The Gallae - Ancient and Modern : Part 1 - Ancient

The growth of wicca and neo-paganism in the late 20^th century had an effect on the lgbt community. Christianity, even that of the lgbt churches such as the Metropolitan Community Church, didn’t offer what some people were seeking. Other established religions and faiths were also perceived to be too non-lgbt inclusive and people began to look to the past to find inspiration for modern beliefs. Long-established beliefs like Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhist, etc., have the benefit of centuries of evolution and development, but newly-formed beliefs like Wicca have had to rebuilt from the past to reflect the present. This is the case with the transgender faith of the Gallae of Cybele.

The original Galli were male priests of the Mother Goddess, Agdistis (whom the Greeks called Kybele and the Romans called Cybele) and her associated deity Attis. The cult of Agdistis dates back several thousand years to Phrygia, the central region of modern-day Turkey. The cult expanded across the Mediterranean, and in 2-4 BC it became recognised as an official cult by the Roman state.

The significance of the cult of Cybele to the trans community originates in the legends of Agdistis and Attis. The legends evolved as it spread across to Greece and then Rome, but remnants of the original Phrygian version are still traceable.

Cybele’s earliest cult is associated with mountains. Her first incarnation was as Agdistis (a later Greek version of her Phrygian name), the hermaphrodite deity of Mount Agdistis in Phrygia. She was the daughter of the Sky God and the Earth Mother, and from this parentage she acquired the role of Mother Goddess in the Greek and Roman pantheons.

It seems that it was colonists from Greece who reinterpreted Agdistis as Kybele. The Greeks brought the hermaphrodite into their pantheon, adapting her cult to align it with their own social attitudes at the time. Agdistis belonged to a tradition of double-gendered gods and goddesses of ancient Turkey that was largely alien to the Greeks. To make Agdistis less alien the Greeks developed the legend of how their own king of the gods, Zeus, fathered this hermaphrodite. The Greek gods feared this strange new double-gendered member of their family and as Agdistis slept they castrated her. From that moment Agdistsis became known as Matar Kubileya and later Kybele. The name means Mother of Mountains, keeping reference to original her Phrygian role as a mountain or earth deity.

The severed genitals fell into the soil and from them grew an almond tree. A daughter of the local river god gathered some of the almonds and one impregnated her. The resulting child was called Attis.

Attis was also originally a Phrygian deity, though not as ancient as that of Agdistis. Their cults were closely associated and the Greeks worshipped the two together in several of their colonies. Later Attis’s cult became secondary to Kybele’s and the Greeks developed legends to explain this.

Following his almond-birth Attis grew up into a beautiful young man. Kybele fell in love with him, though by the time this legend originated Kybele had been well removed from her Agdistis origins (otherwise the relationship would have been incestuous). At Attis’s wedding to a local princess Kybele appeared to him in all her divine glory, and it sent him mad. In his madness Attis castrated himself. In like madness Attis’s prospective father-in-law also castrated himself.

This myth also served to explain the priests of the Phrygian cult of Attis and Agdistis/Kybele. The priests in both cults were eunuchs who went through ritual castration in a ceremony held near the Spring equinox. When the cults spread into Greece these eunuch priests acquired the name “galloi”, probably named after the River Gallus in Phrygia whose waters are reputed to drive people mad, or from the region of Galatia. Although eunuchs were not unknown in Greek or Roman cultures the Galloi, or Galli to the Romans, were seen as subjects of derision. Whereas eunuchs were castrated, the Galli completely removed all male sexual organs, thus removing themselves totally from all masculinity. This complete emasculation went further with the Galli cross-dressing and behaving as women, and in some recorded instances offering themselves to men as prostitutes. This behaviour was far in excess of what Roman society accepted and eventually, in the 1^st century, genital mutilation was declared illegal.

Along with other pagan religions the cults of Cybele and Attis were banned in the Roman Empire when Christianity became the state religion. Where these banned religions existed outside the empire they remained as local cults for several more centuries.

During the neo-pagan resurgence in the 20^th century members of the transgender community began searching for a faith that reflected their lifestyle and spiritual needs. Several activists researched religions of the Mother Goddess, and Cybele stood out as being a fitting spiritual focus.

In Part 2 of Gallae – Ancient and Modern in two weeks time I’ll write about the modern revival of Cybele and her Gallae priestesses.

The Real Gay Batman

I suppose any zoologist who studies bats will inevitably earn the nickname Batman or Batwoman. One such zoologist has an exalted place in the lgbt community as THE Batman. This nickname extended from the pure zoological world and into the leather worship world to leave a legacy that thrives today.

