1. Overview of Nonbinarity
This entry concerns the evolution of nonbinary as a more fluid concept concerning gender that destabilizes gender essentialism, which has been the dominant form of a binary understanding of sex and gender, stemming from a history of white western colonial logics (cf. art. Postcolonial Theologies) that contribute to cascading violence toward bodies that do not fit into the sex/gender binary.1For a discussion of the influence white western colonial logics has had on the treatment of intersex people in South Africa, see Swarr, Amanda Lock, Envisioning African Intersex. Challenging Colonial and Racist Legacies in South African Medicine, Durham/London 2023. To speak of nonbinarity is to speak not of novelty, but of the return of something long obscured – what the German mystic Meister Eckhart 
might have called the ground of the soul, a fluid place of becoming beyond binaries and borders. We resist the coercive grammar (cf. art. Language) of either/or and instead dwell in the both/and – or neither. In this way, our lives challenge the metaphysics of fixed identity and invite a deeper theological reckoning with creation, incarnation, and the image of God. People who identify as nonbinary “may identify as being both a man and a woman, somewhere in between or as falling completely outside of these categories.”2Human Rights Campaign, Transgender and Non-Binary People FAQ, (Website, https://www.hrc.org/resources/transgender-and-non-binary-faq#:~:text=Non%2Dbinary%20is%20an%20identity,a%20man%20or%20a%20woman), accessed on 19.05.2026. It is important to recognize that some, but not all trans and intersex people may identify as nonbinary.
2. Nonbinarity in Christian history
Nonbinary people have existed across time and place, from Two-Spirit people in Indigenous cultures in North America to Hijras in India.3Cf. Vincent, Ben/Manzano, Ana, History and Cultural Diversity, in: Richards, Christina et al. (Ed.), Genderqueer and Non-Binary Genders, London 2017, 11–30. In the Christian tradition, there have been conflicting understandings about sex and gender throughout its history in relation to nonbinary people. These are steeped in what are described as the “one-sex” model where females are seen as an inferior version of males and the “two-sex” model where females and males are completely separate and complementary (i.e., gender essentialism).4There is much debate about these models and if they existed separately or coexisted at the same time. See Budwey, Stephanie A., Religion and Intersex. Perspectives from Science, Law, Culture, and Theology, London/New York 2023, 92–93.130–132. Drawing from the one-sex model, for some Early Christians/so-called Church Fathers, such as Origen of Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa , the human in Genesis 1 was believed to be a primal androgyne, meaning having no sex or encompassing both sexes, and was later split into two sexes in Genesis 2.5Cf. DeVun, Leah, The Shape of Sex. Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance, New York, NY 2021, 16–22. This understanding is also found in Jewish midrashic literature (36). Gregory of Nyssa saw the primal androgyne as representing humans in a pre-Fall state to which they would return at the end of time and the separated sexes as a result of the Fall (21, 32). Gregory, in his On the Making of Man (De hominis opificio), suggests that gender as we know it – male and female as sexual differentiation – is not original but secondary, a concession to the fallen condition of time and procreation. For Gregory, the true human, the anthrōpos, transcends gender. What matters is not the sexed body, but the soul’s capacity to participate in God. Humanity’s destiny, he writes, is a continual ascent – a journey of becoming that sheds all categories not native to divinity. For others, such as Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas , they did not believe in the idea of a primal androgyne; drawing from the two-sex model, they supported the idea of the two distinct sexes of male (Adam) and female (Eve).6Cf. DeVun, Shape, 22–25. Over time the two-sex model took hold, particularly in the Enlightenment, and the role of a stable two-gender system infiltrated modes of religious thought and theologies. With a recovery of Augustine’s theological anthropology and early modern thought, a theological move toward traditional forms of orthodoxy influenced generations of thought justifying Augustine’s theological anthropology, which accelerates an anti-material body/corporeal beingness. A recovery of Gregory of Nyssa’s thought and the broader understanding of the Cappadocians might nurture a more fitting expression of theologies of gender in our current moment.
