Roman / Greek Mythology

[thanos]

Hope this helps:

ACHILLES

The great leaders of poetry and art as well as drama, among whom we have Homer, Statius, Aeschylus and Sophocles, would portray the adventures of the mighty Achilles in female dress. That is, the noble Achilles was known to be a female impersonator. A Roman poet wrote that his mother once dressed him in female garments, called him Pyrrha, taught him the art of femme mimicry and helped him adopt mannerisms of deception so that he could live as a woman among the 50 daughters of King Lycomedes. This enabled him to escape the military. This is but one written fact on female impersonation that has survived the many centuries. There is much written proof about Achilles in female dress even after the threat of military drafting was over!

ADONIS

Adonis, a modern symbol of masculinity, was bridegroom to Aphrodite, but also served Apollo as a girl.

DIONYSOS

Also known as Bacchus. Traditionaly considered androgynous.

HERCULES

According to historians, Hercules shed his male habits, put on female clothes and then labored under the rulership of Eyrystheus. Another story has Hercules undergoing effemination in order to serve Omphale.

HERMAPHRODITUS

Son of Hermes and Aphrodite. He was very handsome and when, as a young man he left home, the Naiad Salmacis fell passionately in love with him. He repulsed her, but when, later on, he inadvertently bathed in her spring, she embraced him and pulled him down into the pool, praying to the gods that she and he might forever be united. Their bodies joined into one, becoming a hermaphrodite. As a result of Hermaphroditus' prayers to his parents, the spring exercised a like effect on all men who bather in it thereafter.

JUPITER

Jupiter changed himself into a female and posed as Diana.

PENTHEUS

After imprisoning Dionysus, Pentheus is inveigled into going up Mt. Cithaeron and spy on the Maenads, whom he suspected of sexual licence. While the women of his family, under the influence of Bacchic frenzy, roamed the mountains with the Maenads, Pentheus, disguised as a woman, climbed a tree to watch their revels. His mother and aunt saw him there and in their madness, thought him a lion and tore him to pieces.

THOR

In Norse mythology, Thor was a female impersonator. In one story, the Giant Thrym had Thor's hammer Mjolnir stolen while he slept and hid it eight miles under the earth. He agreed to return it if Freya was delivered to him as his bride. Freya was unagreeable, so Heimdahl suggested they send a phony Freya. Thor dressed in Freya's bridal garments and Loki travelled as her bridegroom to trick Thrym and get Mjolnir back.

TEIRESIAS

Besides TV, there is a famous mythological TS story about Teiresias; namely, he stumbled on a pair of copulating snakes (this is the same symbol as in the caduceus of Hermes & the modern medical profession) killing the female in process. He was "punished by being turned into a woman" and later was called on to settle an argument between Zeus & Hera as to whether men or women enjoyed sex more. He backed Zeus's contention that women like it better, and Hera blinded him. (Zeus gave him prophecy in recompense; somewhere in all of this he had his gender re-reassigned, probably "automagically" at the end of seven years or something like that.) The point of Zeus' position is that it was "justification" for keeping women in purdah (not the Greek word for it, but it gives the right idea.)

VENUS CASTINA

This Goddess responded with sympathy and understanding to the yearnings of feminine souls locked up in male bodies. When the Scythians pillaged her temple at Ascelon, she's alleged to have been so enraged that she made women of the plunderers and decreed that their posterity should be similarly affected.

ZEUS

Zeus supposedly posed as a woman in order to seduce a lesbian.

[hwbs]

hmmm wasnt thesus also one of the gods listed......a little inside joke

[furbygr]

Just mythology.
In reality gay attitude did exist but was severely punished.
In Sparta...omg I could even imagine what would even happen to them.

[Stavros]

More relevant may be the discussion in Plato's dialogue, The Symposium-

"Aristophanes...presents a myth, with refer-ence to the gods, to the genesis of present humankind and even to Homer (190b9),but leaving no doubt about its being some kind of parody. In the beginning, therewere three sexes..., all three of them being round like the celestialbodies they were born of. The original male (arren) sex was born of the sun, thefemale (thèly; 189e1) of the earth and the third, combining qualities of both the othersand called androgynous (androgynos), was born of the moon. Androgyny is clearlyunderstood as combining both male and female features, not as lacking them.Aristophanes also states that these bisexual7beings do not exist any more, and thatthe word androgynosonly serves as invective."
https://www.unil.ch/files/live/sites..._Symposium.pdf

Consider also, that what we might think of as Homosexality, in Ancient Greece was more likely to be Pedrasty, though I am not sure if Plato refers to it as that or if the age of sexual partners was relevant, where the concept of a Catamite might be introduced in some cultures, perhaps mostly in Asia? Cf-

"strictly speaking, in The Symposium, the readers are given an account of quite another kind of relationship. Indeed, pederasty for the Greeks is in fact a more casual relationship which has a limited duration and concerns two men, one of which is older than the other: a mature man who is considered as the dominant partner, the lover or the erastês, and the other who is a young man who has a passive role, the beloved or the erômenos."
https://www.wedgiemagazine.com/sexua...lato-symposium

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_Hermaphroditus

[Fitzcarraldo]

More relevant may be the discussion in Plato's dialogue, The Symposium-

"Aristophanes...presents a myth, with refer-ence to the gods, to the genesis of present humankind and even to Homer (190b9),but leaving no doubt about its being some kind of parody. In the beginning, therewere three sexes..., all three of them being round like the celestialbodies they were born of. The original male (arren) sex was born of the sun, thefemale (thèly; 189e1) of the earth and the third, combining qualities of both the othersand called androgynous (androgynos), was born of the moon. Androgyny is clearlyunderstood as combining both male and female features, not as lacking them.Aristophanes also states that these bisexual7beings do not exist any more, and thatthe word androgynosonly serves as invective."
https://www.unil.ch/files/live/sites..._Symposium.pdf

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Explained by Hedwig:

[Stavros]

Explained by Hedwig:

What does this tedious noise have to do with Ancient Greek and Roman myths?

[Fitzcarraldo]

What does this tedious noise have to do with Ancient Greek and Roman myths?

Everything. It comes from what you referenced.

[wildvine]

Some thoughts from an old Hellenic Pagan...

DIONYSOS
In order to protect young Dionysos from Hera’s wrath, Zeus had Hermes whisk young Dionysos off to the nymphs in the hidden grove of Nysa. There Dionysos lived his youth disguised as a girl, safe for sometime from Hera’s anger.

Eventually, though, Hera found Dionysos. She drove him mad, and set him wandering about the world...

KYBELE
Eventually Dionysos was found by Kybele (AKA Cybele) an island goddess also known as “The Great Mother” and similarly, “Magna Mater” to Romans centuries later. Kybele cured his madness, and taught him her mysteries, destined to be adopted into and help shape what would eventually become the mystery rites of Dionysos himself.

Kybele, in later antiquity (after approximately 3rd century BCE), rose to become a very prominent cult in the ancient world, particularly in Imperial Rome. Her priesthood consisted of the “Galli”, men who ritualistically castrated themselves in devotion to Kybele and who thenceforth lived their lives as a woman.

You can read an account of the Galli, ancient transgendered priestesses, talking among themselves in the novel “The Golden Ass”, by Apuleius from the mid-2nd century CE. Their apppearance and conversation occurs about 80% of the way into the novel.