This paper examines the intersection of race, gender, disability, and religion in the construction of Asian masculinity in the late 19th- and early 20th-century United States, focusing on Anagarika Dharmapala, a key figure in the global transmission of Buddhism. By bringing disability studies into conversation with religious and gender history, this paper offers a new perspective on the racialized and religious othering of Asian men in Western discourse. While existing scholarship has explored how Asian masculinity was framed as both emasculated and hypersexualized, I argue that this process was also underpinned by ableist narratives that positioned the non-Christian religious body as disabled.
The late 19th century saw intensified racial anxieties in the U.S., particularly in relation to Asian immigration and the growing visibility of non-Christian religious traditions. Central to these anxieties was the figure of the “Oriental” man, who was simultaneously constructed as effeminate and sexually threatening. This paradoxical characterization was a key mechanism in the racial othering of Asian men, reinforcing white, Christian, and heteronormative ideals of masculinity. Scholars have demonstrated how Orientalist discourse functioned to reinforce Western superiority, yet what remains underexplored is the role of disability within these constructions.
The ideological framework of Western masculinity during this period was deeply tied to physical strength, rationality, and moral fortitude – all of which were coded as markers of an able-bodied white male subject. Asian men, by contrast, were often depicted as physically weak, passive, and spiritually corrupt, drawing on ableist tropes of bodily and mental deficiency. This pathologization of the Asian male body served to reinforce its religious otherness; Buddhism, in particular, was associated with passivity, degeneracy, and an inability to act within the world – all of which aligned with contemporary Western ideas of disability.
Anagarika Dharmapala (1864-1933) provides a compelling case study for examining these intersecting dynamics. As a Sri Lankan Buddhist reformer and one of the most prominent figures at the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago, Dharmapala actively engaged with Western audiences, shaping perceptions of Buddhism and its adherents. His public image was carefully curated, as he sought to counteract prevailing stereotypes of the effeminate and degenerative “Oriental” man. By presenting himself as physically disciplined, morally upright, and intellectually capable, Dharmapala attempted to resist the racialized emasculation imposed on Asian men in the West.
However, this strategic self-fashioning did not operate outside of the ableist discourse that defined ideal masculinity. Dharmapala’s rejection of both Western materialism and Asian “backwardness” relied on the same logic that framed disability as deficiency. In his writings and speeches, he positioned Buddhist practice as a means of cultivating physical and mental strength, countering stereotypes of bodily weakness while implicitly reinforcing ableist ideals of health, purity, and self-control. In doing so, he sought to carve out a space for Asian masculinity that was neither hypersexualized nor disabled, but in the process, he remained entangled in the very frameworks of bodily normativity that enabled racial and religious marginalization.
The pathologization of Asian masculinity was not only a racialized phenomenon but also a religious one. In Western discourse, non-Christian religious traditions were frequently framed as primitive, irrational, and inherently linked to bodily deficiency. Buddhism, in particular, was perceived as a religion of decay, characterized by detachment from the material world and an embrace of suffering. These interpretations aligned with broader 19th-century medical and scientific discourses that associated disability with degeneration and evolutionary failure.
Dharmapala’s engagement with these narratives illustrates how religious identity became a site for both resistance and complicity in ableist discourse. While he sought to refute the characterization of Buddhism as a religion of weakness, he did so by appealing to an alternative bodily ideal—one that emphasized discipline, restraint, and physical vigor. This move, while strategic, ultimately reinforced the association of bodily deficiency with religious inferiority. In contrast to Christian masculinity, which was framed as active and virile, the Buddhist body remained marked by its precarious status within the racial and religious hierarchies of the time.
This paper’s intervention lies in its integration of disability studies with the study of race, religion, and masculinity. While scholars have examined the feminization and sexualization of Asian men in Western discourse, the role of disability in this process has remained largely unexamined. By foregrounding the ways in which ableist narratives shaped the religious othering of Buddhism, this paper highlights the entangled nature of racial, gendered, and bodily marginalization.
Moreover, this analysis has broader implications for contemporary discussions on religion and masculinity. The tropes that shaped Dharmapala’s reception in the West continue to inform global perceptions of Buddhist men and other non-Western religious figures. Understanding how these historical constructions operate within the intersecting frameworks of race and disability allows for a more nuanced critique of ongoing racial and religious hierarchies.
This paper examines how Anagarika Dharmapala navigated the racialized and gendered constructions of masculinity in the late 19th- and early 20th-century U.S., with a particular focus on the overlooked intersection of disability, religion, and race. Western discourse often framed the “Oriental” man as both emasculated and hypersexualized, but this process was also deeply embedded in notions of bodily debility. The racialized construction of Asian masculinity relied on tropes of physical weakness, degeneration, and effeminacy—marking the non-Christian religious body as disabled in opposition to an idealized, able-bodied Western masculinity. This paper brings disability studies into conversation with religious studies and gender history to argue that the religious othering of Buddhism in the U.S. was inseparable from ableist narratives of bodily deficiency. By examining Dharmapala’s self-representation and his engagement with these tropes, the paper offers new insights into the enduring entanglements of race, gender, religion, and disability.