WEBVTT 00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:36.159 Hello, everybody, and welcome to Lambda, the LGBT and Antiquity podcast, your home for all things LGBT in the ancient world. 00:00:36.320 --> 00:00:38.240 I'm your host, Dominica Raven. 00:00:38.399 --> 00:00:41.439 Episode 8, Attis the Transwoman. 00:00:41.679 --> 00:00:47.280 Once over the vast sea, a youth named Attis rode in a ship from mainland Greece. 00:00:47.439 --> 00:00:52.399 Attis is excited to reach the destination in the mystical forests of Phrygia. 00:00:52.640 --> 00:00:59.200 Once the ship reaches the shores of Anatolia, modern north-central Turkey, Attis pauses on the beach. 00:00:59.439 --> 00:01:04.000 Using a sharp flint, Attis removed their own genitals. 00:01:04.239 --> 00:01:08.719 Within an instant, Attis has changed from male into something different. 00:01:09.040 --> 00:01:20.799 Her arms have lost any manlike strength, her fingers have grown soft and tender, and her arms are now soft and light, having lost any tan acquired on the journey by ship. 00:01:21.120 --> 00:01:26.000 Attis, a Greek hero assigned male at birth, has become a woman. 00:01:26.239 --> 00:01:37.439 With her body still dripping blood from the fresh wound, Attis shouts to her companions to do the same, saying, Come with me, Gale, up to the house of Rea Kaibele. 00:01:38.079 --> 00:01:43.680 You who have braved the seas with me, now unman yourselves and follow me again. 00:01:43.920 --> 00:01:50.640 Let's play music on flutes, crashing cymbals and tambourines as we dance through the trees. 00:01:51.120 --> 00:01:56.400 So, in a flurry of movement, the gale twirl and dance through the mountains. 00:01:56.719 --> 00:02:00.480 These trans women are in a state of heightened ecstasy. 00:02:00.640 --> 00:02:05.280 They are twirling and dancing in uncontrollable joy. 00:02:05.920 --> 00:02:10.560 This is a scene where gender dysphoria yields to gendered euphoria. 00:02:10.639 --> 00:02:15.439 The galleys' minds are filled with an unexpressible amount of joy. 00:02:15.599 --> 00:02:18.639 They're absolutely overwhelmed by the changes. 00:02:18.800 --> 00:02:25.199 Once they reach the house of Chaibala, atop a distant mountain, they collapse in sheer exhaustion. 00:02:25.599 --> 00:02:28.960 Attis is definitely not a standard Greco-Roman deity. 00:02:29.280 --> 00:02:34.800 Attis is actually a vegetation god, connected especially with fir trees. 00:02:35.039 --> 00:02:43.439 One story goes that when Attis was killed by a wild boar, Chaibalay transformed their devoted servant into the pine tree itself. 00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:55.280 Even one of the chief festivals to rea Chaibalae at Rome, called the Hilaria festival, involved a procession of Galilee priestesses moving from the harbor up through Rome while carrying a pine tree. 00:02:55.439 --> 00:03:00.639 The procession appeared very much like a funerary march, complete with wailing and mourning. 00:03:00.800 --> 00:03:07.759 The festival functioned as a sort of ritual commemoration of death and resurrection of the immortal Attis. 00:03:08.080 --> 00:03:16.159 The pine tree, which does not lose its needles in winter, is a symbol of this type of everlasting regenerative life. 00:03:16.960 --> 00:03:23.280 Attis was an additionally difficult figure because there's a level of geographic alterity. 00:03:23.759 --> 00:03:33.199 Attis comes from Phrygia, which is in Anatolia, and so a Greek or a Roman author looks at them through the lens of foreignness. 00:03:33.439 --> 00:03:44.479 Now, the way the Catullus presents it is that Attis is actually a Greek hero who, upon exposure to the corrupting and feminizing power of the East, was changed forever. 00:03:44.800 --> 00:03:49.199 This is also the version preserved in Pausanias's Travelogue of Greece. 00:03:49.439 --> 00:03:56.960 Other versions of the story have Attis as originally an Asian deity who was turned west to Roman Greece. 00:03:57.199 --> 00:04:06.400 Either way, there is this innate foreignness in Attis representing the corrupting and effeminizing risks of traveling to the eastern provinces. 00:04:06.639 --> 00:04:14.800 The idea that any Greek or Roman man might desire to become feminine has to be a foreign concept. 