Gender Queer/TG Saints

Taken from http://www.otkenyer.hu/halsall/lgbh-gaysts.html#tv

I have treated these saints as a group as their stories are often similar. These are the large number of saints who were famous for their holy cross-dressing. All of these were women, and the stories generally have them escaping marriage or some other dreaded end by dressing as monks. This is no short term ploy, however. The women then live their lives as men, some of them becoming abbots of monasteries. In such positions it is hard to imagine that they would not perform roles such as confessor. Their biological sex is only discovered after they die. It is sometimes argued that these transvestite saints did not cross-dress because they wanted to but because they had to, and so calling them "transvestites" is wrong. It is true that we know nothing of the psychology of these women, but when they dressed as man for 20 years and became abbots of monasteries, it is hard to know in what way they were being "forced" to cross-dress. These women chose to live their Christian lives as members of the opposite biological sex - it is fair to see them as "transgendered". There are no male saints, it seems, who dressed as women (with the possible exception of Sergius and Bacchus, who were forcibly paraded through the streets in women's clothes). At work here is an old notion that women are saved in so far as they have "male souls", a repeated term of praise in lives of female saints. These women's lives do show that the Levitical Law was not determinative in Christian estimations of holiness, and that modern rigid gender categories had much less role in earlier epochs of Christianity than nowadays. These saints found a place in both Orthodox and Roman calendars.

Joan, who was executed at the age of 19, lived, as Marina Warner notes, one of the most classically heroic lives of any woman in history. She is the national heroine of France. She also refused to wear women's clothes and had her hair cut in the typical male "basin" style of the day. Even during her trial she insisted on male attire, an insistence which angered her prosecutors.

"St. Joan of Arc: "At Domremy, on the Upper Meuse, was born on January 6, 1412, of pious parentage, St. Joan of Arc. Taught by her mother from earliest years to pray each night 'O God, save France,' she could not help but conceive that ardent love for her country which later consumed her life. While the English were overrunning the north of France, their future conqueror, untutored in worldly wisdom, was peacefully tending her flock, and learning the wisdom of God at a wayside shrine. But hearing Voices from heaven and bidden by St. Michael, who appeared to her, to deliver her country from the enemy, she hastened to the King and convinced him of her divine mission. Scarcely did her banner, inscribed 'Jesus, Mary,' leans and led Charles VII to be crowned at Rheims. Later, abandoned by her King, she fell into the hands of the English, who gave her a mock trial and burned her as a heretic.

St. Dorotheos/ Apollinaria of Egypt
Saint Apollinaria was a daughter of Anthemias, a former proconsul of the Byzantine Empire. Disdaining marriage, she requested her parents' permission to make a pilgrimage to the holy places of the East. Arriving in Alexandria from Jerusalem, she slipped away from her servants and changed into monastic garb. She hid in a marsh, where she practised asceticism for several years in strict fasting and prayer.

An angel appeared to her in a dream and told her to go to the monastery of Sketis, which was under the spiritual direction of St. Makarios of Egypt, and to call herself Dorotheos. St. Makarios accepted her as one of the brethren, and she quickly distinguished herself by her simple and sacrificial life.

St. Apollinaria's parents had another daughter who was possessed by demons. They sent her to Sketis to St. Makarios, who brought the afflicted girl to Dorotheos (Apollinaria). By her prayers, the maiden received healing. After she returned home, the maiden was attacked by a violent demon, who made her appear pregnant. The demon spoke through the girl's lips, saying that Dorotheos had forced himself on her. Her outraged parents sent soldiers to the monastery to find the one who had defiled their daughter.

St. Apollinaria took the blame and accompanied the envoys to the home of her parents. There she revealed her secret to her parents, healed her sister, and returned to Sketis. She died shortly thereafter in the year 470. Only after the death of Dorotheos was it revealed that "he" was actually a woman. The saint was buried in a cave in the monastery church of St. Makarios of Egypt.

*St. Uncumber [or Wilgefortis] July 20th ORC

According to legend, Wilgefortis–a noblewoman–had been promised in marriage by her father to a pagan king. To thwart the wedding, she had taken a vow of virginity, and prayed that she would be made repulsive and in answer to her prayers she sprouted a beard, which ended the engagement. In rage, Wilgefortis's father had her crucified.

She was venerated by people seeking relief from tribulations, in particular by women who wished to be liberated ("disencumbered") from abusive husbands. A folk etymology derives her name from virgo fortis, "strong virgin." In England her name was Saint Uncumber. In German lands she was known as Saint Kümmernis (where her name means "grief" or "anxiety"). She was known as Saint Liberata in France, and Saint Librada in Spain.