Extended Essay

Arnel E. Sarte Jr GED109-OL54

Standard arrangements of history's most influential pioneers – among them Abraham, Moses,
Jesus, Muhammad, Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) – will in general be overwhelming, if not
solely, male. Ever since the beginning of time gender in religion is patriarchal particularly among
Christians only allow men to be clergy Many religious groups, including Roman Catholics and
Orthodox Jews and having only men to lead most of the religious organizations and women being
generally placed in the lowers ranks and act as support to those in the higher position. But over
the years time is gradually changing the basis of gender in terms of religion and many concepts are
being accepted and practiced, women clergy became more common in other religion especially in
the evangelical Protestant tradition and that over the next few years will see sudden and dramatic
increases in the numbers of women entering parish ministries and other clergy positions. For
religious groups like Roman Catholics and Orthodox Jews the diversity in clergy will most likely not
follow the recent change that the other religions have implemented.

In the present, gender over the time became diverse from having only the man and woman as the
main basis of gender to having Agender, Gender Fluid, Gender Queer and many more sparked a
controversy and at the same time while challenging the beliefs every religion that there is. Local
churches not agreeing to the context of gender identity believing that there is only man and
woman as a gender thus everyone should act accordingly of their gender, but with the people of
society constantly fighting either for acceptance or peace the church have finally come to accept
the context having different gender expressions. In the year 2001, same sex marriage will finally be
allowed to certain countries in order for the church and Its religion to embrace the change that
our society is changing and to give acceptance, freedom and happiness for those who are
members of the LGBTQ+ community. Although same sex marriage was a positive move there are
countries that are still not open in allowing the same sex marriage due to strong religious belief of
specific countries.

Gender and Religion have come a long way, from men being superior to women for a long time in
religion to women being allowed to take high positions in the religious context and be able to
establish themselves as a leader of religious organizations. In the 21 st century a lot of movement
that involve gender identity have been done and it resulted into acceptance. Gender and Religion
was not good in terms in the past, discriminations happened just because of the beliefs that
people have with religion that prevents them from understanding the whole picture gender and its
diversity, rights and freedom. There are beliefs in religion that are just fully restricting and it
prevents everyone that believes it to be open of the reality that certain things happen and that
belief in religion does not help you to be more open. Our society is constantly changing,
discovering things that will reinforce the idea of freedom and acceptance of gender in the context
of religion. It may sound delusional but it’s only a matter of time before the desired freedom and
acceptance will be achieved.
In my personal opinion the century that I’m born in was a great blessing because I don’t have to
experience the discriminations that happened in the past. In this century freedom in gender is
slowly becoming more widespread and people are becoming more accepting and understanding
towards each other. It’s not just about being able to say that you’re straight or gay, but it’s also
having about having a sense of belonging and acceptance. Women in religion are usually the ones
that are more religious than men but they do not have the freedom I am hoping that in the future
woman will be able to lead churches soon and be able to establish themselves as independent
leaders of the church.

Philippines is an extremely religious country and the majority of the people are Roman Catholic
which has strong beliefs that comes in contrast with the diversity of gender and gender identity.
Our country is also one of the countries that haven’t approved same sex marriage due to the
strong religious beliefs of many people in the country. That is because they believe that man
should only be married to a woman, thus forcing many that are in a same sex relationship to get
married outside the Philippines as there are countries that allow same sex marriage. I am hoping
that in the future same sex marriage will be approved so that our country will be more open to
everyone and will not force others to go outside the country to marry their significant half.
Because our society is growing and the only thing that we can do is accept it as long as it’s not a
deplorable change.