Now more than ever we should remember (and have evidence!) that being trans and seeking gender affirmation has always existed... This episode looks at the evidence in Ovid. Help keep LTAMB going by subscribing to Liv's Patreon for bonus content!
CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing.
Sources: Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Stephanie McCarter (entries and end notes); "Reframing Iphis and Caeneus: Trans Narratives and Socio-Linguistic Gendering in Ovid’s Metamorphoses" by J. L. Watson.
Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions.
Hi, Hello there.
This is let's talk about myths, baby, and I am that woman who likes to yell about Greek mythology among other things these days live so it is that time of year again where I try to make as many episodes as possible that feature characters in the wide realm of LGBTQ I A. Unfortunately, as I've said before, there really are a finite number of stories from the ancient world, at least mythologically, that feature characters that fall under the umbrella, which often means that not only do I tend to reserve their stories for Pride Month as a kind of celebratory theme month and for inspiration on my part honestly, but also that I am often revisiting stories that I've told before, but making them better, more detailed, more nuanced, whatever it is I can do now that I am such a different person in terms of how I tell the stories and how I research when it comes to the stories I'm talking about today, I took to Twitter to hear how people felt about my redoing them in my current way of telling stories and making episodes generally, and I was really thrilled to hear from a whole bunch of people who were actually really really keen for me to retell these stories again. It was reassuring and nice, and also resulted in my being sent an article from a listener who's also an academic and has written on these stories in this specific context. So honestly, just like score on my part, we are going to have so much to look at today, and are talking about character whose very existence in ancient sourcing is seriously important, particularly right now. Not only are these stories that I just really really want to return to now that I am so much better at what I do, but they're also characters and stories that raise some really seriously important ideas, particularly in the world that we are currently living in, and even more importantly for people living in countries like the United States and the UK, because fuck, trans people are under attack all over the world for just like being who they are. It's horrific and dangerous, and while a little Greek mythology podcast like mine might not make much of a difference, I like to do what I can, and selfishly also, these are just really fun and interesting stories, and I have a new and amazing translation to use for them, and thus just have some great content to bring you.
So today I'm here with even more.
Ancient evidence that the concept of sis and trans people has been around for fucking ever. The concept and these people are not new. It's not a phase or a trend. It's just humanity existing as humanity has always existed. Between the two episodes I've just done on the Symposium, the conversation with the amazing gentle Love that's coming up this Friday, we've got so much evidence that the idea of queerness and gender identity and the knowledge that people outside of the binary have quite literally always existed and always just sought to be who they're meant to be.
So here we.
Are, this is episode two sixteen.
It's almost like being trans isn't new. Transgender transformations in all its metamorphoses, there are two very explicit stories of transgender people being granted transformation into their true genders in of its metamorphoses. There is the stunning romance of Iphis and Ianthe, and there is the trauma and strength of Canus who becomes Caneus. There is also the somewhat comedic but still important story of none other than Tyresius, the very same man I spoke of so recently in the episodes on Oedipi's Tyranos. That last one, though, I don't really consider being transformed into his true gender because he gets transformed and then transformed back again. We'll talk about him more one day, but he doesn't fit today.
Still.
All of these stories I have told in the past one way or another, but there is so much more to them than I was able to see back then, and that they deserve because they deserve the world, and so of course do trans people today who might want to see stories people like them in the ancient world, in ancient mythology. So let's look at two of these characters again in much more detail, with more nuance, and just more of everything, including thank the Gods, Stephanie McCarter's new and incredible translation of the Metamorphoses. Now, I had every intention of including Tyresius in this episode, but writing it out I had far too much to say about Iphic and Caneus, So we're gonna leave Tiresius for another time. Today, we'll start with the Miracle on Crete. On the island of Crete near Knosos, there lived a man named Lygdus and his wife Telethusa. They weren't rich or noble, just a regular couple living their regular lives. Telethusa found herself pregnant, as one does, and when she was close to giving birth to their first child, Ligdis told her that he wished for only two things in regards to her pregnancy. That it be easy on her she experienced little pain, and that the birth just goes smoothly, and that the.
