTQ community. Whatever else they did or failed to do with the rest of their lives, these three have come to symbolize the moment when the LGBTQ community stopped accepting abuse and claimed the right to exist. Artists are creating many icons of Marsha P. Johnson in particular. They arise not only from Johnson’s contributions, but also from the desire for a black transwoman saint.

We in the LGBTQ community are doing citizen hagiography — crowd-sourcing the biographies of LGBTQ saints.  We are building hagiographies, a fancy word for the (usually idealized) biographies of holy people.  Citizen scientists do research and citizen historians document the past.  We can be called citizen hagiographers, community hagiographers or folk hagiographers.  I am grateful for those who join me on this sacred journey.

Why and how I write about LGBTQ saints Perpetua and Felicity
by Robert Lentz
Amazon or TrinityStores.com

My spiritual journey began with being raised in a mostly secular family, so I did not grow up with saints.  Still I have an inexplicable affinity for the folk devotion to saints as expressed from the grassroots by ordinary people. I began writing about LGBTQ saints in 2009 after finishing a series of books on the queer Christ (Jesus in Love novels, The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision, and Lambda Literary Award nominee Art That Dares). Many people told me that they couldn’t relate to a gay Jesus, but they liked the idea that LGBTQ people were among his followers, so I began to write about them.  My LGBTQ Saints series quickly became the most popular content on my blog.  It grew into the LGBTQ Saints series and calendar.  I launched the LGBTQ Saints group on Facebook on All Saints Day 2019, and more than 1,500 members joined in its first year. I have become a “saint whisperer,” a person who has developed an ability to communicate with saints, as a “horse whisperer” uses non-verbal cues to understand and work with horses.

I learned in seminary in the 1980s about new artwork and research on LGBTQ saints, so I was shocked to discover twenty years later that it was not easily available online. Largely due to the church’s ambivalence or even antagonism toward LGBTQ spirituality, much of it was buried under obscure code names like “images that challenge” — if it was available on the Internet at all.  I became a citizen historian who applies journalistic skills to the past instead of reporting on current events.

As an independent blogger, I am free to put LGBTQ saints out there where more people can find and benefit from them. I decided to uncover and highlight holy heroes and role models to inspire LGBTQ people of faith and our allies. The positive response confirmed that people are yearning to connect with queer people of faith who have gone before.  The queer saints fascinated me more and more as I dug into them. Kevin Elphick, a scholar of queer Franciscan saints, pointed out to me that the process is mutual: “And their stories in turn ‘dig into’ us and indwell there, so that our LGBT ancestors inhabit our lives with their holiness, precedent, and shared heritage.”

People ask how I pick the saints for my LGBTQ Saints series.  I’m always on the lookout for queer saints!  I’m guided by the Holy Spirit and my own curiosity as I surf the Web.  Sometimes it feels as if a particular saint reaches out to me, insisting that their story must be told.  Frequently friends alert me.  In many cases, I let artists lead me.  A beautiful icon or portrait of a saint often catches my eye and inspires me to do their profile. I make a conscious effort to present a diverse group of both familiar and unfamiliar saints from many times and places, cultures and races. I continue to reflect on questions of who to include on the LGBTQ saints calendar.  Is one queer incident in the life of a famous saint enough to qualify them for the LGBTQ saints calendar?  Do self-hating queers belong?  The institutional church only canonizes saints after their death, and I stick to that formula in my LGBTQ Saints series.  Christian art has a beautiful tradition of using a square halo to identify a living person destined for sainthood.

Working on each profile is like welcoming that saint as a houseguest.  Saints can feel distant, stiff and on-dimensional, so I try to imagine who among my friends might be most similar to a particular saint. They never completely leave, and I sense that I am surrounded by the saints. The Bible describes them as “a great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1). Researching saints can be like following clues on a uncharted trail to find a buried treasure.  Another blessing is getting to know the people devoted to each saint.  Some saints seem to have special advocates who urge me to write about them and supply a wealth of background material.  Each year on their feast days the saints guide me to touch base with their particular devotees.

“The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs” by Fra Angelico, 1428-30, Wikimedia Commons A work in progress

Over the years I accumulated an ever-growing to-do list to keep track of all the possible LGBTQ saints that came to my attention through research or suggestions from readers. When it grew to more than 150 names, I began to feel like I was sitting on a gold mine because I couldn’t keep up with researching and writing about all the possible queer saints.  Finally I realized that I should stop hanging onto all these names.  People need queer saints now.  So I put them all on the Q Spirit calendar page.

Originally I planned to write complete profiles of each saint before adding them to the Q Spirit website. I still aim to do profiles of every LGBTQ saint, but I hope that others will follow the shorthand clues on the calendar and do their own research. Studying and sharing the LGBTQ Saints series has taught me that different saints speak to particular people at specific times in their faith journeys.  I am sure that there are saints on my to-do list who are waiting eagerly to connect with the specific readers who feel drawn to them.