I’ve already written an article about Tony DeBlase (1942-2000) in relation to his creation of the Leather Pride  flag. Today I concentrate on his persona as “Fledermaus” (German for “bat”), as he was known in the publishing world of the leather community. It was a pseudonym he adopted in around 1975 when some of his DBSM (Domination, Bondage and Sado-Masochism, actually not as violent or distasteful as it implies) stories were first published. I’ll return to that later.

But first, when and why did bats enter Tony’s life?

Tony studied for a PhD in zoology at Oklahoma State University. In 1969 he moved to Chicago to complete his degree research at the Field Museum of Natural History. This museum housed a large collection of bats, the subject of Tony’s dissertation.

Tony took part in a field expedition to Iran to make a proper study of that country’s native bat species. On his return to America it took a couple of years to complete his dissertation because of other work commitments because he had taken on some teaching and museum administration posts which took up most of his time.

In 1971 he wrote “New Distribution Records of Bats From Iran” for the Field Museum journal “Fieldiana: Zoology”. Eventually, in 1977 his full dissertation was completed and he submitted it to the journal for publication. All of the 38 bat species of Iran were described in detail by and were mapped to show distribution. Tony even identified a new native Iranian species that had only been known previously in other countries, and 5 species were removed as not being native. This made Tony’s dissertation the most comprehensive study on Iranian bats ever written. If you're batty about bats and want ot read Tony's dissertation it is available online here.

Tony has also contributed to other zoological publications, such as “A Manual of Mammalogy” (currently in its 3^rd edition, 2011), and the section of bats in “Encyclopedia Iranica” (1988).

It was while he was working on his dissertation that Tony had his first bondage fiction published. He had been writing fiction for a while, and it was Larry Townsend (1930-2008), a pioneer in the publication of leather fetish erotica, who thought the stories were good enough for publication. Tony was asked to adopt a pen-name, something often done to protect the writer’s identity from criticism within their profession, and he chose Fledermaus. “I was doing my dissertation on bats, and the [first published] story was set in a German castle, it seemed like an appropriate name”, Tony said in an interview in 1996.

In 1982 Larry Townsend published a collection of Tony’s stories in “The Fledermaus Anthology”. Through Larry and his Fledermaus stories Tony became heavily involved in the Chicago leather and bondage scene, quickly becoming one it it’s leading figures. In 1979 Tony began publishing “Dungeon Master”, a DBSM magazine he largely wrote himself. It became popular and soon turned into a thriving small business.

When Tony’s partner Andrew took early retirement from medical practice the couple moved to San Francisco to take over “Drummer”, the ailing leather/bondage magazine that had the biggest circulation in America. With it went the Mr Drummer contest. Under Tony’s direction both the magazine and the contest regained its popularity and iconic status before he sold both in 1992.

After a long illness Tony DeBlase – Fledermaus – died in 2000. The legacy of Fledermaus survives. In 1989 Tony created the Leather Pride flag which is recognised worldwide, and in 1991 he founded the Leather Archives and Museum.

Remembrance of Next Year

Next year marks the centenary of the start of the First World War and the 75^th anniversary of the start of World War II. Many commemorative events are being held around the world throughout the year and I will mark the events myself with a secondary theme which will run concurrent with the main theme for 2014 (news of which later this month).

Like most people of my age I knew several generations in the family who served in the World Wars. Many of us have lost family members (both my grandmother and step-grandmother lost their first partners in the First World War, for example).

My father, who served with the Royal Signals in Burma at the end of World War II, never spoke about his war service, as most survivors didn’t. But he did “encourage” me and my siblings to recognise the realities of war. I remember vividly as a teenager watching a landmark television series called “The World at War” with my parents. We also watched the annual Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph and attended our village’s  remembrance services. It was often pointed out by my grandmother that one of the names on the memorial was her first husband, Harry. He has no grave, as he was lost on HMHS Britannic in the Mediterranean.

My mother had more of a living connection to the First World War with her father, being invalided at the Battle of the Somme, the same conflict which took the life of his friend and future wife’s fiancé. Mother diligently placed poppies on the graves of her father and two uncles every year, and it’s a family tradition still upheld by my sister and cousin.

It is only relatively recently that armed forces have acknowledged the contributions made by lgbt service personnel. On Remembrance Day last year I gave a short list of lgbt soldiers who lost their lives in conflict. The growth of the lgbt community in the 1970s was instrumental in bringing to light many stories and the full extent of the persecution of gay men by the Nazis and, of course, the legacy of this was the adoption of the pink triangle by the lgbt community which is still in use today.