Child is born a boy.
Specifically, Ligdis wants this because a girl is very expensive on a family, and they just don't have enough. They're poor as it is without having to deal with the cost of having a girl. I want to be mad at Ligdis, and I'm sure I was when I first told this story, but the truth is in there too. It's the world that he lives in that makes it that way. It isn't his choice. Still, this is what he wishes, and he expands upon his wish in a way that I mean briefly hacks away at the empathy we might have just felt for him, because he tells a very very pregnant Telethusa quote, Heaven forbid, but if by chance you give birth to a female, I order this unwillingly, forgive me duty. She'll be put to death. His eyes are full of tears as he speaks this, and so are hers, and so still if I'd myself empathizing with this man even though he's ordered something so gross, but he doesn't want to. He just sees no other way. They simply cannot afford a girl, and the world they live in is forcing his hand that God's damned patriarchy. Telethusa, though, doesn't take this well Understandably, she wants to fight him on it, and she does. She never stops pleading with Ligdis to change his mind, to reconsider his horrible decision, one that she knows he doesn't want to make. Maybe, she thinks, if she can appeal to him in the right way, they can find a way to afford a girl. Certainly there must be some way, but he never changes his mind. And so when she's just days, if not hours, away from giving birth, as she slept one night, she dreamed of the goddess Isis, an Egyptian goddess, but one that was not only popular on Crete, an island just north of Egypt, but in the broader Mediterranean world, Grace and Rome included, particularly at the time of Avid and the centuries before him. She dreamed that Isis stood before her shimmering and as goddess like as one could possibly be, and she was joined by other Egyptian gods, Anubis, APIs, Bubastus, Horus, and even Osiris, along with a venomous serpent. They all appeared to Telethusa as she slept, but it was Isis who spoke to her. She said, quote, Telethusa, my devotee, dismiss your heavy cares and foil your husband's orders. When Lucina assists this birth, don't hesitate to raise the child, whatever sex it is. When Telethusa woke with the memory of Isis's words in her mind, she was relieved and happy and just so thankful to the goddess. Now she had a plan. So when she finally did give birth and the baby was as she had feared, a girl, she knew what she had to do. She hid it from her husband. He wouldn't be in the room after all, and so she could get away with pretending that the baby had been born a boy. Only the nurse who'd helped her give birth knew the truth, and she would keep the secret. And of course, because of how raising children went back then, how marriage and family dynamics worked, ligdis just didn't ever have any reason to learn the true sex of the baby his wife had just given birth to. They named the baby born a girl, but to be raised a boy.
Iphis.
Telethusa is happy with the name. It was Ligdas's father's name, and so he'd picked it. But it was a unisex name, and that made Telethusa happy, like she was doing right.
By her child.
Iface grew up thirteen years past, and well, thirteen years is enough to seem well and grown in this world, grown enough that Ligdis was already arranging if it's marriage to a nice girl in town, a nice girl named Ianthe. IFAs and i Anthe knew each other well. They'd grown up together, learning from the same teacher, existing in the same world, becoming friends, and when they were old enough to feel it, both IFAs and a Anthe knew they loved each other equally, and that in itself was a gift in the ancient world. An arranged marriage where both actually love one another. It should have made both IFAs and i Anthe just beyond happy, content like, looking forward to their future together.
But IFAs had a.
Secret quote Ianthy looks forward to her wedding day believing the one that she presumes to be a man will be her man. But IFAs is in love with someone, they despair of ever having.
And here is.
Where we get to the part where I just tell you how fucking wonderful. Stephanie McCarter's translation is, because when we learn that these two feel such things for each other that they're lusting after one another, even if they don't both understand what that means biologically, if this speaks to themselves of their situation, they say to themselves, quote, what will become of me? Gripped as I am by this queer longing for a novel kind of love making that no one understands. Poor. If this is so distraught, warring with their feelings, they look to the natural world, and there they don't see anyone like them. Animals don't mate with the same gender, they think. And even though create is such a wild and miraculous place, such a wild place that even Pacife made it with a bull, even that they think was female to male, if it's just can't see themselves in the world around them, and it hurts.
