A few figures from ancient Mediterranean mythology are sometimes held up as LGBTQ ancestors ' such as the Greek gods Apollo and Zeus, who both loved other men. But in a mythology course I taught in the fall of 2021, I found myself highlighting a number of other stories about same-sex attraction and gender variance beyond a strict male-female binary. For example, spells from Egypt show that there were women who tried to get other women to fall in love with them. The course explores literary texts from the ancient Mediterranean ' including Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Roman Italy ' in which authors describe relationships that can be said to fall under the LGBTQ umbrella. We read the texts in chronological order, rather than grouped by theme or identity. This allows students to encounter the texts relatively label-free, since the words U.S. society uses to talk about gender and sexuality today ' like 'gay' or 'transgender' ' do not always align with ancient understandings. My goal is...
learn more