Trangender History Into the Modern Age (1700s -1932
Guest Blogger Picture Transgender History: Into the Modern Age (1700s - 1932) Filed by: Guest Blogger February 26, 2008 9:55 AM
[EDITOR'S NOTE:] Frequent guest blogger Mercedes Allen has written a six part history of transgender people for the Project that is running weekly on Tuesdays. A listing of the other sections is at the bottom of the post.
As society evolved toward the modern age that we know now, trans expression did not disappear, but did become far more subversive. The last surviving remnants of festival behaviour developed into what we now know as Halloween, Mummer's Dances, and Carnaval / Mardi Gras. Several outbreaks of civil disobedience also used transgender motifs, led by groups known as the Abbeys of Misrule (France and northern Italy, where leaders took titles like Mother, Dame and Princess), the Lords of Misrule and Abbots of Unreason (England and Scotland), Mère Folle and her Children, Mère Sotte and her Children, Mère d'Enfance, Madge Wildfire and Lady Skimmington, and later inspired other bands, such as Rebecca and her Daughters. Other military actions were directed by modern Joans of Arc, such as Captain Alice Clark and La Branlaire. It can't be certain if everyone participating in these uprisings were truly transgender in any way or simply relied on crossdressing as a convenient disguise, but the consistency still suggests early peasant-held matriarchal and trans-reverent customs. Some, such as the White Boys of Ireland, also make the claim to be faeries, leading one to wonder if early stories of fee might also indicate early transgressive beliefs and traditions.
We come to a point where things can be put into much more of a chronological order: Shop TLA Video
1654 -- Queen Christina of Sweden abdicates the throne and takes on a male persona, "Count Dohna."
Early 18th Century -- The epithet "Molly" originates with "molly houses," a term for effeminate gay brothels, noted for the presence of crossdressing. The name itself seems to originate as a combination of the female name Mary with the Latin "mollis," meaning soft, effeminate.
1755 -- The first openly lesbian and transgender person, Charlotte Clarke, comes out by publishing "A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Charlotte Clarke (Youngest Daughter of Colley Cibber, Esq.)." In the autobiography, Clarke, a flamboyant cross-dressing actress during a time in which male impersonation was a popular form of entertainment (even if still very much taboo), relates many scandalous things, including her relationship with her "wife," "Mrs. Brown." Although quite famous after this publication, Clarke passes away three years later, penniless and destitute.
1777 -- French spy and diplomat Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée Éon de Beaumont (October 5, 1728 - May 21, 1810), usually known as the Chevalier d'Eon is allowed to return to France on the condition that she live and dress as a woman. Earlier in 1756, the Chevalier had posed as a woman for several years to gain the confidences of Empress Elizabeth of Russia. Throughout her life, there would be ongoing speculation as to the Chevalier's physical gender, which would be determined as male after her death (the predominant opinion had previously been that she was female).
1812 -- Two male workers dress as women, call themselves "General Ludd's wives" and lead an angry crowd of hundreds to destroy steam looms and a factory in Stockton, then attempt to burn down the home of the factory owner in classic Industrial Revolution unrest. As soon as the riot is quelled, it re-ignites in Oldham.
1831 -- George Sand publishes Rose et Blanche in collaboration with Jules Sandeau. Born Amantine Dupin, she takes on a male pen name under the pretense that it would be easier for her to become published and taken seriously with a male moniker. She also adopted male fashion, stating at different times that the clothes helped her move more freely around Paris streets, the clothes were sturdier, and that the clothes granted her access to areas that were off-limits to a woman of her social standing. There is no evidence that Sand identified as male, and biographers are sometimes outraged at the suggestion, but itis also not certain that she wasn't trans in spirit.
