Date of Award

2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Langston, Douglas

Area of Concentration

Religion

Abstract

This thesis explores the connection between androgyny and spiritual power in Christianity. This begins with an examination of the ways in which gender is socially constructed and therefore fluid. Across cultures, the ways in which gender is created, enforced, and played out vary, but in many cultures androgynous people are given spiritual authority because they represent the connection between God and humanity. This thesis includes the history of inclusion for women and androgynous people in the early Christian Church, as well as the impact of Thecla, an influential androgynous saint. Thecla’s cult declined in the early Middle Ages, but at this time new gender transgressive women appeared, perpetuating the Christian fascination with androgyny and the role of gender in religion. Saint Wilgefortis in the 1300s became a new androgynous icon, a bearded female martyr. Finally, this thesis connects the idea of androgyny in the early Church with queer theory. In modernity, queer Christianity mirrors many of the ideologies of androgynous asceticism in the past. Queer Christianity is utilized by queer Christians who do not fit heteronormative mold to create a church that not only uplifts queerness but incorporates it into spirituality, using it as a powerful tool of communion with God.

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