Transgender saints in the Catholic church: devices of power and exclusion from spaces of being able to be and living in history and contemporary times

Abstract

This article investigates the canonization of trans saints in the Middle Ages, articulating the analysis of gender oppression practices in religion and social life from the perspective of identity and power. This study focuses on historical figures such as Saint Marina, the Monk, and Saint Eugenia, Saint Marino, Saint Sergius, and Bacchus. It seeks to understand how the practices of canonization and the legitimization of sainthood were used as tools to control and normalize gender identity. The central thesis is that, although the medieval church recognized individuals who challenged gender norms, this recognition occurred within a context of biopower, a concept used to describe the control of people's public and private lives that shaped subjectivities and imposed limits on expressions of identity. Through an interdisciplinary approach, encompassing gender studies, medieval history, and contemporary norms in the relationship between the church and society today, the thesis highlights the implications of power mechanisms in the construction of identities and the formation of institutional discourses of the historical and current Catholic Church. The methodology is bibliographic, historiographic, and qualitative in nature.