sisterofiris

We read this passage in class yesterday and I thought it might interest youse guys. The passage is from Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans 5; it’s a discussion between Clonarium, a young man, and Leaena, a courtesan who had an unusual experience at a drinking party.

Eventually Megilla, being now rather heated, pulled off her wig, which was very realistic and fitted very closely, and revealed the skin of her head which was shaved close, just as on the most energetic of athletes. This sight gave me a shock, but she said, ‘Leaena, have you ever seen such a good-looking young fellow?’ ‘I don’t see one here, Megilla,’ said I. ‘Don’t make a woman out of me,’ said she. ‘My name is Megillus, and I’ve been married to Demonassa here for ever so long; she’s my wife.’ ‘Then, unknown to us, Megillus, you were a man all the time, just as they say Achilles once hid among the girls, and you have everything that a man has, and can play the part of a man to Demonassa?’ ‘I haven’t got what you mean,’ said she, ‘I don’t need it at all. You’ll find I have a much pleasanter method of my own.’ ‘You’re surely not a hermaphrodite,’ said I, ‘equipped both as a man and a woman, as many people are said to be?’; for I still didn’t know, Cleonarium, what it was all about. But she said, ‘No, Leaena, I’m all man.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’ve heard the Boeotian flute-girl, Ismenodora, repeating tales she’d heard at home, and telling us how someone at Thebes had turned from woman to man, someone who was also an excellent soothsayer, and was, I think, called Tiresias. That didn’t happen to you, did it?’ ‘No, Leaena,’ she said, ‘I was born a woman like the rest of you, but I have the mind and the desires and everything else of a man.’ ‘And do you find these desires enough?’ said I. ‘If you don’t believe me, Leaena,’ said she, ‘just give me a chance, and you’ll find I’m as good as any man; I have a substitute of my own. Only give me a chance, and you’ll see.’

Translation: M. D. Macleod, Loeb, 1961.

So Megilla - who, as a side note, is from Lesbos - was born a woman but identifies as a man, going by Megillus. Still, for some reason, they* disguise themselves as a woman. The whole situation is a bit confusing but the bolded bit is clear: Megilla/Megillus is, in modern terms, transgender.

Lucian’s Dialogues are fictional, but the fact he mentions a trans person speaks for their existence at the time. Remember that whenever people claim trans people are a recent phenomenon!

*I’m using they/them pronouns because it’s unclear exactly how they refer to themselves. Greek conjugated verbs are mostly non-gendered (so what the translation renders as ‘she said’ is actually ‘he/she/they said’), but there is one participle in the feminine (οὐδὲν ἐνδέουσάν με τῶν ἀνδρῶν, I’m as good as any man) despite Megilla/Megillus asking Leaena not to refer to them as a woman. So, unclear.

sisterofiris

@polyamorous-lesbian​​

Hi, I’m OP. As of the time of writing, I’m finishing up a masters degree in Ancient Greek, and the history of LGBT+ people is something I’ve studied quite a bit over the last five years. I can confidently tell you that the assumptions you’re making in your reply don’t work here.

The text I quoted, Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans, starts with Leaina (latinised above as Leaena) telling her friend Klonarion (latinised as Clonarium) about an experience she had at a drinking party. The very first thing Klonarion asks is whether Megillos/Megilla, the person Leaina hooked up with, is a woman attracted to women:

Καινὰ περὶ σοῦ ἀκούομεν, ὦ Λέαινα, τὴν Λεσβίαν Μέγιλλαν τὴν πλουσίαν ἐρᾶν σου ὥσπερ ἄνδρα καὶ συνεῖναι ὑμᾶς οὐκ οἶδ᾿ ὅ τι ποιούσας μετ᾿ ἀλλήλων.

We’re hearing strange things about you, Leaina, about how the rich Lesbian Megilla loves you like a man, and you live together and who knows what you do with each other.*

The fact this person is from Lesbos isn’t coincidental at all. “Lesbian” was well-known shorthand, in the ancient world, for women attracted to women - just like it is today. In this fictional dialogue, Lucian is using it to imply that Megillos/Megilla could be a lesbian in the modern sense, thereby acknowledging that they exist. Leaina replies:

Ἀληθῆ, ὦ Κλωνάριον· αἰσχύνομαι δέ, ἀλλόκοτον γάρ τί ἐστι.

