Sacred Gender Napoli Course and Pilgrimage

The Journey

I had been traveling around the world looking for some place that felt like home.

Where do I want to live?

Where do I belong?

As a queer eccentric artist from Staten Island, my sense of uniqueness and individuality felt un -celebrated.

I made a decision to go back to my grandmother's motherland, Naples, Italy, to learn about the traditional music and dance of my people.

When I arrived I discovered that there was a 3rd gender presence there, the femminielli. These beings have been an integral part of the culture of this region for thousands of years.

The alienation that I had felt about being transgender and queer in Italian America was suddenly flipped on its head.

You mean to say that femminielli are not only revered, but also considered sacred in traditional Neapolitan society?

This revelatory trip in 2016 grew into a multi-year journey. Through research and cultural immersion, I worked to develop a feature length documentary and book about the journey of finding the femminielli.

My team and I felt that this was information that the world needs to know, and is an important element of gender expression beyond the binary in southern Europe.

In the process of immigration, these sacred traditions were abandoned or assimilated into the new paradigm of the American Dream. The dignity of gender beyond the binary did not make it out of southern Italy, but we are here to shine a light on these beautiful and important traditions.

The Vision

The Sacred 3rd Gender Napoli Course and Pilgrimage is a journey into the self and into the rich legacy of 3rd gender people in Napoli. The course will take place online over several weeks before culminating in Naples, to re-weave and remember the sanctity of our indigenous genders and sexual expressions. There was a time when queerness was sacred, and this course will help us to reclaim that wisdom in an embodied way.

Sacred 3rd Gender of Napoli Course and Pilgrimage: Curriculum Outline

The Dream

I've started this fundraiser to create this curriculum and lead the pilgrimage to Napoli in late 2023/early 2024.

After 7 years of visioning, I feel I am ready to invite the broader community to join me and embark on this life-transforming journey. Now is the time to reconnect with our shared humanity, with ourselves, and with our sacred queer traditions.

Queerness and transness are not new, they are natural and have always been here.

Those who support this fundraiser will help to preserve these sacred cultural traditions and allow participants to experience that deep truth in an embodied and fun way.

The funds you contribute to this project will help with the costs of developing the curriculum, subsidizing the costs for low-income participants, developing the marketing materials necessary to spread the word, and hire translation services.

The Sacred 3rd Gender Course and Curriculum will be the first major offering of the educational not-for-profit, The Institute for Sacred Gender.

With your support we'll be able to make this dream a reality and bring the beautiful culture of the femminielli of Naples to the world.

Grazie mille! Thank you so much!

Resources and Links

Find out more about Summer and her projects here.

Register for the Sacred 3rd Gender Napoli Course and Pilgrimage today.