Translations:History of nonbinary gender/15/en


 * The Anglo-Saxon word wæpen-wifestre, or wæpned-wifestre (Anglo-Saxon, wæpen "sword," "penis," "male" (or wæpned "weaponed," "with a penis," "male") + wif woman, + estre feminine suffix, thus "woman with a weapon," "woman with a penis," or "man woman") was defined in an eleventh-century glossary (Antwerp Plantin-Moretus 32) as meaning "hermaphrodite." The counterpart of this word, wæpned-mann, simply meant "a person armed with a sword" or "male person." Wæpen-wifestre is known to be a synonym for "scrat" (intersex). Another synonym given for wæpen-wifestre is bæddel, an which also means intersex, but also feminine men, from which the word "bad" is thought to be derived, due to its use as a slur. The related word bæddling was used in eleventh-century laws for men who had sex with men in a receptive role. Additional meanings of wæpen-wifestre are possible. When wæpen-wifestre is read as "woman with a penis," it could describe a feminine man, a man who has sex with men, or a transgender woman. When read as "woman with a sword," it could refer to a warrior woman. When read as "man woman," it could mean not only an intersex person, but also people who transgressed the gender binary that seems to have been the rule in Anglo-Saxon England, as far as is known from limited literature from that era. From this range of meanings that the word potentially covers, it's possible that wæpen-wifestre may have been a general category for intersex, queer, and gender-variant people in Britain, during the time that was contemporary to Beowulf.