As a special service to readers, my calendar lists every queer saint that I could find, no matter how obscure, if they were officially canonized in any church tradition.  Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Anglican, Orthodox, Coptic and other saints are all on the calendar.  Most saints are listed on the date of their death (and entry into eternal life), in keeping with church tradition.

Celebrating All Saints, All Souls and Day of the Dead

All Saints Day (Nov. 1) used to be called All Hallows Day, and the preceding evening was the Eve of All Hallows, now celebrated as Halloween. In Catholic and Protestant Christianity, the Feast of All Saints commemorates all saints, known and unknown. The following day pays respect to others who have died. It is known as the Feast of All Souls or the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed.  Prayers are offered to ask the saints to help the living, and to offer help to the souls of deceased loved ones.

“Gay Wedding Tuxedo Skeletons for Day of the Dead” by Mister Reusch. His Etsy shop has signed art prints. Skeleton Brides are available too.

All Souls Day is celebrated in Latin America as the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos). The holiday is especially popular in Mexico, where the happy celebration is one of the biggest events of the year. Skeletons are an important symbol for Dia de los Muertos, representing rebirth into the next life.  There are even decorations of same-sex skeleton couples to mark the holiday in an LGBTQ way.  These holidays are also associated with the Celtic Festival of the Dead (Samhain). They grow out of the pagan belief that the souls of the dead return to visit at this time of year.

Religion and society have often dishonored and desecrated queer lives. May all saints and all souls be restored to wholeness and holiness as we remember them.

LGBTQ All Saints Day prayers

Q Spirit’s Litany of Queer Saints begins:

God, thank you for the lives of the LGBTQ saints and martyrs of rainbow light! May they inspire us to live with courage and loving hearts….

Click to read the whole Litany of Queer Saints.

The following prayer comes from “Sanctity and Male Desire: A Gay Reading of Saints” by Donald Boisvert:

Blessed gay saints and martyrs, of all times and of all places, shed your precious light and mercy upon us.  We salute you for your courageous, exemplary lives.  We hail your uncompromising and vibrant holiness.  We are grateful for your protection.  Stand with us in times good and bad, reaffirm us in our difficult choices, bless us in our gentle moments of grace.  Blessed Matthew Shepard, martyr, safeguard us.  Saints Sergius and Bacchus, show us the way of integrity and honor.  Saint Aelred of Rievaulx, teach us the wonders of friendship. Jonathan and David, bless us.  Nameless, loving monks of Riga, bless us.  May we grow to be more like you every day.  May we become the saints we are called to be.  Amen.

Books related to LGBTQ saints

Passionate Holiness: Marginalized Christian Devotions for Distinctive People by Dennis O’Neill

Heavenly Homos, Etc.: Queer Icons from LGBTQ Life, Religion, and History by Jan Haen.  (Hannacroix, NY: Apocryphile Press, 2022.)

“Heavenly LGBTQ+: Queer Icons from LGBTQ Life, Religion and History” by Jan Haen. (Hannacroix, NY: Apocryphile Press, 2023.)

“Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography,” edited by Alicia Spencer-Hall and Blake Gutt. (Amsterdam University Press, 2021)

Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the 14th Century by John Boswell.  University of Chicago Press, 1981.

The Double: Male Eros, Friendships, and Mentoring–from Gilgamesh to Kerouac by Edward Sellner

Sanctity And Male Desire: A Gay Reading Of Saints by Donald Boisvert

The Essential Gay Mystics by Andrew Harvey.  Published by Book Sales, 1998.

Clothes Make the Man: Female Cross Dressing in Medieval Europe by Valerie R. Hotchkiss

Links related to LGBTQ saints

Litany of Queer Saints from Q Spirit

LGBTQ Saints Facebook group from Q Spirit

Calendar of LGBTQ Saints from Q Spirit

Trans Saints? Early cross-dressing monks and martyrs from Q Spirit

All Saints Day: LGBTQIA+ Community Prayer of Thanks, Reflection and Courage from Q Spirit

LGBTQ-friendly memorial for All Saints, All Souls and Day of the Dead

I have expanded on the ideas presented here by writing theological reflections based on feminist and queer theology at the following two blogs:

Feminism and Religion Blog: Feminism leads to a queer theology of sainthood by Kittredge Cherry

99 Brattle (Episcopal Divinity School blog): A queer theology of sainthood emerges by Kittredge Cherry

Litany of the Queer Saints by Tony O’Connell

Dignity/Houston Litany of LGBTQ+ Saints

What queer theory taught me about the saints by Flora x. Tang

Benedict XVI in the Company of LGBTQ+ Saints by Jason Steidl (NewWaysMinistry.org)

The Catholic Church needs L.G.B.T. saints by Jim McDermott (America Magazine, June 2, 2022)

Queer Saints series by Terence Weldon (queerchurch.com)

For All the Saints (New Ways Ministry)

30 LGBT Saints (Advocate.com)

Trans Christianity: A Timeline of Gender Diversity in Christian History (queerlychristian.wixsite.com)

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Translations:

To read this post in Spanish / en español, go to Santos Queer:
¿Por qué necesitamos santas y santos LGBT?

