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A common (but mistaken) belief in some modern Western societies is that the visibility of openly transgender, nonbinary and genderfluid individuals is a relatively recent development. A historical analysis of gender identity reveals that this assumption is decidedly false. Of course, early modern history is replete with gender non-conforming individuals such as the Chevalier d’Eon (whose story I covered here). However, many indigenous and non-Western cultural contexts have long-standing reverence for “two spirit”, “third gender” and similar identities.
The history of these members of the queer community is also evident thousands of years ago through the religious history of one of the most important ancient civilizations. Ancient Mesopotamian mythology has passed down the notorious goddess Ishtar, whose fabled deity and religious cult suggest that ancient peoples not only acknowledged trans and genderfluid identities, but exalted them.
Cradle of Humanity?
Beginning around 3200 BCE, Ancient Mesopotamia was a deeply influential civilization spanning thousands of years. Centered in modern day Iraq between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Mesopotamian civilization at various points included parts of Syria, Iraq, Kuwait and Turkey among others. Its expanse and dynamism has led scholars to opine that “Mesopotamian history is the first chapter in the history of the western world.”[1] At least three major empires – Sumer, Babylon and Assyria – thrived during the Mesopotamian era, each bringing their own achievements to this crucial period of world history. Among these were the development of the modern sense of time, mathematics, the wheel, maps and written language.[2]
It is perhaps unsurprising that Mesopotamian religion was exceptionally diverse, with a massive community of deities included in an ever-changing polytheistic religious landscape. Throughout the length of Mesopotamian history, various communities and cities worshipped their own unique gods and goddesses. A handful of higher deities stood atop thousands of these minor figures.[3]
Although the Mesopotamian deities were perceived and portrayed as human, they were gifted with supernatural abilities in much the same manner as the later Greek and Roman pantheons. Scholars add that “many gods were associated with astral phenomena such as the sun, moon, and stars, others with the forces of nature such as winds and fresh and ocean waters, yet others with real animals.”[4] The names of the principal gods varied with the reigning empire; when Sumerian culture gave way to Babylon at the end of the third millennium, for example, the deity previously known as “Inanna” was renamed as “Ishtar” among other changes.[5] The Mesopotamian pantheon featured prominently in the famous poem the Epic of Gilgamesh, which dates from the middle of the Mesopotamian era around the second millennium BCE. The epic is today a key source on this civilization’s manifold belief systems.
Ishtar: Both, and In Between?
The Mesopotamian pantheon was defined by hierarchy among its gods and goddesses. Its most important gods were Ea/Enki, the god of magic, Anu/An, the god of the skies, and Enlil/Ellil, the god of the earth. Inanna/Ishtar, as the daughter of An and the “Queen of Heaven”, was a rare goddess in the upper echelon of the pantheon and thus its preeminent female deity.[6] Ishtar bore a wide array of associations, but was worshiped as the goddess of love, fertility, abundance and also warfare. She is described in the Epic of Gilgamesh and other sources as having a voracious sexual appetite. One source adds that “she is responsible for all life, but she is never a Mother goddess. As the goddess of war, she is often shown winged and bearing arms. Her third aspect is celestial; she is the planet Venus, the morning and evening star.”[7]
important to the agricultural society Mesopotamia was built around
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ishtar has diverse presentations, and was immortalized as a deeply enigmatic and tumultuous goddess. Nowhere is this truer than in her gender identity (or rather, identities). Little wonder, then, that Ishtar – then as now – has captured the imagination of generations of scholars and the broader popular culture.
Ishtar, across both artistic and poetic representations, represents multiple genders (evidenced in her physical characteristics, not just behavioral ones). Rivkah Harris writes that Ishtar “confounded and confused normative categories and boundaries” in Mesopotamian society because she is “both male and female” with both masculine and feminine traits.[8] Although Mesopotamian worshippers seem to have primarily regarded her as female, she is also famous as the “bearded goddess” of unslakable courage and bloodthirstiness.[9]
As a warrior, for example, Ishtar “is shown dressed in a flounced robe with weapons coming out of her shoulder, often with at least one other weapon in her hand and sometimes with a beard, to emphasize her masculine side. Her attribute animal as the goddess of war is the lion, on the back of which she often has one foot or fully stands…[t]he colours red and carnelian, and the cooler blue and lapis lazuli, were also used to symbolise the goddess, perhaps to highlight her female and male aspects respectively.”[10] Ishtar somewhat resembles the better-known Greek goddess Athena: both were female-presenting goddesses who featured prominently in themes and stories of warfare, considered the domain of men in both Mesopotamia and ancient Greece.