1839 to 1843 -- Welsh civil libertarians, protesting toll gates and working conditions, take up female attire and call themselves "Rebecca and her daughters," destroying a number of the mechanisms that the upper class had been using to bleed the poor of what little they could save. Again, this harkens to an earlier peasant tradition, as noted by historian Natalie Zemon: "In fact, the donning of female clothes by men and the adopting of female titles for riots were surprisingly frequent, in the early modern period." As the Rebeccas disappeared, the Molly Maguires and Ribbon Societies emerged to take their place.
1860 -- Herculine Barbin is studied by her doctor, who discovers that the intersexed woman has a small penis, with testicles inside her body. Barbin is declared legally male against her wishes, becomes the subject of much scandal for having previously taught in a girl's school, moves to Paris but continues to live in poverty, and ultimately commits suicide in 1868.
1865 -- Dr. James Barry dies, and is discovered to have female sexual characteristics. He had been a surgeon with the British Army, and had been passing as male since at least 1809.
1867 -- Karl-Heinrich Ulrichs (who relates in his memoirs that as a child, he wore girls' clothing, wanted to be a girl and most enjoyed playing with other girls) becomes the first "Uranian" (he refers to "Urning" as a male who desires men, and "Dioning" as a male who is attracted to women -- it is not until two years later that Karl-Maria Kertbeny coins the word "homosexual") to speak out publicly in defence of GLBT causes, when pleading at the Congress of German Jurists in Munich for a repeal of anti-homosexual laws. He goes on to self-finance the publication of many advocative works written by himself, before finally retiring in exile, in Italy.
1869 -- Karl Friedrich Otto Westphal publishes the first medical paper on transsexuality, describing two cases of what he termed "die contraire Sexualempfindung" ("contrary sexual feeling"), one being a male transvestite (the other was a lesbian)
1872 -- Eugene Schuyler visits Turkestan and observes that, "here boys and youths specially trained to take the place of the dancing-girls of other countries." The Bacchá are androgynous or cross-dressing Turkish underclass boys, trained in erotic dance, but also available as prostitutes. This tradition continues until around or shortly after WWI.
1895 -- Author and playwright Oscar Wilde is convicted of "gross indecency" and sentenced to two years' hard labour. Wilde had been extensively involved with the Victorian underground, and stories (likely some true, some not) circulated about all manner of homosexual and crossdressing activities, though Wilde himself was chiefly made scandal of by his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas and other young men.
1907 -- Harry Benjamin (January 12, 1885 – August 24, 1986) meets Magnus Hirschfeld (May 14, 1868 - May 14, 1935) for the first time. Although it would be some time before Benjamin would actively research transsexuality, the two men would become the field's pioneers.
1910 -- Magnus Hirschfeld coins the term "transvestite."
1914 -- In a dictionary of criminal slang published in Portland, Oregon, the word "faggot" is first seen as applied to the GLBT community, with the usage example, "All the fagots (sissies) will be dressed in drag at the ball tonight." The word originally appeared in Modern English in the 13th Century, meaning a bundle of sticks (derived from the French). By 16th Century, it meant bundles used for firewood, for the purpose of burning at the stake. A shortened version "fag" is adopted as a British colloquialism for cigarette, and is later (1923) also adopted in print as an epithet for gay and transgender practices, which at that time are all thought to be interlinked -- the obvious implication reflecting what society at that time should largely do about gay and transgender persons.
1919 -- Magnus Hirschfeld founds the Institute for Sexology in Berlin, Germany. This would be the first clinic to serve transgender people regularily and develop their study.
1920 -- Jonathan Gilbert publishes "Homosexuality and Its Treatment," which includes the story of "H," later revealed to be a Portland physician. Dr. Alan Hart "transitioned" by having a hysterectomy and proceeding to live as male, in 1917. The lesbian community would later proclaim Hart to be a pioneer and classify his decision to live as a man as being an accomodation to social prejudice and coercion by a heterosexual doctor, rather than accepting any explaination of transsexuality. However, an examination of the central characters in Hart's novels reveals many of the common themes and feelings that transsexuals experience.