To read this post in Italian, go to:
Perché abbiamo bisogno di santi LGBT (Gionata.org)

To read this post in Russian, go to:
Зачем нужны ЛГБТ-святые? (Nuntiare.org)

___
Top image credit:
God is enthroned in concentric rainbows with 24 elders seated within the outer rainbow in a detail from the 15th-century St. John Altarpiece by Hans Memling (Wikipedia.com). The image is based on John’s vision of the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation.

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This post is part of the LGBTQ Calendar series by Kittredge Cherry. The series celebrates religious and spiritual holidays, events in LGBTQ history, holy days, feast days, festivals, anniversaries, liturgical seasons and other occasions of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people of faith and our allies.

This article was originally published on Q Spirit in October 2016, was expanded with new material over time, and was most recently updated on Nov. 1, 2023.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.

The post Why we need LGBTQ saints: A queer theology of sainthood appeared first on Q Spirit.

2023 brings new LGBTQ Christian books and gifts

Last Updated on November 2, 2023 by

New LGBTQ Christian books are being published in 2023, including theology, Bible, history, memoir, church life and spirituality by diverse authors.

Here are summaries of LGBTQ Christian books released so far this year, plus lists of titles that are coming soon or recently published. As of May, major publishers seem to be releasing fewer LGBTQ Christian books in 2023, probably due to the economic slowdown. Hard-to-find new gifts for LGBTQ Christians and allies are included too. Books on this list cost less than $100 — usually A LOT less. This article will be updated continuously during the year.

Added in November

“My Life: as a Boy, Priest, Gay Man, and Artist” by Jan Haen.

An openly gay Roman Catholic priest reveals his adventurous life and ministry in this cartoon-style memoir. During a half-century of priesthood, author Jan Haen found surprising ways to unite his inclusive spirituality, queer sexuality, and monumental artistry across the globe in Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. He sparked both admiration and controversy by showing same-sex couples in his religious art. His first book “Heavenly Homos: Queer Icons from LGBTQ Life, Religion and History” was on the Q Spirit’s list of the top LGBTQ Christian books of 2022, and the sequel “Heavenly LGBTQ+” was published earlier this year. A full article about this new autobiography will be posted on Q Spirit later in November. Published by Apocryphile Press.

 

“Queering Christian Worship: Reconstructing Liturgical Theology” by Bryan Cones (editor) with Sharon R. Fennema W. Scott Haldeman Stephen Burns (contributing editors).

Delightfully queer ways to worship come to light in this illuminating collection of essays by leading scholars. They amplify the distinctive voices of LGBTQIA+ Christians who are transforming traditional liturgical practices, including preaching, sacraments, and music. The three-part book examines the growing impact of queer viewpoints on church rituals, provides case studies, and looks ahead at potential futures. Thoughtful reflections explore controversies that arose when more inclusive worship methods were introduced. Editor Bryan Cones holds a PhD in liturgical and practical theology from University of Divinity in Melbourne, Australia. The contributing editors are all professors of worship or liturgical theology. Contributors Susannah Cornwall and Stephanie Budwey have appeared before on Q Spirit’s annual list of the top LGBTQ Christian books. Scheduled for publication Nov. 21 by Seabury Books, an imprint of Church Publishing, an official publisher of worship resources for the Episcopal Church.

 

Recently released

“Rainbow Psalms in 30 Days” by Stephen Joseph Wolf (compiler). Published by ‎ IDJC Press.

“Holy Runaways: Rediscovering Faith After Being Burned by Religion” by Matthias Roberts. Published by Broadleaf Books.

“Raising Kids beyond the Binary: Celebrating God’s Transgender and Gender-Diverse Children” by Jamie Bruesehoff. Published by Broadleaf Books.

“Forward!: Thoughts of a Trans Woman on the Christian Journey” by Lynn Elizabeth Walker. Foreword by David E. Weekley. Published by Resource Publications, an imprint of Wipf and Stock.

Coming soon and available for pre-order

Nov. 7, 2023
“Queer Callings: Untimely Notes on Names and Desires” by Mark D. Jordan. Published by Fordham University Press.

