Last Updated on January 13, 2024 by Kittredge Cherry

Joan of Arc by Jeremy Whitner

Joan of Arc was a tough cross-dressing teenage warrior who led the medieval French army to victory when at age 17. Joan is a queer icon, girl-power hero and patron saint of France. Her belief that God was the source of her — or their or his — gender-bending queerness makes Joan especially inspiring for LGBTQ people of faith. Her feast day is May 30.

Smart and courageous, Joan of Arc (c. 1412-1431) had visions of saints and angels who told her to cut her hair, put on men’s clothes and go to war. At age 18 she helped crown a king and at 19 she was killed by the church that later made her a saint. She died for her God-given right to wear men’s clothing, the crime for which she was executed on May 30, 1431.

Joan of Arc is one of the most popular saints at Q Spirit — and in mainstream society worldwide. She is also Q Spirit’s top female saint, although Joan is increasingly seen as a nonbinary person or transgender man.  Joan’s extraordinary life continues to fascinate all kinds of people. She remains one of the best-known female saints, right up there with Mary, the mother of Jesus — and certainly a contrast to her. While icons show the Madonna cradling her baby, Joan is often pictured carrying a sword. She is the the only female saint who appears as a warrior in armor. Her persecution by the religious leaders feels familiar to LGBTQ people of faith, but Joan is the only official saint who was both canonized and condemned to execution by the church.

Joan infiltrated the old boys’ club of the most venerated saints, which had been male-dominated until she arrived in her suit of armor. Many are eager to claim her as a symbol, from LGBTQ people and feminists to the Catholic Church and French nationalists. Joan is the subject of more than 10,000 books, plays, paintings and films. This article features contemporary LGBTQ portraits of Joan, post, plus many historical images.

Joan of Arc by Katy Miles-Wallace

“Queer Saints: St. Joan of Arc” by Katy Miles-Wallace.

LGBTQ people today recognize a kindred spirit and role model in her stubborn defiance of gender rules. Queer writers tend to downplay Joan’s Christian faith, while the church covers up the importance of her cross-dressing. In truth, Joan believed strongly in God AND in cross-dressing. Joan resonates with readers today because her individual beliefs put her at odds with the church. She insisted that God wanted her to wear men’s clothes, making her what today can be called queer, lesbian, nonbinary, transgender or intersex. It’s hard to apply these contemporary categories to people who lived centuries before those terms existed, and both the lesbian and trans communities are inspired by Joan and claim her as one of their own.

Nonbinary Joan of Arc stars in new play “I, Joan”

The latest high-profile LGBTQ interpretation of the martyr’s life is “I, Joan,” a play about a nonbinary Joan of Arc that premiered in August 2022 at Shakespeare’s Globe theater in London. Written by nonbinary playwright Charlie Josephine, it begins boldly with nonbinary actor Isobel Thom as Joan declaring, “Trans people are sacred.” A video trailer shows lively scenes from the production.

Times have changed since 2008, when a play about a lesbian Joan of Arc was getting awards and attention: “The Second Coming of Joan of Arc” by Carolyn Gage.  News media coverage of “I, Joan” revealed the growing tension as feminist and transgender communities are vying to appropriate the saint for their own cause.

News media coverage of “I, Joan” revealed tensions within the LGBTQ coalition as feminist and transgender communities each asserted the right to define the saint. “The feminist argument against ‘I, Joan’’s gender politics is that nonbinary identities are an act of individual liberation that pushes the rest of us back into rigid pink and blue boxes,” explains an analysis at the Atlantic.

There are similarities between Joan and the medieval archetype sometimes known as the trans saint or “holy transvestite,” people who were assigned female at birth and assumed male identities to live as monks and hermits. Cross-dressing was illegal, but what really upset the church authorities, then as now, was the audacity of someone being both proudly queer AND devoutly Christian.

“I was admonished to adopt feminine clothes; I refused, and still refuse. As for other avocations of women, there are plenty of other women to perform them,” she said.

Saints Against Gender Roles Stargirllily

Apollinaria, right, carries a banner proclaiming, “Saints Against Gender Roles,” along with Catherine of Siena and Joan of Arc in an image that is available on many products from Stargirllily at Redbubble.