Although a few surgeons had already carried out some incomplete sex reassignment surgeries previously (primarily removing the existing sex organs, not creating new ones), 1920 also saw the first complete surgeries for MTF transsexuals. These took place at Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexology by Drs. Ludwig Levy-Lenz and Felix Abraham.
1923 -- Recognizing some of the differences from transvestites, Magnus Hirschfeld introduces the term "transsexual."
1920s -- Violette Morris, a decorated French athlete, sues the Fédération Française Sportive Féminine (French Federation of Feminine Sports) for 100,000 francs for withdrawing her license to wear trousers. Morris was infamous for her variance in lifestyle from traditional women, being openly lesbian and masculine in presentation at a time when swearing and smoking were unheard of for women. The lawsuit and lifestyle issues would later see the FFSF bar her from competing in the 1928 Olympics. Around this time, she also has an elective mastectomy performed, under the pretext that it would help her fit more easily in racecars. She would later become an informant for the Germans, and be put to death by the French Resistence.
Somewhere in the 1920s and early 1930s, drag balls developed in Harlem. They were originally arranged by gay white men, but very quickly became multiracial. They became lavish explorations of liberality, intentionally breaking taboos, but would still suffer some racial elitism. An exclusively black drag ball would break this trend when it developed in the 1960s, and the balls would metamorphosize into a transformative dance culture movement. Profiled in the 1991 documentary, "Paris Is Burning" and co-opted by Madonna and the fashion industry for a time, "Voguing" would marry with hip-hop and thrive among over 100 dance "houses" in modern day.
1920s and 1930s -- Carl Jung proposes the idea of Animus and Anima, that every male has some of the feminine in his unconscious (Anima), and every female has some of the masculine (Animus).
1927 -- The first transgender-themed play, Mae West's "The Drag," debuts in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It moves on to New Jersey, but fails to make it to Broadway, largely because it is forced to close after West's arrest for appearing in her first Broadway hit, Sex. Although West originally defends The Drag by saying that she intended the play to call attention to homosexuality as a "disease," she later becomes a sort-of GLBT activist. The play alludes to the writings of Karl-Heinrich Ulrichs, and West later goes on to famously tell policemen who were raiding a gay bar, "Don't you know you're hitting a woman in a man's body?"
The painting "Pinkie" by Sir Thomas Lawrence is acquired by Henry Edwards Huntington. Along with Thomas Gainsborough's "Blue Boy," which was acquired in 1921, the Huntington Collection becomes the focus of a media circus. Although they had nothing in common other than being expensive notables in the same collection, the paintings are often mistaken as contemporary works by the same artist, and categorized as a kind of "Romeo and Juliette" of Rococo pairing by the Los Angeles Times. They become featured as bookends, plate designs, and other merchandise. From this mass-market assault of imagery, the concept of "pink for girls / blue for boys" motif arises -- until this time, the colours had no fixed gender assignation (although pink had previously sometimes been called a boys' colour).
1928 -- Virginia Woolf's novel "Orlando: A Biography" is published, chronicling the story of a man who decides not to grow old. He doesn't, but he awakes one day in the body of a young woman, and lives out a lifetime as her before waking as another man. The remaining centuries up to the time the book was written are seen through a woman's eyes.
1930 -- Marlene Dietrich moves from German Cabaret to American film with her debut in Morocco. As the '30s progress, she becomes infamous for dressing in male attire, and gradually brings this penchant to fashion and film -- ultimately making it acceptable for women to wear pants and other masculine forms of clothing. Reportedly, she was quite persistent on changing into male attire offstage, and rumors circulated of lesbian relationships -- although she has never been fully established as identifying as male.
1930 also saw the transition of Lili Elbe, formerly Einar Wegener, a Danish painter and the first publically-known recipient of an SRS surgery. This became a major public scandal in Germany and Denmark, and the King of Denmark invalidated her marriage that October. She was fully intent on being someday able to conceive a child, and this drove her surgeons to try far-reaching techniques -- she actually endured five surgeries in this process (the first was to remove the male genitals, the second to transplant ovaries -- although she did have underdeveloped ones of her own -- the third was unspecified, the fourth to remove the ovaries due to serious complications and the fifth being a "vaginaplasty"). She died in 1931, probably from complications from her final surgery, although rumors persisted that she had faked her death in order to live in peace.