Dec. 15, 2023
“Queering Black Churches: Dismantling Heteronormativity in African American Congregations” by Brandon Thomas Crowley. Published by Oxford University Press.

April 2, 2024
“Love Is Greater than AIDS: A Memoir of Survival, Healing, and Hope” by Stephen Pieters. Published by Rowman & Littlefield.

May 21, 2024
“Queering Contemplation: Finding Queerness in the Roots and Future of Contemplative Spirituality” by Cassidy Hall. Published by Broadleaf Books.

June 4, 2024
“God, Gospel, and Gender: A Queer Bible Study for Teens” by Margie Baker. Published by Church Publishing.

 

Added in October

“After Method: Queer Grace, Conceptual Design, and the Possibility of Theology” by Hanna Reichel.

Queer theologian Marcella Althaus-Reid is put into conversation with Karl Barth, the most important theologian of the 20th century in this scholarly yet lively analysis based on queer experience. The book finds queer grace by going beyond both the systematic (Barth) and constructive (Althaus-Reid) methods, building a new theology to better address reality.  Educated in Germany, the author is associate professor of Reformed theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. They are an internationally recognized Barth scholar. “ ‘After Method’ assumes the impossibility of doing theology right–and moves beyond it,” promises its publisher, Westminster John Knox Press.

 

“Next Time You Come Home” by Lisa Dordal and Milly Dordal.

Letters between a mother and daughter reflect on same-sex relationships, religion, motherhood, grief, nature, sexism and racism in this collection of 180 letters sent between 1989-2001. The author teaches in the English department at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and holds both Master of Divinity and Master of Fine Arts degrees from Vanderbilt. Her previous poetry collections, “Water Lessons” and “Mosaic of the Dark,” were on Q Spirit’s lists of the top LGBTQ Christian books in 2018 and 2022. Published by Black Lawrence Press.

 

Added in September

“Josephine: A Trans Story of Biblical Proportions” by J Mase III (author) and Wriply Bennet (illustrator).

Joseph, a popular figure in the Bible’s Book of Genesis, is a gender-nonconformist in this creative retelling. The book provides modern counter-narratives to dismantle anti-trans Biblical rhetoric. The author is a black/trans/queer poet. Raised in a Christian and Muslim home, Mase won a Lambda Literary Award for transgender nonfiction in 2020 for “The Black Trans Prayer Book.” It also appears on Q Spirit’s list of the top LGBTQ Christian books of 2020. Published by‎ Tell Them I Was a Poet L.L.C.

 

“Storming the Gate: Fighting Religion-based Oppression with Soul Force” by Mel White.

Heroic and sometimes hilarious experiences of battling the anti-LGBTQ lies of the Christian right are told by one of America’s most celebrated gay Christian authors. Mel White came out as gay after serving as ghostwriter for right-wing televangelists such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Billy Graham. This memoir is the sequel to his best-selling 1994 autobiography, “Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America.”  Foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist/minister Chris Hedges. Published by Cascade Books, an imprint of Wipf and Stock.

 

Added in August

“Faith and Sexuality: Reconciling LGBT+ People and Christianity” by Shane St. Reynolds.

A gay Australian pastor brings together sexuality and spirituality in this comprehensive, inspirational mega-mix of memoir, Bible study, theology, prayers, resources and stories of other LGBT+ Christians. Raised in a conservative evangelical family, the author overcame challenges of trauma, grief and addiction to pursue his call to ministry despite anti-LGBTQ church policies. Foreword by Peter Lewis, researcher at the Centre for Coins, Culture and Religious History, a ministry of St. John’s Anglican Cathedral in Brisbane, Australia. The author is a gay pastor and founder of the Universal Church of Love on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. He is building on his previous theological education by joining the 2023 summer school program at Christ Church, Oxford University. Published by LifeRich.

 

“Butterfly Angels: Aug & Lucy’s Journey” by Margaret Ann Lourdes.

A scrappy angel named Aug relishes confronting the Catholic Church over its treatment of LGBTQ people in this fantasy fiction. In one memorable chapter, Aug shocks a conservative priest by organizing drag queens and other LGBTQ people to pack the Joan of Arc Cathedral for Sunday mass. Serious issues are addressed with a light touch. The diverse angelic team also takes on gun violence and other contemporary challenges on their mission to heal the world. It’s like the “Touched by an Angel” TV series was updated with today’s LGBTQ energy. This debut novel is also similar to “Grace & Demion: A Fable for Victims of Biblical Intolerance” by Mel White. The author is a Michigan attorney, adjunct law professor and a practicing Catholic. Independently published.

 

Added in July

“The(y)ology: Mythopoetics for Queer/Trans Liberation” by Max Yeshaye Brumberg-Kraus.

