There is No(Male & Female)

Galatians 3:28: There is no male and female. 

Late winter / early spring of 2023, I saw footage of a legislator in Tennessee speaking up on behalf of trans youth, citing Galatians 3:28: “there is no male and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  While I had seen people use vague religious beliefs against trans folks – though frankly there isn’t really much in biblical literature that is anti-trans – this was the first time I saw biblical texts in a legal setting operationalized on behalf of trans people.  Religious sentiments should have no place in shaping public policy, but this person recognized the anti-trans movement was hiding behind a thin veneer of religious belief and responded in kind.  

Many scholars have convincingly argued that Galatians 3:28 is something Paul quoted: he didn’t invent it.  He operationalizes only part of it.  It was likely an initiatory recitation or baptismal hymn one recited upon joining the early Jesus-following movement.  Galatians 3:27 already hints at a baptismal context for these words.  In full it reads (and I translate as literally as possible):

There is neither Jew nor Greek

There is neither slave nor free

There is no male and female

For all of you are one in Christ Jesus.  

There are three types of social distinctions that are negated by being in Christ: ethnicity, economic status, and sex/gender.  In the rest of Galatians Paul focuses primarily on the first one: bringing Jews and Greeks together.  He wrestles ambivalently with the other two (see Philemon and 1 Corinthians).  But what does it mean that “there is no male and female” in Christ?  Erasure of social distinctions through giving up any gender privilege?  Erasure of differentiation of gender expression?  Removal of gender roles?  Opposition to the gender binary itself?  

Many feminist and queer scholars have found this verse to be liberating. I can definitely see how it would be greatly affirming for nonbinary and agender folks.  But as a trans woman, I have mixed feelings.  I am working hard to be as female outwardly as I am inwardly.  And here is a verse that says there is no female (and there is no male)?  It’s easy for me to say “no male” but much harder for me to say “no female.”  How is this affirming for me as many people keep telling me it is? 

Before turning to what is being negated, erased, or reimagined in the “no male and female,” I should also address whether this unity in Christ that somehow negates gender is aspirational and utopian or presently pragmatic?  That is, are ancient Christians seeing this as something that we can do in the here and now?  Or is this something that will only happen in the kingdom, heaven, or the resurrection?  

To some degree, if we put the line in context with the other two terms of ethnicity and economic status, then, it seems, it does refer to the here and now.  Clearly Paul is citing this in order to overcome boundaries associated with ethnicity in Galatians.  Perhaps he, personally, is ambivalent about applying it to erasure of slave/free (Philemon) or male/female (1 Corinthians 7, 11, 14), but that may be beside the point: many ancient Christians thought all three were operational somehow in the here and now even if only fully realized in the resurrection.  In all three, there are things one can do now to eliminate whatever distinction is being removed to seek unity.  

Let’s look at the pattern: the first two terms have “neither, nor” as their pattern, but the third breaks the pattern as “not, and.”  If I put this in more formulaic terms, it reads something like NOT(Male AND Female).  Why does it break the pattern and does that breakage of pattern give us a clue of what is being negated?  Some have, and I think they are right, seen this as a citation of Gen. 1:27 (see my discussion of that).  The other parts of the Bible that have “male and female” using the word “and” as well as not using the words “man” and “woman” leads us back to the priestly layer of the creation stories (cf. Gen. 5:2).  

For some readers, “no male and female” directly addresses sexual reproduction; that is, it is negating the need to “be fruitful and multiply,” because, by the Roman period, humans were already all over the earth.  The mandate had reached the end of its necessity.  Without the mandate to reproduce, gender roles are then negated as well.  Others (and these arguments can overlap), see it as returning to the original human who was both male and female.  Many ancient readers understood Genesis 1:27 as referring to an original human who was both male and female at the same time, but the Eden story tells of how people became differentiated as either male or female.  Overcoming the curse of Eden and all that entailed – sexual differentiation and gender roles (men labor on the ground; women labor in childbirth) – one returns to the original human state that is both male and female at the same time or neither fully male nor fully female.  I should remind people that I already argued that the poetic phrasing of Gen. 1:27 is encompassing rather than limiting, showing God to be the God of all things rather than binary things and the Bible recognizes figures beyond male and female elsewhere just as it also recognizes other transitional elements not directly mentioned in Genesis 1 (dusk and dawn, wetlands, amphibians).

I would argue that the shift in phrasing here indicates that “male and female” is being negated as a categorical unit.  That is, it negates any temptation to use a default gender binary framework; I could rephrase this: “there is no gender binary.”  There are ways one could operationalize this in antiquity: that is, one could opt out of the reproductive heteronormative economy (as both Jesus and Paul seem to advocate to some degree); one could, instead, have women and men dress in ways that are indistinguishable from one another (see Philo, Contemplative Life).  One could open up new possibilities of gender performance.  In terms of gender affirming care, there is even evidence of some folks in antiquity assigned male at birth who drank pregnant mare’s urine for its feminizing effects (something that in the 20th century was utilized for menopause relief when made into Premarin).  This could even line up with the other place in the New Testament where Gen. 1:27 is quoted: Jesus speaking about becoming eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom: as I have argued, I think he meant this very literally, but understood only very few would take him up on it – and we know of other religious groups who also did this quite literally.  

What would this mean for today?  For today, I think it could mean the elimination of gender policing, saying “boys” or “men” must do “masculine” things and “girls” or “women” must do “feminine” things.  On the one hand, the definition of what counts as masculine, feminine, or – a surprise for those who do not look into other cultures – “man,” “woman,” and other genders (many cultures have more than two genders) are defined differently in different times and places.  Add to this variability, there is “no male and female” begins to make all of these terms nonsense: if there is no male/female, then there is also no man/woman; if there is no man/woman, then there also is no masculine/feminine.  We just have people existing as their best selves and wearing what makes them comfortable and aligned with themselves.  A world without labels.