3. Religious and Social Questions Around Nonbinarity
Valerie and Dennis Hiebert discuss the great influence that religion has as “an agent of social control,” drawing from Genesis 1:27 to argue that “God created males and females.”7Cf. Hiebert, Valerie/Hiebert, Dennis, Intersex Persons and the Church. Unknown, Unwelcomed, Unwanted Neighbors, in: Journal for the Sociological Integration of Religion and Society 5/2 (2015), 31–44, 40. Genesis 1:27 cannot be read as a confirmation of a binary gender order, but rather as a poetic revelation of divine plurality as revealed in the movement between the singular and plural in the original text both for humans and God.8Cf. Azzoni, Annalisa, Betraying the Text. Creation Narratives in Their and Our Context, in: Berquist, Jon L./Hunt, Alice (Eds.), Focusing Biblical Studies. The Crucial Nature of the Persian and Hellenistic Periods. Essays in Honor of Douglas A. Knight, London 2014, 83–91, 86–87. See also Sabia-Tanis, Justin, Trans-gender. Theology, Ministry, and Communities of Faith, Eugene, OR 2018, 57–58; Budwey, Religion, 134–136. “Male and female” does not point to two fixed gender categories, but rather to a continuum, the expansive fullness of humanity in the image of God. As a result, anything that is rooted in a binary understanding of sex/gender is brought into question and invalidates those who identify as nonbinary. This includes questions around ordination in denominations that only allow people who are considered to be biologically male to be ordained. This also raises questions around marriage for those denominations that only allow marriage to be between a “man” and a “woman.”9While there is not enough space to get into the topic here, it is important to note the notion of patriarchal ownership in heterosexual marriage that is dependent on binary thinking and gender complementarity. Many cultural questions are raised in areas that are segregated according to a binary understanding of sex/gender. This includes questions about who can play on what sports teams, who can use which bathroom or locker room, who is assigned to which jail, who is able to change the legal markers of sex/gender on their legal documents, and if there are options beyond the binary “man” and “woman” as there are in Germany with the category “diverse” (divers).10See § 45b of the German Personenstandsgesetz which in 2018 allowed for intersex people to register as divers with their doctor’s confirmation. This was amended in 2024 to allow anyone to choose the divers category, change their gender entry, and change their name through self-determination (Selbstbestimmungsgesetz). For more on Personenstandsgesetz §22 (3) and the ability of intersex infants to have their sex/gender left blank until adolescence, see Budwey, Religion, 61–63.
4. Social and Political Discourse Regarding Nonbinarity
In the last five years there has been an increase in anti-gender movements around the world that are fighting against what is described as “gender ideology,” “a term initially created to oppose women’s and LGBT rights activism as well as the scholarship deconstructing essentialist and naturalistic assumptions about gender and sexuality.”11Paternotte, David/Kuhar, Roman, “Gender Ideology” in Movement. Introduction, in: Kuhar, Roman/Paternotte, David (Eds.), Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe. Mobilizing Against Equality, Lanham, MD/New York, NY 2017, 1–22, 5. See also Graff, Agnieszka/Korolczuk, Elżbieta, Anti-Gender Politics in the Populist Movement, London/New York 2022. “Gender ideology” is seen by some as a threat to society “because it negates sexual differences and gender complementarity.”12Paternotte/Kuhar, “Gender Ideology,” 5. As a result, nonbinary, trans, and intersex people have been under attack13For example, there is a drastic increase of hate crimes because of gender diversity or sexual orientation in Germany, see Bundeskriminalamt des Inneren, Bundesweite Fallzahlen 2024. Politisch motivierte Kriminalität, Mai 2025 (PDF, https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/downloads/DE/publikationen/themen/sicherheit/BMI25045_pmk2024-factsheet.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=7), accessed on 19.05.2026. For a European context see for example Pető, Andrea, Without Remedy. Lessons Learned from a Gendered Analysis of the 2018 Hungarian General Elections, in: FemPol 27/2 (2018), 152–158. by those who see them as a threat, often due to religious understandings about the sex/gender binary. In the United States, for example, there has been a drastic increase in the number of anti-trans bills considered in recent years, jumping from 174 in 2022, to 604 in 2023, and to 674 in 2024.14Cf. Trans Legislation Tracker (Website, https://translegislation.com/), accessed on 19.05.2026. In 2022 twenty-six of those bills passed, in 2023 eighty-seven of those bills passed, and in 2024 fifty of those bills passed. These bills try to define who can and cannot use sex/gender-segregated bathrooms and who can and cannot play on sports teams due to their sex/gender. Additionally, they ignore the human right to bodily autonomy as they try to limit access to gender-affirming care for trans people who are able to consent while often making exceptions to perform medically unnecessary treatments on intersex infants and children who are too young to consent.15Cf. Human Rights Watch, US: Anti-Trans Bills Also Harm Intersex Children. Explicit Exceptions in Legislation Allow Risky ‘Normalizing’ Surgery, 26.10.2022 (Website, https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/10/26/us-anti-trans-bills-also-harm-intersex-children), accessed on 19.05.2026. In the United States this has been taken to a whole new level in 2025 with a plethora of executive orders that seek to erase nonbinary, trans, and intersex people from existence.16See Trans Legislation Tracker for a list of these orders and links to them.
