Trans* & gender identity in the premodern Mediterranean

Abstract

This paper explores the intersection and imbrication of transness and Mediterraneaness in the premodern period. How did Mediterranean mobility, spaces, and creativity inform and make possible the ‘transing’ of gender? Re-examining previously considered sources with the benefit of recent scholarship on archival silences and trans history, we suggest that Mediterranean culture, migration, local community, and race shaped possibilities for transgender people. Prioritizing the agency of people who lived non-binary and trans lives, we make them legible to a contemporary audience while refraining from imposing our own labels upon them. The messy and contradictory lives of our subjects show the complexity of personhood and identity. We consider unrecorded suffering and reflect on how the physical bodies of those punished for transgressing gender norms were inscribed with meaning that resonated with hegemonic constructions of sexuality and identity. We center the bodies, identities, and experiences of trans people rather than the elite male discourses of a heteronormative society.