"They deny that they are men, and they are not women. They wish that they were believed to be women, but a certain aspect of the body attests otherwise.” said 4th Century writer & astrologer Julius Firmicus Maternus about the Galla (Gallae) or Galli priests of Kybele, after encountering them.... Cybele was the mother goddess of Phrygia and, as far as we know, their only goddess... Worship of her may stretch as far back as the time of Catalhöyuk, according to some theories, though this isn't certain.
A Galla priest, 2nd Century
Eunuch itself has historically had a very broad usage, either by ignorant people with lacking words to describe what they're hearing about or witnessing, or out of bias and wilful disinterest to actually present it through the eyes of the people they're writing about; outside of the literal castrated male, it has also been used for intersex people, indigenous gender diverse people, ancient third gender people like the Gallae, Assinnu, Hijra, Kinnar—though the two latter exist today aswell—Gala, Kurgarra, Galatura, etc... other examples with the broadening or very tightly bent usage of gender, sex, sexuality words is how colonisers would often call indigenous two spirit or otherwise gender variant people "hermaphrodites" just based on the clothing, occupation, gender role etc they had... "Impotent" is another word that was historically used on gender variant, & asexual people, such as how the Anarya of the Scythians were called.
It is known through many sources that the Gallae addressed eachother as sister and mother, and that they grew their hair out, spoke in a higher tone of voice, and wore both heavy makeup and traditionally women's jewelery and clothing; jet jewellery, generally associated with women, has also been found in two graves in Catterick & Hungate in the UK, where several shrines and figurines of and to Kybele / Magna Mater have also been excavated; these two graves were additionally verified to contain individuals who were described as "biological males", yet the grave goods in all regards even besides the jewelry was what would have been seen as female thus. Not all of the Gallae were gender diverse or variant—some were also cis women—but a good chunk of them were. The priests of the deity Atargatis or Ataratheh functioned very similarly, also calling eachother girls. More on them can be found in greater quantity within De Dea Syria or On The Syrian Goddess, trad. ascribed to Lucian of Samosata (2nd century CE), and The Golden Ass by Apuleius (1st Century CE). I will make an extensive post on them this month, and also broader ancient Roman gender transgressions and the hidden underworld of molles, tribades, pathics, cinaedi, viragos etc... In many ways parallels the 1700s mollies & tommies community in Britain.
As said, erstwhile, several graves have been found in Britain associated with the Gallae, described & often reported as "males buried fully as female, with their rites & grave goods" and with feminine necklaces, bracelets or even in full dresses, fabric very much degraded but still often somewhat recognisable... Also a little cool detail: A new technique in use by Swedish archaeologists for just a few years has found ways to recover both fiber and colour from clothing in ways that were not possible before, and this has many very excited!! So keep an eye out for that, and how it may be used to further gender archaeology and trans+ archaeology, which has shown more and more third gender and otherwise gender variant burials in prehistoric Europe notably been found, such as in Hungary, Germany, & Czechia. But later in the Roman era in Britain, Catterick and Hungate are two locations of these burials occurring; a shrine to Kybele has also been found by Hadrian's wall, and votive figurines to her have even been found in the Netherlands. It is not known for sure if any Celtic tribes had gender variance as an accepted part of their cultures, as we lack much info in that regard, and also owing to that Europe was spectrum-wise romanised to various degrees and then Christianised, so we lack crucial sources from the relevant eras... secret underground communities did exist in ancient Rome, medieval Europe of queer folks, but your punishment was ofc being burnt alive so not many were exactly willing and excited to write an autobiography.
Cybele was also worshipped in Caria, and it is recorded how Artemisia I of Caria made a sacrifice in the company of "eunuchs" to her (Mother Of The Gods) before seeking to conquer Latmus... The off-hand comment was by the rhetorician Polyaenus, a Roman-Macedonian author, so his cultural bias must be accounted for aswell as the general broad historical usages of the word 'eunuch'... "Artemisia planted soldiers in ambush near Latmus; and herself, with a numerous train of women, eunuchs and musicians, celebrated a sacrifice at the grove of the Mother of the Gods, which was about seven stades distant from the city" -Polyaenus in his Stratagems
Another name for her was Matar Kubileya / Kubeleya Mother, perhaps "Mountain Mother"; worship was also extant in ancient Greece and overall much of Europe. Main place of worship in Phrygia was Pessinus, where the sacred needle of Kybele was kept, conical black stone, later moved to Rome during the second punic wars when an Oracle urged them to worship her, which they did. The needle was later taken by the empress* Elagabalus* to her personal temple and was kept there until excavations in 1730 led by a priest supposedly found it—or some workers did—where it was then said to have been tossed out of ignorance into a spoils pile because they didn't know what it was besides a black rock.
The public worship of Cybele or Magna Mater persevered longer than most other when Christianity became widespread within the Roman Empire, but was finally outlawed in the 390s... Private, secretive worship is estimated to have remained possibly up to the 500s in rural areas; it is also known that groups of people attempted to hold rituals for Kybele after the ban, aswell as gather for protests to the closure of her temples, which were subsequently squashed.
Curiously, there is a temple Maetreum of Cybele in New York, having opened in the 1990s :) they have been known to have helped dozens of women in dire straits when they've needed escape or housing due to being in precarious situations like abusive relationships...
There was also mention on their Facebook page of them offering sanctuary to trans refugees, and especially due to the recent political climate.
Woo, pagans! 🌺 Coming in clutch!
"In their very temples can be seen disgraceful things: men letting themselves be handled as women, and flaunting the transformation of their sex; they confess with supreme disgrace what they have suffered." -Firmicus Maternus, 4th century.
The poet Catullus also wrote a looooong text dedicated to the god, and her gender variant priesthood... who were generally looked down upon by the general Roman populace because of what would in Roman eyes have been gender nonconformity.
Meter Oreias Cybele with her two lions and tambour
