Over the years I’ve spent in inclusive Heathen spaces online, I’ve seen many people ask questions about which Gods might be seen as trans, non-binary, genderfluid, etc. I’ve been part of many discussions on this, on how different ideas of gender relate to the Gods, and I have more thoughts on this than I can fit into a short message on Discord. This essay is an attempt to lay those thoughts out in a more thorough and systematic way.
Introduction and definitions
Before getting into the meat of this topic, I just wanted to spend a moment giving a working definition of some terms, and also giving some context about where I’m coming from personally with all this.
Sex and gender are two terms often used interchangably, or in fuzzy ways. Here by a person’s sex I mean the physical, genetic, and hormonal aspects linked to “maleness” and “femaleness” — their sex chromosomes (XX, XY, XO, XXY, and other combinations), their internal and external genitals, levels of different sex hormones, and to some extent secondary sex characteristics such as facial hair or breasts. By a person’s gender I mean their personal identity (or lack thereof), linked to different social roles and ideas. Gender and sex do connect in different ways, but I understand them as different in this way: essentially, sex is about physicality, gender is about interiority and social interaction.
Another definition I’ll give at this point is intersex. Modern Western society expects that all the aspects of sex line up neatly to form two discrete categories, male and female. Intersex people are people where this isn’t the case, due to various naturally occuring variations in these traits. For example, I have XX chromosomes, breasts, and a regular menstrual cycle, but my external genitalia naturally developed slightly differently to the expected “female norm”. Being intersex has affected and informed my experience of gender, but it is fundamentally an aspect of my physical body, IE, sex.
An important thing to note about both sex and gender is that they are both concepts influenced and affected by how our human societies think about and categorise them. The entire spectrum of intersex diversity exists and has always existed in nature, but it is humans that created a definition of two rigid and exclusive categories, and created social, medical, and legal enforcement around them, with consequences for people who did not quite fit. And of course it is human societies that define, and continue to define and change, ideas of different genders and the roles expected of them.
So what has this got to do with the Gods?
When people say “gender is a social construct” or “sex is a social construct”, it can sound like that means those things are unimportant or not “real”. But society in the Western Anglosphere (and elsewhere) places huge importance on these constructs, and they have huge impacts on our lives and experiences, even if we personally don’t have a strong sense of gender identity. Sex and gender can be vectors for oppression and marginalisation, for trauma, for suffering — for euphoria, for experimentation and self-actualisation, for solidarity, for identity.
Put simply, sex and gender are important parts of the human experience. That means they are going to be important to how we understand and relate to the Gods.
It’s important, I think, to recognise that sex and gender do not apply for the Gods in the same way they do for us, because the Gods’ existence is generally so different from our own. It is impossible for me and (for example) Frīg to “be a woman” in the same way because it is impossible for me and Frīg to “be” in the same way at all.
As humans, in any incarnation we are tied to a single physical body, but the Gods are not tied to a physical body at all. What meaning would sex have for the Gods, Who can take on any shape They choose, or none? What meaning would gender have for the Gods, Who are not subject to the changing expectations of human society? I believe these things have meaning for the Gods only inasmuch as they are meaningful parts of the human experience, and meaningful tools through which we can understand the Gods.
Not only is the world queerer than we suppose, it is queerer than we can suppose.
JBS Haldane, Possible Worlds, 1927
A topic often debated among pagans and polytheists is whether or to what extent the Gods are “just like us”. For me the answer is that surely the experience and existence of a God is very different to that of a human — what it means for Them to “be” at all is fundamentally different and borderline incomprehensible to us. Yet it is often a great source of comfort and understanding to find ways in which we can relate to Them.
For example, when I was working as a PhD student in a medical research lab, it was incredibly meaningful for me to see Óðinn (to Whom I was then oathed) as a scientist. I knew of course that He was not literally a scientist in the same way I was, but to think of Him through this metaphor helped me understand Him and indeed myself. It helped me find a connection to Him and to the Divine in the difficult, discouraging, and demanding times I experienced working in science. Even if I can never comprehend Óðinn in all His totality, I can understand this aspect of Him and His nature, and I can know that He understands me.
Now of course, there are differences between a career path or vocation such as scientific researcher, and an aspect of identity such as gender. Nonetheless, I think the general principle applies. What is literal for us as humans, is metaphorical for the Gods. I am literally a data analyst, literally a woman. Þunor is metaphorically a farmer, metaphorically a man.
Understanding the Gods, understanding our selves
I think it is perhaps a part of the human experience to question ourselves and our identities, particularly those of us who are members of groups that are othered and marginalised. For polytheists this can take the form of questions like, “Am I connected to the Divine? Can people like me be connected to the Divine?” And I believe the answer is, fundamentally, yes.
The Gods encompass all, are present in all places and all times. All beings carry the Divine spark of life. There is no identity or aspect of the human experience that is strange to or alienated from Them.
(To note, I’m not considering here the question of people who commit extremely harmful actions or deliberate impiety, and whether they lose connection to the Gods in some way. My thoughts on this would be a whole other post.)
