Variations in Sexual Behavior

Sexual Minorities: 7. Transsexuals

Historical Notes

Tiresias, as a woman, once again encounters two mating snakes. After hitting them with his stick, he is changed back into a man. (Detail of a 16th-century woodcut).

As far as we know, transsexualism has always existed in all parts of the world. Of course, the modern scientific term was unknown, but there is nothing new about people self-identifying as female or male in contradiction to their physical sex. Indeed, “sex changes” have fascinated mankind for a very long time. Myths and legends in many cultures tell us about women turning into men and men turning into women, in some cases temporarily, in others permanently. Sometimes this is attributed to divine intervention or to some magic. Some ancient tales also involve a double-sexed or double-gendered figure or a “third sex”. They also provide examples of occasional or habitual cross-dressing. In short, it seems that all the various forms of gender non-conformity that we know today have a long history. It is, above all, a history of different cultural attitudes toward such non-conformity - from high esteem to tolerance to merciless oppression.
A well-known Western “classical “example is that of the legendary ancient Greek seer Tiresias, who knew both sexes “from the inside”. As a young man, he had hit two mating snakes with a stick and was thereupon transformed into a woman. After seven years, he saw the snakes again and hit them again, but was now changed back into a man. The supreme god Zeus and his wife Hera then asked him who experienced the greatest pleasure during sexual intercourse - the male or the female. When he answered: “The female”, the enraged Hera struck him blind, but, in compensation, Zeus gave him the gift of prophesy.
The ancient world did not make our modern distinctions between the various types of transgenderism, but, on the whole, it was rather tolerant of gender non-conformity.