Sex Otherwise: Intersex, Christology and the Maleness of Jesus

Abstract

Intersex conditions manifest in atypical physical sex and raise important theological questions about the significance of human sex. This paper examines the significance of Jesus's sex, suggesting that Christian theologies grounded in his undisputed maleness require rethinking in light of intersex. This includes the insistence by some Christians that priests must be male and not female because Jesus was male. The paper draws on constructive Christian theologies, including that of Karl Barth, and interviews with intersex Christians. It concludes that, while all humans are irreducibly sexed, sex is a human rather than a divine attribute and that maleness is not a necessary carrier of Jesus's soteriological capacity. Human sex does not in itself image God, but is a channel for other divine characteristics, such as generativity and relationality, imaged in humans. Maleness is not a quality of God imaged in Jesus, so also need not be a quality of Jesus which Christian priests “represent.”