Athena, however, is never portrayed in mythology as having male physical characteristics or an ambiguous gender identity. Another key differentiation from Athena is Ishtar’s credited abilities to convert the genders of both her enemies and her worshippers. R.B. Parkinson notes that in Mesopotamian lore “[Ishtar] had the power to assign gender identity.”[11] One primary source comes from Enheduanna, Ishtar’s High Priestess in the city of Ur and arguably the first recorded author in human history. Enheduanna wrote regularly of her devotion to her chosen goddess, crediting her with almighty powers of transformation of the earth, weather, governments and people.
She writes in one such poem, “To turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man are yours, Inana.”[12] One interpretation of this text, assuming a belligerent context, would contend that “turning a man into a woman” simply refers to removing an enemy nation’s ability to fight in battle with masculine vigor. If this were true, the corollary of turning “a woman into a man” is contradictory and seemingly defeats the purpose. More likely, and in context with the surrounding poetry, these lines refer to Inana/Ishtar’s ability to change the world as she sees fit – including changing sexes and/or genders of the mere mortals graced by her presence.
How, then, was this astonishing goddess viewed by her Mesopotamian devotees throughout the millennia of this civilization’s history? One interpretation assumes that Ishtar represented an aberration, and that her ability to transform places, nations and genders was a threat or a warning – not a social endorsement of her prowess. Although plausible, this perspective falters on the fact that Ishtar was not remotely a subject of scorn in her culture, but rather a subject of adulation. The poetry of Enheduanna is an obvious example, but Inana/Ishtar was worshipped by perhaps millions over a significant portion of human history. Surviving sculptures and reliefs, as well as famous monuments (such as the Ishtar Gate of King Nebuchadnezzar II) all confirm her status as a beloved premiere deity. Her powers (and personality) might have been viewed as enigmatic and perhaps dangerous. Even so, this apparently genderfluid icon was revered and sought after by generations of people and appropriately lauded throughout the historical record.
The Transgender Cult(s) of Ishtar
This positive view of Ishtar’s gender nonconformity is further bolstered by evidence of androgyny, genderfluidity and transgender worshippers filling the ranks of Ishtar’s religious communities. This phenomenon was not exclusive to Ishtar’s worship, but her cults feature prominently in discussions of ancient queer history as it pertains to gender diversity. Will Roscoe writes, “[f]rom Sumerian times on, significant numbers of the personnel of both temples and palaces – the central institutions of Mesopotamian city-states – were individuals with neither male nor female identities.”[13] The earliest such worshippers of Ishtar’s first incarnation, Inanna, were called the gala. Roscoe suggests that these were Sumerian priests, mostly assigned male at birth, who entered Inanna’s cult to live as women and perform ritual singing (a task exclusive to women) in a Sumerian dialect eme-sal understood as for and used only by female deities. These priests took on female names, may have been socially perceived as female, and may have undertaken sexual activities amongst themselves.[14]
Other categories of the goddess’s worshippers were the assinnu and the kugarra; both groups feature prominently in Ishtar’s mythology, such as her fabled Descent Into the Underworld.[15] Like the gala, scholars argue that these later cults “represented the combined feminine and masculine aspects of Inanna and the complete spectrum of gender that she encompassed.”[16] Both assinnu and kugarra were reputed to be cross-dressers, and some may have deliberately dressed half of their bodies in feminine attire with the other half in masculine attire.[17] As described in one poem:
“Their right side they adorn with women’s clothing, their left side they cover with men’s clothing.”[18]
The kugarra are described in one surviving poem as those “[w]hose masculinity Ishtar has turned into femininity to make the people reverend.”[19] Historians emphasize that this description could represent physical castration (as a bodily representation of gender transformation), or simply a psychological/sociological public perception of changed gender, or both.[20] Other interpretations of the kugarra in Ishtar-centric poetry, however, refuse to assign the kugarra male or female identity – perhaps suggesting that these individuals were viewed as agender or closer to what we may refer to as non-binary today.[21] Harris summarizes the evidence around these cults arguing that “their transvestitism simulated the androgyny of Inanna-Ishtar…By emulating their goddess who was both female and male, they shattered the boundary between sexes.”[22]
Importantly, these gender non-conforming priests (priestesses?) were certainly not representative of the majority of ancient Mesopotamians’ gender presentations. Likewise, their participation in Ishtar’s religious cults should not be read as absolute confirmation of their exact, individual identities. However, the likelihood that these worshippers joined her cults of their own volition, and that Ishtar was worshipped by millions more individuals at all levels of society with an eminently willing devotion suggests a widespread acceptance of gender variation in this ancient civilization.