And so if this realizes.
Something they wish they were a boy, and they announce it aloud. Quote if Daedalus himself flew back on wings of wax, what could he do? Could his shrewd arts transform me from a girl into a boy?
Could he change you? Ianthe?
If this begins to blame himself, wishing that he could just be what the world expected, love who the world expected. Yet he knows that he loves Ianthe, even if his biology and the world they live in makes it seem wrong.
Quote.
It's hope that kindles love and hope that feeds it. But facts strip you of hope.
No guard is.
Blocking you from her dear embrace, no over cellous husband or stringent father. Nor does she refuse when you ask.
Yet you can't have her. God.
The speech just it goes on, and it's so sad, it's so emotional. If it's just lays it all out on the surface. Everything is perfect, they're set.
To be together, They love each other.
There is literally no one standing in their way, and of all of IFA's previous prayers have been answered. Everything should be perfect, everything except nature biology, that's all that If it sees as standing in his way. Their wedding day is approaching, and that's what if it speaks of now quote i Anthy will be mine, but I won't have her. He calls to Juno, the Roman Heara goddess of marriage, asking why she would even witness a wedding with two brides and no groom. And meanwhile, i Anthy longs for if Thiss. She lusts after him, even while Telethusa just has to sit back and watch, fearful of her child's fate, trying to put off the wedding as long as possible, delaying it, feigning illness, whatever she can come up with. But she can only do that for so long, and eventually her time her attempts run out, and so finally it's the day before their wedding is set to take place, and Telethusa can't delay it any further. The day before the wedding of IF's and Nyanthe, Telethusa is frantic. She's been hiding this secret about her child for so long, and she can't avoid it anymore. She knows what IFAs wants, that he wants to be a boy, and that he loves Ianthe, that Ianthe too sees him as a boy. If if this were to biologically match what he feels inside and what everyone sees when they look at him. Then all of their problems would be solved. The couple could marry as they both want to, They could live happily as they.
Both want to.
And gouds if that isn't worth everything in mythology, two people who want to be together, who want to just live happily as the people that they feel that they are. And Telethusa sees all of this. So the night before the wedding, she kneels before Isis's alter and she cries out to the goddess, quote, help us, I pray and heal our fear. She asks for pity on IFIs and herself. She asks for aid from the goddess, and oh, does Isis answer? Immediately she heard the prayers, she knew the importance. She remembered Telethusa and the baby Iphis from those thirteen years earlier quote. The goddess seemed to shake her shrine and did the temple doors convulsed, Her moon like horns began to glow, her noisy rattle rang. Feeling reassured, though not entirely certain that her prayers will be answered or even what that might look like, Telethusa leaves the temple and just hopes for the best. But IFAs follows and his stride is longer than it was before, his complexion is changed. He's stronger, his features are more defined, his hair is shorter, and everything about him is just more masculine than it was before.
Quote you who were just a.
