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A History of Transgender People, Volume I

Trans Identities in Pre-Classical Civilizations

By Sophia-Helene Mees de TrichtPublished 6 years ago 5 min read
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Inanna-Ishtar from Lewis Spence's Myths and Legends of Babylonia and Assyria, 1916

Important note: Historiography is a living science. It evolves with the sensibilities of those who practice it and the cultures that consume it. It's the science of how we do history. Originally, the idea posed by the Greek historians was to pass on a story that was engaging and compelling and they would use that story to tie in a moral. Obviously, modern historians tend to shy away from this model in favor of a more rigorously sourced and researched method that is much harder to read.I'm not a professional historian, and as such, I'm not bound to the state of the science for the sake of my professional reputation, such that it is. So I am free to tell an engaging story at the expense of not having ready access to primary sources, because again, I'm a hack. And because I'm a hack, I'm going to try to make sure that you won't get bored of my writing. So I'll keep it relatively short, tell one story, and break my combined knowledge up into ten sections.

"GET ON WITH IT!!"

In Mesopotamian myth, there are many stories about Inanna (or Ishtar, depending on which Mesopotamian society you're reading, or indeed depending on preference. I personally find the name ‘Ishtar’ more pleasing, so I tend toward that one. The myth is so old that it doesn’t really matter which you choose, they’re the same goddess). Perhaps the most compelling is that of Inanna's Descent into Irkalla, the underworld. It’s very emotional and sad and I cannot read it without tearing up. Last time I tried to tell it, I couldn’t finish. I had to pull up the text and let her read it for herself. I shall recount it here.

For reasons that vary from telling to telling, Ishtar, goddess of love, fertility, and war, among many other things; travels to the underworld, Irkalla. I personally prefer the version of the story in which she goes to mourn the death of her husband, Tammuz. Ereshkigal, Ishtar's sister and queen of Irkalla, is suspicious of Ishtar's presence at the seven gates to the underworld. Ishtar, you see, had a nasty habit of conquering other gods' realms and absorbing their functions into her own, and Ereshkigal might have suspected (not unreasonably) that this was about to happen to her, since Ereshkigal was the most powerful of the gods of Mesopotamia. But Ishtar is threatening to blow the gates of the underworld off their hinges if she is not granted entry, which would raise the dead to be a plague on the living.

Ereshkigal instructs the gateman to bolt the last six gates and let Ishtar into the first, but before proceeding into the next gate, she had to take off an article of clothing and leave it there. The articles were imbued with her very essence, and by the time she got through the seventh gate, she was unclad, and as it turns out, mortal.

Ereshkigal struck her with plagues, which laid her low, and she was dying. The goddess of fertility, sex, desire, love, and life lay dying in the dungeons of Ereshkigal.

The world was dying. All was gloomy and dark and cold and there was no love in it. The gods, because of Ishtar's previous behavior or in fear of Ereshkigal's retribution, refused to render any aid whatsoever. All, that is, except for Ea. A trickster archetype with aspects of an ocean god, he gathered the dirt under his fingernails (which may or may not have been starlight) and crafted a beautiful creature "both male and female" called Asu-Shu-Namir.

Now, as we will see in the latter portion of this story, these were strong shame cultures. So it wasn't okay for people to say that a person who was "both male and female" was hot, but Asu-Shu-Namir was created for one singular purpose: to seduce Ereshkigal and rescue Ishtar, then be Ishtar's consort.

So, to accomplish this mission, let's be straight with ourselves here (see what I did there? I made a funny in the middle of the very sad story), Ea made Asu-Shu-Namir gorgeous.

Asu-Shu-Namir was so entrancing that Ereshkigal, herself no dummy, didn't even for a moment think it was weird that this creature of ethereal beauty which no god nor man had been aware of until this very moment came calling on her, asking for the water of life. That's how horned up for Asu-Shu-Namir Ereshkigal was. Well, that plus alcohol. It's worth mentioning that a majority of the gods of Mesopotamia were drunken louts on the best of days.

