Sissy Life Since Ancient Times

 

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