Gender-variant identities worldwide: Difference between revisions

The Enarees were gender-variant priests of the ancient Scythian people. The 5th century Greek medical anthology, "Hippocratic Corpus," said that the Enarees wore women's styles of clothing, used feminine mannerisms in their speech, and did women's work.<ref name="enarees phillips" /> Pseudo-Hippocrates said the Scythians believe the cause of their femininity is divine, but he theorized that they became so due to injuring their genitals from continous horse riding,<ref>{{cite web |author=Hippocrates |title=On Airs, Waters, Places |link=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Airs,_Waters,_Places#Part_XII |site=Wikisource|access-date=6 August 2023}}</ref> and from wearing trousers<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Chiasson|first=Charles|date=2001|title=Scythian Androgyny and Environmental Determinism in Herodotus and the Hippocratic πϵρὶ ἀϵ́ρων ὑδάτων τóπων|journal=Syllecta Classica|language=en|volume=12|issue=1|pages=33–73|doi=10.1353/syl.2001.0007|issn=2160-5157}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Minns|first=Ellis|title=Scythians and Greeks: A Survey of Ancient History and Archaeology on the North Coast of the Euxine from the Danube to the Caucasus|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1913|isbn=9781108024877|location=|pages=45–6}}</ref> (which was seen as an odd foreign custom to the toga-wearing Greeks). Archaeologist Ellis Minns (1874 - 1953) said Ovid may be partly right, because bareback horse riding has been known to cause damage to the testicles resulting in loss of the ability to have an erection or ejaculate, even for modern-day riders.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Minns|first=Ellis|title=Scythians and Greeks: A Survey of Ancient History and Archaeology on the North Coast of the Euxine from the Danube to the Caucasus|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1913|isbn=9781108024877|location=|pages=45–6}}</ref> Riding injures alone do not account for the femininity of Enarees, which seem to be part of the cross-cultural tradition of cross-dressing shamans.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/148/abstract/neither-men-nor-women-failure-western-binary-systems|title=(N)either Men (n)or Women? The Failure of Western Binary Systems|last=Hart|first=Rachel|date=|website=Society for Classical Studies|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-01-28}}</ref>