1931 -- Dr. Felix Abraham publishes "Genital Reassignment of Two Male Transvestites," detailing those first MTF SRS surgeries in 1923.
1932 -- Harry Benjamin arranges a speaking tour for Magnus Hirschfeld in the United States.
By the early 1930s, an awakening was taking place -- although it did not grant any kind of restored status to transgender people, there were pockets of researchers willing to try to understand the transgender condition. Scientists such as Magnus Hirschfeld became champions of this study, and were notably prolific... although his published research was still relegated to less-dignified magazines, because of it's subject matter. Transgender people were slowly climbing out of the abyss. But the centuries of agendas of hatred and oppression were not over yet.
Next: From Germany to Stonewall.
Transgender History is in six parts:
* Trans Expression in Ancient Times
* The Rise of Hatred (Middle Ages)
* Into the Modern Age (1700s - 1932)
* From Germany to Stonewall (1933 - 1968)
* Stonewall and Its Fissures (1969 - 1995)
* Toward the Future (1996 - 2007)
[AUTHOR'S NOTE:] By request, a partial bibiography.
Much of this had been compiled over time, and not all the sources have been recorded, as this was born of my own personal interest a few years ago, and at that time, I'd never expected to publish a history. Some online sources have been involved as well, although I search for more corroboration in these cases, because of the reliability of Internet findings. Print sources often require the same questioning of context, though, such as Barbara Walker's works, which are rife in Janice Raymond-style anti-trans feminism.
Bullough, Vern: Homosexuality: A History From Ancient Greece to Gay Liberation Califia, Patrick: Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism Colapinto, John: As Nature Made Him: The Story of a Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl Currah, Paisley; Richard M. Juang and Shannon Price Minter: Transgender Rights Feinberg, Leslie: TransGender Warriors Fletcher, Lynne Yamaguchi: The First Gay Pope (and other records) Kessler, Suzanne; and McKenna, Wendy: Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach Rudacille, Deborah: The Riddle of Gender Walker, Barbara: various writings Williams, Walter: The Spirit and the Flesh
[EDITOR'S NOTE:] Frequent guest blogger Mercedes Allen has written a six part history of transgender people for the Project that is running weekly on Tuesdays. A listing of the other sections is at the bottom of the post.
The advent of class divisions, the acquisition of wealth and power, and the ownership of property fed a movement toward patriarchal governing that ultimately became threatened by the existence of female and transgender spiritual leaders. While patriarchal societies were gradually able to synthesize and later entrench the notion that females should be subservient, gender-variant persons posed a more puzzling quandary, because of their uniqueness. It was for this reason that patriarchal religions, which reached their epitome with the Roman Catholic Church, felt that they had to stamp out transgender people (and also gay / lesbian people, who were often thought of as mixed-gender of a sort in early societies) and demonize their legacy.
This helped to facilitate the development of patrilineal inheritance, keeping the reins of power in hands that grew ever more elite. The status of women was degraded, and by so doing, leadership also typically portrayed any sign of gender variance as "less than male." Dual-spirited gods and goddesses, thought at one time to be doubly powerful, were turned into contemptible, "weak" entities.
For the "Greater Good"
In 186 B.C., when Rome banned the bacchanalia (a pleasure-centered festival to Dionysus), an oppressive campaign followed in the Greek territories, keyed on preventing the lower working classes from seeking their own happiness and betterment, and pushing them to focus on the enrichment of owners, employers and country, and / or to become willing to go to war for patriarchal society. The system became an efficient, self-propagating machine, later evolving into one in which war drove the economy and power trumped reason.