This part of lgbt history was revealed largely through the work of activists such as Peter Tatchell and his campaign group Outrage! Yet there has yet to be an official contingent of lgbt servicemen represented in the official ceremony of Remembrance at the Cenotaph in London organised by the Royal British Legion, mainly because there is no official national organisation that represents them. In 1980 Outrage! decided to mark the sacrifices made by the lgbt community by holding their own ceremony at the Cenotaph after the official one had ended. They called it Queer Remembrance Day. One of the key speakers at this and several later Outrage! ceremonies was Sharley McLean. She fled to Britain as a lesbian teenager to escape the Holocaust which claimed the lives of her parents and gay uncle.

Outrage! claims that the Royal British Legion denounced their various remembrance ceremonies as “distasteful” and “offensive”, but extensive research has yet to confirm this (it was probably isolated remarks from individual Legion members rather than an official statement). It should be pointed out that the national Cenotaph ceremony is not organised by the government but by the Royal British Legion and participation and wreaths are there only by their invitation (not unlike the Olympics where only official sponsors are allowed to promote the games).

At the 1999 Queer Remembrance Day ceremony Outrage! received a more welcome reception than before from the crowds who had remained after the official service. The public and Outrage! supporters applauded a group of lgbt veterans and Holocaust survivors. Again, it had no official status, but the wreaths of pink roses were permitted to be placed with the poppies laid by the national organisations. (The photo at the head of this article is from this event on 14 November 1999 - © John Hunt/Outrage!, taken from the Outrage! Website.)

Next year, when I produce my display for LGBT History Month, I hope to include a section on lgbt war victims. To illustrate the life of one war hero I am constructing a plastic kit model of a Hawker Hurricane aircraft, pictured below. This was a plane flown by Flight Lt. Ian Gleed of the RAF. It is one of several models of planes that he flew during World War II – not just models of general war planes, but models of the actual planes flown by Gleed with his personalised markings. Ian Gleed became a Wing Commander and was killed in action at the age of 26 in 1943. I’ll post photos of the completed Hurricane model next year when I cover Gleed’s life more fully.

Shortly after finishing the final draft of this article I learnt of the death of Sharley McLean on 26^th October at the age of 90.

Paws For Science

Since the demise of the International Mr Bear contest in 2011 there hasn’t been a world-wide focus for the celebration of the bear community. So, to celebrate the bear community’s contribution to science (yes, they have one) I’m writing this article as the San Francisco Bear Pride festival is taking place. San Francisco was the birthplace of the International Mr Bear contest so this is an ideal date to chose.

When I was planning my year of science the San Francisco Bear Pride festival was one of the reasons why I chose zoology for November’s Ology of the Month – bears, you see!

To begin with I should point out that not all scientists who may be physically suited to be called a “bear” may like, or want, me to do so. This article deals with 2 scientists who have publicly declared their “bear” status by being openly active in the bear community.

I’ll start in San Francisco itself and with a pioneer of the early years of the bear community. His name is Chris Nelson (1960-2006). If you had to sum up both his professional and personal life in as few words as possible it would be “Creator of Images”.

Chris worked at the University of California’s Lawrence Berkeley laboratory as a microscopist. Starting out as a technician with the National Centre for Electron Microscopy he became proficient in the use of the atomic resolution microscope and the one-angstrom microscope. Chris’s expertise led to many researchers and scientists coming back time and time again to ask for his help to produce images for their research. A big bear of man with a big bushy beard, Chris resembled a young Father Christmas and his personality seemed to match. He knew how to make people feel at ease.

In 2005 he received the Outstanding Technologist Award from the Microscopy Society of America, and was appointed to take on the responsibility of the new Transmission Electron Aberration-Corrected Microscope in 2007. Sadly, Chris died from an unexpected heart attack in 2006.

Chris’s other role as “Creator of Images” revolved around his hobby as a photographer. His partner, Richard Bulger, is said by many to have been the first to popularise (though probably not invent) the term “bear” for the big and hairy community. Two years later, in 1987, Chris and Richard produced the first edition of “Bear Magazine”, a photocopied publication which they distributed around San Francisco. It contained some of Chris’s own photos of “leather bears” from around the city. Very quickly the magazine grew into a national publication, and except for a few years in the 1990s has remained so. Chris’s photos of the bear community formed the backbone of “Bear Magazine” and provided the growing bear community with an identity.

As the bear community grew members began to move away from the leather/biker community in which most them moved, and separate bear clubs began to emerge. All of this culminated in the creation of the International Mr Bear contest.