Liberation theologies shed light on drag performance, queer autobiographies and much more in this far-reaching, multi-faceted analysis. The author is a Minnesota poet, playwright, drag artist, and independent scholar with a theology degree from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. Published by Punctum Books.

 

Added in June

“Gender Essentialism and Orthodoxy: Beyond Male and Female” by Bryce Rich.

Queer theology meets the Eastern Orthodox tradition. The book uses an interdisciplinary approach to critique the concept of a fixed gender binary in the context of the Orthodox church. Theological implications are examined for same-sex marriage, women’s ordination and pastoral care of transgender people. The author has a PhD in theology from the University of Chicago and participated in six conferences on Orthodoxy and sexuality in Finland, Norway and England. Published by Fordham University Press.

 

“For Love of Self” by Robin Reardon.

A gay Unitarian Universalist minister encounters love and paganism in a novel set in 1980s Vermont.  His congregation accepts him as gay, but he meets mysterious resistance from a pagan group in a journey that reconciles sexuality, spirituality and the importance of loving oneself.  The book is second in a trilogy that began with “For Love of God,” which was one of the top LGBTQ Christian books of 2022 at Q Spirit.  The author is a Boston writer whose 13 novels include various LGBTQ characters. Published by Iam Books.

 

“Meet My Jesus” by Candy Leigh (author) and Nejla Shojaie (illustrator).

Jesus loves LGBTQ+ kids along with everybody else in a book for kids in pre-school and up. Cute pictures and rhyming text present a progressive Christian message with verses such as: “The Jesus I know doesn’t care if you’re gay.  He takes pride in the kindness you show every day.” There’s even a book-launch coloring contest for that page.  Based in Wisconsin, Leigh is branching out as an author and educator after a successful corporate career. Shojaie has illustrated dozens of children’s books. Published by Eight Limbs Press.

 

Added in May

“The Other Evangelicals: A Story of Liberal, Black, Progressive, Feminist, and Gay Christians―and the Movement That Pushed Them Out” by Isaac B. Sharp.

LGBTQ Christians and others excluded by the evangelical movement are brought back from the margins in this inclusive history. Evangelism’s past turns out to be surprisingly diverse. Individual chapters are dedicated to the little-known experiences of each outsider group: liberals, black evangelicals, progressives, feminists and gay evangelicals. Foreword by David P. Gushee. The author is visiting assistant professor of theology and director of online and part-time programs at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Published by Eerdmans.

 

Added in April
“ Hidden Histories: Faith and Black Lesbian Leadership ” by Monique Moultrie.

Oral histories of black lesbian U.S. religious leaders reveal fresh patterns for theology, activism and ethical leadership this scholarly book. It is not a collection of oral histories, but an analysis based on them, arranged thematically. This first-of-its-kind work is based on the oral history interviews of 18 black lesbian leaders from various traditions. Most are Protestant Christians, but Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim and other voices are also included. The author is associate professor of religious studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta. Published by Duke University Press.

 

“The Father, the Son and the Slave” by Christopher Grant.

Set amid the Passion narrative, this historical novel revolves around the relationships of three men: the closeted homosexual carpenter Josef; his young Nubian slave, Metlip; and his estranged son, Iesu.  He returns home after a three-year absence to find out if Josef is really his father.  The answer impacts Iesu’s plan to change the world — a world that Josef depends upon to hide the life-long secret that could mean his death.  The discord also provokes Metlip’s rebellion. The author is a Canadian screenwriter. Independently published in 2021. Special alert: The author is offering FREE digital copies to Q Spirit readers. Use coupon code KF22U to get it for free at Smashwords.com until May 27, 2023. “All I ask is an honest star-rating and perhaps a short review,” he added.

Added in March

BESTSELLER AT Q SPIRIT
“Heavenly LGBTQ+: Queer Icons from LGBTQ Life, Religion and History” by Jan Haen.

Discover the inspiring stories of LGBTQ people who bravely faced conflicts with church and society throughout history and around the world, including during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine in this illustrated book. Large, colorful artwork on every page tells the stories of 17 diverse international LGBTQ figures from Alvin Ailey to Xenia of St. Petersburg, with up-to-the minute insights on Ukraine. The majority are people of color. They include saints, activists, martyrs, ministers, writers and performers from North and South America, Africa, Asia and Europe. Forgotten historical figures emerge from the shadows alongside more prominent individuals such as U.S. civil-rights champions Bayard Rustin and Pauli Murray and British lesbian writer Anne Lister. Most lived in the 20th and 21st centuries. Their courage inspires hope for LGBTQ+ people. Short, accessible text lets the pictures tell their stories. It is a sequel to “Heavenly Homos, Etc.,” which was the #1 bestseller on Q Spirit’s list of the top LGBTQ Christian books of 2022. The author is a Dutch artist and Roman Catholic priest whose work appears frequently on Q Spirit. Published by Apocryphile Press. Full article on Q Spirit. Book review by DignityUSA.