Indeed, members of Ishtar’s cults appear to have been socially venerated themselves by virtue of their association with the beloved and influential goddess. Their presence in important religious texts, and their appearance in royal courts and other centers of power, points not just to visible acceptance but also elevation. Even if we lack explicit personal confirmation which would enable more exacting identity labels from a modern perspective, the historical record more than justifies the view that a spectrum of gender identities was acknowledged and valued thousands of years before the modern era.
The Eternal Goddess
Ishtar is among the numerous mythological figures who somehow grows more enigmatic and fascinating the more deeply she is studied. Her absolute refusal to be limited, contained, or constrained is a telling insight into the dynamic culture of Mesopotamia and the reverence held for her by this society. What seems clear from Ishtar’s transcendence in her own cultural context, and even ours today, is the persistent power of her narrative. Ishtar’s many cults throughout Mesopotamian history were apparently rife with individuals whose lived experiences extended far beyond simplistic gender binaries; in this sense, Ishtar remains a distinctly queer goddess for the queer community (in all its forms) then as now. The genderfluid Ishtar is not only limitless, but also timeless.
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[1] “Ancient Mesopotamia – an overview,” Cambridge University Department of Archaeology, accessed July 22, 2023, https://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/about-us/mesopotamia/mesopotamia-history.
[2] “Mesopotamia,” History, updated April 24, 2023, https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-middle-east/mesopotamia#section_3.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ira Spar, “Mesopotamian Deities,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, April 2009, https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/deit/hd_deit.htm.
[5] Ibid.
[6] “Ishtar,” The Brooklyn Museum, accessed July 22, 2023, https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/place_settings/ishtar.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Harris, Rivkah. “Inanna-Ishtar as Paradox and a Coincidence of Opposites.” History of Religions 30, no. 3 (1991): 261–78. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1062957.
[9] Yaǧmur Heffron, ‘Inana/Ištar (goddess)’, Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses, Oracc and the UK Higher Education Academy, 2016 [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/inanaitar/].
[10] Ibid.
[11] R.B. Parkinson, “Introduction: ‘A Great Unrecorded History’”, A Little Gay History: Desire and Diversity Across the World, Columbia University Press, New York, 2013.
[12] “A hymn to Inana (Inana C): translation”, Oxford University, accessed July 23, 2023, https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section4/tr4073.htm.
[13] Will Roscoe, “Precursors of Islamic Male Homosexualities,” in Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History and Literature, eds. Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe, New York University Press, 1997, https://books.google.com/books?id=6Zw-AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA65#v=onepage&q&f=false.
[14] Ibid, pg. 65.
[15] Morg Daniels, “Ancient Mesopotamian Transgender and Non-Binary Identities,” Academus Education, June 30, 2021, https://www.academuseducation.co.uk/post/ancient-mesopotamian-transgender-and-non-binary-identities.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Roscoe, ibid.
[18] Harris, pg. 276.
[19] Parkinson, pg. 37.
[20] Roscoe, pg. 66.
[21] Harris, pg. 276.
[22] Harris, pg. 277.