Conforming, Reforming, Trans*forming: Interrogating the Intersections of Trans Studies and Classics

The proposed paper builds upon the author’s doctoral research in Queer Theory and the cult of Bacchus within the Late Roman Republic and Early Imperial Period, to advocate the use of Queer Theory in Classics as a model of disruption. The author proposes that by analysing figures from antiquity through a Queer theoretical lens, it is possible to re-evaluate concepts of supposed gender identity through removing normative contemporary expectations of gender.

The purpose of this conference presentation is twofold. First, as a contribution to theory, it builds on recent classics engagements with transgender studies, with the explicit goal of increasing the visibility and inclusion of non-binary, or enby, people in the literature about gender in the ancient Mediterranean.

The aim of this paper is to explain how the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice can be interpreted as a journey to self-knowledge in relation to a transgender identity. The multifaceted readings that have been done of the myth such as a heteronormative romance between a husband and wife or as the origin myth for the birth of homosexuality in Ancient Greek culture, provide space to take this interpretation in yet another direction. Specifically, as a journey towards self-knowledge for a transgender identity.

Passing through a gendered transition period from which he emerges a man and citizen (anēr), caught in a seemingly perpetual state of becoming, the Greek ephebe carries significant resonances for the modern trans masculine individual.

The figure of the tribas in literature under the Roman empire has often been understood as an extremely negative stereotype, developed and directed primarily against female homoeroticism (Hallett [1989=] 1997; Brooten 1996; Skinner 2005; Boehringer 2021), or women who engaged in active, penetrative sexual acts with persons of any sex (Ormand 2005).