Gender-transgressive and same-sex amoury existence, although greatly reduced, still existed to an extent in Roman culture, but was tolerated only tentatively -- and only if it came from the ruling class or coincided with the agendas of the leaders and generals. Around 60 AD, Emperor Nero reportedly had a young slave boy, Sporus, castrated (eunuching, in early times, was believed to be the primary mechanism of gender change -- "eunuchs" ranged in form from males whose testicles had been removed to those also given a total penectomy), and took him as a wife in a legal public ceremony (Sporus was from then on clothed as an Empress, and accompanied Nero as such).
Birth of the "Homosexual Menace" Campaigns
When factional battles would break out, homosexual and transgender tendencies or loves were often used to justify the destruction of enemies. In 218 A.D., Elagabalus (or Heliogabalus) became emperor of Rome, and was later assassinated, mutilated and dragged through the streets (222 A.D.) before being thrown into the Tiber River. Justification for the overthrow was found in Elagabalus' penchant for wearing womens' clothing and makeup, in his reportedly prostituting himself, in his offering a large sum of money to any physician who can give him female genitalia (never claimed), and from declaring one of his male lovers to be his husband.
When Constantine I arrived in 342 A.D., his fusion of religions (the Roman Catholic church was a synthesis of early Christianity with Mithraism and worship of the sun god, Sol), and fusion of religion with the state strengthened anti-trans sentiment as it bolstered slavery (which had by then become the lot of most gender non-conformists and adherents to older traditions) and set the stage for feudal witch-hunts. These later evolved into the Crusades and the Inquisition, in which any evidence of early matriarchal and transgender-venerating paganism was stamped out. Repressive laws which aimed to crush gender variance and same-sex love evolved into part of the Corpus juris civilis, the Roman body of law upon which many legal systems were later based, including those of England and America.
This occurred because it was necessary to the land-owners (chief of which was the Roman Catholic Church) to break the spirit of the serfs toiling on their behalf, thus pre-empting uprisings. Communal bonds had to be erased, and the idea of communalism had to be demonized. Pagan tradition was reinvented as "witchcraft," and quashed with impunity.
Transgender Saints and Joan of Arc
But in true subversive fashion, what couldn't be completely suppressed was absorbed and reinvented to conform with the new ruling ideal. Early cross-dressing heroes idolized by the peasantry were canonized, with the church reshaping the reasoning behind the admiration of those historical figures, thus co-opting them. Saints Pelagia, Margarita, Marinus (Marina), Athanasia (Alexandria), Eugenia, Appollinaria, Euphrosyne, Matrona, Theodora, Anastasia, Papula and Joseph (Hildegund) were canonized transfolk who were female-bodied but lived as male, along with bearded women Galla, Paula and Wilgefortis (Uncumber). Pope Joan (John Anglicus) appears likely to have been a legend, but this legend was likely cultivated for the same purpose. There are no known male-to-female equivalents of transfolk elevated to sainthood, so it is quite likely that MTFs suffered a zero-tolerance agenda.
396px-Joan_of_arc_miniature_graded.jpgIn 1429, at the age of 17, Joan of Arc dressed in male clothing, gathered several peasant followers and presented herself at the court of Prince Charles, declaring that her mission and dress were compelled upon her by God, said mission to be to drive out the English from France. The heir to the French throne put her in charge of an army of 10,000 peasants. Ultimately, the drive would be victorious, but she would be abducted by English sympathizers (who called her "homasse," or "man-woman") and turned her over to the Inquisition in England.
Although the French king had the opportunity to pay her ransom, he felt threatened by the emotional sway she had over the peasantry, and left her to her fate. Eventually, the Inquisition decided that there was not enough evidence to have her convicted of witchcraft, but she was burned at the stake on May 30, 1431 for wearing men's clothing, which the Church referred to as "idolatry." The steadfastness with which she refused to recant and revert to female clothing, and the fierce loyalty from the peasantry over what her cross-gender expression symbolized to them paints a dramatic picture of old tradition resisting stubbornly under the boot of the now-entrenched patriarchal authority.
