#Would they count as trans?

[empress-leo]

Okay so I just had to do some research into Tiresias, a generally minor character from Greek mythology. These days he's mostly known for being a blind prophet and for also turning into a woman for seven years as a punishment, but it turns out that there is so much more to their story than that. Because it generally gets confusing about what gender they are, I will be referring to Tiresias (T) as they/them for the sake of clarity.

So first of, the two main stories that are in modern day mythology books are these:

That T was born a man, came across two snakes having sex one day and hit them with a stick, which angered Hera so she turned T into a woman.

That T was born a man, and accidentally saw Athena bathing, so she blinded T and turned T into a woman, but felt bad so gave T the powers of prophecy.

But T may have a much more interesting and longer story than this, including not one, not two, but eight sex changes throughout their life. Now we don't know too much about the actual content of the story, as the only surviving records of the six to eight sex changes that T goes through are either from fragmentary works from Hesiod or pseudo-Hesiod, and a summary of the lost elegiac poem Tiresias by Ptolemaeus Chennus or Sostratos of Phanagoria.

There are references to the story of Tiresias in the Bibliotheca, however this one simply tells the Athena story, which isn't referenced by earlier writers.

However, reconstructing the story of Tiresias as told by Hesiod and Ptolemaeus Ch. we get something which looks like this.

T was originally born female, and early on in life Apollo took a fancy to T, and so went to have sex with them. T agreed on the condition that Apollo teach T how to play music first, which he did, but then T refused to sleep with Apollo, which made him made so he turned T into a man 'so T would feel the arrow of Eros'.

Having been turned into a man, T was asked to mediate an argument between Zeus and Hera, about who had more fun during sex, men or women. T said, having been both, said that women have more fun. As punishment, Hera turned T into a woman.

After been turned into a woman, T laughed at a statue of Hera and Hera turned T into a ugly old man as punishment.

Zeus took pity on T, and turned T into a woman at the 'bloom of her youth'

When T was bathing one day, a man called Glyphius tried to rape T, but T is too strong and strangles him. Since Glyphius was a favourite of Poseidon, he takes T to court who turn T into a man as punishment. They also took away T's skill at prophecy.

T attended the wedding of Peleus and Thetis (The parents of Achilles. This is the wedding which kicked off the trojan war) and judged an apparently unrelated beauty contest to the one with Eris and the golden apple, this one between Aphrodite and the Graces, Pasithea, Euphrosyne, and Cale. T chose Cale as the most beautiful, and as punishment Aphrodite changed T into an ugly old woman, though Cale took pity on T and gave them a really good head of hair.

[...] at this the goddess became angry and changed T into a mouse, and this is why mice eat very little, as they had once been an old lady, and also why mice are prophetic.

Now this gives us with some questions, but one main one. How did T become a prophet? Well, this ties into the version of the story with Athena, recounted by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. As a man, T sees Athena naked and makes T blind as a punishment. T's mother, the nymph Chariclo, begs Athena to change T back, but Athena refuses. Chariclo then washes T's ears, which gives T the power of prophecy, because T can now understand the cries of the Augury bird.

Another question is why, if T had judged that women have more fun during sex, would she turn T into a woman as punishment. Now you could argue a certain more assaulty reason, but the punishment makes much more sense if we put the story about the snakes before T mediates the argument.

The story goes that T, as a man, comes across a pair of snakes having sex and hits them with a stick, causing them to break apart. Hera objects to this, and so turns T into a woman as a punishment and T becomes a priestess of Hera. Then T mediates the argument, and T turns into a man. This isolated version of the story is one that survived to most modern mythologies.

Now there are several more things, but we really don't know too much about anything to do with Tiresias really, as the best work we know of which details his whole life is fragmentary at best and completely lost at worse. There are a ton of miscellaneous notes and facts about him. Apprently Zeus gave T a lifespan seven times longer than that of a human. He might've been blinded for knowing the secrets of the gods. He frequently communicated with the dead in order to tell his prophecies, and when Odysseus went to the land of the dead T was the only person that recognised him. Not even Odysseus' mother could recognise him without drinking a special drink. The word Tiresias was also a by-name for a prophet in ancient Greece. He was a reoccurring character in Greek Tragedies, most notably in the Bacchae, where he joins in the bacchic revels. He also assists Oedipus in the murder investigation of Laius, the previous king, and dies after drinking tainted water and getting shot by Apollo.

Tiresias is characterised as an extremely old prophet who communicates with birds and the dead, and has knowledge of the lives of Men, Women, and the gods.