The extensive records of her trials by the Inquisition make Joan of Arc the best-documented person of 15th century. There are only hints that she may have acted on lesbian attractions, but the evidence is absolutely clear about her cross-dressing — which can be interpreted as an expression of transgender, nonbinary or butch lesbian identity or a chaste cis-gender heterosexual woman disguising herself to remain safe. On March 25 of her trial, Joan said that “it is not in her” to wear women’s clothes and that that men’s clothes “did not burden her soul.”

Joan of Arc’s life story

Joan of Arc, also known as Jeanne d’Arc, was born to peasants in an obscure village in eastern France around 1412, toward the end of the Hundred Years War. Much of France was occupied by England, so that Charles, the heir to the French throne, did not dare to be crowned. When Joan was 13, she began hearing voices that told her to help France drive out the English.

The visions continued for years, becoming more detailed and frequent. Once or twice a week she had visions of Michael the Archangel and two virgin saints: Catherine of Alexandria and Margaret of Antioch (another transvestite saint who refused to marry a man). They told her that God wanted her to meet Charles and lead an army to Reims for his coronation.

Joan of Arc by Jan Haen

Joan of Arc’s life story is told in in the illustrated book “Heavenly Homos, Etc.: Queer Icons from LGBTQ Life, Religion, and History” by Jan Haen, a Dutch artist and Roman Catholic priest.

Joan’s family tried to convince her that her visions weren’t real, and her first attempt to visit the royal court was rejected. When she was 17 she put on male clothing and succeeded in meeting Charles. She was about five-foot-two in height, with a muscular build. Charles agreed to outfit her as a knight and allowed her to lead a 5,000-man army against the English.

Then as now her faith was inspirational. “It is better to be alone with God. His friendship will not fail me, nor His counsel, nor His love. In His strength, I will dare and dare and dare until I die,” she proclaimed.

“Saint Joan of Arc” by Brother Robert Lentz. Prints available at Amazon and Trinity Stores.

On Charles’ order, a full suit of armor was created to fit Joan. He had a banner made for her and assigned an entourage to help her: a squire, a page, two heralds, a chaplain and other servants.

Joan of Arc on Horseback, 1505
Wikimedia Commons

Joan’s appearance awed the soldiers and peasants when she traveled with the army. Mounted on a fine warhorse, she rode past cheering crowds in a suit of armor. Her hair was “cropped short and round in the fashion of young men.” She carried an ancient sword in one hand and her banner in the other. Her sword was found, as Joan predicted, buried at the church of St. Catherine at Fierbois. The banner showed Christ sitting on a rainbow against a background of white with gold lilies and the motto “Jhesus-Maria.” Legend says that white butterflies followed Joan wherever she rode with her banner unfurled.

With Joan leading the way, the army won the battle at Orleans and continued to defeat English and pro-English troops until they reached Reims. She proudly stood beside Charles VII at his coronation there on July 17, 1429.

Joan soon resumed leading military campaigns. Even during her lifetime the peasants adored her as a saint, flocking around her to touch her body or clothing. Her cross-dressing didn’t disturb them. In fact, they seemed to honor her for cross dressing. Perhaps, as some scholars say, the peasants saw Joan as part of a tradition that linked transvestites and priests in pre-modern Europe.

Capture and trial of Joan of Arc

Joan’s illustrious military career ended in May 1430. She was captured in battle by the Burgundians, the French allies of the English. During her captivity they called her “hommase,” a slur meaning “man-woman” or “masculine woman.”

In a stunning betrayal, Charles VII did nothing to rescue the warrior who helped win him the crown. It was normal to pay ransom for the release of knights and nobles caught in battle, but he abandoned Joan to her fate. Historians speculate that French aristocrats felt threatened by the peasant girl with such uncanny power to move the masses.

Joan of Arc by Harriet Anaya

Joan of Arc by New Mexico artist Harriet Anaya

The Burgundians transferred Joan to the English, who then gave her to the Inquisition. She spent four torturous months in prison before her church trial began on Jan. 9, 1431 in Rouen, the seat of the English occupation government. She was charged with witchcraft and heresy.

The politically motivated church trial was rigged against her, and yet Joan was able to display her full intelligence as she answered the Inquisitors’ questions. Her subtle, witty answers and detailed memory even forced them to stop holding the trial in public.