Into Hiding
Little by little, gender transgression became more limited, at first to peasant festivals, and then one by one, those festivals were outlawed. Halloween, or All Hallow's Eve, which was rooted in early matrilineal Celtic society (drawn from celebrations surrounding Samhain), is the most recognizable event still surviving today. The Celtic Winter Solstice (Christianized as the "Feast of Fools") did not fare as well, because it developed into a trans-inspired mocking of the Church.
Yet even the Church itself appeared to assimilate some transgender motifs into its trappings, such as the floor-length gowns, jeweled trappings for hierarchy and such (having a son join the priesthood, after all, used to be referred to sending him "into skirts"). It may also have been that trans priestesses had somehow inspired the practice of recruiting Castrati for Church choirs, even though Roman Catholic rule had technically forbid the castration of youths.
While much of this change relates to medieval Europe and rule that spread at times to Asia, the Middle East and northern Africa, similar transformations happened in some other cultures, or were later imposed on those cultures by patriarchal conquerors or their influence. Native Two-Spirit tradition would persist until the arrival of the white man in North and Central America, and the genocide and cultural subversion that followed. Trans traditions did still persist somewhat in other parts of the world though, such as Japanese Noh dramas, which find their root in the harvest folk dance, dengaku. And in a few untouched places, notably among the Polynesian Islands (parts of Samoa, Tonga and Tahiti), communal and trans-affirming traditions would survive to this day.
Transgender History in Ancient Times
Category: Life
[EDITOR'S NOTE:] Frequent guest blogger Mercedes Allen has written a six part history of transgender people for the Project that will run weekly on Tuesdays. A listing of the other sections is at the bottom of the post.
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.
silhouette-clipart-1.jpgHistory was never meant to be that sort of boring "is there gonna be a test on this" sort of dry reading, but it often becomes so, because it becomes an onslaught of dates and peoples and events that we don't recognize. It doesn't help that with histories written by victors, many of the lives we might recognize ourselves in become obliterated from memory. Such is the case with most things transgender or homosexual, which at one time were 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. Apple iTunes
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. As a transgender and bisexual woman, I'm not personally inclined to think of myself as better than anyone or to try to portray myself as such, but a careful look at history does provide a rewarding sense that I have something to offer, and am a being worthy of respect.
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 coersion, 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.
Consequently, I can only construct a history that is dry and vague at times, and intriguing at others. I also have to rely heavily on a few selected texts at some points, as there is so little other information available on those periods of time. There may be the occasional inaccuracy -- I welcome verifiable corrections. However, I have found that the exercise has unearthed some fascinating gems.
Dually-Gifted, Dually Respected?
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. As civilizations transformed from matrilineal and communal societies into male-driven (patriarchal) societies with rigid class divisions and emphasis on property ownership, those male-driven cultures reduced the status of women... and because they were threatened by a persistent belief that those who blurred gender lines possessed some greater insight, they set out to crush gender-transgressive people most of all. Into the modern age, transfolk resurfaced, but it is a long climb back just to restore any sense of equality.
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, while others portray them as undergoing castration in order to subvert matrilineal rule and wrest religious direction from the control of women. David F. Greenberg, however, concludes 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, particularily the oldest European customs, it even appears that some form of gender transgression was almost considered one's religious duty, at times (i.e. certain revelries).
Surviving Records
Displaying the earliest records of trans existence chronologically is virtually impossible, so I will sort them primarily by location.
The Middle East
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. Later, it was ordered that all mukhannathun undergo castration.
Africa
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 seventh Century BC, King Ashurbanipal (Sardanapalus) of Assyria spent a great deal of time in womens' clothing, something that was later used to justify overthrowing him. In Egypt, 1503 BC, Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut ascended to the throne, the second Egyptian queen to rule (the first was Queen Sobekneferu of the 12th Dynasty). Possibly learning from the disfavor shown to her predecessor, she donned male clothing and a false beard signifying kingship, and reigned until 1482 B.C. She had one daughter, Neferure, who she groomed as successor (male clothing, false beard and all), but Neferure did not live into adulthood. After her death, her second husband attempted to erase all record of her. And Nzinga ruled as King of Angola from 1624 - 1653, cross-dressed and led several successful military battles against the Portuguese.
