GLBTQ SPIRITUALITY

1. GLBTQ SPIRITUALITY

2. THE WARIA OF INDONESIA • A transgendered group that has existed throughout Indonesia’s history. • Indonesia is 90% Muslim, and the majority of waria are Muslims. • Many are organized activists, and waria consider themselves to be important contributors to the modern Indonesian nation as diverse and tolerant.

3. WARIA ORGANIZINGCOMMUNITYSERVICES.

4. BOELLSTORFFGAY MUSLIMS IN INDONESIA • Religion, and in this era, Islam, is a source of unbridgeable difference. • INCOMMENSURABILITY: A failure in translation. This concept reaches its limit with gay Muslims in Indonesia. • In Indonesia Islam is interstitial with the public sphere and the nation. • A dominant view on homosexuality in Indonesian Islam is that it is not just a sin involving desire, like fornication, but it is beyond the parameters of sin – “unspeakable.” • INTERPRETATION • Some gay Muslims deal with incommensurability through heteronormativity: • They assert they are sinning, but can be forgiven. • They marry women or say they will marry women. • DUBBING CULTURE: Some gay Muslims inhabit incommensurability without ever resolving it.

5. THE KATHOEY OF THAILAND • A transgendered group in Thailand that has existed throughout their history. • Thai Buddhism teaches that all people are dealing with issues from their past lives in their journey to Nirvana. • Accordingly, Thai society is less judgmental in general, and Kathoeys are accepted.

6. THE ALL KATHOEY BAND “VENUS FLYTRAP” NONG TUM (LEFT) CHAMPION THAI KICK BOXER

7. NATIVE AMERICAN BERDACHE OR “TWO SPIRIT” • Over 113 North American Native societies had a third gender, the Two Spirits. • Men and women assumed social roles other than, or in addition to, what was usually associated with their sex. • Individuals became Two Spirits because of personal choice, spiritual calling (such as a dream), or parental selection. • Some Two Spirits switched back and forth between gender roles. • Two Spirits were considered powerful and some were shamans.

8. WEIWA, A FAMOUS ZUNI BERDACHE OF THE LATE 1800s

9. THE XANITH OF OMAN • Oman is an Islamic nation that has a history of separatism. • Omani society’s long term belief has been that male sexual orientation cannot be suppressed. • Men with alternative sexualities are acknowledged as Xanith, and allowed to live in peace. • Xanith part their hair on the “women’s” side and wear pink, although they do not wear female garments out of respect for women. • Many Xaniths marry and have children and often work as prostitutes.

10. THE HIJRAS OF INDIA • An alternative gender institutionalized in Hindu culture. • Hijras comprise a Hindu religious sect and live in ashrams. • Marginalized to some degree, they are feared and respected because they perform religious rituals at weddings and births to insure fertility and good fortune. The hosts believe misfortune will occur in their family if they do not reward the Hijras well with money, gifts, and food.

12. ANCIET GREECE AND ROME • “Western” ideology asserts its civilization is founded on ancient Greco-Roman society and culture. • Homosexuality was an important and accepted element of ancient Greece and Rome. • For long periods of time it was the preferred practice among ancient Grecians. Homosexual relations were considered to be spiritually enhancing, and men generally only had sex with women to procreate. ANCIENT GRECIANMALE COURTING SCENE

13. SAPPHO • An ancient Grecian poetess from the Isle of Lesbos. • Only a small example of her work exists, but historical accounts praise her genius. • She wrote love poems to women and the term “lesbian” is derived from the fact that Sappho lived on Lesbos.

14. MODERNITY AND IDENTITY • Prior to modernity in the “West,” people’s identities were not closely associated with their sexual acts. • With modernity came the social drive to categorize, organize, and designate “types” of people. • A result was that individuals’ identities became fused with their sexual acts. • The categories of heterosexuality and homosexuality took on meanings with social ramifications. • “Homosexuals” were categorized as pathological and immoral, and it was not until the 1970s that the American psychiatric establishment ceased defining homosexuality as a disorder. OSCAR WILDE

15. 1968: STONEWALL • American GLBTQs have long had public places--cafes, bars, clubs--where they socialize. • These places were regularly raided by police and the patrons were jailed, prosecuted, and/or had their names publicized in newspapers. • On June 28, 1968, several days of rioting between GLBTQs patronizing the Stonewall bar and NYC police occurred. • GLBTQs had never organized to this degree before, and Stonewall became a watershed for the gay rights movement. STONEWALL INNGREENWICH VILLAGE

16. GLBTQ ACTIVISM • Since the 1960s, through social force, GLBTQ activists, and their supporters, have made important strides in procuring rights for their communities. • Integral to this movement are issues involving religion and spirituality.

17. GLBTQs AND RELIGION • Conservative and fundamentalist branches of the Abrahamic faiths do not accept GLBTQs. • Their stance is based on their literal interpretations of sacred texts. • Some liberal groups and branches of the Abrahamic faiths accept GLBTQs, including as religious leaders. • Their stance is based on their liberalist interpretations of sacred texts. • However, these groups often maintain qualifications, such as not acknowledging gay marriages. • Many GLBTQ Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, and some Buddhists form their own groups, or turn to other religious beliefs and practices, such as Wiccan. • The Radical Faeries is a new religion formed in the 1970s by gay men. They reject all hierarchies and fixed subjectivities and identities.

18. RADICAL FAERIES

19. THE GLBTQ DISTINCTION BETWEEN RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY • Elizabeth Sarah, a lesbian rabbi: ”When people think of religion they think of institutions, hierarchies, things that are fixed and try to control them. The word spirituality seems more autonomous, about where people are coming from in their own lives. It's about what it is to be human, what it is to be alive, what it is to be part of creation." • Chris Ferguson, a gay man and Buddhist: "Religion is trying to make you what you're not. Spirituality is trying to make you who you are."