Girl, are now a boy, and so Telethusa and her son if this give their thanks to the goddess. They couldn't possibly be happier more relieved than they are in this moment. They bring gifts for Isis, along with a little poem that says, just quote Iphis a boy, vowed these gifts as a girl. And then the next morning quote when morning lights the world, Venus and Juno and Hymen come together for the wedding, and the boy IFIs now has his ianthe fuck, I'm not crying, you're crying. It's important to point out that the story of Iphis can easily be seen in two very distinct ways, and both are valid readings either of the story of Iphis is the story of a trans man being granted transformation, biologically made into the man that he's always seen himself as, and is therefore able to live the life that he wants and has always wanted, or IFIs is a mask lesbian who is given a way to live with the woman she loves in a world that can't and won't accept two women in a romantic and sexual relationship. The ways that if this fights internally and the idea of sex as to women unable to see it as possible, comparing the idea to animals in the wild, things like that. It's really just indicative of just the Roman world at the time that Avid was writing, and connects to that theory that I've now mentioned so many times that maybe there were lots of ladies in the ancient world having awesome sexual relationships with one another, but no one ever saw it as sex, and therefore no one ever documented it because the idea of sex without penetration was just nonsensical. And as a result, too, they can't have any kind of romantic, long term, committed relationship either way. The story of Iphis and Ianthe is one that emphasizes queer relationships in the ancient world. It is valid to see it either way as a trans man or lesbian, and picking whichever way feels more empowering to you is absolutely a great thing to do. I don't want to say one is more accurate than the other. I don't think that there is one that is more accurate, or reading that one reading takes anything away from the other. Today, though, I'm just focusing on the trans possibility, not least because I wanted this episode to just be about trans people, but also because I have this great article by a listener Joe Watson called Reframing IFUs and Caineus trans narratives and socio linguistic gendering and of its metamorphoses. There's so much in this article. I'm only just grazing the surface, and we're going to dive deeper into these explicitly linguistic aspects that emphasize the transness of these characters. After I've told the story of Cainus who becomes Caineus. But it's interesting to focus on IFIs, specifically because his story is possibly linked to a very real, lived experience of boys in ancient Rome. Getting married at thirteen certainly seems fucking young to us now. It's horrifying and criminally young, but obviously age was different in the ancient world, as you heard about my Symposium episodes. But even still, thirteen, particularly for the boy, was seriously young to get married. It was normal for the girl, but it was so young actually that it was around the time when it comes to Rome, when boys were not only just going through puberty on a biological level, but when they were going through a whole cultural practice that signified them becoming a man in the Roman world. So the fact that this age is when IFIs Is physically transforming into a boy a man really is super notable and symbolic. Even this also connects to just how different a transformation if this is compared to Caineus. If Is transforms not only because, at least according to the trans reading, he sees himself as a boy generally, but also for the love of Ianthe they love each other. He wants to be with her, and this is how to do it in line with the laws and expectations of the world that he lives in. Kineus, meanwhile, has experienced a trauma and his transformation is coming from that, though it forts only becomes something like much more positive in the end. There isn't love there though that he's working towards. There isn't a desire for a traditional and acceptable relationship. There is just the desire for the transformation itself, the ability to actively live as a man rather than the results of living as a man. Before we get fully into the story of Canus transforming into Caneus, a quick trigger warning there is a salt here, and it's Poseidon's. You know, It's a bit worse to talk about than most. I'm not going to dwell on it, though, because i want to tell you Caneus a story more positively this time.
Just a heads up.
The first mention of Caeneus's origin story is not about the female that he was born as, but the man that he is at the time the story is being told. His story is being told by Nestor during the Trojan War. He's speaking around of fire to a group of gathered Greeks. Achilles is among them. He's telling stories from his past, since he's the oldest and full of great stories of greater heroes. One of them is Caneus. Nestor introduces Kinneus quote, I once saw Thessalian Caneus bear a thousand wounds with no harm to his body. Thessalian Caineus, who won fame through deeds and lived on Othrus, and what's more amazing, had been born female. At this introduction. Achilles is absolutely sold on the story of Caneus and immediately asks Nestor to speak more about him.
Who was he, what did he do? How did he change sex?
And it is changing sex, not gender in these myths because it is its magic divinity, a god's will. Nestor is very happy to tell Achilles all.
That he knows.
In Thessaly, Kenneus was born a girl and given the name Canus. Her beauty became famous, known all over the region, and of course this meant that there were many many men wishing to marry her. Nestor tells Achilles that Canus was from the same region as him and Pelias. Achilles' father might have even sought to marry her, had he not already been meant to marry Achilles's mother, Thedus. None of that matters, though, because Canus had absolutely no desire to marry any man at all. She had no interest in turned down every single suitor that ever came to her. Someone born biologically a woman, and we can imagine who sees herself at this time as such, by the end, still wants to avoid marriage, and that rarely ends happily. And so one day when Canus was walking along the beach. She was found by none other than Neptune Poseidon, and God's is not always a horrifying idea. Poseidon really just likes to He lurks just below the surface as the most dangerous man of myth pun intended, and he assaults Canus, and then when he's finished, he wants to give her something in return. Quote whatever you desire, you'll have it. Now, make a wish. Canus, who's just experienced a seriously traumatic event, is surprisingly level headed and more than aware of what to ask for.
