Do Pagans Generally Accept People Who Are “Intersexed”?

“I know Pagans are generally accepting of Gays, Lesbians and Bi-Sexuals, but where do Pagans stand on Intersexed people? Do Pagans tend to accept Intersexed people?”

First off, thank you for using the more acceptable term “intersex”. As someone who is in a relationship with an intersex person, I know first-hand (well, second hand) how hurtful popular terminology for the condition can be. But I must say that I thought the comparison with Gays, Lesbians and Bi-sexuals seems a little strange. Being intersex is a physical condition, not a matter of sexual orientation.

As for your question, from the perspective of my partner and I (I posed the question to her, as well), the Pagan community has been overwhelmingly supportive. Sure, there are exceptions, most often from people who are fascinated by her “condition” and objectify her. If there is one negative component in the Pagan community, it most often comes from the same people who are drawn to Paganism partly through the mistaken presumption that being Pagan means lots of indiscriminate sex with hot, horny witches. To these people an intersex woman is a fantasy, much like that of having relations with multiple partners at the same time. One leader in the local Pagan community offered the very same observation, saying that “she’s a like a husband and a mistress all rolled into one, isn’t she?” without realizing how hurtful that statement was.

I mention this because of the reaction to that statement by other members of the local Pagan community. The statement was almost universally condemned, and the woman who said it made a formal apology. The groundswell of support that followed led my partner to tell me that she had never felt more accepted in her life. This feeling had never come to her at the hands of contemporary Christian culture. So perhaps this experience will serve as an answer to your question.

I am, needless to say, of the opinion that the Pagan community is overwhelmingly more supportive and accepting of intersex people than mainstream culture, where they are often viewed as little more than erotic curiosities, if not dangerous influences on “family” and “decent people”. One doctor actually told my partner that he expected that he might “see a unicorn before I met someone like you.”

Of course, I realize as I’m writing this that you might have been asking your question from more of a spiritual viewpoint, wondering how Pagans approach people who are, for all intents and purposes, neither male nor female, but some mixture of the two. It’s hard for some people to understand the condition. For the most part, in my experience Pagans, who are more likely to be accepting of anything or anyone that has occurred naturally, have no spiritual objection to intersexed people. They aren’t as likely to brand them as “abominations” and “freaks” as some in the Evangelical community have done because for Pagans there is no scriptural or dogmatic reason to do so. Pagans tend to revere the Earth and all life on it, and that includes the intersexed. If anything, I have heard some rumblings as to the possibility that the intersexed should be revered as a living mixture of both the God and the Goddess. But, for the most part, they’re just viewed as people, like everyone else. Which is, of course, exactly what they are.