Abstract
This article is about spirit possession in Cuban Santería and how the relationship between an orisha and their devotee reveals an unstable gender identity that avails itself to trans* studies. Taking an ethnographic scene from the work of Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús, wherein a female devotee named Belkis is possessed by her male orisha Changó, this article argues that Santería offers a genderqueer way of understanding the relationship between gods and humans. It makes use of Jack Halberstam's differentiation between “trans*” and “trans,” in which the former allows for myriad gender identities and contradictions that the stability of “trans” might otherwise seek to concretize. The modification of “transatlantic” to “trans* Atlantic” allows for a consideration of the fluidity of genders and sexuality that is often missed in black Atlantic studies and highlights the important role of religion in gender and black Atlantic studies.
