Søren Kierkegaard would today be described as a brilliant philosopher, a religious fanatic, and a violent misogynist. He grew up where gender roles were as rigidly defined as they could be, and Christendom was eminent in the kingdom. Despite this environment, Kierkegaard’s writing may have use today in queer-liberation theology. One can use Kierkegaard’s analysis of the self in The Sickness unto Death as a basis for self-acceptance with regards to gender identity, the opposite of what is typically advised in most modern Christian institutions. A Complete overview of gender roles, identities, attributions, and assignments in the context of Kierkegaard’s works provides a framework for Christians to understand the importance of gender with regards to one’s faith. A post-modern reading of Kierkegaard regarding gender and its subsequent parts reveals the necessity of acceptance for Gender Non-Conforming Christians.

The marriage of patriarchy and religion is one of the foundational pillars of human history. Seeped so deeply in the church is the belief that men are superior to all else, justified by the ancient belief in gender assignment at birth between two inherently opposite classes to which hierarchy then forms. It was not until Stone Wall and the subsequent Gay Rights Movement where gender variance bestowed itself in religious communities across the U.S. and Europe . Since then, a few churches have hesitantly, but surely, relaxed their violent fervor against the abolition of patriarchy organized and demanded by trans and gay rights activists. Notwithstanding these few exceptions, where certain churches yielded to the demands for acceptance and embrace of all genders and their variants, the institution of the church, grounded in the conservation of communal and religious tradition, remains unyielding in their belief of the normative practice.

Then what is the normative practice? Why does the church defend it and more importantly how does Kierkegaard’s philosophy subvert it? To make sense of it, the concept of gender must be defined and deconstructed into a series of discernable parts.

Gender, like religion, is difficult to define. The belief that one’s biological sex, makes up one’s entire gender is a fallacy that does not consider the sociological impacts of gender alignment. Gender is a construction made by a specific culture that permeate in different aspects of one’s experience in their respective society. They work in relation to each other to form a personally unique gender experience which is then assigned to one of two categories, male and female (at least in the Danish Western culture Kierkegaard knew).

Starting with one’s gender assignment, one is then given a set of roles to perform in order to maintain their gender, and must choose to express their gender in a way that would yield proper attribution. Queer theorist Kate Bornstein defines gender assignment as “what happens when the culture says, ‘This is what you are,’” and continues to explain that “in most cultures, we’re assigned a gender at birth. In our culture, once you’ve been assigned a gender, that’s what you are; and for the most part, it’s doctors who dote out the gender assignments…gender assignment is both phallocentric and genital.” When a person is born, they are placed into two separate classes, male or female, with the understanding that males are given greater power within the culture. The assignment is based entirely on the presence of a penis, if the baby has a penis, then they are assigned a male gender, and are expected maintain their systemic power over non-males. The absence of a penis marks the absence of power, resulting into the gender assignment of not-male, or woman.

Following assignment is the role one must take to constantly reaffirm the assignment and its subsequent power structure. Gender roles are the expectations of how a person must be with regards to their gender, to maintain the illusion that gender is fixed. Bornstein describes Gender roles as “collections of factors which answer the question, ‘How do I need to function so that society perceives me as belonging or not belonging to a specific gender?’ Some people would include appearance, sexual orientation, and methods of communications under the term” but it also expands to “jobs, economic roles, hobbies; in other words, positions and actions specific to a given gender as defined by a culture. Gender roles, when followed, send signals of membership in a given gender” For men to be deserving of institutional dominance, they are assigned roles of leadership and power over others. The institution of marriage, especially in Kierkegaard’s time mirrors these roles. Men are expected to be the head of the family, and women are seen as their property. Men work outside of the home and raises money, social standing, and notoriety through labor and social functions and provide resources for their wives to live comfortable at home, who in turn grant them children and care for their family. Women’s roles dictate an inherent submissiveness to the man’s exertion of power.

Gender expression is then the active decision of the individual on which roles they would choose to perform. Gender roles are prescribed to individuals as a commandment to perform the roles of their assigned gender to appear normal in their culture. Gender attribution is then the gender recognized by others. Expression aims to display one’s gender, attribution is the test of whether their expression matches the prescribed gender roles, held as a model for all in a certain culture to compare to. When gender roles, expression, identity, and assignments are all in alignment according to the culture the person is in is called the normative practice.

Kierkegaard, as following with European tradition, puts an extreme emphasis on gender roles, and treats them as something inherent to the individual based on their gender assignment and biological sex. These roles are used to reinforce patriarchy, the social hierarchy which puts people assigned male and their gender roles as more powerful than women, reinforced by their gender roles. Gender roles are the crux of the seducer, because seduction is merely the manipulation of gender roles assigned to women, and the abuse of power such roles give to men.