5. Theological Perspectives, Arguments, and Limits of Nonbinarity
There are two contrasting theological perspectives that undergird this topic, sexual dimorphism and sexual polymorphism. Sexual dimorphism is a binary paradigm where “people are seen to be naturally (in a normative sense) unequivocally and exclusively male or unequivocally and exclusively female.”17Jung, Patricia Beatte, Christianity and Human Sexual Polymorphism. Are They Compatible?, in: Sytsma, Sharon E. (Ed)., Ethics and Intersex, Dordrecht 2006, 293–309, 293. Sexual polymorphism, on the other hand, is a paradigm that moves beyond the binary and sees sex/gender as a spectrum, therefore including nonbinary people. Christians who believe in sexual dimorphism see the sex/gender binary as “natural” and “God-given,” drawing from a sexually dimorphic reading of Genesis 1:27 that dictates that “to be a human being made in the image of God means to be created ‘clearly female’ or ‘clearly male.’”18Budwey, Religion, 129. A sexually polymorphic reading of Genesis 1:27, however, recognizes that the entire story of creation is one that is about poles and all that is in between, rather than strict binaries.19Cf. Sabia-Tanis, Trans-gender, 57–58. See also Hartke, Austin, Nonbinary Gender and the Diverse Beauty of Creation, in: The Christian Century, 25.04.2018 (https://www.christiancentury.org/article/critical-essay/nonbinary-gender-and-diverse-beauty-creation), accessed on 19.05.2026. God created not only night and day, but also everything that is in between, including dusk and dawn. The same goes for humans; God created not only the two poles of sex and gender but also all those who are in between or choose to not identify with the poles or spectrum at all, including nonbinary people. In addition to these two contrasting theological perspectives, culture plays an important role in nurturing or constricting the multiplicities of what is possible within sexually polymorphic understandings of not only humans, but also all animals. How does this orientation shape and shift our cultural understandings?
6. Other Areas of Impact Featuring Nonbinarity
The areas of science, law, culture, and theology are inextricably intertwined around the topic of sex and gender.20See Budwey, Religion. As science is shaped by the cultures and contexts it comes from, so are the treatments and medical decisions about bodies. Arpita Das describes how in India, doctors who treat intersex infants and children are often more influenced by socio-cultural factors such as son preference and the need for girls to be fertile so they can marry rather than by science.21Cf. Das, Arpita, “Aching to Be a Boy.” A Preliminary Analysis of Gender Assignment of Intersex Persons in India in a Culture of Son Preference, in: Bioethics 34/6 (2020), 585–592 (https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.12750), accessed on 19.05.2026. Similarly, those making legal decisions bring their own preconceived notions to their judgements. In a 1999 case in Texas in the United States (Littleton v. Prange) that involved a trans person, the court ruled that “‘our Creator’ intends for them to remain the sex they are labeled at birth.”22Greenberg, Julie A., Intersexuality and the Law. Why Sex Matters, New York/London 2012, 61. Different cultures have had multiple understandings about sex and gender in various times and places, and more often than not, behind these understandings lies religion, “the most powerful legitimator of the social construction of reality.”23Hiebert/Hiebert, Intersex Persons, 40.