For me this was a profound realisation. For years I had felt intense shame and stigma around my intersexness — that I was a mistake of nature, unlovable, unworthy. Awareness or thoughts of my intersexness when I was conducting ritual or praying or thinking of the Gods felt jarring. Representations of the Gods as normatively male or female, or even able to seamlessly shapeshift or transition between those norms, reinforced this feeling, that in some way this part of me was profane, excluded from the Divine.
Yet gradually, I came to see Wōden as intersex. One of Óðinn’s kennings, Jálg, can be translated as Gelding [1], and this prompted me to consider that the Old Man could perhaps relate to my experiences of genital trauma, of not fitting normative ideas of sex. These experiences did not mark me out as separated from Him at all — they were another facet of Him, another way to understand Him. And this changed way of understanding Wōden helped change the way I understand myself and my own identity.
Now some may ask, how can Wōden, or any other God, be intersex? What sense does it make to consider Them this way when They don’t have a physical body that can have a sex in any meaningful way? In some way this can seem a greater leap than relating to the Gods on the basis of gender, which is less tied to physicality.
Well, for me it is similar to the way we think of Wōden as one-eyed or Tyr as one-handed. They aren’t literally, physically, those things because They don’t have physical eyes or hands or bodies in the first place. Yet these attributes have deep mythic and symbolic meanings that help us understand these Gods. And I know multiple disabled devotees of the Old Man who find this to be an incredibly profound point of connection and commonality between themselves and their God. Again, what is literal for us is metaphorical for the Gods.
The meanings of metaphors
Semiotics is defined as the theory of signs. The word ‘semiotics’ comes from the Greek word semeiotikos, which means an interpreter of signs. Signing is vital to human existence because it underlies all forms of communication. […] Semiotics, then, is about the tools, processes and contexts we have for creating, interpreting and understanding meaning in a variety of different ways.
Sean Hall, This Means This, That Means That, 2007, Introduction
As heathens, we use a variety of different titles, kennings, and epithets to refer to the Gods, which use metaphors to help us think of the Gods in different ways. For example, one might at times refer to Þunor as a Divine Farmer, and at others as a Warrior. “Farmer” and “Warrior” are roles that have different semiotics, different meanings attached to them. Both are equally valid ways of describing and understanding Þunor, but may highlight different aspects of His nature.
Another example, thinking about gender. The titles of “Father” and “Mother” — within our current cultural context, with its current ideas of sex and gender — have different semiotics, call to mind different ideas, behaviours, thoughts, and feelings. I believe we call Frigga the All-Mother and Óðinn the All-Father because Her presence, the experience of Her, commonly feels more kindly, and His commonly more stern or intimidating. Assuming the relative constancy of the Gods throughout time, I believe humans therefore came originally to consider Óðinn a Father-figure and Frigga a Mother-figure by mapping on cultural ideas of the father as stern and the mother as gentle relative to each other.
The gendered-ness of these titles and the way we understand the Gods arises from human interpretations of how experiences of the Gods align to human cultural ideas of gender. These ideas and interpretations are then passed down and taught to others, and come to influence and frame how we see the Gods. Because we live in a heavily gendered culture, speak a language that uses gendered pronouns, and because heathenry tends to privilege historical sources, these framings of the Gods are very powerful and may be seen as fundamentally “true” or “facts” about the Gods. Yet they are still human interpretations and human metaphors, rather than something truly innate to the Gods.
As I said earlier, the Gods encompass all. As is often said in polytheist circles, a God of anything can be a God of everything to Their devotees. If there is any gender identity that most closely describes the Gods as They are, I’d suggest it would be something like either or both pangender and agender. All, and none.
Therefore, I think just as it is valid and meaningful to consider Þunor both a warrior and a farmer, it is valid and meaningful to refer to any God by any gender (or sex, or other human identity status). In fact I think it is helpful to experiment with this, even and perhaps especially with Gods Whose extant myths and common associations do not touch on gender fluidity.
I consider Wōden and Frīg as my Divine Parents, and it has been a fascinating exercise to think of Frīg as All-Father and Wōden as All-Mother. To dig into and consider: what insights this might give me into Them? Into myself? Into gender and how I see and approach it? Into the ideas of “mother” and “father” and what they hold for me?
[S]emiotics is about creating the lies that make us see the truth.
Sean Hall, This Means This, That Means That, 2007, Chapter 2
Gender and sex, and other aspects of human identity, can be incredibly powerful frameworks through which we experience our lives and navigate society. This makes them also powerful metaphorical frameworks through which to approach and understand the Gods. At times these frameworks can be like the air we breathe, the water a fish swims in: passing un-noticed, un-thought-of. But when we notice and think about such things, we come to a greater understanding. The map is not the territory, yet a truer understanding of the map enables a truer conceptualisation of the territory.
I hope some of these thoughts may be helpful to others in mapping their own ways forward.
References
- Prose Edda – Gylfaggining stanza 3, Jesse Byock trans.
wandering blackbird 
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