It does not seem that a whole year has passed since last Pride Month. I marvel at how differently I regard gender and sexuality this year, largely as a result of the reading I did for my doctoral project, which was on the intersection of sexuality and spirituality; now that I am finished, I continue to wonder if these two topics will ever be comfortable "bedfellows" (pun intended). This column as well as next issue’s will therefore be devoted to raising some questions about how these subjects might impact GLBTQ Pride.

Undoubtedly some righteously indignant person will insist that such discussion will only agitate the grudging tolerance queer people are receiving today. ("Why do we have to keep talking about it?") However, I am reminded of these bold and insightful words from the African-American activist Frederick Douglass: "If there is not struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation… want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters…. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will." (Quoted in Leslie Feinberg, Transgender Warriors, 1996, p. 120)

Each of us is assigned a gender when we are born and wrapped in either a pink baby blanket or a powder-blue one. Most babies grow into these colors without incident; but many of us, sometimes from the nursery onward, begin to rail against these arbitrary assignments. (Indeed, the intersexed awareness movement notes that sometimes as many as five births every day in American hospitals require the obstetrician to "decide" on the gender of an ambiguously-sexed baby, sometimes by way of surgery that is not revealed until the child reaches puberty.) From then on, we are classified according to pink delicacy or blue roughness. Deviations are at first corrected lovingly ("Don’t be such a sissy!") or perhaps observed with laughter ("She’s such a tomboy!"), but at some point behavior that is "queer" in the sense of not meeting societal gender expectations begins to be punished more severely, and any laughter carries with it a decidedly sinister edge.

In the 1970s, when women began to lobby for employment and wage parity with men, the feminist movement began asking what it means to be a "real" woman. Nevertheless, those who march to a different drummer vis-à-vis gender and sexual orientation had been asking such questions for generations, perhaps centuries. What does it mean to be a "man" or a "woman"? Is it determined by our genitals or constructed socially? Who decides what is "feminine" and what is "masculine"? Does sexual activity between persons of the same sex always indicate "homosexuality," while otherly-oriented sexual activity indicates "heterosexuality"? Or is there a spectrum or continuum along which persons have situated themselves in different places and at different times?

Unfortunately, religion has been used to reify gender expectations and cement a rigid heteronormativity. For example, the ancient Hebrews forbade the wearing of clothing by one sex that was "appropriate" for the opposite sex; the first Christians distanced themselves from pagan priests and priestesses who blurred gender lines and sometimes practiced ritual castration; Asian spiritualities differentiated between the yin ("masculine") and yang ("feminine") energies and warned against improper mixing of the two; Islam mandates physical separation of the sexes, let alone any gender ambiguity.

Moreover, as lesbian philosopher Cheshire Calhoun points out, women and men who do not "fit" the social norms have been required to "pass" by developing and maintaining a "counterfeit identity." (Feminism, the Family, and the Politics of the Closet, 2000, chapter 4) It was when activists began questioning the necessity of such passing and the gender codes themselves that the gender wars and sexuality battles began to be fought on legal, linguistic, and spiritual fronts.

But what does Spirit care about such matters? My understanding of the world’s religions leads me to believe that the Divine has not only created but also delights in rich diversity among the human, animal, and vegetative realms. God/ess desires health and wholeness, happiness and prosperity for all creatures, and in return asks that we honor divinity by being authentic to who we are and by honoring the divine spark in every creature. To live a counterfeit identity or a life committed to monitoring everyone else’s choices and proclivities is a waste of our divine mandate and the precious time we are allotted in this life. How much better to devote our lives to expanding our horizons, enlarging our possibilities, and creating new ways of being and believing! In the words of transsexual activist Kate Bornstein, "[M]y feeling is that today we need…to strengthen our outsider sensibility, keep it fluid enough to be inclusive of other groups, inflammatory enough to challenge and wear down the dominant ideology, and full enough of grace and humor to welcome with a laugh the inevitable challenges to our own rigidity." (Gender Outlaw, 1994, p. 166)

May it be so!