Probably the Earliest Known Transsexual Illustration Known

[Beagle]

A very old French postcard... Or maybe it's just a Cross Dressing Nun.

[whatsupwithat]

Always been here. Always will.

Maybe someday society will be able to accept us.

[Fox]

[johnie]

i would love to know what that caption translates to.. probably "the nun with the cock"

[Luna555]

Always been here. Always will.

Maybe someday society will be able to accept us.

It has and thats true. I am also hope-full!!!

[Jericho]

Gerard Depardieu?

[tsntx]

pretty sure there is a ton of stuff out there way before some french postcard ... hundreds and hundreds of years before -j

[MacShreach]

LOL 19th century carte de visite.....

This is from a page describig the cult of magna mater as practised in Ancient Greece and elsewhere. We know this cult existed at least 6000 years ago.

"Although the priests of the cult were men who had castrated themselves in front of her image, most of her followers were women."

Page link

http://www.magnamaterproject.org/en/history.htm

Taken together with the probably-related hijra of India and native American traditions and of courrse the Celtic tradition prior to the conversion it seems very likely to me that transsexualism or transgenderism has been around since the beginning of human society. It probably had religious significance but then again the very act of sex has religious significance, which would suggest to me that these priestesses were not necessarily celibate.

You have to remember that until fairly recently the principal gods were not men but women, as the power of procreation was paramount. We have earth-mother figurines 10,000 years old. Men did not take control until long after that.

We could get into a long debate about the significance of the Earth Mother to Catholic Christianity and her relationship to the Marian cult in particular but that would take more time than I have today. It's as fascinating as anything Dan Brown came up with I assure you.

Whatever, this is really not new.

[cueball]

Probably some cave paintings somewhere!

[MacShreach]

Probably some cave paintings somewhere!

LOL, but you're probably right. A very great number of ancient artefacts that were classified in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries are being re-evaluated because the scientists and historians of that era tried to understand everything in terms of the social, religious and cultural norms of their era. They also saw human history as a line of development as leading upward to the point which they were standing at.

Most modern scientists and historians don't think like that. The humans who first appeared 1 million years ago were the same as us, not primitive versions of us. So our history is not so much developmental as simply sequential. At the same time it is no longer acceptable, outside of certain pulpits, to try to understand history in the old white male Judeo-Christian manner. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we do find exactly what you suggest.