Translations:Gender-variant identities worldwide/81/en

A significant portion of the ancient priesthood of the goddess Cybele and her consort Attis were Gallae. This tradition began in Phrygia (where Turkey is today, part of Asia Minor), 2,300 years ago. After 205 BCE, it spread throughout the Roman Empire, as far north as London. The Gallae were AMAB eunuchs. They wore bright-colored feminine sacerdotal clothing, hairstyles or wigs, makeup, and jewelry, and used feminine mannerisms in their speech. There were other priests and priestesses of Cybele who were not eunuchs, but ordinary men, and other priestesses who were cisgender or transmasculine Amazonian warrior women, so it would not have been necessary to become a Gallae or a eunuch simply in order to become a priest of Cybele. The Gallae were not ascetic but hedonistic, so castration was not about stopping sexual desires. Some Gallae would marry men, and others would marry women, so castration was not simply about being a man attracted to men. The ways of the Gallae were more consistent with transgender people who had suffered gender dysphoria, which they relieved by voluntary castration, as the available form of sex reassignment surgery.