Intersex persons and the church: Unknown, unwelcomed, unwanted neighbors
Intersex persons those born with some combination of male and female physical characteristics require both sociology and Christianity to take human embodiment more seriously in order to understand better their human experience of self and society. Stories of the lives of intersex persons disclose...
| Authors: | ; |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
[publisher not identified]
[2015]
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| In: |
Journal for the sociological integration of religion and society
Year: 2015, Volume: 5, Issue: 2, Pages: 31-44 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Christianity
/ Intersexuality
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| IxTheo Classification: | CB Christian life; spirituality KDA Church denominations ZB Sociology |
| Further subjects: | B
Intersex
embodiment
medicalization
sex assignment
hermaphrodite
LGBTQI
Christianity
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | Intersex persons those born with some combination of male and female physical characteristics require both sociology and Christianity to take human embodiment more seriously in order to understand better their human experience of self and society. Stories of the lives of intersex persons disclose their struggle with bodies that are physically healthy, yet socially and religiously pathologized, and subjected to medical intervention designed to enforce hetero-normativity. This imposed normalization re-constructs their bodies to be more exclusively male or female, regardless of the painful social-psychological costs to the individual. Intersex is not uncommon, just largely unknown. Cultural, and originally Christian, insistence on a binary opposition of maleness and femaleness is at the root of Western antipathy toward intersexuality. Recent political activism on their behalf has brought some small social change, but in its concerns about the morality of sexuality, the Christian church is failing to affirm the integrous personhood of intersexuals, and to welcome and love them as neighbors like any others, just as Jesus affirmed eunuchs. |
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| ISSN: | 2159-8711 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal for the sociological integration of religion and society
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