Transgender characters from the Bible

Times of Malta
19th July 2008

Peterson Toscano, an American theatrical performance activist, will tonight present a piece on transgender characters un-earthed from the Bible.

Aptly named Transfigurations: Transgressing Gender In The Bible, the one-man show is about people who do not fit in the gender binary and who, in transgressing and transcending gender, find themselves at the centre of some the Bible's most important stories.

Drawing inspiration from one-on-one interviews with transgender and gender-queer individuals, Mr Toscano weaves their experiences with the stories and lives of transgender people right on the pages of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures.

Hilarious and deeply moving, he deepens well-known, and lesser-known, Bible stories as he presents an array of characters with an array of genders.

Mr Toscano studied theatre and English literature at City College of New York. A comic character actor and a playwright, he often draws on poetry, the Bible and other texts as well as extensive interviews to inspire his work. He performs throughout North America and Europe and appears regularly on American television and in films.

As a gay man, his journey out of the closet was long and complicated. He spent years in therapy attempting to change from gay to straight, attending ex-gay support groups, enduring three exorcisms and even spending two years in an ex-gay boot camp but in 1998 he finally came out and fully accepted himself as a gay man.

Last year, along with fellow ex-gay survivor Christine Bakke, he launched , an online resource for ex-gay survivors. He speaks out regularly about the harms of therapies to change lesbians and gays and will be addressing the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England.

The show is produced by Drachma, a Catholic group of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender people who meet to pray together, in collaboration with Warehouse No. 8.

Tonight's performance will be held at Warehouse No. 8 at 9 p.m. Tickets cost €11.

For information call on 7947 5853 or 7905 7676.

_________________
http://www.spinwatch.org/