One prominent bear who served as a judge for several International Mr Bear contests was Michael S. Ramsey (not to be confused with Michael Ramsey-Musolf featured in September). Michael S. Ramsey is Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Geology and Planetary Science at the University of Pittsburgh. He was a founder member of the Phoenix Bears club when he was studying for the PhD at Arizona State University. During the 1990s he contributed to the “American Bear” magazine and used his extensive experience in computers to co-ordinate the Resources for Bears website between 1996 and 2002.

Michael’s scientific career is based mainly on geology and, in particular, vulcanology. When he arrived at the University of Pittsburgh in 2000 he set up the Image Visualisation and Infrared Spectroscopy laboratory and currently serves as webmaster on its website. He began using infrared spectroscopy, which hasn’t been used in this way before, to look at the chemical and structural changes in rocks and minerals that are heated beyond their melting points. This research could help to understand the processes involved in lava flows and magma within volcanoes. Michael has also been heavily involved in research at NASA and has done research into Martian volcanoes and impact craters.

Trans Science

Going through my database of over 20,000 lgbt people of note I was quite surprised to see how many trans people there are in science and technology. The majority of them transitioned after starting their careers and have encountered prejudice to some degree. What I hope this article will show is that there are transgendered scientists who have risen above the prejudice and have established themselves as respected members of the science world.

Deciding who to mention has been difficult as there are so many different fields in which trans scientists work. I have produced this short list (in alphabetical order) giving just a brief snap-shot of the careers of some transgender scientists and technologists. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough space to recount the various transition stories, which may be more suitable for specific articles on the individuals in the future.

Ben Barres, currently Professor and Chair of the Neurobiology Department at the Stanford University School of Medicine : Ben has studied in both the US and London. He became Professor of Neurobiology in 1993. His main area of research is in the function and development of glial cells in mammals. These cells in the central nervous system supply oxygen and nutrients to the brain cells and destroy pathogens and remove dead neuron cells. One of the world’s most prominent male trans scientists Ben has written and spoken often about the prejudices and challenges faced by female scientists.

Lynn Conway, currently Professor Emerita of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor : Lynn is regarded as a leading trans campaigner and her website is the biggest trans site by an individual. She is one of several lgbt computer scientists whose work helped to create the computer age. While working at IBM in 1965 Lynn invented Dynamic Instruction Scheduling, the means by which a central processing unit can perform multiple operations simultaneously, something we take for granted today. Lynn’s work also led to the increase in the number of transistors on a microchip from thousands to millions.

Alan Hart (1890-1962), Director of Radiology at Tacoma General Hospital, Oregon, and later a Director at the Connecticut State Tuberculosis Commission : Alan was a pioneer in trans history as the first to have his case recorded in medical literature in 1920. After qualifying as a doctor Alan began to specialise in radiology, particularly in relation to the treatment of tuberculosis. He worked as TB consultant in Washington, Idaho and Connecticut. Alan wrote many medical articles, including on the use of x-ray detection of TB, and also 4 novels. His first marriage ended in divorce after several stressful years moving from one town to another when his gender became the subject of concern to his patients. His second marriage in 1925 lasted until his death.

Caitlin R. Kiernan : Caitlin was mentioned earlier this year when the Ology of the Month was geology. She is primarily a palaeontologist, though her expertise as a geologist was used in the 1990 film “Tremors”. Also an award-winning science fantasy writer Caitlin’s latest novel “Blood Oranges” was published earlier this year under her fiction-writing name of Kathleen Tierney.

Barbara Nash, currently Professor of Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah : Barbara has directed the university’s Electron Microscope Laboratory since 1970, which analyses mineral specimens as small as 100^th the size of a grain of sand. Barbara has also undertaken field work in the Colorado Plateau, and using the electron microscope extensively to analyse the chemical structure and physical properties of many minerals, including several new ones. Just 6 months ago Barbara had the honour of having a new mineral named after her – nashite, a mineral of complex chemical composition that has properties unique in it’s mineral group.

Femke Olyslager (1966-2009), Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics, Ghent University : The late Professor Olyslager made outstanding contributions in the fields of computational and theoretical electromagnetics. In 1994 Femke became a laureate of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Literature and Fine Arts of Belgium. In 2004 she became a laureate of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium. That same year she contacted Lynn Conway for advice on transitioning, and it was the start of a collaboration into a study of the prevalence of transsexualism. Femke died unexpectedly in January 2009.