 

BESTSELLER AT Q SPIRIT
“Holy Queer: The Coming Out of Christ” by Karmen Michael Smith.

Black queer experience sheds fresh light on Christ and the church in a book that mixes memoir with Bible study and theology. Raised in small-town Texas, the author describes growing up marginalized within the black church for being queer. He finds an all-inclusive Christ and LGBTQ-positive themes buried in the Bible, but critiques the eight historically Black Christian denominations. Promotional materials for the book state that “none (ZERO) of them are LGBTQ+ affirming.” Religion News Service did a major article about the book. Endorsed by Cornell West. The author is an ordained nondenominational Christian minister who directs the Center for Community Engagement and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Published by Poor Culture Press.

 

“I’m Cool with It” zippered bag with Jesus and rainbow flags

Jesus affirms, “I’m cool with it” as he waves two rainbow flags.  The multi-purpose zippered bag can serve as a travel pouch, cosmetics bag, pencil case or electronics bag — or use it to hold any other small items.  It measures about 6 by 9 inches and is made of canvas.  Show LGBTQ Christian pride with this fun, inexpensive pouch.

 

Added in February

BESTSELLER AT Q SPIRIT
“LGBTQ Catholic Ministry: Past and Present” by Jason Steidl.

Grassroots LGBTQ Catholic movements over the last 75 years are explored in this accessible and well-researched historical account. The little-known story of their holy resistance begins with the Eucharistic Catholic Church founded by George Hyde in the 1940s and covers Dignity, New Ways Ministry, Fortunate Families, and Out at St. Paul. Moving into the present, the book covers the evolution of James Martin’s LGBTQ outreach and the formation of new ministries such as Internet-based Vine & Fig. A selected bibliography is included. The author teaches religious studies at St. Joseph’s University in New York and has participated for a decade in Out at St. Paul (OSP), the LGBTQ ministry of St. Paul the Apostle Church in Manhattan. Foreword by James Martin. Published by Paulist Press.

 

“The Sexual Politics of Black Churches” by Josef Sorett (editor)

LGBTQ experience plays a large role in this look at the sexual politics of black churches.  The interdisciplinary collection includes the chapter by Wallace Best that just won the Mollenkott Award for outstanding scholarship in LGBTQ religious history for examining Chicago pastor Clarence Cobbs.  In other chapters, leading scholars address such topics as marriage equality, intersectional invisibility of black gay Christians, and “Gay Is the New Black, Theologically Speaking.”  The editor is professor of religion and African American and African diaspora studies at Columbia University. Published by Columbia University Press.

 

“Not a Tame Lion” documentary on John Boswell

Gay church historian John Boswell’s life and impact on LGBTQ acceptance are explored in a new documentary film. First-hand accounts from his closest friends, family, students and colleagues shed light on his life, including how he worked feverishly to finish “Same-Sex Unions in Medieval Europe” in the final days before his death from AIDS at age 47 in 1994. It is written and directed by Craig Bettendorf, an openly gay film maker and LGBTQ activist who ministered the Anglican tradition.  Bettendorf is the author of the book “A Biblical Defense Guide for Gays, Lesbians and Those Who Love Them.” After winning awards at film festivals in 2022, “Not a Tame Lion” just became available on Amazon Prime Video with a rolling release on other streaming platforms.

 

“Jesus for All” art print by Andrea Noel

A black Christ welcomes LGBTQ people in “Jesus for All” by Andrea Noel, an Afro-Caribbean artist based in Baltimore.  Her Jesus expresses queer solidarity through bright rainbow colors that stream from the head of Christ.  The rainbow rays include LGBTQ symbols:  linked female signs, linked male signs and a transgender symbol.  This Jesus has dreadlocks and dark skin marked with lighter streaks that unite him with all races.  He is surrounded by dynamic patterns inspired by Noel’s Trinidadian roots. She is a self-taught artist, born in Selma, Alabama, but raised in Trinidad and Tobago.  Her art is available as prints on her website and at her Etsy shop: A Noel Creates.

Bonus: More LGBTQ Christian books released in 2023

“To Speak a Defiant Word: Sermons and Speeches on Justice and Transformation” by Pauli Murray. Published by Yale University Press.

“Bayard Rustin: A Legacy of Protest and Politics” by Michael G. Long (editor). Published by New York University Press.

