Intersex people and religion

Intersex people are born with sex characteristics, such as chromosomes, gonads, or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies".^[1]

Intersex people were historically termed hermaphrodites, "congenital eunuchs",^[2][3] or even congenitally "frigid".^[4] Such terms have fallen out of favor, now considered to be misleading and stigmatizing.^[5] Intersex people have been treated in different ways by different religions and cultures, and numerous historical accounts exist.

Christianity

Eunuchs are mentioned many times in the Bible such as in the Book of Isaiah (56:4) using the word סריס (saris). Matthew establishes that the term refers to some individuals from birth, as well as individuals made eunuchs through castration:

The reference to "eunuchs" in Matthew 19:12 has yielded various interpretations.

Roman law and post-classical Canon law referred to a person's sex as male, female or hermaphrodite, with legal rights as male or female depending on the characteristics that appeared most dominant. Under Roman law, a hermaphrodite had to be classed as either male or female.^[6] The 12th-century Decretum Gratiani states that "Whether an hermaphrodite may witness a testament, depends on which sex prevails".^[7][8][9] According to Raming, Macy and Cook, the Canon lawyer Huguccio states that, "If someone has a beard, and always wishes to act like a man (excercere virilia) and not like a female, and always wishes to keep company with men and not with women, it is a sign that the male sex prevails in him and then he is able to be a witness, where a woman is not allowed".^[9] On ordainment, Raming, Macy and Cook found that the Decretum Gratiani states, "item Hermafroditus. If therefore the person is drawn to the feminine more than the male, the person does not receive the order. If the reverse, the person is able to receive but ought not to be ordained on account of deformity and monstrosity."^[9]

Hinduism

Sangam literature uses the word pedi to refer to people born with an intersex condition; it also refers to antharlinga hijras and various other hijras.^[10] Warne and Raza argue that an association between intersex and hijra people is mostly unfounded, but popular misunderstandings "cause tremendous fear in the parents" of intersex infants and children.^[11]

Islam

Scholars of Islamic jurisprudence have detailed discussions on the status and rights of intersex based on what mainly exhibits in their external sexual organs. Yet, modern Islamic jurisprudence scholars turn to medical screening to determine the dominance of their sex. The intersex rights includes rights of inheritance, rights to marriage, rights to live like any other male or female. The rights are generally based on whether they are true hermaphrodites, or pseudo hermaphrodite. Scholars of Islamic Jurisprudence generally consider their rights based on the majority of what appears from their external sexual organs.

Judaism

The Talmud contains extensive discussion concerning the status of two intersex types in Jewish law; namely the androginus, which exhibits both male and female external sexual organs, and the tumtum which exhibits neither.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the treatment of intersex babies started to be discussed in Orthodox Jewish medical halacha by prominent rabbinic leaders, for example Eliezer Waldenberg and Moshe Feinstein.^[12]

In 2002 at the Reform Jewish seminary Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, the Reform rabbi Margaret Wenig organized the first school-wide seminar at any rabbinical school which addressed the psychological, legal, and religious issues affecting people who are intersex or transsexual,^[13] and in 2003 she was also the first to organize a similar school-wide seminar at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.^[13]

See also

• Intersex
• Intersex in history

Notes