#queer myth

[dilutedh2so4]

David and Jonathan from Guido Sanchez's Queer Mythology, illustrated by James Fenner (2024)

[voicelesscloie]

Hermaphroditus, child of Hermes and Aphrodite.

[petersartstuff]

CW NONSEXUAL NUDITY

A color theory assignment depicting the myth of Hermaphroditus

Made this whole thing in Adobe Illustrator because we were required to. It was. Interesting.

[a-queer-seminarian]

I am so glad this book exists. It’s kinda old (1997) and there are things I’d critique about it (such as some wording and citing methods) but wow. What a treasure trove of knowledge. I’ve read through the whole thing and I feel buoyed up by this rich history, set aflame and empowered by the innumerable ways in which those we now would call Queer encountered and enriched spirituality over the millennia.

Image description:

First image is the cover of a text called Cassel’s Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit: Covering Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Lore.

Second image is the table of contents, which shows the spiritual traditions the text attempts to cover: African and African-Diasporic; Ancient Near Eastern and Western Antiquity; Buddhism; Chinese Shamanism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Syncretism; Christianity; Goddess Reverence; Hinduism; Islam; Judaism; Mesoamerican and South American; Queer Spirit; Radical Faeries; Shamanism; Shinto; Sufism; Witchcraft and Wicca; Women’s Spirituality

Third and fourth images are short passages from the text’s introduction, reading:

“We are sacred because we are queer.” - Mark Leger/Trixie Glamourama

Have you ever heard the tale of Lu Yi Jing, whose male lover Wei Guo Xiu was abducted by a demon and who was aided by a spirit and a necromancer in making contact with his companion, now a ghost? Are you aware that the notion that a female soul might take up residence in a male body was popularized by Isaac ben Solomon Luria, the headmaster of a Qabbalistic center at Safed in Galilee, in the sixteenth century? Did you know that many persons living in Medieval and Renaissance France held that a person might change sex by passing under the rainbow? That in the world of the ancient Greeks, same-sex unions between women appear to have taken place within the structure of women’s religious households, thasoi, with the unions being referred to as “syzygies,” meaning “yoke together”?

...

Those who prefer to avoid discussion of, or who might consciously attempt to suppress discussion of, what we might refer to as “Queer-Spiritual” knowledge, might consider the role that destruction of the symbol-making process has played in colonialism. Oppressors have long understood that cultural domination requires the dismantling of a people’s sacred narratives, the rites and symbols evoking those narratives, and the roles of persons who responsibility it is to spiritually guide the people, whether by way of religion itself or by means of arts imbued with sacred impulse. In this way, the oppressor achieves his ultimate purpose -- that of destroying the self-esteem, integrity, and independence of the individuals whose culture he wishes to dominate or decimate.

In dictionaries and encyclopedias of religion, mythology, and folklore, the result of this suppression is clear. Narratives or descriptions of gender fluidity and same-sex desire typically are reported in a hostile or apologetic manner; are mentioned briefly but relegated to the background, implying their insignificance; are camouflaged, as in the case where same-sex lovers become “friends” or where transgendered deities become “goddesses” or “male gods;” or disappear altogether. In many instances where multiple variants of a mythical sacred narrative exist, only the heterosexual or traditionally gendered account is given. More tragically, the suppression of this data has resulted in lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered persons reaching the conclusion that they (we) are without history -- or herstory. As gay Beat poet Jack Spicer expressed it in 1953, “we homosexuals are the only minority group that completely lacks any vestige of a separate cultural heritage. We have no songs, no folklore.” This suppression of knowledge is especially tragic where lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered women are concerned. As lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer observes, “When you look for...lesbian history, the gaps and silences are profound.” ...

[sodomicwitchcraft]

I just started re-reading this beauty. Yes I know it’s an encyclopaedia but trust me, buy this book and just read it cover to cover! It’s an absolute game changer (in my humble opinion 😘)

[historicallgbtnet]

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A network to discuss and blog about all your favourite LGBT+ historical and mythological figures 

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[dilutedh2so4]

Angelica Kauffmann, The Artist in the Character of Design Listening to the Inspiration of Poetry.

Iphis loved one whom she despaired of being able to have, and this itself increased her passion, a girl on fire for a girl.

Hardly restraining her tears, she said, ‘What way out is there left, for me, possessed by the pain of a strange and monstrous love, that no one ever knew before? If the gods wanted to spare me they should have spared me, but if they wanted to destroy me, they might at least have visited on me a natural, and normal, misfortune. Mares do not burn with love for mares, or heifers for heifers: the ram inflames the ewe: its hind follows the stag. So, birds mate, and among all animals, not one female is attacked by lust for a female. I wish I were not one! 

Ovid, Metamorphoses 9. Translated by AS Kline.

[dilutedh2so4]

Galatea, daughter of Eurytius, married Pandion's son, Lamprus, a man of good family but without means. When Galatea became pregnant, Lamprus prayed to have a son and said plainly to his wife that she was to expose her child if it was a daughter. When Lamprus had gone off to tend his flocks, Galatea gave birth to a daughter. Feeling pity for her babe, she counted on the remoteness of their house and — backed by dreams and seers telling her to bring up the girl as a boy — deceived Lamprus by saying she had given birth to a son and brought the child up as a boy, giving it the name Leucippus. As the girl grew up she became unutterably beautiful. Because it was no longer possible to hide this, Galatea, fearing Lamprus, fled to the sanctuary of Leto and made many a prayer to her that the child might become a boy instead of a girl, just as had happened to Caenis, daughter of Atrax, who by the will of Poseidon became Caeneus the Lapith. So also Tiresias changed from man to woman because he had encountered and killed two snakes that had been mating at a crossroads. He changed again from woman back to man by killing another serpent. Hypermestra had frequently sold her body in the form of a woman for a fee, becoming a man to bring food for her father, Aethon. The Cretan, Siproites, had also been turned into a woman for having seen Artemis bathing when out hunting. Leto took pity on Galatea because of her unremitting and distressed prayers and changed the sex of the child into a boy's. In memory of this change the citizens of Phaestus still sacrifice to Leto the Grafter because she had grafted organs on the girl and they give her festival the name of Ecdysia ['Stripping'] because the girl had stripped off her maidenly peplus. It is now an observance in marriages to lie down beforehand beside the statue of Leucippus.

Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses 17. Translated by Francis Celoria.