Chapter 4
Adam and Eve, Hijra, LGBTQs, and
the shake-up of gender identities
Contingent sins
Boys and girls (in this order), tertium non datur (a third is not given). This is the
two-valued gender logic of Christianity; or was, until recently. It is no
exaggeration to say that for the majority of Christians, the story of Adam and
Eve (Genesis 2:4–3:24) was for generations all there was to say about the nature
of human sexuality (at least, to be said aloud). Conservative and fundamentalist
Christian denominations still insist that heterosexual monogamy is what the
Bible prescribes and consider homosexuality a sin. That morals and attitudes
about sexuality are historically and culturally contingent they do not want to
know or acknowledge, sticking to a worldview epitomized (rather beautifully,
though) by Albrecht Dürer’s engraving (Figure 7), a natural division into males
and females.