“Always Matt: A Tribute to Matthew Shepard” by Lesléa Newman (author) and Brian Britigan (illustrator) explores the life and legacy of gay martyr Matthew Shepard, including people who took action in his memory. Foreword by Jason Collins, the first openly gay active basketball player in the NBA, who chose the number “98” for his uniform to honor Shepard. Published by Harry N. Abrams / Abrams ComicArts. Published by Harry N. Abrams / Abrams ComicArts.

“That’s Me In The Corner: A Royally Tragic Tale Of Queer Love of Biblical Proportions” (fictional homage to David and Jonathan) by Jeff Crim. Independently published.

“New Ways and Next Steps: Developing Parish LGBTQ+ Ministry” by Francis DeBernardo. Published by Liturgical Press.

“Why the Church of the Nazarene Should Be Fully LGBTQ+ Affirming” by Thomas Jay Oord and Alexa Oord (editors). Published by SacraSage Press.

“The Expanse: Homos, Hobos and the Holy Hereafter!” by Ryan Althaus. Independently published.

“Divinely Queer: Inclusive Readings in Theology” by Pete Cossaboon.  Independently published.

“Nun Better: An Amazing Love Story” by Joanie Lindenmeyer and Carol Tierheimer. Memoir of nuns who fell in love. Published by Two Sisters Writing and Publishing.

“Bisexual Relationship in Church: A Theology of Bisexual Liberation” by Steve Castle.  Independently published.

“Challenged by Life’s Proud Waves” (memoir) by Charles Blanchard. Published by Archway.

“Oh Love, Come Close: A Memoir” by Lindsey Frazier. Published by Dexterity.

“Affirmative: Why You Can Say Yes to the Bible and Yes to People Who Are LGBTQI+” by Jonathan Tallon. Published by Richardson Jones Press.

 

Related links

Top 35 LGBTQ Christian books of 2022 named

Top 28 LGBTQ Christian books of 2021 named

Top 30 LGBTQ Christian books of 2020 named

Top 23 LGBTQ Christian books of 2019 named

Top 30 LGBTQ Christian books of 2018 named

Top 25 LGBTQ Christian books of 2017 named

Top 35 LGBTQ Christian books of 2016 named

Top 25 LGBTQ Christian books of 2015 named

Top 25 LGBTQ Christian books of 2014 named

Top 22 Gay Jesus books

Basic LGBTQ Christian books: Where to start?

LGBTQ Religion and Spirituality: A Selective Bibliography, 2021-2023 from the American Library Association’s Rainbow Round Table (ala.org)

LGBTQ Religion and Spirituality: A Selective Bibliography 2021-2022 (American Library Association, Rainbow Round Table)

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Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.

The post 2023 brings new LGBTQ Christian books and gifts appeared first on Q Spirit.

All Saints Day: LGBTQIA+ Community Prayer of Thanks, Reflection and Courage

Last Updated on October 31, 2023 by

A LGBTQIA+ prayer was written for All Saints Day by Q Spirit founder Kittredge Cherry and John De Witt, a gay Episcopalian in Melbourne, Australia.

Their “LGBTQIA+ Community Prayer of Thanks, Reflection and Courage” focuses on saints, but is suitable for use on All Saints Day (Nov. 1), Pride Month or at any time throughout the year.

Cherry is co-editor of “Equal Rites,” a collection of 50 LGBTQ liturgies by 30 spiritual leaders from diverse Protestant and Catholic traditions. De Witt is an administrator of the LGBTIQA+ Interfaith group “Faithfully Yours Australia” on Facebook.

 

LGBTQIA+ Community Prayer of Thanks, Reflection and Courage

We, the people of faith within in the LGBTQIA+ community, give thanks to the many saints, martyrs, and those religious institutions that have crystalized Christ’s teachings throughout centuries to today for our further growth and our inclusion.

We are grateful that they teach us love, respect, social justice and inclusivity for all humanity, that there be no marginalized, disenfranchised, harmed and abused persons left behind, and that we too are called to ensure all persons are to be loved and nurtured.

Let us and others reflect upon our past and current strife, tribulation, sacrifices and see celebration of solid advancements within those institutions that can provide us the needed springboard to overcome remaining discriminations for all.

Let us pray with thanks, for Christ’s teachings and for clarifications by many saints, martyrs and others, that we as LGBTIQA+ persons, are indeed a part of God’s glorious spectrum of creation.

Let us pray with thanks for the many that have bravely stood up for us in the past and those now working to get more faiths genuinely welcoming and meaningfully including us, making lives more enriched and celebrating all that is creation.

May we have the courage to stand up and speak out for not only our life dreams, but for those of others also in need. Amen.

Links related to LGBTQ Saints

Litany of Queer Saints from Q Spirit

Why we need LGBTQ saints by Kittredge Cherry

LGBTQ Saints Facebook group from Q Spirit

Calendar of LGBTQ Saints from Q Spirit

LGBTQ-friendly memorial for All Saints, All Souls and Day of the Dead

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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBT and queer martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.

