My thesis discusses the history of gender and sexuality politics in postcolonial Zimbabwe. It utilizes the convening of Christianity and politics to explore how these areas of public life combined to influence different perceptions towards gender and sexuality identities. The background appraises the impact of African Traditional Religion (ATR) during the colonial period and the changes ushered in by Western Christianity. During this time of colonial conquest, ATR was the cornerstone of all the sectors of life including politics. This included the worshiping of God through nature and ancestral spirits. Reincarnation was a very prominent practice of the colonial Zimbabwe ATR, also known as the Mwari cult. The concept of reincarnation was considered an effective way of communicating with the dead through the Masvikiro (spirit mediums) who transmitted information, requests for rains, or prayers for healing and harvest to Mwari or Unkulunkulu (God). Masvikiro gained popularity as the quest for nationalism continuously shaped every aspect of colonial Zimbabwe especially in the anti-colonial protest of 1896-97 Chimurenga (war of independence). Although there was transition in religion since the precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial period where ATR’s prominence began to diminish due to the absorption of western doctrines, all the three historic phases elaborate how religion was shaped by the prevailing situations until it became a chief cornerstone of every aspect of the postcolonial economy. As a result of colonialism, a significant number of people converted to Christianity. My thesis, therefore, serves to confirm the existence of a continued influence of religion in politics. It reexamines the various ways in which a combination of religion and politics affected the perceptions of gender and sexuality identities. This pinpoints dimensions in which gender identities were understood and perceived in independent Zimbabwe and most significantly how these changed through various ways that people responded to the novel Covid-19 pandemic. While some historians and philosophers agree to the concept of gender as not a stable identity but an identity that is fluid as it changes overtime. In contrast, most African societies seem to be lagging in terms of how they continuously perceive gender as a biological and social construct. In Zimbabwe gender inequality continues to be problematic because of how the gender terrain is viewed through specifically patriarchal lens. This is seen in how ideas of masculinity and femininity are confined to aspects of manhood and womanhood, respectively. As these gender identities remain fixed, maleness in most African societies continues to be viewed as superior to femaleness. However, gendered concepts of ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ necessarily generate debates because of how they historically change and remain politically fraught. In Zimbabwe, gender differences have been more rooted in culture as well as different religious beliefs that portray men as invincible and superior to women. This has been predominantly predicated on the concept of a gender binary that still attempts to redefine gender beyond the binary, yet the attempts are largely contested. As a result, much of Zimbabwe’s everyday histories are continuously shaped and reshaped by gender and sexuality politics. Despite acknowledging that Zimbabwe struggles to redefine gender beyond the binary inclination, representations of masculine attributes failed to align with ideas of the potency of manhood and the constitution of black masculinity. This juxtaposes contestations in understanding “manhood,” which in this thesis is defined as “intelligence, patience, respect, hard work, avoidance of shameful behavior, trustworthiness, education, bravery and love for the nation.” Much of the reasons given explain the failure to preserve manhood virtues resulted from how the economy continued to decline while most people became victims of oppressive patriarchal government and religious systems. The immediate post-independence era in Zimbabwe analyzed in my thesis, therefore, gives a historical account of the influence of religion in politics that has not been of much help to the economy as evidence but the prolonged Zimbabwean crisis. The timeline of Zimbabwe’s economic crisis that increased the influence of religion in politics in the form of desperation for “prosperity gospel” and its associated doctrines initially spanned the period 1990-1995 when the government adopted the Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP). This program left the country in a huge debt trap that the government is yet to escape. Before the economy recovered from the impacts of ESAP, in the year 2000 the late former president Robert Mugabe lost a referendum on constitutional reforms and despite his growing opposition in the form of an emerging strong opposition party under Morgan Tsvangirai, his supporters invaded and seized white commercial farms using the language of land restitution. This became known as the Fast-Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP). However, despite the FTLRP, the early 2000s gave Zimbabweans a rude awakening following serious food shortages that the government critics blamed on farm seizures while Mugabe blamed it on drought. Numerous companies were forced to shut down around 2003-2006 when the EU and the US renewed its sanctions against Mugabe. In addition, 2008 was a nightmare year for Zimbabwe as the impact of economic meltdown was heavily felt towards the 2008 elections. The situation prompted a series of protests, strikes and activist movements which were to some extent silenced after the 2008 election rerun when the late former president Mugabe was pressured into accepting the Government of National Unity (GNU) with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition party under Morgan Tsvangirai. Despite having the GNU that was implemented to bring temporary relief to the Zimbabwean crisis, prolonged and continuous years of “cries and crisis” saw an emergence of Christian Pentecostal and Apostolic churches. The situation increased desperation for better livelihoods resulting in thousands of Zimbabweans becoming devoted to influential prophets from Pentecostal and Apostolic churches following rumors that these leaders were heavenly ordained to perform instant miracles, financial and marital breakthroughs. In the wake of this calamity, Zimbabwe was gradually becoming a victim of the poor regime and Christian doctrines as the majority continued wallowing in poverty while most political and religious leaders connected to the ruling party, the ZANU PF, were ranked among the wealthiest people in the country. Throughout the history of Zimbabwe from colonization in 1890 to Mugabe’s repossession of the land, a nexus between politics and religion is notable. Politicians have always shown a tendency of aligning their policies and ideas to religion. Mugabe’s use of Pentecostal and Apostolic churches gives a picture of charlatan who relied on pretending to be driven by religious ideas in his effort to stay in power for such a long time, from 1980 until he was removed from power by a military coup in 2017. Building from this, my thesis argues that while Zimbabwe was rigid towards redefining gender in the political and religious arenas, gender fluidity proved to be inevitable following the sudden transformation after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. I use books, journal articles, newspapers, and social media reports as a primary source base to trace how the aspects gender were rigid for a long time since the immediate post-independence era but changed as a response to the pandemic. The first two chapters focus on how ideas of masculinity and femininity were represented in the Zimbabwean culture while the last chapter marks a shift in this historical narrative. The first chapter probes the salient investigation on the concept of “Losing Manhood” while the second chapter investigates femininity and indoctrination in a crisis economy, using the concept of “Removing the fertile Womb.” The first two chapters give a historical account of how rigid Zimbabwe was in defining gender beyond the binary inclination and the third chapter acknowledges that despite the devastating psychological and economic impact of the virus, the Covid-19 era offered new ways of responding to the pandemic and left an imprint on redefining and rethinking gender identities beyond the previously dominant traditional narratives. Two significant changes discussed are the rise of female-headed churches and the rise of cross-dresser male comedians. While these changes are contemporary, the thesis historicizes the rise of these two as the subalterns who gained power from their marginalized positions and impacted on social, economic, religious, and political spheres. This is achieved by adopting the “history from below” approach to examine how resistance, consciousness, and awareness to challenges of confining gender to traditional norms became the driving force behind caressing a turnaround in the Zimbabwean gender and religion history.