Abstract
This article introduces the special section Comparative X: Religious and Gendered Transitions, linking the experiences of religious exes and transgender people through their mutual and different uses of “X” to mark liminal identity and status. Reframing religious disaffiliation through the lens of transition, the article presses on the overlap and intersection of religious and gendered movements to connect these different but related crossings as Xes. Through this crossed and comparative framework, it offers a way of looking at the norming systems of religion and gender together through the movements of those who cross them. Expanding comparative studies in religion through the interfaithless, it introduces comparative ex-religious studies as a new subfield. Drawing on the literature of religious disaffiliation and queer and transgender studies in religion, the article considers how changing the orientation through which we approach religion from its Xes might lead to a better understanding of how the normative structures of “religion” and “gender” shape one another transitively.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 117-145 |
Number of pages | 29 |
Journal | Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion |
Volume | 40 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 2024 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- comparative religion
- conversion
- deconversion
- ex-religion
- Off the Derech
- queer/trans phenomenology
- queer/trans religion
- religious disaffiliation
- religious exit
- transgender
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Gender Studies
- Religious studies