That is true, Klonarion; but I am ashamed, since it is somewhat strange.

Ἀλλόκοτος is a word meaning strange, unusual, or different. (Actually, I might almost be tempted to translate it as “queer”.) Leaina is pointing out here that Klonarion is on the right track, but there’s more to the story than that. A bit further along, the dialogue continues:

Λ. Ἡ γυνὴ δὲ δεινῶς ἀνδρική ἐστιν.
Κ. Οὐ μανθάνω ὅ τι καὶ λέγεις, εἰ μή τις ἑταιρίστρια τυγχάνει οὖσα· τοιαύτας γὰρ ἐν Λέσβῳ λέγουσι γυναῖκας ἀρρενωπούς, ὑπ᾿ ἀνδρῶν μὲν οὐκ ἐθελούσας αὐτὸ πάσχειν, γυναιξὶ δὲ αὐτὰς πλησιαζούσας ὥσπερ ἄνδρας.
Λ. Τοιοῦτόν τι.

L: The woman is terribly manly.
K: I don’t understand what you’re saying, unless she is some sort of female courtisan. They say there are women like that in Lesbos, who look like men, who don’t want anything to do with men, but have sex with women as if they were men.
L: It’s somewhat like that.

Again, Klonarion - just like modern “gender critical” people! - doesn’t understand how this person could be anything but a gender-non-conforming lesbian woman. Leaina replies that it’s almost that, but not quite. She then starts telling Klonarion what happened, and this is where the passage I quoted above comes in. The most important element is this: Megilla publicly presents as a woman, but privately identifies as a man and uses the name Megillos.

Let’s repeat that to be extra clear: Megillos is not a lesbian woman presenting as male for safety. They** are a person assigned female at birth, but who prefers to identify as male in the safety of their own home.

Leaina compares them to mythological figures in an attempt to understand better, asking if Megillos is a man disguised as a woman, like Akhilleus (whose mother hid him among the girls in the hopes that he wouldn’t be drafted to war). Megillos says no. Leaina asks if Megillos is a hermaphrodite; Megillos also says no. Lastly, Leaina mentions Tiresias, who was born female but was transformed by the Gods into a man, to which Megillos replies that they weren’t transformed in that way, but:

… ἐγεννήθην μὲν ὁμοία ταῖς ἄλλαις ὑμῖν, ἡ γνώμη δὲ καὶ ἡ ἐπιθυμία καὶ τἆλλα πάντα ἀνδρός ἐστί μοι.

I was born female like all of you, but I have the mind and the desires and everything else of a man.

This explanation has nothing to do with wanting the same rights as a man (especially since Megillos publicly presents as the female Megilla). It has nothing to do with gender-non-conforming presentation either. Megillos is very, very clearly expressing an inner sense of gender, which is male.

So let’s summarise:

• Lucian, the author of this dialogue, is well aware of the existence of lesbian women, including gender-non-conforming lesbian women
  
• however, he makes Leaina’s character point out that while this situation is similar, it isn’t about that
  
• Megillos/Megilla publicly identifies as female and is publicly viewed as a lesbian woman, which renders impossible any interpretation that they present as male for safety or extra rights
  
• privately, they explicitly state that their inner sense of gender is male despite being assigned female at birth
  
• which is literally the definition of transgender: “having a gender (identity) which is different from the sex one was assigned at birth” (x)
  

This text is fictional; Megillos/Megilla never existed. However, Lucian’s dialogues reflect the everyday life and daily concerns of his era, and there’s no reason to believe that this text is an exception. In fact, if we look beyond him to the rest of the ancient world, we’d be quick to realise that people fitting the modern definitions of transgender and genderqueer - both AMAB and AFAB, and probably intersex too - are well-attested, from Inanna’s gala priests in the 2nd millennium BC to the Roman emperor Elagabalus in the 3rd century AD. It would be narrow-minded to attribute millennia of non-cisgender people to just misogyny and oppression.

Turns out that people have always been complicated, gender has always been complicated, and if you fail to recognise that, you find yourself in the uncomfortable position of being less accepting than Lucian, a man from the 2nd century AD.

*All translations are my own.

**As explained in the previous post, I’m using they/them pronouns because it’s unclear which grammatical gender Megillos/Megilla uses, despite clearly identifying as male.