This paper studies the notion of gender fluidity in the saguṇa bhakti traditions of Sūrdās and Mīrābāī, which have inspired the poetic imaginary of the Sakhī sampradāya. The soul-wife longs for the union with the husband-lord, full of pain (viraha) from the separation from the beloved. The husband-lord has never actually left, it is rather the soul-wife, who has forgotten and needs to "remember" and find him again within, in order to unite with him and merge into him. In the hymns of a female devotional tradition, such as that of Mīrābāī, the gender identification of Mīrā with Rādhā (Kṛṣṇa's most beloved gopī) seems "natural". However, in the case of a male devotional tradition, for instance Sūrdās's tradition, male poets, and all men, become women before god, i.e. they assume a female poetic persona in order to identify with Rādhā and unite with Kṛṣṇa. Similarly, in the Sakhī sampradāya, male followers assume a female devotional persona. They identify with Rādhā and become women in front of god, enacting and performing in real life the gender fluidity of Hindi devotional poetry. Thus, this paper explores issues of gender fluidity and bhakti in the devotional poetry of the Mīrābāī and Sūrdās traditions, and suggests ways of interpreting notions of gender in the poetic imaginary of the Sakhī sampradāya from the perspectives of gender and ideological criticism.