Authorized by the pope on March 25, 2024, the Vatican declaration asserts the Vatican’s opposition to gender-affirming surgical procedure and surrogacy. Whereas noting that individuals shouldn’t be “imprisoned,” “tortured” or “killed” due to their sexual orientation, it says that “gender principle” and any sex-change intervention reject God’s plan for human life.
The Catholic Church has lengthy emphasised conventional binary views of gender. However in lots of locations, each current and previous, people have been in a position to push again towards gender norms.
Even within the historic Roman Empire, people may transgress conventional conceptions of gender roles in numerous methods. Whereas Roman notions of femininity and masculinity had been strict as regards clothes, as an example, there may be proof to recommend that people may and did breach these norms, though they had been prone to be met with ridicule or scorn.
As a scholar of Greek and Latin literature, I’ve studied the “Galli,” male followers of the goddess Cybele. Their look and behaviors, usually thought of female, had been commented on extensively by Roman authors: They had been stated to curve their hair, easy their legs with pumice stones and put on high-quality clothes. Additionally they, however not all the time, surgically eliminated their testicles.
Cybele: Mom of the gods
Within the philosophical treatise “Hymn to the Mom of the Gods,” Julian the Thinker, the final pagan emperor of the Roman empire, writes concerning the historical past of the cult of Cybele. On this treatise, he describes the cult’s principal figures and the way a few of its rites had been carried out.
Sometimes called the Mom of the Gods, Cybele was first worshiped in Anatolia. Her most well-known cult web site was situated at Pessinous, the trendy Turkish village of Ballıhisar, about 95 miles southwest of Ankara, the place Julian stopped to pay a go to on his journey to Antioch in 362 C.E.
Cybele was identified in Greece by round 500 B.C.E. and launched to Rome someday between 205 and 204 B.C.E. In Rome, the place she got here to be acknowledged because the mom of the state, her worship was included into the official roster of Roman cults, and her temple was constructed on the Palatine, the political middle of Rome.
Cybele’s cult gave rise to a bunch of male followers, or attendants, referred to as Galli. Among the many surviving materials proof associated to their existence are sculptures, in addition to a Roman burial of a person Gallus found in Northern England.
Attis: Cybele’s human companion
A statue from Ostia, Rome’s port metropolis, depicts a reclining Attis, Cybele’s youthful male human companion.
What is extremely uncommon about this statue, which is on the Vatican museum, is how the sculptor has draped the clothes to attract consideration to Attis’ groin and abdomen: No discernible genitalia are seen. Attis, at first sight, seems to be a lady.
Of their tellings of Cybele’s fantasy, Greek and Roman authors give differing variations for Attis’ self-castration. The Roman poet Catullus describes how Cybele places Attis right into a state of frenzy, throughout which he castrates himself. Instantly afterward, Attis is referred to by feminine adjectives as she calls to her companions, the Gallae, utilizing the feminine kind as a substitute of the masculine Galli. Catullus’ poem highlights the anomaly in Attis’ gender and that of Cybele’s attendants.
Materials proof for the Galli
A reduction sculpture from Lanuvium, now on the Musei Capitolini in Rome and dated to the second century C.E, is among the few surviving representations of a Gallus.
This particular person is surrounded by objects generally related to Cybele’s cult, together with musical devices, a field for cult objects and a whip. The sculpted determine is adorned with an elaborate headdress or crown, a torque necklace and a small breastplate, in addition to ornate clothes.
Aside from signaling the individual’s connection to Cybele’s cult, the objects and adornments additionally recommend that the individual’s gender id is considerably ambiguous, since Roman males shunned flamboyance and ornaments.
At Cataractonium, a Roman fort in Northern England, a skeleton was uncovered within the necropolis of Bainesse throughout excavations in 1981-82. Primarily based on the accompanying burial items, which included a torque anklet, bracelets and a necklace fabricated from a sort of gemstone that has been dated to across the third century C.E., archaeologists thought that these had been the stays of a lady.
An examination of the bones, nevertheless, revealed that the stays had been these of a younger man — probably in his early twenties. Since Roman males sometimes didn’t put on the form of jewellery discovered within the grave, archaeologists concluded that the person might have been a Gallus.
Respect for Galli
Galli had been hooked up to temples, the place they shaped a group. Throughout processions in Cybele’s honor, they’d comply with behind the cult picture and clergymen, chanting alongside musical devices they performed.
In Rome, they’d permission to hunt alms from the populace; they’d additionally supply prophetic readings or ecstatic dances in return for cost. It’s attainable that they enhanced their seems as a way to get extra money.
Some students have argued that their female look was a approach to differentiate themselves from most of the people; likewise, that their voluntary castration signaled their renunciation of the world and devotion to Cybele, in imitation of Attis, her companion.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t appear out of the odd to suppose that some Galli had been drawn to Cybele’s cult as a result of it supplied them a approach to escape the strict binary gender system of the Romans. Galli, in contrast to different males in Rome or its empire, had been in a position to brazenly current themselves or reside as ladies, no matter their assigned intercourse or how they recognized.
Catullus’ poem and feedback by different authors point out that they perceived the gender of the Galli as differing from Roman ideas of masculinity. Nevertheless, the Galli had been additionally, reluctantly, revered for the position they performed in Cybele’s cult. It’s thus arduous to know who precisely joined their communities and the way they noticed themselves, and whether or not the sources describe them precisely.
It’s tempting to see the Galli as nonbinary or transgender people, despite the fact that the Romans didn’t know or use ideas similar to nonbinary or transgender. Nonetheless, it isn’t inconceivable that various people discovered within the Galli each a group and an id that allowed them to specific themselves in a manner that conventional Roman manhood didn’t allow.
The Vatican declaration asserts that the feminine and male binary is mounted and means that gender-affirming care “dangers threatening the distinctive dignity the individual has obtained from the second of conception.”
Nonetheless, the existence of trans individuals right this moment, in addition to individuals who defied gender binaries up to now — together with the Galli of historic Rome — reveals that it’s and was attainable to reside outdoors prevailing gender norms. In my opinion, that makes it clear that it’s unjust to impose ethical teachings or judgments on how individuals expertise their our bodies or themselves.
This text by Tina Chronopoulos, from Binghamton College, was initially revealed by The Dialog.
