Introduction

Despite generations of feminist and queer deconstructions of gender and sexual binarisms in diverse disciplines, the modern/colonial belief in the heteronormative sexual (and thus gender) binary between ‘man’ and ‘woman’ seems to still be strongly held in contemporary society. In this conference, we ask if the binary gender system works as a kind of belief, a question that leads us to explore the relationship between ‘gender’ and systems of ‘faith’ by focusing on three different relations between the two: ‘gender as faith’, ‘gender against faith’, and ‘gender in faith’. The convergences and conflicts between gender and faith also ask us to look more closely at the complex and diverse articulations of gender within different religious ‘faiths’.

Questions to be addressed by the conference include the following: Is the analogy of gender heteornormativity and ‘faith’ still relevant in a cultural and religious context not focused on faith?  Are ‘queerness’ and ‘faith’ compatible? How do actual non-heteronormative gender positions within religious traditions contradict conservative religious demonizations of gender theory as ‘gender ideology’?