Is Queer Biology a Useful Tool for Queer Theology?

Abstract

In recent years a number of queer theologians have drawn on the work of Judith Butler and Thomas Laqueur to provide a framework for their project of destabilising Christian understandings of the nature of sex, gender and sexuality. In this article I link this work with evidence drawn from biology to argue that, in addition to examples of bodies that, through nature or volition, disturb our notions of two distinct ontological categories – male and female – there is also a range of evidence that would indicate that all bodies are less sexually dimorphic than might be supposed. This evidence has potentially liberating and far-reaching implications for conservative theological understandings of the body, making it a useful tool in the armoury of queer theological discourse.