Quote.
Such an assault demands a major wish. Make it impossible for me to suffer such a thing again. Make me not female? That is all I want. By the time the final sentence is spoken, Kineus's voice was already deeper. But not only did and immediately grant the wish. He made Canneus almost invincible. He can't be wounded now, he can't be killed by a sword, and God's Caneus is the rilled quote Kenneus, rejoicing in this gift, sets off. He spends his life in masculine pursuits, rambling through the bushlands of Peneus. That's the entirety of Kenneus's transformation story, though we're gonna return to the rest of his story in a minute. First, I want to dwell here because when I first told this story, I really focused on the trauma response, the idea that Keneus had been assaulted and saw that the only way to avoid another experience like that was to be a man. And while that's fucking depressing, is shit. But it was my conversation with Stephanie McCarter about this new translation that made me want to revisit this story. She talked about the language that Abbo uses here and how it seems to emphasize the idea that actually, this kind of transformation was what Kenneus wanted all along. He was always a trans man, he just didn't really know it, or maybe he just didn't have the chance to live it until Neptune granted him the wish. Stephanie mentioned this in our chat, but this use of the word bushlands is so evocative here, so I'm gonna read the end note that she has about it.
Quote.
Avid uses a sexual pun as he presents Kineus in a masculine, penetrative role roaming through the countryside arvum, plowable field is a slang term for female genitalia, and plowing is a euphemism for sex. She even goes on to ad that some scholars suggest that Pennius the Fields is actually a play on Penis all to say that with phrasing and innuendos like that it's so intentionally included by Avid, it certainly seems to like this was exactly what Kinneus wanted, rather than a last ditch effort to avoid more trauma. It also implies that just like Iphis and Nyanthevid also saw their transformations as positive outcomes for their characters. The transformations just solidified what these transmen already knew about themselves, or gave them the opportunity to know it about themselves. They just had the fortune of having the gods there to help them transition biologically and Alternatively to Iphis, whose story is a bit more confused uncertain in terms of how he feels about gender and himself, Caaneus's story had additional layers that really emphasize that he is and perhaps always knew that he was trans. The whole story is actually told as a rumor that Nestor heard whereas most of the story Nestor is telling during the war is his own experiences, like this bit of backstory has come to him from elsewhere. He makes clear that while he doesn't know it for certain, he's telling the rumor about Caneus's transformation, and not for any slation gossipy reason, but because the history of this incredible hero only makes him more interesting, more incredible, not for overcoming anything, mind.
You, just for being who he.
Was also, and this is coming from the article that I mentioned, which is linked in the episode's description for anyone who wants to read more. Caneus, unlike IFIs, is often described using not only masculine forms of Latin words, but ones that are like awkward and ill fitting to the sentence because they're coming when Canneus is still canous, like speaking specifically of him being born a woman, and yet some masculine endings are used. I w'pe pretend like I know enough Latin to dive too deep into that, and I don't think you want me to anyway. But the point is that often is being really intentional. He's using intentional and oftentimes weird and awkward and inappropriate almost language to speak about this distinctly mass Skilnhiro, who happened to start his life as a biological woman. It's also important that Nestor's first mention of him isn't as about his origins as a woman, but as the man that he was when Nestor knew him. It's this epic Greek hero who'd done great epic Greek hero things. He was all man, and then we get this history where we learn a bit more about him and what he went through to become the great man that he always was meant to be. All to say, While the story of Iphis can be read as either the story of a trans man or a masculine lesbian who just wanted to be accepted in love who she loved, the story of Kneus is very explicitly the story of someone trans. Even if Avid didn't have the same terminology to use, he is very clear that this was someone who was born biologically a woman, but was always meant to be a great man, and so just a God helped him do it. Kenneus's story picks up later in the Metamorphoses, still in a story being told by Nestor during the war, but he picks it back up when he shifts to speaking about the war between the Lapids and the Centaurs, we're back now to how he introduced Canneus to begin with, as a man that he knew in his past. Canneus, in all his almost invincible glory, is fighting the centaur as alongside Nestor, but we also know that before this battle, Caneus had also participated in the Caledonian boar hunt with our girl at Atlanta, and even maybe was one of the Argonauts. Caneus doesn't appear in any great detail in Greek surviving sources, but his general importance and bravery and skill in battle is pretty clear from what little that we know. He was always meant for greatness, and Avid two seems to be the first source that actually gives Caneus a backstory that includes being assigned female at birth, whereas in the Great Story Caneus only ever features described as a man. By the time we return to Caneus as he is fighting these Centaurs, he's already killed five of them. Quote Stephalus, Bromus and Timochus, Axe armed, Pirachmon and Eleimus.