This article was originally published on Q Spirit in October 2020 and updated on Oct. 31, 2023.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.

The post All Saints Day: LGBTQIA+ Community Prayer of Thanks, Reflection and Courage appeared first on Q Spirit.

Allen Schindler: LGBTQ role the military highlighted by murder of gay sailor

Navy Seaman Allen Schindler brought international attention to LGBTQ people in the military when he was murdered for being gay on Oct. 27, 1992.

Schindler’s murder remains relevant as U.S. lawmakers consider banning transgender people from military service, based on a directive from President Donald Trump in July 2017.

Soon after Schindler was killed, President Bill Clinton and others cited his case in the debate about gays, lesbians and bisexuals in the military.  Discussions led to the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in 1993. That policy ended in 2011, when the U.S. military decided to stop discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.

A book about Schindler’s murder by an eyewitness was published in January 2019. “Dark Liberty: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” by Jonathan Witte, a shipmate who knew Schindler and witnessed his murder, provides a detailed, never-before-published account of the murder and its aftermath.

The hate crime against Schindler is portrayed in an epic painting by gay artist Matthew Wettlaufer, who makes connections between anti-LGBTQ violence and other human rights struggles in his art. The image is at the top of this post. Wettlaufer discusses his painting of Schindler and his other LGBTQ-related political art in the previous post “New paintings honor gay martyrs.”

“The Murder of Allen Schindler” by Matthew Wettlaufer

There is a long tradition of same-sex love in the military, dating back at least to the Roman empire. The most famous example is Saints Sergius and Bacchus, third-century Roman soldiers, Christian martyrs and men who loved each other. They are considered patron saints of gay men. Paired military saints were especially popular in the Middle Ages. They also include two other third-century couples: Saints Maurice and Theofredus of the Theban legion, and Saints Demetrius of Thessaloniki and George the Dragon Slayer of Lydda. Other military veterans in the LGBTQ saints series include Harvey Milk.

“Seaman” by Kevin Gomez (2016) shows a handsome sailor as a religious saint. Prints are available at his Etsy shop.

Born in 1969, Schindler served as a radioman petty officer third class. He was brutally beaten to death because he was gay by two of his shipmates in a public restroom in Sasebo, Japan.

At first the Navy tried to cover up the circumstances of Schindler’s death. The movie “Any Mother’s Son” tells the true story of how his mother, Dorothy Hadjys-Holman, overcame her own homophobia and Naval cover-up attempts to get justice for her gay son. She also spoke at the 1993 March on Washington for LGBT Rights.

Many LGBTQ people served in the military

Schindler is not the only LGBTQ member of the U.S. military to be murdered by their fellow soldiers because they were queer. Barry Winchell, an infantry solider, was beaten to death while he slept by fellow soldier Calvin Glover for dating a transgender woman, Calpernia Addams.  Their story is told in the 2003 drama “Soldier’s Girl.” Winchell died on July 6, 1999, at age 21.

Other LGBTQ military members broke new ground by standing up against anti-LGBTQ policies.  They include Leonard Matlovich, a Vietnam veteran who outed himself on the cover of Time magazine in 1975 to protest military policies against LGBTQ people, and Margarethe Cammermeyer, a colonel who was discharged when she declared herself a lesbian in 1989 and successfully challenged it, becoming the highest-ranking official to acknowledge their homosexuality while serving in the U.S. military.

Oct. 27 also happens to be Navy Day in the United States. Schindler’s murder gives new meaning to the traditional hymn for the safety of seafarers, with lyrics such as:

Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!

Books on LGBTQ people in the military

A chapter on Schindler is included in “Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims” by Stephen Sprinkle.

“Boys at Sea: Sodomy, Indecency, and Courts Martial in Nelson’s Navy” by B. Burg

“Warrior Princess: A U.S. Navy Seal’s Journey to Coming Out Transgender” by Kristin Beck and Anne Speckhard

“Serving in Silence” by Margarethe Cammermeyer

“Matlovich: The Good Soldier” by Mike Hippler, biography of Leonard Matlovich, the first U.S. military member to come out as gay

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Links related to LGBTQ people in the military

Transgender personnel in the United States military (Wikipedia)

American Veterans for Equal Rights

For gay couples hoping for a military burial, the fight for love doesn’t end with death (CNN.com)

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Top image credit:
Allen R. Schindler, Jr., c. 1988-1992 (Wikipedia)
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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBTQ martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.

This article was originally published on Q Spirit in October 2017, was expanded with new material over time, and was most recently updated on Oct. 26, 2023.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.

The post Allen Schindler: LGBTQ role the military highlighted by murder of gay sailor appeared first on Q Spirit.