Witchcraft was hard to prove, so the church dropped the charge. (Many of today’s Wiccans and pagans still honor Joan as one of their own.) The Inquisitors began to focus exclusively on the “heresy” of Joan’s claim that she was following God’s will when she dressed as a man. The judges told her that cross-dressing was “an abomination before God” according to church law and the Bible. (See Deuteronomy 22:5.)

“Joan of Arc Kisses the Sword of Liberation” by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1863 (WikiPaintings)

Convicted of cross-dressing

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.

Was Joan of Arc a lesbian?

Even if she made a vow of celibacy, Joan of Arc could have been a lesbian orientation based on the American Psychological Association definition of sexual orientation as “an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions.” There is speculation that she was an intersex person with androgen insensitivity syndrome.

Lesbian playwright Carolyn Gage’s one-woman show “The Second Coming of Joan of Arc” is an underground classic with Joan as “a cross-dressing, teenaged, runaway lesbian” confronting male-dominated institutions. In 2008 it won the Lambda Literary Award, the top US LGBTQ book award, in the drama category.

One of the first modern writers to raise the possibility of Joan’s lesbianism was English author Vita Sackville-West. She implied that Joan was a lesbian in her 1936 biography “Saint Joan of Arc.” The primary source for this idea was the fact, documented in her trials, that Joan shared her bed with other girls and young women. She followed the medieval custom of lodging each night in a local home. Joan always slept with the hostess or the girls of the household instead of with the men.

Joan of Arc: Her Trial Transcripts” by Emilia Philomena Sanguinetti is a 2016 book that explores whether Joan was a lesbian or transgender person. Extensive evidence that Joan of Arc was a lesbian or transgender person is presented in the epilogue of this groundbreaking book about the cross-dressing medieval saint. She explores how Joan shared her bed with another woman and insisted on wearing male clothing.

Nobody knows for sure whether Joan of Arc was sexually attracted to women or had lesbian encounters, but her abstinence from sex with men is well documented. Her physical virginity was confirmed by official examinations at least twice during her lifetime. Joan herself liked to be called La Pucelle, French for “the Maid,” a nickname that emphasized her virginity. Witnesses at her trial testified that Joan was chaste rather than sexually active. Some contemporary feminists believe that “virgin” did not mean sexless, but belonging to no man. There are many “virgin saints” who refused heterosexual marriage and joined convents to have their primary relationships with women. They become role models for lesbians of faith.

Joan of Arc in the arts

Joan of Arc has a halo with the rainbow colors of the LGBTQ community in a 2022 icon by North Carolina artist Jeremy Whitner. It appears at the top of this post. She wears full armor and carries a sword.  The image is based on a miniature of Joan that was painted between 1450 and 1500, which was only a few decades after her death.

Whitner is a queer Christian iconographer in process for ministry with the Disciples of Christ. He attends Union Presbyterian Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina. His icons appear frequently on Q Spirt. Prints of his icons are available at Whitner’s Fine Art America shop.

Joan of Arc miniature 1485

Joan of Arc miniature, 1485 (Wikipedia)

An androgynous Joan of Arc has a bound chest and a rainbow halo in an icon by queer Lutheran artist and seminarian Katy Miles-Wallace in 2017 as part of her “Queer Saints” series. Her icon of Joan is modeled after genderqueer model Rain Dove. The series presents traditional saints with queer qualities and heroes of the LGBTQ community.

The icons are rooted in queer theology and in Miles-Wallace’s eclectic faith journey that began at a Baptist church in Texas and led to study at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California. She drew many of them on the altar of a seminary chapel. For more info, see the Q Spirit article “New icons of Queer Saints created by artist Katy Miles-Wallace.”

Joan of Arc by Tony O'Connell

Saint Joan of Arc from “Triptych for the 49” by Tony O’Connell

Joan of Arc also has a rainbow halo in “Triptych for the 49” by gay artist Tony O’Connell of Liverpool. Joan of Arc and Sebastian appear as “wrathful protector saints” in the artwork, which honors those killed in the 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse gay bar in Orlando, Florida.

“Jeanne D’Arc” by Rowan Lewgalon

Lewgalon is a spiritual artist based in Germany and also a cleric in the Old Catholic Apostolic Church.  Lentz is a Franciscan friar known for his innovative and LGBTQ-positive icons. He is stationed at Holy Name College in Silver Spring, Maryland.

