Gender Eclecticism

Abstract Similar to what happened in the 1960s, the debates around ‘gender essentialism’ seem to be back at the frontstage, both inside and outside academia. The religious field is no stranger to this controversy, where discussions about what it means to be a man or a woman, are followed by arguments regarding transgender and (transgender) non-binary people. Nowhere could this be more crucial than in the case of the so-called ‘women-centred spiritualities’. Based on the testimonies drawn from in-depth interviews about women-centred spiritualities present in the Spanish context, in this text I inquire about the presence of current political and social debates on gender in some of these alternative religiosities. Regarding my findings, I propose the term ‘gender eclecticism’ to approach the very diverse, and sometimes paradoxical notions about ‘gender’ that appear in some women-centred practitioners’ testimonies.