Joan Roughgarden, currently an Adjunct Professor at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology : Joan’s main contributions to science is her work on evolutionary biology and ecology. In her book “Evolution’s Rainbow” Joan put forward an alternative to Darwin’s sexual selection theory, giving many instances of animals which don’t follow conventional sex roles, and giving examples of many species where unexpected sexual behaviour is present. Joan has also written on the compatibility of evolution and the Bible. In 1993 she became a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

How the Leopard Got Its Mathematical Spots

According to Rudyard Kipling the leopard got it’s spots because an Ethiopian pressed his finger tips all over the cat’s fur. But for zoologists the biological origin of leopard spots, or even zebra stripes, has been a much more difficult question to answer. Heredity, genetics and evolution play roles in how these features are passed from one generation to the next, but no-one knew how they were created in the first place. I mean, one cell is much like any other in an embryo. So how, when and why does a cell decide it is going to form part of a leopard’s spot? Part of the answer came from another scientific direction – mathematics.

Alan Turing’s last major project, after being a war-time code-breaker and formulator of the theories of modern computer science, was on the matter of morphogenesis, the term used for the way in which both animals and plants develop their different parts.

As a child Alan stared at daisies and wondered how they knew when and where to grow a petal or a leaf. Later in life he began to wonder how a leopard’s spots formed, or patterns on a bird’s feather. Alan believed that chemicals must be the answer, but to explain how these chemical created patterns was another puzzle. Alan tackled it with maths.

Today we know that these patterns (sports, stripes and swirls) and shaped (ears, leaves, antlers) are determined in DNA. Alan used mathematical models to show that hormones were also responsible. Some chemical and hormones inhibit the production of certain cells, while others promote them. In this way one cell affected by a colour-producing hormone would divide and multiply quicker than the other cells around it, producing a patch. Using mathematical models to simulate the creation of these hormones and the division of cells Alan showed how numbers could help explain how animal spots are formed.

During his work Alan would show colleagues and friends papers covered with hundreds of chemical notations and mathematical formulae, some of them connected in shaded areas, and he’d say to them, “Don’t you think that looks like patches on a cow?” They must have looked back and thought “What planet are you living on, Alan?”

Since his day morphogenesis and the understanding of animal markings has progressed, all of it built on Alan’s maths and theories. He realised that his models of the process were simplifications of nature and hoped that it would be useful for future research.

Alan published his theory in 1952. Sadly he didn’t expand on his research. His house was burgled the same year. After admitting that the culprit was a former gay partner he was arrested and later convicted of gross indecency. In one of the tragic ironies of history, Alan chose to undergo treatments with hormones as his sentence rather than have time in prison. He was regulated injected with oestrogen. This hormone was known to cause men to grow breasts and inhibit sexual drive. For Alan it was living, physical evidence of the way hormones change cells, a process happening to his own body which he would have now been able to calculate mathematically.

Oestrogen also leads to anxiety and depression when injected into men, and this could have been the major factor in Alan’s decision to commit suicide in 1954, just a few weeks short of his 42^nd birthday.

A Trip to the Zoo

This month my science subject is zoology. However, it will not cover human biology as I’ve covered aspects of this in other months. Putting it simply, November is my month of animals. I cover plants a lot already in my Flower Power series so I won’t be covering them this month.

November contains two remembrance days – the Remembrance Day in honour of victims of war, and the Transgender Day of Remembrance. In the absence of a single international Transgender Pride Day I’m using November to celebrate the trans community.

To start the trans celebration it seems the perfect time to mention a new exhibition that opened recently in Liverpool. “April Ashley: Portrait of a Lady” is the first major exhibition in the UK to centre on an individual transgender person. April Ashley is well-known in the UK as was one of the country’s first transgender people to become famous. The year-long exhibition is housed at the Museum of Liverpool and runs until September 2014.

There are a number of good trans websites to visit. My personal favourite is this site created by Dr. Lynn Conway. The site covers every aspect of transgender life, from the legal aspects, social issues and advice to lists of successful transgender people.

November also sees the pre-launch of next year’s UK LGBT History Month. The theme for 2014 is music. This was chosen to commemorate this centenary year of the British composer Benjamin Britten. His centenary takes place on 22^nd November but the pre-launch event in Birmingham takes place on the 28^th. I’ll be producing an article for both days. Music will also be my major theme for 2014 as well, and I’ll say a bit more about that later in the month.

Another preview article will appear on 11^th November, Armistice Day. 2014 will see the centenary of the start of World War I and the 75^th anniversary of the start of World War II. Next year I hope to post articles on lgbt war heroes (including those who survived the wars) on the 11^th day of each month.

I’ll leave you with these teasers of what is to come in November :

We’ll meet some bears;

Dig up a trans mineral;

Look at a leopard’s spots;

And meet the real Batman.