“Jeanne d’Arc” by Tobias Haller

“Jeanne d’Arc” was sketched by Tobias Haller, an iconographer, author, composer, and retired vicar of Saint James Episcopal Church in the Bronx, still assisting at a parish in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the author of “Reasonable and Holy: Engaging Same-Sexuality.” Haller enjoys expanding the diversity of icons available by creating icons of LGBTQ people and other progressive holy figures as well as traditional saints. He and his husband were united in a church wedding more than 30 years ago and a civil ceremony after same-sex marriage became legal in New York.

A disturbing art installation emphasizes the connection between Joan’s execution and anti-trans violence that is fueled by Christian nationalism today. “In Memoriam / Distress Signal” by Joseph Liatela, an interdisciplinary artist based in New York City, was exhibited at the Yeh Art Gallery in 2022.  An enormous burnt stake stood at the center of the installation to represent Joan.  It was surrounded by glasses of ocean water that equaled the number of trans people murdered in the United States so far that year.

A portrait of Joan kissing her sword was painted by Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, whose sister Christina Rossetti is also part of the LGBTQ Saints series at the Jesus in Love Blog at Q Spirit.

Joan has a dialogue with the fire that is about to consume her in a haunting song written by award-winning Canandian poet Leonard Cohen and sung on July Collins video .

Authors look at the queer Joan of Arc Prayer

Famous writers and composers who have done works about Joan of Arc include Shakespeare, Voltaire, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Mark Twain, Bertolt Brecht and George Bernard Shaw. Transgender author Leslie Feinberg has a chapter on Joan as “a brilliant transgender peasant teenager leading an army of laborers into battle” in her history book “Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman.”  And Joan is included in the 2017 LGBTQ history book for teens, “Queer, There, and Everywhere: 23 People Who Changed the World” by Sarah Prager.

Joan of Arc Prayer

Q Spirit’s Litany of Queer Saints includes this line:

Saint Joan of Arc, courageous queer warrior who defied gender norms, pray for us.

A widely used prayer to Saint Joan of Arc makes a powerful statement that can inspire those who believe in equality for LGBTQ people, despite rejection by religion and society:

“In the face of your enemies,
in the face of harassment, ridicule, and doubt,
you held firm in your faith.
Even in your abandonment,
alone and without friends,
you held firm in your faith.
Even as you faced your own mortality,
you held firm in your faith.
I pray that I may be as bold
in my beliefs as you, St. Joan.
I ask that you ride alongside me
in my own battles.
Help me be mindful
that what is worthwhile
can be won when I persist.
Help me hold firm in my faith.
Help me believe in my ability
to act well and wisely. Amen.”

Links related to Joan of Arc

Wikipedia article on Cross-dressing, sexuality, and gender identity of Joan of Arc

Controversial Saints: Joan of Arc” animated digital painting by Alexandria Babineaux (Explorations: the Texas A&M Undergraduate Journal, 2022)

Joan of Arc trial transcript online

The Patron Saint of Dysphoria: Joan of Arc as Transgender (thingstransform.com)

Joan of Arc: Cross-dressing martyr at Queering the Church Blog

Jeanne-darc.info

Joan of Arc sculpture by Anna Hyatt Huntington at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City

Translations on Joan of Arc as a queer icon

To read this article in Spanish / en español, go to Santos Queer:
Juana de Arco: Santa Travesti

To read this article in Italian, go to Gionta.org:
Una guerriera genderbender. La favolosa vita di Giovanna d’Arco

To read a French interview about Joan of Arc with Q Spirit founder Kittredge Cherry, go to Komitid.fr:
Marine Le Pen s’est trompée, Jeanne d’Arc est en fait une icône queer
(Marine Le Pen was wrong, Joan of Arc is actually a queer icon)

Prière au Christ Arc-en-Ciel: le drapeau LGBT révèle le Christ queer (Rainbow Christ Prayer in French)

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Top image credit:
“Joan of Arc” by Jeremy Whitner.

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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBTQ martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.

This article was originally published in May 2017, was expanded with new material over time, and was most recently updated on Oct. 29, 2023.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.

Kittredge Cherry
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