The Genderqueer Adam

“When people pick up the Bible, they often start reading from the beginning. They venture into the two creation stories that sum up how we are created and how the world came to be. Alternatively, when Christians quote scripture to argue against the full inclusion of LGBTQIA2S+ people, they often find themselves in the same chapters. At a first glance, we read that God created “Male and Female” (Gen 1:27), and that Adam was the first man and that Eve, the first woman, was created after him by the removal of one of his ribs (Gen 2:7-22). Are we content with this patriarchal and binary reading of some of the most beautiful stories? What if I told you there were alternative queer and feminist understandings? Would that change how you understand creation? Or how you understand gender in our Christian world? As a transgender person reading these chapters, it was often hard to relate to these stories. I often questioned why God did not just make me male or left me satisfied in my female identity that I was assigned at birth. On closer inspection, I realized that Adam was not the first man, but rather a genderqueer human who defied all understanding of gender binaries. More importantly, his genderqueerness was a direct reflection of God’s image and that Adam was deeply and unconditionally loved and adored by God. Understandably, a genderqueer Adam may sound ludicrous and not theological at all, but after taking a closer look at the first two chapters of Genesis, a genderqueer Adam is not as far fetched as it may seem.

Starting at the beginning of Genesis, this is the first of two creation stories. It is an ancient poem about the duality of creation. God is shown to create all these binary spaces such as night and day, land and sea, and at the end of the sixth day, God creates male and female. This makes sense because if we look at the world right now, we see that we work during the day, sleep at night, live on land, swim in the sea and people are categorized as male or female. As perfect as this may sound, one thing we forget to realize is that there are so many spaces that Genesis leaves out: the non-binary spaces. Dawn and dusk are a combination of night and day, tidal zones and swamps are a mixture of land and sea. There are even animals such as the Platypus that needs its very own category. If we see that all of the categories shown in Genesis 1 are not so cut and dry, then the binary of male and female must also have non-binary spaces. We have people who are transgender, genderqueer, non-binary and even people who are intersex. As a transgender person, this interpretation affirms that my identity is a beautiful creation of God and not something that went wrong.

If the first creation story allows for the creation of transgender, non-binary, genderqueer and intersex people, then what does the second creation story suggest? When you hear the name Adam, the first thing that comes to mind is the first human, or more specifically the first man. The second creation story in Genesis 2 doesn’t start with a gender binary, but rather with one human being. The Adam, which translates to “ground-creature” or “earthling” is named from the root word “adamah” which means ground. Gender is not used in these instances. A more appropriate interpretation of Adam is an androgynous or genderqueer/non-binary being. This makes sense theologically because Adam was meant to be the image of God, who transcends and embodies all genders. Adam was not male, but like God, embodied all of humanity’s gender into one being. In the Babylonian Talmud, documents compiled over the 3rd to 5th centuries, ancient Jewish scholars acknowledged this verse was not a denial of a person being both. They believe Genesis indicated that not only was humanity at large “male and female” but the first human (Adam) was too. They believed Adam had two sides, a male side and a female side that existed together in harmony. To further support this interpretation, it isn’t until this earthling is put to sleep that male and female emerge and we start to get different Hebrew words for them: “ish” and “ishah.” In Genesis 2:22, we get the story of God taking one of Adam’s ribs to create Eve. This is a mistranslation since the Hebrew word for “rib” that is used in this verse does not mean “rib” but rather means “side”. Extra-biblical Hebrew texts also never use that word to mean “rib” because there is a dedicated word for “rib” that is used in other places in Genesis. If we reread this verse with the word “rib” translated as “side”, we can interpret that Adam or the earthling is split into two, the male side and the female side. This interpretation not only supports that Adam is genderqueer but also supports a feminist interpretation that males and females were created equally.

As a transgender person, these alternative interpretations prove to me that God exults in biodiversity. These in-between, non-binary spaces such as tidal pools, are often places with the most diverse and unique species. God is creative, and would not want their greatest creation, humans, to be boring cookie-cutter individuals. We are meant to be diverse and unique. I think the most important thing we learn in Genesis is that all of us are made in the image of God. Males and females are made in the image of God. Genderqueer, intersex, and trans people are also made in the image of God. Even though Genesis is often used to justify and idolize the binary system of gender and sexuality, I think the central point of the story is that our infinitely creative God loves to image themself in a whole variety of humans, even the kinds of humans who blur the binary boundaries, Adams and Ishes and Ishahs who image the Triune, non-binary God not by their sexual differentiation but by their love and their creativity.

– Submitted by Shylo Rosborough (He/Him)
Affirming Ministries Coordinator