Happy dysphoria-free Christ day, my dear queers! Year on …

The way modern christianity has been purged of all queerness is frankly baffling. Here you have a god who became a human, lived with twelve other guys, and was gladly bound, whipped and crucified in the name of love. This is a story full of trans, non-het and BSDM affect 2/12🧵

I'm not going to talk more about the biological logic of the incarnation (his single mother being the only chromozome donor) even though this is well discussed in medieval Christian literature. There are many ways in which Christ's body can be (and has been) read as trans

The incarnation itself (and its highly theological explanation in the Chalcedonian body, the official Church's line of how Christ is both human *and* god) follows a trans logic of becoming, transition, and self-fulfillment. God becoming human, a transition of more than gender 4/

This incarnated body of Christ can be the map onto which multiple readings can be held true. A female to male, non-binary, male-to-female (or even *gasp* cis male or cis female) Christ can all coexist onto the same body that is god, human, bread, wine, church, word and lamb 5/

The trans female body of Christ has a new vagina (see linked thread); medieval illustrations are also very coy about showing the adult Christ's entire anatomy (versus the male thieves), or depict it the way other women are represented (fair-skinned) 6/
https://t.co/cbQw1X1ARg

HAPPY EASTER! It's the perfect day for us to tell you all about JESUS'S VAGINA... or more specifically, medieval interpretations of Christ's side wound as, well... look at it. pic.twitter.com/t18CF9GuK4
— Vagina Museum (@vagina_museum) April 4, 2021

I will focus on the trans male body, as that is my research and lived experience

The trans male body of Christ is marked by what looks like a mastectomy scar (often, one side proudly displays the scar while the other side is covered in his shroud, where a matching scar could be)

Thomas' encounter with Christ is also a moment of correct gendering, at the sight of a body that does not align with cis-heterosexual logic. The wound is where this body doesn't make sense in a straight world: it marks the difference AND coexistence of dead/alive, male/female 8/

There is a long art-historical tradition of other body parts representing displaced genitalia. Thomas affirms Christ’s maleness (lord) after seeing and touching his vulvic wound. Thomas calls his lover by his male name (Christ), all the while his fingers are deep into his vulva 9

The homoerotic valences of this scene (a meeting of men where they hug and kiss and touch, in contrast with Christ meeting the women where touching is forbidden 'noli me tangere') confirm both the protagonists’ masculinity while presenting the viewer with a vulva being penetrated

Thomas prods, with his fingers as well as with his words, the interstices where multiple possibilities of being and feeling reside. Christ allows Thomas to bear witness to his body in this intimate way, but he appeals that others acknowledge him without requiring physical proof

So when you see artworks of Christ being represented as a post-mastectomy trans man or a hot take about the ressurection, know that it has deep theological truths embedded in it. And that the Bible, as well as the long history of the orthodox church, has always included us. 12/12