History is written by the victors. Unfortunately, this tends to mean that a lot
of truth gets lost over the eons,
peaceful tribes can become demonized, portrayals of nature reverence can be twisted into
"witchcraft" and a lot of the
accurate documentation becomes lost over the years in intellectual pogroms, such as the burning of
the library at Alexandria in Egypt by
the Romans.
Such is the case with most things transgender, which at one time was seen to be rooted in similar human need.
It was once said that there were three
facets to our existence: survival, reproduction, and everything else -- and to the person who made
the case, "everything else" --
which tended to encompass those things creative, imaginative and ingenious -- could be classified as
"art." If ancient cultures bore understanding of this, then one wonders if transgender and same-sex
love were seen as an art of their own...
a creative exploration of love and
affection.
It
may sound far-fetched, but history (even if written by victors) offers little glimpses of reality at times,
and many of these glimpses tend to
indicate that the gender transgression and gay / lesbian / bisexual love that is often vilified today
was once quite respected and at times
even encouraged.
It is impossible to know the motives of
the early civilizations' approach. We
can only see history in modern light and with our own experiences. Without the economic and
socio-political backgrounds to some of
these notations, we don't know if transgender behaviour was any result of coercion, conspiracy or other
motivations. I would like to think that
much of the experience was genuine, although I'm not so naive to believe that accounts of castrated boys
raised as wives of Roman or Turkish
military leaders were consensual. History unfortunately sometimes can only touch the surface, not
revealing the beauty and ugliness
underneath.
What we understand as transgender (in its many different
forms) has been understood quite
differently at various periods of time. In the earliest ages, people who were seen to bridge the genders were quite often thought to possess wisdom that
traditionally-gendered people did not,
and were venerated for this.
In earliest civilizations,
throughout Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Northern Africa, tribes of different types venerated what they
often identified as "The Great
Mother." In nearly all of these traditions, MTF priestesses (often castrated or with some
form of eunuching, which included a
number of different body modifications of the time) presided, and the cultures were primarily communal
systems which held women (venerated as a
source of life) in high esteem. Matriarchal in nature, the cultures often espoused peace, but the
realities of early civilization and
tribal existence did not always allow for this.
Roman
historian Plutarch depicts "The Great Mother" as an Intersex deity from whom the two sexes had not yet
split. Trans-gendered depictions of The
Great Mother and Her priestesses are found in ancient artifacts back to the earliest civilizations
in Mesopotamia, Assyria, Babylonia and
Akkad. Some historians portray MTF priestesses as being recognized as something sacred, and that
records of trans priestesses do date back to the late Paleolithic (if not earlier), suggesting that
the advent of transgender priestesses
was not simply a later reaction to feminine leadership and veneration. In some regions, particularly the
oldest European customs, it even appears
that some form of gender transgression was almost considered one's religious duty, at
times.
In the Middle East (Cradle of
Civilization), MTF (male-to-female) priestesses were known to have served Astarte, Dea Syria, Atargatis
and Ashtoreth / Ishtar. Additional MTF
"gallae" served Cybele, the Phrygians' embodiment of The Great Mother. Trans expression was
also present in the early genesis of the
Kumbh Mela festival in Allahbad
(India).
For centuries, Muslim tradition
differentiated between MTF transsexuals
who live as prostitutes or criminals, and those in whom Femininity was innate and who lived
blamelessly. The latter were called
"mukhannathun," and accepted within the boundaries of
Islam. Mukhannathun could have
relationships with either men or women, but only those who had been castrated or were
exclusively attracted to men were allowed into Womens' spaces.
