Joan of Arc: Cross-dressing warrior-saint and LGBTQ role model
This is a story we all think we know. There is so much more from a "Q" prospective. I fond an in depth study on the Q Spirit site. Quoted blow is only one aspect. Be sure to read the whole article. Our history...
by | May 29, 2022
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| Joan of Arc on Horseback, 1505 |
They accused Joan of “leaving off the dress and clothing of the feminine sex, a thing contrary to divine law and abominable before God, and forbidden by all laws” and instead dressing in “clothing and armor such as is worn by man.”
Joan swore that God wanted her to wear men’s clothing. “For nothing in the world will I swear not to arm myself and put on a man’s dress; I must obey the orders of Our Lord,” she testified. She outraged the judges by continuing to appear in court wearing what they called “difformitate habitus” (“monstrous dress” or “degenerate apparel.”)
Today Joan’s conservative admirers claim that she wore men’s clothes only as way to avoid rape, but she said that it meant much more to her. Joan of Arc saw cross-dressing as a sacred duty.
The judges summarized Joan’s testimony by saying, “You have said that, by God’s command, you have continually worn man’s dress, wearing the short robe, doublet, and hose attached by points; that you have also worn your hair short, cut ‘en rond’ above your ears with nothing left that could show you to be a woman; and that on many occasions you received the Body of our Lord dressed in this fashion, although you have been frequently admonished to leave it off, which you have refused to do, saying that you would rather die than leave it off, save by God’s command.”
Joan refused to back down on the visions she received from God, and she was sentenced to death. She was burned at the stake on May 30, 1431 in Rouen. Twenty five years later she was retried and her conviction was overturned. Joan was declared innocent.
Her armor, that “monstrous dress,” became an object of veneration, sought after like the Holy Grail with various churches claiming to possess her true armor. Joan of Arc was canonized as a saint in 1920.
The two leading causes of blindness in this world are religion and politics,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this Rhonda. I've always considered Jean d'Arc (Joan of Arc) to be my transgender patron saint. As a Catholic, I had to choose a saint's name for my confirmation name. I randomly chose John, although I never selected a specific St. John from the many that exist. In retrospect, I've come to believe that the Holy Spirit led me to this choice as a way to select Joan of Arc by choosing the masculine form of Joan that would be acceptable to the Church hierarchy.
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