This episode looks at Baron Samedi, the top-hatted, cigar-smoking lord of the dead in Haitian Vodou, and the Gede — the family of spirits associated with death, sexuality, and obscene comedy, whose ritual behavior often crosses between masculine and feminine. Drawing on ethnography from Elizabeth McAlister and Karen McCarthy Brown, along with Randy Conner and David Hatfield Sparks's work on queer Vodou practitioners, the episode traces how Gede spirits are described mixing funeral dress with women's clothing during possession, and how their bawdy Kreyòl humor mocks social pretension, including gender norms. It also engages a 2023 article by Paul C. Mocombe, who argues against reading Gede through a Western queer lens at all — a genuine scholarly disagreement the episode sits with rather than resolves. Along the way: how the dictator François Duvalier appropriated Baron Samedi's image for political terror, and how Vodou temples have historically offered gay priests and practitioners a form of religious belonging not always available to them elsewhere.

Sources referenced in this episode:

• Brown, Karen McCarthy. Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn. University of California Press, 1991.
  
• Conner, Randy P., and David Hatfield Sparks. Queering Creole Spiritual Traditions: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Participation in African-Inspired Traditions in the Americas. Harrington Park Press, 2004.
  
• Johnson, Paul Christopher. "Secretism and the Apotheosis of Duvalier." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 74, no. 2 (2006): 420–445.
  
• Lescot, Anne, and Laurence Magloire, dirs. Des Hommes et des Dieux (Of Men and Gods). 2002.
  
• McAlister, Elizabeth. "Love, Sex, and Gender Embodied: The Spirits of Haitian Vodou." In Love, Sex, and Gender in the World Religions, edited by Joseph Runzo and Nancy M. Martin, 128–145. Oneworld, 2000.
  
• McAlister, Elizabeth. Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and Its Diaspora. University of California Press, 2002.
  
• Mocombe, Paul C. "Gede and Homosexuality." Philosophy Study 13, no. 7 (2023): 278–283.

Image credit:

Joseph, Silva. ca. 1980s. Vodou Flag or Banner (Baron Samedi). Satin, sequins, plastic pearls, and glass beads, Birmingham Museum of Art, Collection of the Art Fund, Inc., Robert Cargo Folk Art Collection. Birmingham Museum of Art