In
Africa, intersexed deities and spritual beliefs in gender transformation are recorded in Akan,
Ambo-Kwanyama, Bobo, Chokwe, Dahomean
(Benin), Dogon, Bambara, Etik, Handa, Humbe, Hunde, Ibo, Jukun, Kimbundu, Konso, Kunama, Lamba, Lango, Luba,
Lugbara (where MTFs are called okule and
FTMs are called agule), Lulua, Musho, Nat, Nuba, Ovimbundu, Rundi, Sakpota, Shona-Karonga,
Venda, Vili-Kongo, and Zulu tribes. Some
of this tradition survives in West Africa, as well as Brazilian and Haitian ceremonies that derive
from West African religions. In Abomey,
the Heviosso maintain trans traditions, in an area renowned for Amazon-like warrior women.
In Asia, Hijras persist even today,
although their reverence is often limited to the belief that their presence at weddings is a good portent for the couple. Historically, they
have often worshipped the mother-goddess
Bahuchara Mata, although some also worshipped Shiva in his half-man, half-woman persona,
Ardhanarisvara.
Many early Indonesian societies had
transgender figures in religious functions, including the basaja, from the island of Sulawesi (The Celebes). In ancient China, the shih-niang
wore mixed-gender ceremonial clothing.
In Okinawa, some shamans underwent winagu nati, a process of "becoming female." In Korea, the
mudang was a shaman or sorceress who was
quite often MTF. Fanchuan was a name given to stage
crossdressing, such as male-to-Female
performances in Beijing opera, and Female-to-male acting in Taiwanese Opera.
In
Europe, MTF priestesses served Artemis, Hecate and Diana. Early traditions thrived longest in Greece, and the
mythology of the day incorporated tales
of cross-dressing by Achilles, Heracles, Athena and Dionysus, as well as literal and metaphorical
gender changes. And Cupid was a dual god/Goddess of love, originally portrayed as intersex.
The child of Hermes and Aphrodite, one
of Cupid's variant names provided the origin for the term, "hermaphrodite." Some time
between 6th Century and 1st Century BC, in the Greek Hippocratic Corpus (collection of medical texts), physicians propose that both parents secrete
male or Female "bodies" and
that if the father's secretion is Female (rather than male) and the Mother's is male, the result would either be
a "man-Woman" (effeminate
male) or a "mannish" Female.
The Amazons, a group of warriors often in conflict with Greeks and later mythologized, seem to have been thought
of as trans, and Pliny the Younger
referred to them as the Androgynae "who combine the two sexes." They carried double-edged axes which may have
been symbols of intersexuality, as were
those carried by the South American tribe that inspired the naming of the Amazon River.
In North America, as late as 1930 (with
the Klamath in the Pacific Northwest),
Two-Spirit Natives are noted among tribal communities. Originally called "berdache," Native
culture adopted the term "Two-Spirit" as a blanket term -- though in reality, nearly every tribe
had at least one (often several) unique
name for Two-Spirit peoples, with the names sometimes addressing different aspects of those
populations. Two-Spirit actually covers
the full range of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons, as well as intersex and other gender-variant
people. It was often thought that
Two-Spirits had two spirits inhabiting the same body, and that Two-Spirit people deserved a special
kind of reverence. Jesuit priest Jacques
Marquette notes that in the Illinois and Nadouessi tribes, nothing is decided without their
advice. Inuit FTMs serve White Whale Woman, who was believed to have been
transformed into a man or Woman-man.
In South America, MTF priestesses have been found among
the Araucanians (southern Chile and
Argentina) and Mapuche, although after oppressive Spanish contact, they were largely replaced by Female priestesses. Some Females in the Tupinamba
tribe lived as men, hunted and went to
war. In 1576, explorer Pedro de Magalhaes recorded this, and recalling the Greek legend of the Amazons,
named the Amazon river for these
Tupinamba. For the Yoruba (Brazil), the deity Shango is represented as all sexes.
Although it's doubtful that all of these traditions had a
common origin, and possible that some of
these are trans only by coincidence, there do seem to be a number of similar themes tying them together. Sorting through them to find specific motives
and beliefs is impossible, though,
because so little of the original traditions was recorded or survived the various book purges over time.
It is only possible to speculate.
Alas, history is written by the victors, and the victors were largely not
transgender
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