Gender then, functions entirely as a social institution. From assignment, to attribution, the roles and expressions of gender are determined solely by the culture of the individual, which according to Kierkegaard, are inherently flawed and limited due to original sin. Ada Jaarsma examined Kierkegaard’s view of social institutions from Fear and Trembling and explains that “we are not fully defined by social institutions, linguistic practices, or other cultural habits that make up our social lives; this means that as individuals, we have more, not less, responsibility towards cultivating a certain concentrated passion towards our own desires; the ‘double movement’ of faith as described by Silentio both reinforces the personal value of our own attachments and demonstrates the insufficiency, ultimately, of our social relations and the impossibility of achieving existential wholeness through our own resources.” Abraham was asked to do an immoral deed, to murder his son, whom he loved, for God. For Abraham to have been the father of faith, he needed to be in something deeper, and more profound than the ethics of his society.

Since gender is a social institution and society is constructed by people, who are in sin, and are therefore away from God, then it so follows that living out ones assigned gender does not contribute to any connection one may make with God. Unless there is something innate in an individual that would inform them of the self they are destined to be. Kierkegaard would call this God; queer theorists call it gender identity.
Gender identity is what one imagines themself as. It has no clear definition but is based entirely on the inclination of the individual, and it usually starts with what one is not. For instance, a lot of people feel a connection between their gender and their biological sex, enough so that it is assumed to be the case for everyone. But for individuals for whom this is not the case, they start by recognizing that their gender identity is not that which is assigned to them. From there, they have the decision, either explore until their find what feels for comfortable for them, or to repress that imbalance, and force themself into their assigned gender, and gender roles.

Gender identity is dialectical to the self. Kierkegaard may not have been conscious of it, or even knew of its existence as a separate entity from gender assignment, roles, expressions, and attributions, but his work, The Sickness unto Death is a crucial resource for trans and Gender Non-Conforming Christians.

Gender identity, while it may seem simple, has quite a bit of complexity specifically because it can run counter to the normative narrative. What western culture, and the institution of Christianity that comes with it, considers normal is for one’s gender identity to match their gender assignment, and for the individual’s gender expression to perfectly match the gender roles that correspond to their gender assignment well enough that their gender attribution, what gender others notice the individual as, is consistent with their gender assignment. In addition, the individual must desperately hope that their biological sex is entirely consistent with their genetalia and that there be no surprises during puberty. Bornstein explains that “gender identity is assumed by many to be ‘natural’; that is someone can feel ‘like a man’ or ‘like a woman.’” She says that “gender identity answers the questions, ‘who am I?’ Am I a man or a woman or a what? It’s a decision made by nearly every individual, and it’s subject to any influence: peer pressure, advertising, drugs, cultural definitions of gender, whatever… Gender identity answers another question: ‘to which gender (class) do I want to belong?’ Being and belonging are closely related concepts when it comes to gender…if you don’t belong to one or the other, you’re told in no uncertain terms to sign up fast.” This is the normative practice the institution of Christianity has upheld. When separated in this way, one can see how incredibly complex and arbitrary the normative practice of gender may be. Yet institutions of power successfully created the conditions in a culture where that is all assumed to be normal, and that any deviation from the complex system of the normative practice is often labelled as freakish and demonic.

How does Kierkegaard fit into the normative practice and how would his philosophy be useful to those that wish to escape it? It is already determined that the structure of power that results from the entire genetalia -based institution of gender division is a social construction, which has nothing to do with God. But reading gender identity as being part of the self which Kierkegaard lays out provides insight into how a trans or gender non-conforming individual may experience religious unity with God despite the church’s resounding resentment towards those individuals.

The Sickness unto Death begins by defining the self as a series of relations relating itself to itself. “A human being” Kierkegaard writes, “is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short, a synthesis” Balance is necessary between these relations, and an imbalance results in despair. The self one must will to be needs a source that it’s related to, and for Kierkegaard, “such a relation that relates itself to itself, a self, must either have established itself or have been established by another.” This other is God, who is the infinite, the eternal, the freedom and the necessity. For the self to be healthy, there must be an even balance between all the relations, and the relations of the self to itself, and the self to God must be balanced. An imbalance would be despair, for “if a human self had itself established itself, then there could only be one form: not to will to be oneself, to will to do away with oneself, but there could not be the form: in despair to will to be oneself.” To be away from God is a personal decision that leads one to despair.

Kierkegaard would argue that it is God who determines one’s gender identity, and the Christian would have good reason to believe so. There is no understood grounding for one’s gender identity. Many Gender Non-Conforming individuals cannot describe it other than the fact that they feel their assigned gender is simply wrong. When asked to locate one’s gender, in their psyche, experiences, whatever, one cannot find it. It makes perfect sense that God would be the source of one’s gender identity, as a part of the self that God wills unto the individual. Kierkegaard, like the church, would probably argue that the gender identity prescribed by God always matches ones genetalia.
But it is merely a legend that one’s gender is in one’s genetalia, for the existence of dysphoria disproves an inherent, dialectical relationship between genetalia and gender. There are intersex people who have genetalia that don’t perfectly describe a penis or a lack of one. When a trans individual tries very hard to fit the normative pattern of gender expectations, there is usually the presence of discomfort because it does not match with their God-given gender identity. The individual is instead in despair not to will to be oneself.

