Sacred Bodies: Gendered Experiences within the QAnon Mythology

Abstract

The QAnon conspiracy theory has been flagged as a threat to national security and to social cohesiveness in the United States and abroad. While many researchers have addressed separately the religious dimensions of the conspiracy and the differences in how men and women interact with the conspiracy, research that considers how both aspects feed into each other has been absent. This paper seeks to fill that research gap through a thematic content analysis of the gendered theologies that QAnon draws on and creates. Through examination of the 'canon' of Q drops from 2017-2022 under a lens of feminist political theology, this paper explores thematic overlaps with evangelical and New Age religious movements and examines how constructions of gender within each are reflected or transformed within the conspiracy.