I call upon blessed Aidoneus, who is called Plouton for his abundant wealth, and who is known by mortals as Zeus Meilichios and Eubouleus-- O god of the nether, hear my prayer! You who are the lord of the halls of the departed, whose throne lies below the roots of the verdant Earth, you are a wise counsellor and a host to all the souls who enter into your domain.
On this day of remembrance, we mortals mourn the members of the trans community whose lives have been cut short, whether by the hands of others or of themselves, caused by the hatred and evil of others.
We offer libations to honor their memories, as is traditional, and we implore Hermes Psykhopompos to guide their souls into the halls of Aidoneus. Deliver them safely and grant them respite, grant them their deserved rest in the Isles of the Blessed, under the watchful eyes and warm care of mighty Kronos.
There's this comic strip in the new D.C. Love is Love issue, which is all about LGBTQ+ stories, about Zeus. It says that "No one loved humanity more than Zeus... Zeus loves everyone, everywhere, regardless of space and time... Zeus will never stop, because all love is real" This passage really spoke to my love of Zeus and it really touched me as not only a Hellenic polytheist, but as a queer person in general. It was a really beautiful passage and I recommend you all read it.
(content warning for some talk of gender dysphoria and menstruation, and emotional child abuse)
i'd never really thought about it much, but as i was looking back at stuff when figuring out how to write this, my spirituality and gender seem pretty connected. the most obvious being that i started looking actively into paganism and started experiencing what i now realize was gender dysphoria around the same time: a couple of years after starting puberty. before that i was pretty comfortable in my place as a cis non-believer, though i'm fairly certain that this comfort was mostly to do with being completely ignorant of the fact that i had never really been either of these.
i grew up in an ex-catholic, highly skeptical family of scientists, but the polytheism was already there for me. i felt strong, spiritual connections to nature and music, i was obsessed with learning about pre-christian cultures and mythology and folklore, and loved studying places that still had strong connections to this past (or ones that i could romanticize this way/were accessible, because you could bet your ass i was one of those racist liberal children who had really narrowminded ideas around this sort of thing). also, i was a massive tomboy who loved pink and overalls and getting covered in mud while collecting rocks and bugs. so yeah, that was kid me. and honestly the biggest change that hit me as a teenager (beside menstruation...) was that i was now expected to stop being all these things.
i started getting into witchcraft (after seeing my first ep of buffy loooooooool) with a couple of friends. we weren't very serious about it (we were 13) and it was mostly just silliness, but it did give me an outlet for a lot of feelings and ideas that i didn't know what to do with. and it led me to paganism, and again i can make a strong link between the way i looked at paganism and the way i viewed my gender. it was around this time that my mother started getting really aggressive about getting me to be her image of femininity; buying me lots of clothes that i hated, making me wear make up, forcing me down to pluck my eyebrows, being really controlling about my hair, etc. paganism (and living near boulder, co) gave me some radical ideas about how to view my body and how to be feminine. there was lots of 'get to know your vagina!!!!' and 'learn how to work with your moonblood!!!' and a lot of stuff about being naturally feminine. basically, it turned me into a flowerchild. it also made me really uncomfortable in ways i couldn't describe, and i often felt like i was 'doing it wrong' because it wasn't actually making me feel all that much better about my body. but it was a way to rebel against my mother expectations, so it worked for the time. (this is also when i started getting really into mists of avalon and 'druids' and Arianrhod, so yeah...)
learning about and building a relationship with Manannán really allowed me to get to where i am today in terms of understanding myself and my body and my beliefs (though it wasn't until meeting other trans and non-binary gaelpols that i became really comfortable about how it all fit together). Manannán's realm is the sea, and their association with fluidity and the liminal and generally dealing with things in a non-solid state was revolutionary in the way i viewed the world. it can also make things terrifying sometimes, but those are still thoughts i'm working out. all of my gods have helped me better understand parts of myself, and helped me see the worth in both my skills and what the world has always told me are flaws, but i think my relationship with Manannán will always stand out.