00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:21.279 Easterners are effeminate, weirdos, and even a virile man is at risk of corruption. 00:04:21.439 --> 00:04:23.439 This idea continues to the present. 00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:45.920 Many conservative politicians sell their attacks on the LGBT community as if it were a foreign import, whether it's the Russians who must defend against gay Europa and the EU's attempts to export homosexuality to the Russian sphere, or a pathetic, disgusting little orange troll arguing that transgender is a conspiracy of powerful liberal elites. 00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:53.439 Though gender variance gets treated like an invasion, the fear is absurd when one interrogates the alleged conspiracy. 00:04:53.759 --> 00:05:03.120 No powerful men on this earth are actually willing to stick their neck out for trans people and certainly not use us as a tool of imperialism. 00:05:03.360 --> 00:05:14.639 However, lots of powerful men all over the earth use the tools of imperialism to coerce their own nation and others into anti-LGBT laws and policies. 00:05:14.879 --> 00:05:26.000 The fear is wholly unfounded yet devastatingly effective at winning public support against us and justifying cruelty against minorities. 00:05:26.240 --> 00:05:29.360 We can see this dynamic very clearly in the story of Attis. 00:05:29.519 --> 00:05:35.680 Attis may have become a woman in Phrygia, but it's just the end of a very long period of transition. 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:41.519 Nothing in the poem indicates that Attis was a manly man who got corrupted. 00:05:41.759 --> 00:05:45.199 Rather, Attis as an effeminate figure from the beginning. 00:05:45.439 --> 00:05:53.519 The trip to Phrygia is not where gender nonconformity begins, it's where the gender nonconformity was able to flourish. 00:05:53.759 --> 00:05:56.079 And that is a key distinction. 00:05:56.319 --> 00:06:01.759 The poem states that Attis was never really a straight-ahead heteronormative figure. 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:06.000 Later in the poem, Attis will look back at their previous life. 00:06:06.240 --> 00:06:11.600 Attis remembers time in the gymnasium and playing in the athletic stadium. 00:06:11.839 --> 00:06:18.240 Additionally, there were crowds of wooers who came to Attis' doorway singing songs and giving gifts. 00:06:18.399 --> 00:06:24.959 These are very traditional activities in the ancient world when a man is trying to woo somebody. 00:06:25.199 --> 00:06:31.120 Asking somebody out on a date was a carefully choreographed public activity in the ancient world. 00:06:31.360 --> 00:06:34.560 A man would be expected to come to the doorway in the evening. 00:06:34.720 --> 00:06:42.240 In this way, both the person being wooed, and more importantly, the potter familius would be aware of what was going on. 00:06:42.480 --> 00:06:49.120 The wooer would sing a poem praising their beloved, often reflecting on physical traits as well as personality. 00:06:49.279 --> 00:06:53.600 The ruler was also expected to give a gift, or several. 00:06:53.839 --> 00:06:56.160 Many gave pieces of jewelry to their beloved. 00:06:56.560 --> 00:07:08.800 Amber and pearls were particularly appropriate when wooing feminine figures, and then an additional gift to the paterfamilius or the matron, or just generally towards the household. 00:07:09.040 --> 00:07:26.800 In this way, the act of wooing reinforced the gendered order because the male was expected to take up the act of winning a female's heart and reinforcing the social order because the family and household, and most critically paterfamilius, play the integral role in the process. 00:07:27.040 --> 00:07:36.480 Finally, it was almost a prerequisite that once all the songs were sung and the gifts were given, the wooer would leave at the doorstep garlands of flowers. 00:07:36.720 --> 00:07:44.879 This way, even if their beloved heard the song but was unable to come out, they would still see something physical to remember the act by. 00:07:45.199 --> 00:07:51.920 The basic principles of wooing a young woman apply when you're trying to woo a young man as well. 00:07:52.240 --> 00:07:58.560 So as we can see, Attis was never an exceedingly male figure, even before they begin to transition. 