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Transgenderism In Greek Mythology
By Hebe Dotson
Part three
Subscribers can catch up and read Part One | Part Two | Part Four
In this four-part article, Hebe Dotson summarizes several TG-related stories from Greek and Roman
mythology. She has taken these stories from three sources: Edith
Hamilton's Mythology, Robert Graves' The Greek Myths, and Ovid's
Metamorphoses.
Transsexualism: The Divine Power of Metamorphosis
We know that transvestism was practiced in the ancient
world, just as it is in modern times. There is evidence for ritual
crossdressing in some religious and ceremonial practices, and
female roles were performed by male actors in Greek and Roman
theatre.
There is no reason to believe that these acts of public
transvestism were not matched by private acts; indeed, the myth
in which Heracles (Hercules) and Queen Omphale exchange clothes
for their own amusement indicates that ordinary men and women
must have been known to do the same thing. I suspect (though I
certainly cannot prove) that crossdressing began in each human
society when its clothing became sophisticated enough to be different
for males and females.
Transsexualism was another matter.
If the
yearning of a male to be truly female (or a female to be male)
defines transsexualism, it must be as old as the capability of
human intelligence to express (if only inwardly) such yearnings -- predating
male and female clothing differentiation and probably predating
clothing itself. Yearning thoughts were possible, and there is
evidence of men -- in particular, shamanistic men -- living as females
and being treated as females in many so-called "primitive"
societies.
But to experience a genuine physical metamorphosis
from male to female or from female to male! That was beyond human
powers, something requiring divine intervention or magic, and
even the most devout of ancient Greeks and Romans must have recognized
that their gods seldom did anything that did not further their
own private agendas. Nevertheless, there were several instances
in mythology in which one deity or another exercised his or her
divine powers to produce transsexual metamorphoses. The ordinary
human with transsexual longings could only pray…and hope.
The Gods
The Greek myths provide a few instances of deities
performing gender transformations on themselves. Athena, for example,
frequently assumed the form of a man in order to visit and counsel
Odysseus as he wandered about the Mediterranean. She also visited
Odysseus's son, Telemachus, in male guise. The myths don't say
that she carried a change of clothing with her; she appears to
have actually transformed herself into a man each time. With powers
such as she had, it's safe to assume that her disguises were anatomically
correct and were therefore transsexual rather than transvestic.
Male-to-female metamorphoses are infrequent in Greek myth. I found
only one instance of a male Olympian deity assuming female form.
Dionysus (who, it will be remembered, was raised as a girl) made
an appearance in the form of a girl to three young women in an
attempt to induce them to participate in one of his orgiastic
revels. When they refused, he changed his form in rapid succession
to a lion, a bull, and a panther, driving the young women insane.
Teiresias
Teiresias, the wisest and most renowned seer of his
time, appears to have been the first and only mortal male-to-female
transsexual in Greek mythology. As he was walking one day in the
woods on the slopes of Mount Cyllene, he encountered two serpents
intertwined in the act of mating.
When both serpents attacked
him, he struck out at them with his staff, killing the female.
He was immediately transformed into a woman and, according to
Graves, became a celebrated harlot. After seven years of celebrated
harlotry, Teiresias again took a stroll in the woods on the slopes
of Mount Cyllene. Once again, in the very same place, she saw
two serpents coupling; this time, she killed the male and immediately
regained manhood, becoming the first to have an MTF transformation
reversed (Dionysus, remember, followed MTF with FTL, LTB, and
BTP before the ultimate PTM).
Some time after Teiresias's transformations
occurred, Hera was berating Zeus for his endless infidelities.
Zeus, in his own defense, observed that on those occasions when
he actually did share Hera's bed, she had by far the more enjoyable
experience. It was well known, he stated, that women derived much
more pleasure from the sexual act than men did. "That is
utter nonsense!" Hera said. "It's exactly the other
way around, and you know it!" This argument reverberated
around Olympus for some time, with neither side willing to change
its opinion.
Hebe
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Finally, after many contentious words, one of the
antagonists had an inspired thought. Why not ask Teiresias to
settle the argument? He, after all, had known sexual pleasure
from both the male and female perspectives. (One might think that
Zeus and Hera would simply have used their powers to transform
themselves and find the answer experimentally. This idea may not
have occurred to them -- Greek scientists would later gain a reputation
for being long on theory and short on experiment-or they may have
just enjoyed arguing -- or there may have been another reason that
I will explore later.)
In any event, Teiresias was delighted to
be of assistance to the gods. His judgment, according to Graves,
was expressed in verse: "If the parts of love, pleasure be
counted as ten, Thrice three go to women, one only to men."
This report pleased Zeus greatly, but Hera, outraged by her husband's
self-satisfied smirk, immediately lashed out at Teiresias, inflicting
him with blindness. Since one god could not undo the deeds of
another, Zeus could not restore Teiresias's sight. In compensation,
however, he granted him the power to see the future and extended
his lifespan to seven generations, thus enabling him to pop up
in many other myths. In this story, Teiresias's metamorphoses
are described as magical or miraculous rather than as due to a
god's actions. In another version of the story, however, Teiresias
was called upon to settle a dispute among Aphrodite and the three
Graces as to which of them was the most beautiful. When Teiresias
made the wrong call, selecting the grace Cale, Aphrodite transformed
him into an old woman. Cale was happy, though. Filled with gratitude,
she gave Teiresias a magnificent head of hair.
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