Within contemporary orthodoxy, debates over sex and gender have become increasingly polemical over the past generation. Beginning with questions around women’s ordination, arguments have expanded to include feminism, sexual orientation, the sacrament of marriage, definitions of family, adoption of children, and care of transgender individuals. Preliminary responses to each of these topics are shaped by gender essentialism, the idea that male and female are ontologically fixed and incommensurate categories with different sets of characteristics and gifts for each sex. These categories, in turn, delineate gender roles in the family, the church, and society. Gender Essentialism and Orthodoxy offers an immanent critique of gender essentialism in the stream of the contemporary Orthodox Church influenced by the “Paris School” of Russian émigré theologians and their heirs. It uses an interdisciplinary approach to bring into conversation patristic reflections on sex and gender, personalist theological anthropology, insights from gender and queer theory, and modern biological understandings of human sexual differentiation. Though these are seemingly unrelated discourses, Gender Essentialism and Orthodoxy reveals unexpected points of convergence, as each line of thought eschews a strict gender binary in favor of more open-ended possibilities. The study concludes by drawing out some theological implications of the preceding findings as they relate to the ordination of women to the priesthood, same-sex unions and sacramental understandings of marriage, definitions of family, and pastoral care for intersex, transgender, and nonbinary parishioners.

This dissertation offers an immanent critique of gender essentialism in the stream of the contemporary Orthodox Church influenced by the "Paris School" of Russian emigre theologians and their heirs. It uses an interdisciplinary approach to bring into conversation patristic reflections on gender, personalist theological anthropology, insights from gender and queer theory, and modern biological understandings of human sexual differentiation. Though seemingly unrelated discourses, the project reveals unexpected points of convergence as each line of thought eschews the gender binary in favor of a more open-ended spectrum of possibilities. The study concludes by drawing out some theological implications of the preceding findings as they relate to the ordination of women to the priesthood, same-sex unions and sacramental understandings of marriage, definitions of family, and pastoral care for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) parishioners.

What is the role of gender in Eastern Christianity? In this volume, Orthodox experts of different disciplines and cultural backgrounds tackle this complex question. They engage critically with gender issues within their own tradition. Rather than simply accepting pervasive assumptions and practices, the authors challenge readers to reconsider historically or theologically justified views by offering nuanced insights into the tradition. The first part of the book explores normative positions in Orthodox texts and contexts. From examinations of Scripture and hagiography to re-evaluations of monastic, patriarchal, and legal sources, it sheds new light on gender issues in Orthodox Christianity. The second part considers how gendered expectations shape individuals’ participation in Orthodox liturgical life and how ecclesial contexts inflect gender theologically. The chapters reflect diverse Orthodox voices brought together to foster new understandings of the ways gender shapes Orthodox religious lives and beliefs. Rethinking what has been inherited from tradition, the authors proffer new perspectives on what it means to be a man or woman within Orthodoxy in the twenty-first century.

Sex is a difficult issue for contemporary Christians, but the past decade has witnessed a newfound openness regarding the topic among Eastern Orthodox Christians. Both the theological trajectory and the historical circumstances of the Orthodox Church differ radically from those of other Christian denominations that have already developed robust and creative reflections on sexuality and sexual diversity. Within its unique history, theology, and tradition, Orthodox Christianity holds rich resources for engaging challenging questions of sexuality in new and responsive ways. What is at stake in questions of sexuality in the Orthodox tradition? What sources and theological convictions can uniquely shape Orthodox understandings of sexuality? This volume aims to create an agora for discussing sex, and not least the sexualities that are often thought of as untraditional in Orthodox contexts. Through fifteen distinct chapters, written by leading scholars and theologians, this book offers a developed treatment of sexuality in the Orthodox Christian world by approaching the subject from scriptural, patristic, theological, historical, and sociological perspectives. Chapters devoted to practical and pastoral insights, as well as reflections on specific cultural contexts, engage the human realities of sexual diversity and Christian life. From re-thinking scripture to developing theologies of sex, from eschatological views of eros to re-evaluations of the Orthodox responses to science, this book offers new thinking on pressing, present-day issues and initiates conversations about homosexuality and sexual diversity within Orthodox Christianity.

Redeeming Gender argues that the problems about sexuality which continue to sap the churches' energies are really about gender. The dominant understanding of women's bodies in the Christian West has been that they are inferior versions of the superior male body. This 'one-sex model' of the human body was replaced during the Enlightenment with a model of two opposite sexes. However, both models are inadequate for a theological or a secular understanding of the sexed body. In this innovative work, Adrian Thatcher envisages relations between women and men no longer blighted by long-term patriarchy, androcentrism and sexism in church and world, but redeemed from these structural sins by the grace of Jesus Christ. Dissected into two parts, Part One explains the legacy of both the one-sex and two-sex theories. It uncovers the one-sex theory and its assumptions, and indicates its presence in early Christian thought. It then describes what happened in our social, intellectual and theological history, which leaves us thinking that there are two sexes. In Part Two, Thatcher contributes to an emerging theology of gender in which women and men are fully and equally valued, and in which sexual difference (insofar as it exists at all), is capable of transformation into joyful communion, reflecting the very life of God the Holy Trinity. He exposes the reliance of much Church and theological teaching about sex and gender either on biblical proof texts or upon the language and nomenclature of late modernity, rather than upon considerations of Theology and Christology. Thatcher also indicates how Theology and Christology, in the area of gender, envisions the redemption of human relationships.

Ian A. McFarland uses Jesus to overcome the block of acknowledging those who are considered different from ourselves and explores the premise that "knowing what we are as human beings is less important than the knowing who makes us what we are." Reflecting on scripture and theological concepts, McFarland explores the way in which Jesus Christ's personhood shapes our own and mediates our encounters with others. Rather than suppressing human differences in order to provide a common denominator and affirm equally among persons, this book explores the notion of difference as being fundamental to our identity as human beings.

It is only recently that transgenderism has been accepted as a disorder for which treatment is available. In the 1990s, a political movement of transgender activism coalesced to campaign for transgender rights. Considerable social, political and legal changes are occurring in response and there is increasing acceptance by governments and many other organisations and actors of the legitimacy of these rights. This provocative and controversial book explores the consequences of these changes and offers a feminist perspective on the ideology and practice of transgenderism, which the author sees as harmful. It explores the effects of transgenderism on the lesbian and gay community, the partners of people who transgender, children who are identified as transgender and the people who transgender themselves, and argues that these are negative. In doing so the book contends that the phenomenon is based upon sex stereotyping, referred to as 'gender' – a conservative ideology that forms the foundation for women's subordination. Gender Hurts argues for the abolition of ‘gender’, which would remove the rationale for transgenderism. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of political science, feminism and feminist theory and gender studies.