Uncertain Gender in Ancient Greek and Roman Times: Intersex People and Hermaphrodites

Author: (French) Brison Hou Xumei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-12-01
Features: Having both male and female sexes is a typical feature of primitive organisms. The longing for a primitive state often evokes human nostalgia. In Plato's Symposium, Aristophanes' mythological story offers a profound expression of this. Every couple, when their spiritual and physical union reaches its peak moment after moment, yearns to achieve an unattainable eternal fusion, leading them back to the primitive state of bisexuality when humans were still in a primitive state. In ancient Greece and Rome, animals and humans with two sexes were destined to face a cruel fate of being expelled. In the eyes of the public, these monsters were ominous signs sent by the gods to destroy humanity. In real life, bisexuality is either rejected or exists on the fringes of society; however, in myths and legends, it plays an extremely important role. Compared to having both male and female sexes at the same time, some individuals successively possessing two genders carries a very different meaning. They sequentially possess the dual nature of mediators between gods and humans, and more importantly, the bisexuality of diviners. Tiresias is a problematic example: he is a seer who can communicate between the human world and the divine world. The fact that he transforms from male to female and then back to male enables him to move between the male and female worlds. Tiresias freely traverses the contradictions between opposites while the world remains unchanged, symbolizing the transcendence of humanity's fundamental contradiction, that is, the gender divide.