Forcing a trans person to be someone they are not is trauma too familiar to the community. This is a particularly clear form of despair because society does so much violence to this coercion, and the suffering and dysphoria of trans people is so well documented as it can be intense. In defiance of what God wills them to be, a trans individual for safety would not only remain closeted, but often be in such a state of self-hatred that they could not acknowledge the self they must will themselves to be. Defiance is a crucial ingredient to despair. “No despair is entirely free of defiance” Kierkegaard explains, “indeed the very phrase ‘not to will to be’ implies defiance. On the other hand, even despair’s most extreme defiance is never really free of some weakness. So the distinction is only relative.” The defiance is to be against the will of God in favor of safety and acceptance in a sinful society. The weakness here is that God is assigning the individual an identity that is inherently counter to what the society has deemed to be normal, and the individual is weak against the resounding pressures of patriarchal participation within their culture. In other words, when one is confronted with a gender identity that is different from their assigned gender, one can either will to be oneself, or one can will to be someone else. Therefore, a Christian cannot be out of despair unless they embrace their gender identity, whatever it may be.

Dysphoria is the struggle between the disconnect of one’s gender identity and gender assignment. At a metaphysical level, it is giving in to external factors instead of embracing the internal. Kierkegaard may argue that God is the one that decided what genetalia to give the individual, and that one’s dysphoria may have a source other than gender identity, and it is more likely that the individual is insane instead of being chosen by God to identify with a different gender than society’s assignment dictates. The issue with this response is that despair does not come from within, since there is “no infinite consciousness of the self, or what despair is, or of the condition as one of despair. The despair is only a suffering, a succumbing to the pressure of external factors; in no way does it come from within as an act.” It makes a lot of sense to see the gender assignment, an external factor, and gender identity as the internal. If one’s gender identity cannot cause despair, and one experiences dysphoria that is specifically related to gender, then it must be the gender assignment that is the source of despair. It is in the relationship between the temporal and the eternal, an analysis of the moment in deciding whether the individual is in a safe environment, and the eternal embrace of God, where a trans individual may find some hope of religious fulfillment.

Trans people are hyper-aware of their own temporal state as a transgressor of social norms, yet they would not subdue despair unless they balance their relationship of the temporal with the infinite. Anyone that is LGBTQ+ understands that they need to analyze every moment, every environment they are in, and must decide which gender roles to express and how authentic to their identity they should be. Their concern for safety makes them “bound up in immediacy, with the other in desiring, craving, enjoying, etc. yet passively, in its craving, this self is a dative, like the ‘me’ of a child. Its dialectic is: the pleasant and the unpleasant; its concepts are good luck, bad luck, fate.” The pleasure of being safe alongside the displeasure of being inauthentic, the good luck of meeting someone accepting, or the bad luck of being outed, or the fateful day your church figures out and the pastor organizes a mob to beat the individual for two hours. This does not have to mean that all trans people cannot achieve spiritual fulfillment unless they are out, that is dangerous and life-threatening. What it does mean, is that one must understand their gender identity, one must understand that their gender assignment was wrong, that their gender roles prescribed to them are incorrect, and that they are aware of when they expressing their gender identity, and when they are expressing their assigned gender, and constantly acknowledging the fact that they are only expressing their assigned gender out of safety. The individual needs to have room to explore their gender identity and create a persona that will allow them to will to be themself. This involves a careful analysis of their assigned gender roles and the freedom to explore and experiment with gender expression so that they may find what fits for them, and can plan accordingly for when they may express their assigned gender, and when they cannot.

For gender expression only must do with how one relates in society. If one is comfortable in themself with their own gender, then there is no need to express it to others, for the individual has already willed to be themself, they do not need the reassurance of others for they are already in relation with the eternal. On the contrary, the “man of immediacy does not know himself, he quite literally identifies himself only by the clothes he wears, he identifies having a self by externalities (here again, the infinitely comical). There is hardly a more ludicrous mistake, for a self is indeed infinitely distance from an externality.” But for trans individuals, clothing can be a major source of relief and a powerful tool in the process towards acceptance. Clothing is a quintessential part of gender expression, it is the main source of gender attribution, men wear pants, girls wear dresses. Being caught up in immediacy is also being caught up in the fear of wrongful gender attribution. Everyone, regardless of their gender, works to make sure their gender attribution is how they want it. Most people use gender expression so that their attribution matches their assignment. The reason why cisgender men wear jeans, strange cologne, and a muscle tank is to let everyone know they have a penis and are therefore, powerful. They are stuck in immediacy.

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