Gender-variant identities worldwide: Difference between revisions

* '''Name of identity:''' Ashtime<ref name="ashtime epprecht heterosexual">Epprecht, Marc. Heterosexual Africa?: The History of an Idea from the Age of Exploration to the Age of AIDS, p.61-62. Ohio University Press.</ref>

* '''Culture:''' The Maale people in the country of Ethiopia<ref name="ashtime epprecht heterosexual" />

* '''Era:''' {{Information needed}}

* '''Role in society:''' sex worker?<ref name="ashtime epprecht heterosexual" /><ref name="ashtime epprecht bisexuality">p. 196. Epprecht, Marc. 2006. “Bisexuality” and the politics of normal in African ethnography. ''Anthropologica'' 48: 187-201.</ref>

In Ethiopia, the Maale people had a gender role called Ashtime, for [[Sexes#Assigned male at birth|assigned male at birth (AMAB)]] eunuchs who live as women, though later this became an umbrella term for all kinds of gender non-conforming AMAB people. There are opposing scholarly interpretations of the role and significance of the Ashtime. Some non-Maale historians believe that they are AMAB people who behave as women and also have sex with men.<ref>Epprecht, Marc. Heterosexual Africa?: The History of an Idea from the Age of Exploration to the Age of AIDS, p.61-62. Ohio University Press.</ref> Other non-Maale historians who lived among the Maale describe them very differently, saying the duty of an ''ashtime'' was to allow the king to have sex "protected from even the merest whiff of female sexuality at key moments in the ritual life of the nation".<ref name="ashtime epprecht bisexuality" />

* '''Name of identity:''' Gallae. Contemporaries who were not Gallae called them by masculine words, Galloi or Galli (plural), or Gallus (singular). Some historians interpret the Gallae as transgender, by modern terms, and think they would have called themselves by the feminine Gallae (plural) and Galla (singular).<ref>Kirsten Cronn-Mills, ''Transgender Lives: Complex Stories, Complex Voices'' (2014, {{ISBN|0761390227}}), page 39</ref><ref>Teresa Hornsby, Deryn Guest, ''Transgender, Intersex and Biblical Interpretation'' (2016, {{ISBN|0884141551}}), page 47</ref><ref name="seabrook gallae about">Laura Anne Seabrook, "About this comic." ''Tales of the Gallae.'' http://totg-mirror.thecomicseries.com/about/</ref> The Roman poet Ovid (43 BC – 17 AD) says their name comes from the Gallus river in Phrygia;<ref>Maarten J. Vermaseren, ''Cybele and Attis: the myth and the cult'', translated by A. M. H. Lemmers,  London: Thames and Hudson, 1977, p.85, referencing Ovid, ''Fasti'' IV.9</ref> "gallus" itself means chicken or rooster.

* '''Culture:''' Originally Phrygia (where Turkey is today, part of Asia Minor).

* '''Era:''' 2,300 years ago<ref name="kaldera 174">Raven Kaldera. ''Hermaphrodeities: The Transgender Spirituality Workbook.'' Hubbardston, Massachusetts: Asphodel Press, 2008. P. 174-179.</ref> to 6th century CE. Revived in the modern day by some Pagan transgender people who consider themselves Gallae.<ref name="seabrook gallae about" />

* '''Description of sex/gender:''' AMAB and feminine eunuchs. They may have been what modern people would consider a gender outside the Western binary, or else trans women.

* '''Role in society:''' Priesthood. The Gallae were priests of the Phrygian goddess Cybele and her consort Attis.<ref name="kaldera 174" /> They were believed to have spiritual powers to tell the future, bless homes, have power over wild animals, bring rain, and exorcise evil spirits.<ref name="Maarten J. Vermaseren 1977, p.97">Maarten J. Vermaseren, ''Cybele and Attis: the myth and the cult'', translated by A. M. H. Lemmers, London: Thames and Hudson, 1977, p.97.</ref><ref name="kaldera 174" />

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.<ref name="kaldera 174" /> After 205 BCE, it spread throughout the Roman Empire, as far north as London.<ref name="kaldera 174" /> 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,<ref name="kaldera 174" /> 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 [[bottom surgery|sex reassignment surgery]].<ref name="kaldera 174" />

The Gallae lived together in the ''metro'on'' temple compounds, which they tended, and cared for the statue of Cybele. They called one another by familial titles like Mother and Sister. They spent much of their time traveling in order to beg for charity, in exchange for which they told fortunes and blessed homes.<ref name="Maarten J. Vermaseren 1977, p.97" /><ref name="kaldera 174" /> They were believed to have spiritual powers: that they could bring rain, and exorcise evil spirits. The Roman public viewed them with a mixture of awe and contempt, seeing them as practicing shocking foreign customs, so they were just as often honored as they were harassed and politically persecuted. They were not allowed to be Roman citizens, and vice versa.