Ereshkigal, who in her drunkenness could think of nothing but taking this beautiful creature to her bed, gave them the water of life. After Ereshkigal fell asleep (and what one has to presume were shenanigans in between), Asu-Shu-Namir sneaks off to the cell where Ishtar was being held. They sprinkled the water of life upon her and she was restored instantly. They made their escape.

Ishtar made it through all seven gates. Asu-Shu-Namir was not so lucky. Here we can go directly to the best translation I've been able to find so far:

Ereshkigal awoke as they were approaching the seventh gate, and neither their beauty, nor their charm, nor their dancing or songs, could extinguish the passion that had turned to hate. "The food of the gutter shall thou eat,'' cried Ereshkigal, her every word a curse, "The water of the sewer shall be your drink. In the shadows you shall abide, despised and hated by even your own kind!" Having pronounced the curse, Ereshkigal banished Asu-Shu-Namir.When Ishtar learned of the curse placed upon Asu-Shu-Namir, she wept and spoke softly that no one might hear. "The power of Ereshkigal is great. No one dares to defy her. Yet I may soften her curse upon you, as spring arrives to banish winter. Those who are like you, my assinnu [male-bodied temple prostitutes] and kalum [male-bodied priestesses] and kugarru and kalaturru, lovers of men, kin to my sacred women, shall be strangers in their own homes. Their families will keep them in the shadows and will leave them nothing. The drunken shall smite them, and the mighty shall imprison them. But if you remember me, how you were born from the light of the stars to save me, and through me the earth, from darkness and death [emphasis mine], then I shall harbor you and your kind. You shall be my favored children, and I shall make you my priestesses. I shall grant you the gift of prophecy, the wisdom of the earth and the moon and all that they govern, and you shall banish illness from my children, even as you have stolen me from the clutches of Ereshkigal." "And when you dress in my robes, I shall dance in your feet and sing in your throats. No man shall be able to resist your enchantments. When the earthen jug is brought from Irkalla [cultural note: I'm not actually sure what this means, but the rule with Irkalla is "once you go down there, you can't come back," so this may symbolize the end of times], lions shall leap in the deserts [cultural note: the lion was a sacred symbol of Ishtar, so this may be a reference to Ishtar being elated after long mourning the Curse of Ereshkigal, which robbed her of her beloved consort], and you shall be freed from the spell of Ereshkigal. Once more you will be called Asu-Shu-Namir, a being clothed in light. Your kind shall be called 'Those Whose Faces Are Brilliant,' 'Those Who Have Come to Renew the Light,' 'The Blessed of Inanna.' "

...And my makeup is running.

But do you see what happened there?

Aside from two cisgender, heterosexual-ish female deities being WAY into a trans person (the Akkadian language doesn’t have words for any of that, so ‘both male and female’ can be fairly interpreted as a blanket term for gender minorities), there was a myth 4500 years ago to explain why exactly society is so very shitty to trans people, indicating that it was an ancient phenomenon, even then, as there are very few myths that occur in the "stage present," if you will.

Ereshkigal was scorned and embarrassed by a creature she had desired and Ishtar was devastated by the loss of her consort!

Trans priestesses of Ishtar are a well-supported phenomenon, as was the concept of "holy marriage," wherein the king (before the king called himself a descendant of the gods) would consecrate his authority and divine right to rule by getting busy with the high priestess (typically a cis woman), but there were rituals in which the temple prostitutes, male-bodied women, would get in on some action themselves.This is the earliest example of transgender identity I am currently aware of. In Volume II, we'll discuss examples of transgender representation in Classical Civilization.

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About the Creator

Sophia-Helene Mees de Tricht

I'm a socialist space penguin. I mean, I'm sure there are more important things about me, but I also don't want to be accused of misrepresenting myself, so let me just say that up front and loudly and clearly and oops! I'm about out of spa

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