7. Internal and External Ecclesiastical/Theological Nonbinary Thinking
More conservative Chrisitan traditions, including the Roman Catholic Church, teach gender complementarity and the existence of two distinct and separate sexes and genders that cannot be changed. For example, in a 2019 document from the Roman Catholic Church’s Congregation for Catholic Education it states that intersex and transgender are “ideas” and that “gender neuter” or “third gender” are a “fictitious constract” [sic].24Congregation for Catholic Education, “Male and Female He Created Them.” Towards a Path of Dialogue on the Question of Gender Theory, Vatican City 2019 (PDF, https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccatheduc/documents/rc_con_ccatheduc_doc_20190202_maschio-e-femmina_en.pdf), accessed on 19.05.2026, 13–14, paragraph 25. Some cultures and religions in the Global South recognize nonbinary people as sacred and special for the community and a divine resource. An example is the Muxe people in Oaxaca, the indigenous land from which Roberto Che Espinoza traces his history. The Muxe (pronounced moo-sheh) are a community of nonbinary individuals within the Zapotec culture of Oaxaca, Mexico. Unlike many Western understandings of gender nonconformity, the Muxe are not framed as a “third gender” in opposition to a binary, but rather as an integral and historically recognized identity within Zapotec society. Many Muxe people practice Roman Catholicism, the dominant religion in Mexico. However, their religious practices are often syncretic, blending Catholic traditions with Indigenous Zapotec spiritual beliefs.25Kaur, Harmeet, This Community in Southern Mexico Has Defied the Gender Binary for Generations, 07.04.2023 (Website, https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/muxes-mexico-gender-binary-cec/index.html), accessed on 19.05.2026. In Zapotec cosmology, gender fluidity has long been present, and pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures often had gender-diverse roles within spiritual and ceremonial life. Despite Catholicism’s colonial imposition of rigid gender binaries, Muxe identities have persisted within both personal and communal expressions of faith. The socio-political-religious understanding of the Oaxacan people engage the Muxe people as vital care takers and future bearers that expand our understandings of gender and assigned cultural roles.26For further examples of nonbinary conceptions of gender see also Klinken, Adriaan van/Kenyan, Christian, Queer. Religion, LGBT Activism, and Arts of Resistance in Africa (Africana Religions 3), University Park Pennsylvania 2019. See also Rösing, Ina, Religion, Ritual und Alltag in den Anden. Die zehn Geschlechter von Amarete, Bolivien (Mundo Ankari 6), Berlin 2001. See also Auffarth, Christoph, Nonnen auf den Kreuzzügen. Ein drittes Geschlecht?, in: Das Mittelalter. Zeitschrift des deutschen Mediävistenverbandes 21/1 (2016), 159–176. See also auch Vincent, Ben/Manzano, Ana, History and Cultural Diversity, in: Christina Richards et al. (Hg.), Genderqueer and nonbinary genders (Critical and applied Approaches in Sexuality, Gender and Identity), London 2017, 11–30.
8. Current Challenges and Questions Regarding Nonbinarity
One challenge is that Christian worship is incredibly steeped in the sex/gender binary, which is found in prayers, songs, art, and preaching. This includes binary language and images both for God and for humans.27See Budwey, Religion, 139–150.177–194. The language that is used in worship matters, because “a limited vision of God leads to a limited image of humanity.”28Budwey, Religion, 139. When God is described with (mostly) masculine or feminine language, then those who are nonbinary are told they are not made in God’s image. There are many nongendered images of God in the Bible that can be drawn from such as “blazing bush” (Exodus 3:4) or “eagle” (Deuteronomy 32:11–12).29See Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, All Creation Sings, Minneapolis, MN 2020, 268–271. Similarly, language for humans such as “brothers and sisters” can be replaced with nongendered language such as “siblings” to include nonbinary people.30Cf. Budwey, Religion, 184. For examples from congregational song, see Budwey, Stephanie A., Liturgies of Livability or Liturgical Violence. What Kind of Space is Christian Congregational Song Creating for LGBTQIA2S+ and Nonbinary People?, in: Religions 14/11 (2023), 1411 (https:/doi.org/10.3390/rel14111411), accessed on 19.05.2026. Art is often also steeped in the sex/gender binary. God is frequently depicted as an old white man in the clouds with a beard. There are images from the Christian tradition, however, that blur the sex/gender binary, such as St. Wilgefortis – also known as Kümmernis – who can be seen as both/neither female and male.31Cf. Budwey, Stephanie A., Saint Wilgefortis. A Queer Image for Today, in: Religions 13/7 (2022), 616 (https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13070616), accessed on 19.05.2026; Espinoza, Roberto Che/Budwey, Stephanie A., Wilgefortis as an Example of Transing Logics. Before/After Enlightenment Thinking, in: The German Quarterly (2023), 1–4 (https://doi.org/10.1111/gequ.12352), accessed on 19.05.2026. See also: Sexon, Sophie, Seeing Mobility in Static Images. Tools for Non-Binary Identification in Late Medieval Sources, in: Price, Basil Arnould et al. (Eds.), Medieval Mobilities. Gendered Bodies, Spaces, and Movements, Cham 2023, 77–108; Spencer-Hall, Alicia/Gutt, Blake (Eds.), Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography, Amsterdam 2021. There are many resources in the Christian tradition that can be drawn from – as well as the possibility of creating new resources – that move beyond the sex/gender binary to not only create conditions for the flourishing of nonbinary Christians but also to expand Christians’ understandings of God and include the full diversity of creation.