00:07:58.800 --> 00:08:01.439 The way the poem describes the wooing is clear. 00:08:01.759 --> 00:08:04.480 Attis is the one being wooed. 00:08:04.720 --> 00:08:16.399 If you remember from our discussions of homosexuality, the proper masculine male is the one who does the wooing, who gives the gifts and generally plays the active role in romance and lovemaking. 00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:25.199 The queer feminine male is the one who is wooed, who receives the gifts, and who generally plays the passive roles in romance and lovemaking. 00:08:25.519 --> 00:08:31.120 So even from the beginning, Atis is a soft feminine figure. 00:08:31.600 --> 00:08:34.799 This resonates with many trans folks' experiences. 00:08:35.039 --> 00:08:41.679 Many of us feel as though our inner gendered expressions were already present long before we could explain what we were feeling. 00:08:41.919 --> 00:08:47.600 There is an inner transness we feel before we're able to begin transitioning. 00:08:47.840 --> 00:08:49.919 I think this is what's going on here. 00:08:50.240 --> 00:08:55.919 Attis is an effeminate figure before the transition to female begins. 00:08:56.559 --> 00:09:02.159 Beyond this, the poem itself describes Attis' body in feminine terms as well. 00:09:02.559 --> 00:09:12.879 Attis's membra sine wiro, limbs without manliness, at line six is one description. 00:09:13.120 --> 00:09:24.399 The word wiro can technically mean masculinity or manliness, but it can also mean potency and potent juice, and even took on the meaning of a poison. 00:09:24.720 --> 00:09:37.840 We still technically do use this metaphor that a strong, potent drink is a masculine one, with phrases like, that'll put hair on your chest, effectively equating masculinity with percentage alcohol. 00:09:38.080 --> 00:09:46.559 More than a few trans women would agree that manliness and manly potent juices are like poison in their bodies. 00:09:46.879 --> 00:09:56.960 Attis is also described as having newius manibus or snow-like arms or snowy hands at line eight. 00:09:57.279 --> 00:10:08.559 Attis grabs a tambourine to begin the song with teneris digitus, or tender, soft, delicate fingers at line 10. 00:10:08.720 --> 00:10:17.519 This phrase can either be describing the fingers themselves as delicate or touching of the tambourine delicately with the fingers. 00:10:17.679 --> 00:10:21.759 All of these descriptions are very common ways of describing young women. 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:29.120 Soft limbs, of course, is a reference to arms and legs which have not been honed by physical activity and athletic achievements. 00:10:29.440 --> 00:10:35.759 White arms are indicative of domestic life where women and eunuchs are expected to spend all their time. 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:42.879 Women with tanned arms are laborers, and therefore of a lower class or even slave population. 00:10:43.519 --> 00:10:53.440 Tender fingers is again to say hands not accustomed to hard, heavy labor like agricultural activity, and thereby not calloused. 00:10:54.000 --> 00:11:00.639 Interestingly, conventional women's work like weaving and spinning wool actually strengthened the hands tremendously. 00:11:00.799 --> 00:11:20.240 Moving a loom back and forth actually created very strong women with very, very strong fingers and hands, but the convention held that female fingers were not all bruised and ripped up by manual labor, and that female skin in general was not all cracked and leathery, so females must not be all that strong. 00:11:20.480 --> 00:11:25.279 So when we take it all together, we have this image of Attis as an effeminate figure. 00:11:25.519 --> 00:11:28.320 Attis was already on the wrong side of wooing. 00:11:28.399 --> 00:11:34.799 The proper virile Roman man should be the one giving the gifts and leaving the garlands, not receiving them. 00:11:35.039 --> 00:11:39.120 Attis already has soft bodily figures expected of women. 