I don't recall their wounds.
I marked the count and names and Nestor goes on detailing the battle as it happened before him, the centaurs coming at them from all angles. He describes the centaur that Caneus is about to go up against, named Lytrius, and Leitrius, seems hardcore. He's one to be reckoned with. Nestor describes him stalking his enemy, flashing weapons, just waiting to take them all out. When this asshole centaur starts making transphobic jokes to Kineus, misgendering him and calling him by his dead name, telling him that he'll always be female, that he can't escape it, even reminding Kineus of the assault that he had experienced, how it was that that he was transformed into a man that he is nef He even goes has the nerve to suggest that this epic hero who's just killed five of his centaur brothers, go off and pick up weaving instead. Now, centaurs are usually pieces of shit, like it's kind of their thing, but this one really goes above and beyond, like we've got a terf centaur. Reminds me of a certain woman that I used to praise, and how we now speak of her with disdain and disgust she is that centaur. But Kineus isn't taking any shit. He knows himself, knows who he is, and so while this centaur runs his asshole mouth, Caneus just lets loose an arrow from his bow, piercing the centaur's side as he screams in pain. Letrius tries to come at Caneus in response, but Keneus's flesh can't be pierced by any weapon, so the centaur's spear just rebounds right in his face. He tries again, and he fails again. Then he starts trying to taunt Kenneus, suggesting he'll use his blade to slice instead of spear.
That'll do it.
He even takes aim at Keneus's groin, not unintentional, I'm certain, but nope, that won't do it either. Kinneus just can't be wounded that way. It's almost as though transitioning made his skin thicker than most his very own defensive shield for transphobic turfy centaurs. Finally, he turns Onletrius and with a sneer, says, quote, now let me try your body with my blade, before he thrusts his spear into the centaur, giving it a few twists, and once again it is not a coincidence that Caneus kills this turfy centaur with a bit of penetration, because well, he is truly a penetrator. Now all of the centaurs try to injure Caneus, but they can't do it either, and God's does this make them angry? They are so pissed off and embarrassed they can't handle that they're being bested by this man, that he's gonna take them all out. One of them yells to the others, quote, one man defeats our tribe, hardly a man, and yet he is the man. Our impotence makes us what he once was, which like, okay, centaurs is if you weren't shitty enough, you're just all just gonna throw in transphobia and unnecessary jabs at women.
Fuck you guys.
They begin to question what good they are if they can't beat this one man. What good are is their horse like strength, divine origins if they can't best Caneus. But unfortunately, then one of them gets an idea, or rather an idea is spawned from their raging, from their fury about being so utterly useless against Caneus. They think to overwhelm him, to crush him under the weight of trees ripped just from the earth, and that is what they do. They strip the mountain of trees, piling them atop Caneus quickly enough that he can't free himself before it's too late. Nestor tells that some say the weight of the trees on Caneus pushed him straight to Tartarus, but he doesn't believe that. Instead, both Nestor and another man, Mopsus, saw a golden winged bird fly up from the pile of trees and into the air. It hovered over the camp long enough to be seen before screeching and flying off, and so Mopsus at the site cried out quote, Hail Caneus, glory of the Lapiths, the greatest man wants now a matchless bird. And the rest of the lapists that were fighting the centaurs used their rage and their grief over the fate of their friend, and they didn't stop until half the centaurs were dead at their hands and the other half had fled in fear.