Asia
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. They do tend to suffer in the modern Indian caste system, something that "eunuchs" of all types are banding together to work to improve (i.e. only recently was a Hijra able to vote, and now there have been Hijran elected officials). 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. In February 1995, archaeologist Timothy Taylor discovered evidence of transgender lives in the Iron Age graves found in southern Russia.
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. Chui Chin, a cross-dressing Chinese revolutionary and feminist was beheaded in 1907 for organizing an uprising against the Manchu dynasty.
Europe
In Europe, MTF priestesses served Artemis, Hecate and Diana. Early traditions thrived longest in Greece, and the mythology of the day encorporated tales of cross-dressing by Achilles, Heracles, Athena and Dionysus, as well as literal and metaphorical gender changes. The blind prophet Tiresias is often mentioned as a figure who had lived many years of his life in each different gender, and was said to have possessed acute wisdom for it. The tale of an FTM character, Kaineus (Caeneus), who was viewed as a "scorner and rival of the gods" and was driven into the earth by the Centaurs, is an example of Greek mythology attempting to subvert earlier trans-oriented legends. And Cupid was a dual god/dess 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.
In the later development of Europe, early alchemists borrowed from pre-Christian spirituality at times, and some of these mystics created the concept of the "chemical wedding," a merger of male and female spiritual attributes to achieve perfection. Some alchemists saw this as a chemical concept that would lead to the process of transmuting lead into gold, while others touted that this was more of a personal, spiritual transformation. While much of this was later absorbed into secret societies such as the Freemasons and Rosicrucians, the belief hints at transformative and bigender-conscious reverence. Even the Bible has such "gender-wedding" imagery at times, in allusions to the "Bride of Christ" found in the Book of Revelations and some comments by later epistle writers.
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 the Klementi tribe of Albania, if a virgin swore before twelve witnesses that she would not marry, she was then recognized as male, carried weapons, and herded flocks.
Years later, Joan of Arc was said to have followed in the traditions of Gentiles and heathen. In France, "gens" referred to matrilineal farming communities, indicating some pre-Christian tradition that she evidently had stirred up, inspiring older values and explaining why she had become such a potent threat to the church while alive (more later).
North America
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," a name of largely insulting intent given by Europeans, 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.
The sensational nature of reports of Two-Spirit peoples and the hatred they contained were used to try to justify genocide, theft of land and the dismantling of Native culture and religion. In Panama, explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa threw a King and forty others of a Native tribe to be eaten by his dogs, because they crossdressed or had same-sex partners. Spaniards committed similar genocides in the Antilles and Louisiana. In those areas where Two-Spirit traditions survived, they were later driven underground or supplanted completely by missionary teachings and residential schools, both of which were bent on destroying Native culture.
Inuit FTMs serve White Whale Woman, who was believed to have been transformed into a man or woman-man.
South America
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 preistesses. 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.
Unclear, But Present
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 or homosexual / bisexual persons.
This post is Part 1 of a six part series on transgender history. The other parts to the series are:
New soft cover version of my book Melancholy Faery tales now available
Current mood: accomplished
Category: Art and Photography
This is the art work I did for the front cover of my new book Melancholy Faery Tales Volume 1, I hope you will check it out, just the banner below. There is also a preview button that you can preview the first 5 pages, all work on the inside is mine as well, I have short stories, poems, art worrk and photography inside, I did not do the back cover, but I thought it looked awesome. So please check it out.
This is a drawing I did yesterday, I used the Chika Vampire Nurse as my model and changed her up a little bit sort of a cross between anime and a little towards real life.
melancholy
accomplished
artistic
This is another one of my latest drawings.
loved