00:11:39.279 --> 00:11:43.600 Their body was described effeminately from the very first lines of the poem. 00:11:43.840 --> 00:11:46.639 Now we could read this as an image of youth. 00:11:46.879 --> 00:11:55.679 Young men are softer looking than adult men, and in a system of introductory homosexuality, young men might well find themselves being wooed. 00:11:55.919 --> 00:12:04.159 At this phase of their lives, a level of inexperienced, woman-like behavior was acceptable, or at least socially tolerated. 00:12:04.399 --> 00:12:10.639 Someone might read this story as Attis attempting to keep that youth and prevent growing up. 00:12:10.879 --> 00:12:19.039 In this reading, the figure of Attis becomes like a Peter Pan figure with the goal of never ever becoming an adult. 00:12:19.279 --> 00:12:26.080 The problem emerges when we remember that Attis does not refer to herself as a young male, forever an aphoe. 00:12:26.559 --> 00:12:32.559 Rather, immediately after the castration, the language transforms into the feminine. 00:12:32.799 --> 00:12:40.559 If this were a case of a figure trying to never become an adult, would we not expect the language to stay masculine throughout? 00:12:40.879 --> 00:12:48.639 I desire to remain a young man implies that I am a type of man and have no need to change to the feminine at all. 00:12:48.879 --> 00:12:52.639 Attis' transitioning to the feminine during this poem. 00:12:52.960 --> 00:12:56.399 We know because of the descriptions of Attis Bati. 00:12:56.960 --> 00:13:13.679 For example, line 10 says, She sang to her female companions, the verbiage being very feminine, and the company is called the gale in the next line, which is a feminine form of the name of the priestesses of Rhachibali. 00:13:14.240 --> 00:13:19.679 Gallus, galoi, these are the masculine forms of the phrase. 00:13:19.919 --> 00:13:31.519 The narrative voice immediately pivots and refers to Attis and all the others in the feminine, and Attis uses the same feminine language to describe themselves collectively. 00:13:31.679 --> 00:13:43.759 Therefore, neither Catullus the poet nor the narrative character Attis add any credence to this interpretation that Attis longs for masculine youth. 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:49.759 The other version of the story of Attis comes from Pausanius, who wrote in the second century A.D. 00:13:50.159 --> 00:14:12.080 During the relatively peaceful and stable period called the Golden Age of the Antonines, roughly 138 to 180 A.D., represented the five good emperors, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, and there was an extensive interest in this period of the empire's Greek heritage. 00:14:12.240 --> 00:14:20.000 In particular, Hadrian was sometimes called Greculus, or Little Greekling, for his love of Hellenic scholarship and art. 00:14:20.159 --> 00:14:26.559 He spearheaded a massive investment and rebuilding effort in the Hellenic, Greek-speaking East. 00:14:26.799 --> 00:14:34.320 He imagined using imperial investment to transform Greece into an artistic and cultural driver for the whole Roman world. 00:14:34.559 --> 00:14:41.200 During this period, an author named Pausanius produced a travelogue, a sightseer's guide to Greece. 00:14:41.440 --> 00:14:52.159 His work is often helpful for us because he often points out key religious temples and pilgrimage sites, providing a handy guide to significant places and festivals which went on there. 00:14:52.399 --> 00:15:02.080 Pausanius describes a temple to Attis in the city of Daime, which is the modern town of Cato Achaea on the northwestern edge of the Peloponnesian peninsula. 00:15:02.240 --> 00:15:06.960 He recounts another version of the story where Attis was a eunuch from birth. 00:15:07.120 --> 00:15:12.159 In this version, Attis was born between men and women already. 00:15:12.399 --> 00:15:21.279 Attis chooses to go to Asia Minor, Phrygia or Lydia, and join in the ecstatic worship of Rhea Chiboli or Agdistus. 00:15:21.759 --> 00:15:33.120 Critically, both versions resonate with this idea that Attis was never a heteronormative male to begin with, when the body begins transitioning towards female. 00:15:33.360 --> 00:15:46.639 What is absolutely critical to our reading of the poem is that where Attis may have been an effeminate male or even eunuch at the beginning, within the first few lines of the poem, Attis is called a woman for the rest of the story. 