The Goddess

This isn’t a rigorous piece of scholarship, just a personal piece I’ve wanted to write. I was at least partially inspired by little light’s The Seam of Skin and Scales, which I can in no way equal. This is also sort of a counterbalance to Fear, in that I find strength here when dealing with said fear.

I have an interesting relationship with goddesses. I gravitate to those who are a bit odd, a bit scary, a bit unknown and frightening. I look to those like Hekate, who carries more than a bit of dangerous mystery and otherness. Hekate is also the goddess of witchcraft, magic, ghosts, the night, and other less savory things. I am not into all of these things (although I prefer night to day), but like most of the goddesses I prefer, she’s a bit other, a bit strange, a bit alien. I can identify with that.

 Some of Cybele’s gallae were probably what we’d call “trans women” today. 

 

Cybele’s gallae were male-bodied priestesses who castrated themselves and lived as women forever after. Of course, they were limited by the technology of the times - no hormones or vaginoplasty for them, but they also didn’t have to deal with the Standards of Care.

Kali Ma is another goddess I identify with. She has many faces, from the nurturing and benevolent, to the dangerous and lethal. She’s not a safe goddess. She represents death, destruction, fear, the shattering of illusions, the ending of lies. She kills demons, and yet is seen as the kindest and most loving of all Hindu goddesses. She protects as well as destroys.

The above has been labeled as both Inanna and Lilith, and since I am fond of both, I’ll go ahead. Lilith is the mother of monsters, and in the apocrypha was not acceptable as a woman - something I’m intimately familiar with. Sometimes, when I am treated as an outsider, I think of myself as being one of Lilith’s daughters, a monster who must claim what is rightfully mine, since few are willing to grant it to me.

Inanna walked into the underworld, died, and was restored to life. I can identify with that - I had to to walk through my own underworld, leave behind the trappings of a life I admittedly didn’t really want, end that old life, and begin anew. When I returned from this metaphorical underworld, I carried only that which belonged to me now, and left that which I abandoned in the dust.

Unlike Inanna, however, I did not sacrifice anything of value.

I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Bast. I’ve loved cats since I was old enough to recognize them for what they are, and I’ve always been able to get along with them in a way that I don’t get along with anyone else - not humans, not dogs, not horses. But Bast is more than just about cats. She was originally a lioness and a war goddess, a protector. She’s been both the sun and the moon.

I originally connected to goddesses as a way to process my own femininity, to reveal it and celebrate it. To accept who I am and who I was meant to become. They were (and still are) a significant part of my life as a woman. Through them I understand that womanhood transcends pure biology.

Also, just for the questioning transphobia element, I’d like to point to Sandy Stone’s The Empire Strikes Back: A Postmodern Transsexual Manifesto. It’s a response to Janice Raymond’s hate screed, The Transsexual Empire.