That's fucking badass, and it pains me to know that'll we'll never know more than that.

source: Supplimentum Hellenisticum

[gay-otlc]

The people who think gay trans man have straight privilege because they have the "option" to "escape" homophobia and live as straight women are blatantly disregarding the fact that for a lot of trans people, the options aren't "gay trans man" or "cis straight woman." It's "gay trans man" or "dead."

[transmascissues]

“people who present hyperfemininely but repeatedly point out the fact that they’re men are transphobic” i just KNOW these people are incapable of being normal about feminine and non-passing trans men.

i feel like the venn diagram of “people who get upset at other people for looking too much like women while still openly identifying as men” and “people who called us trenders back in the day and now spend their free time shitting on trans men who use the women’s bathroom for safety or talk about how being raised as girls affects us or talk about experiencing misogyny or consider our attraction to women sapphic or call ourselves femboys or are multigender and also women or…” has to be a circle.

i could not care less about a twitch streamer i don’t watch or the discourse surrounding them, but i do start caring when i see the discourse descend into a bunch of trans people calling gender nonconformity transphobic and saying people who look like women aren’t allowed to assert their identity as men.

[sonknuxadow]

[catgirlennui]

So SOTET has introduced a new type of guy. Self described as just a poor little meow meow only good at his hyper-fixation. Not strong and manly like a warrior is supposed to be. Deeply and self destructively obsessed with the discarded corporeal body of his liege lord that for “some reason” is the opposite gender. Wait, that’s not a new type of guy. That’s not a guy at all! THAT’S AN EGG!

[sangthael]

bonus additions from when i was binging dan vs s1

[sidesteppostinghours]

steps whose genders are "regene" send tweet

[someguythatdrawsstuff]

I'm going feral I want these outfits so fucking badly

Thanks Pinterest

[neos-nero]

* SANESSS AFFIRMS YOUR GENDER

I made this for trans day of visibility and I felt silly

[ro-ro-bbbi]

Hobie and gwen are besties and they're so cuteeee 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️

They would have so many silly fake arguments and fight and then they cuddle and kiss eachother's noses and play together and make songs together and make fun of eachother's crushes and they bond so much bc they're both queer and they have very serious conversations about gwen's dad and her peter and her whole 'no friends' thing and hobie's family and his canon events and he being touch straved and all the trauma that he has that we still don't know about and they have actually arguments about her lying to herself and isolating herself and believing miguel's bullishit and maybe after she made peace with her father she would go back living with him but hobie doesnt agree bc he scared and he doesnt like george bc he literally pointed a gun to her head and he saw how many of his friends have been killed or hurt by the police or by their own parents and he wont let that happen again and he cares so much and he is so protective of his lil drummer and gwen loves him so much but also just wants a father and they would have so many nicknames for eachother and-

[astranauticus]

Ad astra per aspera

[florshedworf]

listen people are 100% allowed to be nonbinary and Not identify as trans but i need every nonbinary person that exists ever to know that you are in fact allowed to be trans. like you still fall under that umbrella. you do not HAVE to accept the invite but you are always invited nonetheless.

[uncanny-tranny]

If the only people who laugh at your jokes or respond to you positively are bigots - and you yourself disavow those opinions - maybe it's time to analyze why it is that they feel safe around you. While you might not be intentionally bigoted in those ways, there is still a reason that somebody who's transphobic, anti-Black, whatever it may be, really, feels it is okay to be open about those bigotries.

[rubixpsyche]

the way this transitioned,,, I really AM on the "Jade is Trans-ed Stalker" truther train rn

[weareuniqueandimportant]

EMPATHY GLAMORIZATION IS NOT ABOUT EMPATHY BUT SUPERIORITY TORWARDS APATHETIC PEOPLE BIGOTRY TORWARDS THEM TYPICAL BIGOT EVIL. SIMPLE AS THAT. IF YOU SEE THEM AS LEFTIST YOU'RE NO LEFTIST YOURSELF. HORRIBLE. THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO HAVE ONLY EMPATHY AND BAD TO THINK EVERYTHING YOU DO IS SUCH ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY'RE CLEARLY BEING APATHETIC IF ANYTHING WHEN THEY DO THIS...

COMES TO SHOW BIGOTRY TORWARDS CRAZY AND DISABLED PEOPLE ASWELL AS PARAPHILIA PEOPLE ISN'T TAKEN AT ALL THE SAME AS SEXISM RACISM AND QUEERPHOBIA... OR PERHAPS... LIKELY... THEY ARE ALL THE BIGOTED THINGS EVIL AND TAKE NONE THAT SERIOUSLY... BELITTLING DOWN THEIR PAIN AND DAMAGE...

[the-save-star-anomaly]

New hyperfixation kicked in, so I drew our vessel in the style of the game. Kind of

it isnt very polished, it's been a while since I really drew something