00:15:46.879 --> 00:15:51.600 The group of companions are called galae, which again reflects the feminine form of the word. 00:15:51.919 --> 00:15:57.679 Attis and companions are all throughout the poem called feminine phrases. 00:15:57.840 --> 00:16:04.159 The group is likened to Maenides, which is a phrase using female devotees of Dionysus. 00:16:04.639 --> 00:16:17.039 The troupe is also so exhausted by dancing up from the shore into the mountains that when they reach the house of Chaibalae, they are worn out and weary and collapse from sheer exhaustion. 00:16:17.279 --> 00:16:25.600 Finally, Attis is described as a famula, a handmaid or maidservant of Chaibele. 00:16:26.080 --> 00:16:37.759 Now, Catullus uses a phrase notha mulier, meaning spurious woman, bastard female, or counterfeit woman to describe Attis. 00:16:38.159 --> 00:16:41.840 This reflects the social values of the Roman poet. 00:16:42.240 --> 00:16:49.759 The phrase seems to imply that Catullus, as well as the wider Roman social structure, does not see Attis as a proper woman. 00:16:49.919 --> 00:16:58.720 In the ancient as well as modern world, the cisnormative society values cisgender people above transgender people. 00:16:59.039 --> 00:17:15.519 It is important to remember that when ancient authors feel trans women are bastard women, that resonates with modern authors who might agree that trans women aren't women, and this is a recipe for mutually propagating bias. 00:17:15.920 --> 00:17:25.759 Many cisnormative authors see their own opinions reflected back at them and are willing to accept it uncritically or with little reflection. 00:17:26.079 --> 00:17:30.319 Taken together, all of this indicates that Attis is a female figure. 00:17:30.480 --> 00:17:38.319 While Attis may have been a sign male at birth, they never actually express a simple binary expectation of masculinity. 00:17:38.559 --> 00:17:42.799 In fact, from the beginning, Attis is an extremely soft figure. 00:17:43.039 --> 00:17:52.240 Whether Attis was born in an intersex body or a default heteronormative body is completely irrelevant for this point. 00:17:52.559 --> 00:18:00.160 As the narrative progresses, it is overtly obvious that Attis is presenting feminine from the very beginning of the story. 00:18:00.480 --> 00:18:05.839 This poem is one of transition, a shift of identity from male to female. 00:18:06.160 --> 00:18:14.799 That Roman society, and Catullus himself, thinks about all of this as a counterfeit female, is besides the point. 00:18:15.279 --> 00:18:19.680 Attis is a trans female during this poem. 00:18:20.319 --> 00:18:28.480 This week we covered just the physical transition from a vaguely male-looking figure to a discreetly feminine one. 00:18:28.799 --> 00:18:31.119 This transition is remarkable. 00:18:31.359 --> 00:18:35.119 It is possible to transform one's gender in the ancient world. 00:18:35.279 --> 00:18:41.039 It just requires the act of a divine being, like Rea Kaibale, to work properly. 00:18:41.359 --> 00:18:45.359 This fact of gender transformation we will revisit. 00:18:45.599 --> 00:18:48.799 Changing gender by surgery is not good enough. 00:18:49.039 --> 00:18:54.000 Truly changing your gender requires some god's assistance. 00:18:54.240 --> 00:19:01.680 Once it was done, Attis was made immortal and transformed into a fertility goddess and companion of Rea Kaibale. 00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:07.039 Therefore, we have a case of a transgender experience reflected in ancient poetry. 00:19:07.279 --> 00:19:14.640 The poem also reflects the manic highs and lows immediately following sexual reassignment. 00:19:14.880 --> 00:19:21.920 There is unrestrained joy for the future as Addis dances and sings in the mountains. 00:19:22.160 --> 00:19:30.480 Then later, Addis awakens from the dreamlike ecstasy and feels a longing for something familiar. 00:19:30.799 --> 00:19:43.200 Most commenters assume it's post-transition regret and a desire to detransition, but I actually disagree with what specifically is being regretted and longed for. 00:19:43.680 --> 00:19:52.400 When you cross the Rubicon of sexual transition, there is absolutely no way to go back, and there is a burst of anxiety. 