The way Avid.
Tells these stories of Iphis and Caineus is just as important as the stories themselves when it comes to examining what he's intending with their genders. While he does sometimes gender them as female at the beginning of their stories and before their respective transformations, just as I have done, as this article by J. L. Watson says, even when he's doing this quote, he is careful to undercut any feminizing words, either through immediate use of a counterbalancing masculine or through distancing and challenging the discourse that seeks to feminize these men. Oh God's nerds, I am so fucking glad that I just revisited these two stories truly, and God, this articles it has so much more to say that I just can't fit into this episode. But it's really fascinating and really adds so much to the transnature of these two characters and how Avid wrote them. So if you're interested, I highly recommend reading it. It is free online and I've linked to it in the episode's description, so it's super easy and super interesting.
Huge thank you to Joe for sending.
It to me after I had just vaguely tweeted about looking at these stories again. It added so much. Alongside Macarter's incredible new translation, which was so intentional in its translation of trans stories like these. Also just a special thanks to my upcoming conversation guest yan to Love, Who's coming back on the show on Friday's episode. I'd had Caneus on my list to look at again ever since I spoke to Stephanie McCarter in the fall, but it was Yental reminding me how Caneus stands up to transphobic centaurs that was the extra push I needed. Trans stories are generally just super important, and certainly now more than ever, but I personally also just I find such wonder in these stories that so specifically address trans characters in myth. Not only is it generally empowering to people now, but it also serves as such a brilliant and entertaining reminder that these stories and real trans people of the ancient world have always existed and have always sought to live their lives in a way that feels most true to them. Sometimes they get divine intervention, and I like to think that that might have been a bit inspirational to the real people dealing with similar life experiences. But also just wait for Yental's episode, because she also shares some anecdotes of almost certainly real life trans people in ancient Rome that I had never heard of. I cannot wait for y'all to hear that episode.
It's so good. But God's I've talked enough today, So.
Just thank you, Thank you all for listening, support trans rites, and as always, here's a five star review from one of you amazing listeners for your listening pleasure, because I love you all for leaving these. This one's from a user very appropriately called Jenna the Oracle in the States Above and Beyond. Hi, I'm a somewhat longtime listener. I found the podcast during Quarantine in twenty twenty and I've never left her review before, but after this week's episode, I just had to. I was so excited to see the episode as about Esop, someone who for an embarrassing amount of time in my life I didn't realize was Greek.
May neither It's fine as.
An English major, his fables were some of the first works that I became aust us with as a child. Anyways, what I love about your show is your ability to dig into the areas of Greek myth slash history in a way that never feels stunted or surface level. You always go above and beyond, and it's always a bright spot in my day to listen to the podcast when typing an essay or commuting to work. Thank you, it really means a lot. Like I always say, the most true Let's time A miss Baby has written and produced by me Live Albert Nikaela Smith is the hermes to my Olympians Goods.
She's just the best.
She handles everything, running the YouTube, creating all my promotional images and videos, all those little cute clips on my Twitter and my Instagram. Ah Mikayla, she's the best. Plus she's just editing and research and psh amazing. Stephanie Foley works to transcribe the podcast for YouTube captions and accessibility. The podcast is hosted and monetized by iHeartMedia. Helped me continue bringing you the world of Greek mythology and the Ancient Mediterranean by becoming a patron where we get access to bonus episodes and more. Visit patreon dot com slash myths Baby, or click the link in this episode's description. Thank you all, You're super cool. Please use these examples that I have provided today when fighting with people who think trans people are new or a trend or a phase or anything in between. Two thousand years ago, Avid said fuck that bullshit, and we should too.
I am a live and I love this shit.