Our Lives Matter: A Womanist Queer Theology

by Pamela R. Lightsey

The methodology of this work draws upon three research foci: the collecting of narratives to develop empirical knowledge; intersectional analysis; and cross-disciplinary study.

How does the experience of being a member of a distinctly oppressed group impact one’s theological perceptions?

How may it be possible to live in harmony in the midst of distinctions among humanity?

Does the definition and use of the term so radicalize its advocates that they end up segregating themselves from the rest of society? 2) Does the stance against heteronormativity equate to the rejection of the very systems/institutions to which advocates of queerness seek inclusion and/or civil rights?

Queer is ambiguous not simply because it is being reclaimed in new ways but because it proposes that while sexuality is real, it should not be construed as necessarily taking one permanent form.

As womanist anthropologist Linda Thomas put it: “the tasks of womanist theology are to claim history, to declare authority for ourselves, our men, and our children, to learn from the experience of our forebears, to admit shortcomings and errors, and to improve our quality of life.”1

Though womanist scholars have been exploring human sexuality for some time, they have not yet produced a full queer theology manuscript totally committed to the lives of Black lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer women.

even with the best intentions womanist scholarship has rarely put its finger on the pulse of what it means to be a Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender woman living in America.

While Black Christians may be suspicious of white Biblical interpretation, they have not divested themselves of the influence of white Biblical scholarship, white evangelical perspectives, and the white prosperity gospel. Many Black preachers are theologically conservative thanks to the influence of white evangelicals such as Oral Roberts and Billy Graham.

Black homophobia is part of white sexual exploitation fueled by an uncritical acceptance not only of black but also of white preachers’ biblical interpretation.

It falls to Queer womanist theologians to demonstrate a healthy perspective on sexuality that is not silent on the subject of sex acts (including intercourse) and on the power of the erotic, the sensual. We must speak of the healthy expression of sexuality in ways that do not limit Black queer persons or require that we hand over our sexual drives and expression to be subsumed by the Church’s demands that we be good celibate Christian queers.

They will argue that there is no neutrality in language and what is more, that language has been used to oppress LGBTQ persons.

As a literary strategy, deconstruction is the unpacking, the deep examination of textual layers of meaning. One is trying to uncover from within the text how it compliments, contradicts, and unfolds.

Deconstructionists argue for multiple meanings in the text and reality and therefore for the inability to get at a literal meaning of the text and at a pure objective knowledge. They assert the impossibility of a universal “knowing” and in their work seek to show that what is “known” is limited because it is gained through a hermeneutic informed by the context of the observer.

The idea of exploring the phenomena of how meaning is created rather than attending to determining the actual meaning of a particular text or reality was an approach that was difficult to understand.

he describes power’s relationship to discourse in order to control sex: “power acts by laying down the rule: power’s hold on sex is maintained through language, or rather through the act of discourse that creates, from the very fact that it is articulated, a rule of law. It speaks, and that is the rule.”40

The primary critique of poststructuralist thought then is this question: If truth is unknowable, how do we know it is unknowable?

The argument of postmodernism is that experiences are so differentiated that no one person can speak authoritatively for any one group. Identities such as race or gender are social constructions and there exists no one archetypal experience, no single biological reality that speaks for an entire body of people.

What postmodernism has given us is indeed a way to speak of the social construction of our realities and especially the social construction of the categories of our existence whether by race, gender, class, etc. Those categories are certainly subjective. However, the language of these categories, the words which signify how we are perceived in society, do objectively impact our social location. Therefore marginalized persons do well to develop modes of describing the experiential consequences of these categories.

while the categories are subjective, our history has shown that not only is identity as real as an individual perceives it to be, the impact is as real as the society in which we live perceives it to be.

And while no one person can speak for an entire body of people, there are many occasions when for the sake of justice we need to address discrimination and do so on the basis of solidarity, where both discrimination and solidarity are articulated by the language of categories.

Black LGBTQ identified persons must be quite cautious when it comes to the term queer if that naming includes a rejection of our ability to claim as objective our knowledge of our own sexual identity, which is often mediated by our experiences in the world and in our culture.

The long history of African bodies as subjects of attack and denigration by Western and also Eastern culture as well as black bodies being viewed as exotic mystery, cursed mutations, and the lowest of the Western world’s bodily caste system are all part of the racist traditions that make “gay pride” a weighty and courageous journey that many Black queers have yet to take.

Experience, then, is an essential source for doing queer womanist theology.

Finally, all four sources–scripture, reason, experience and tradition–are important for queer womanist theology because they help substantiate our faith. They are not, however, the foundation of our faith. The foundation of our faith is God and it is in our trust in God that we find sufficient response to the mysteries of life.

Thus any theology related to the doctrine of creation is ultimately more a doctrine about the God of Creation. It is inevitably about who God is, what God has done, and about what God is still doing through humanity whom God created. God is still at work bringing God’s good creation to its final goal that shall be accomplished in Jesus Christ, the goal of the kingdom of God.

Yet, the presumption that their birth bodies are “how God made you” has negatively affected the day-to-day living of transpersons.

Because transgender identity is about how gender is understood and not about sexual attraction or what is known as sexual orientation.

The story of Creation does not conclude with an emphasis on the human body but human beings in right relationship with God living in the eschatological fulfillment of a “new heaven and a new earth.”117

The hope of the New Jerusalem therefore contains the promise of the end of suffering for the people of God. This is what has made the doctrine of Creation such a compelling teaching for Black Americans who have endured racial oppression for centuries.

Queering the doctrine of creation is therefore especially needful for gender nonconforming persons. It reminds us of God’s loving work for our total being, that what God called “good” includes all living beings.

The Creation story, what God has done and what God is doing for and in the world, never posits a singular way of being human or insists that only one type human is acceptable. What is most important in the early stories and what holds our interest is how we inhabit this world.

The lesson of Creation is therefore also a lesson of learning to be in right relationship with one another.