00:19:52.720 --> 00:20:08.400 Even as you start going forward in what you have desired for a very long time, there are still mixed emotions as you weigh where you have been, and the familiar feelings of inadequacy with a wholly unknown future. 00:20:08.960 --> 00:20:24.240 Though Attis desired this change all along, the change itself is a scary thing, and they find themselves longing for that disgruntled, uncomfortable period of youth simply because it's familiar. 00:20:24.480 --> 00:20:29.359 Next week we're actually going to continue our exploration of Attis in transition. 00:20:29.759 --> 00:20:39.279 Today we got through the transition itself from male to female, and next we're going to really dive into this emotional turmoil which accompanies such transitions. 00:20:39.599 --> 00:20:57.839 Where many scholars assume it is the loss of masculinity causing the anxiety, a closer look indicates that it's a change in social status from the known experience as an effeminate male into the unknown experience as a handmaid of Kibele. 00:20:58.400 --> 00:21:08.480 The anxiety is just the first few hours of transition, not eternally longing and pining away for a lost part of themselves. 00:21:08.960 --> 00:21:10.799 See you next Monday. 00:21:27.039 --> 00:21:30.720 Catullus was a Roman poet who lived in the first century BC. 00:21:31.119 --> 00:21:47.680 He lived through a lot of crises, being born during the period of the Social War slash First Civil War in the 80s B.C., and he grew up during the time of the revolt of the Consul Lepidus in 77 and the conspiracy of Cathaline in 63. 00:21:48.079 --> 00:21:59.839 His adult life was taken up with the rivalries between Pompey the Great, Crassus the Greedy, and Caesar the Republic Slayer, though he died before the final showdown at Pharsalus. 00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:01.680 In 48 BC. 00:22:01.839 --> 00:22:09.119 It was a period of immense change where literally every facet of Roman life and tradition was breaking down all at once. 00:22:09.359 --> 00:22:18.000 His poetry, which is mostly short verses, reflects this chaotic crisis era when the old republic was in its death throes. 00:22:18.319 --> 00:22:29.440 Catullus 63 is actually one of his longer poems, sometimes called the Hymn to Attis and Caibala, or the Hymn to Beresinthia, which is another name for Chaibala. 00:22:29.839 --> 00:22:35.039 But the poem is also called an Epilion, or mini-epic, because of its heroic content. 00:22:35.200 --> 00:22:41.839 In any case, Catullus 63 tells the story of the first few hours of Attis' life after gender transition. 00:22:42.160 --> 00:22:58.880 The translation by Anna Jackson, titled Attis at Large, published in Arian, a journal of the humanities and classics, volume 27, number 2, in 2019, gets across the trans nature of this story better than any translation I've ever encountered. 00:22:59.119 --> 00:23:09.920 This translation is available online at Anajackson.nz, or just type in Attis at large PDF into the search engine, and it pops right up. 00:23:10.160 --> 00:23:22.480 The discussion of the Halaria Festival is drawn from Latzer Lazar in an article called The Heterarchy of the Roman Galli in the journal Religion and Gender, 2024. 00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:33.519 Catullus 63, verses 64 through 67 contain the various symbols of wooing like the crowded doorways and flowered garlands discussed in the episode. 00:23:33.839 --> 00:23:44.160 Pausanius's Description of Greece, Book 7, section 17, lines 9 through 13, contains the alternate story of Attis. 00:23:44.640 --> 00:23:50.240 The group is called Menides at Catullus 63, verse 23. 00:23:50.559 --> 00:24:03.839 The group is collapsed in a sheer exhausted sleep in verses 35 through 38, and Attis is called a handmaid of Chaibalae at verses 68 and at verse 90. 00:24:04.079 --> 00:24:08.160 Catullus calls Attis a counterfeit woman at verse 27. 00:24:08.720 --> 00:24:10.319 That's all for this episode. 00:24:10.400 --> 00:24:14.559 We'll continue next Monday with our treatment of the story of Attis. 00:24:14.960 --> 00:24:15.920 See you then.