International Non-Binary People's Day

Happy International Non-Binary People's Day!

Today we have a very special episode interpreting Artemis as a demi-woman non-binary person. 

Artemis is the wild deity associated with forests, mountains, and other wild spaces. Yet as a hunter, Artemis is as at home engaging in men's hunts like stags, boars, or lions as they are engaging in women's hunts like doe, fauns, hares, and small cats like lynxes. The very fact that Artemis hunts with a bow at all could be seen as a facet of gender nonconformity. 

Artemis is the Moon. In antiquity as today, Pagans viewed the Moon as an androgynous being manifesting the masculine power of the Sun with the feminine power of the Earth in a single being. 

The story of Actaeon, the tragic hero who saw Artemis against their will and was turned into stag and ripped apart by his own hunting dogs. Yet it is in the way Artemis is scraping the grime of a hard day's hunt when Actaeon intrudes into this space. 

Yet Artemis is also a patron of women in childbirth, nurses, and young children. Artemis is looked to when women and children are in their most vulnerable moments. This key religious function of Artemis is more feminine. 

Artemis shows wild unpredictability and ironic cruelty when insulted by mortals. Yet when Artemis does try to take part in a masculine pursuit like conflict, they fail every time.  

So Artemis blends masculinity and femininity in a wild non-binary deity. 

Thank you for exploring Artemis the Non-Binary with me today!

Have a great Non-Binary People's Day everyone!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Hello everybody, and welcome to a very special episode of Lambda, the LGBT and Antiquity Podcast. I'm your host, Dominica Raven, International Nonbinary People's Day Special. Hear me, Zeus' child of many names, renowned Bakik Archer, Dictaina, helper in childbirth, you guide women through labor, yet you do not know labor yourself, Orthea who nurtures young children, O frenzied hunter who drives out distress, swift arrow-shooting deity of the wild great outdoors, you slay beasts in the mountains, you teach our hounds to track beasts, pure maiden who ranges over the crags and tangled forests, and then leads the graces and dance, accessible to all initiates, bring peace and health. May you dispatch distress and pain to the mountains, come to our ceremony as a savior, redeeming goddess who looks masculine. When we discussed Athena's non-binary aspects, we describe them as something like a demi-man, somebody who is visibly outside of gendered binaries, but their competitiveness and martial aspects makes Athena slightly more on the masculine than the feminine side. We teased Artemis as a demi-woman. They are also visibly outside of gendered boundaries, but their wild and nurturing aspects make them significantly more on the feminine than the masculine side. Today we're going to explore this further. There are several stories which show Artemis' non-binary aspects very well. There isn't really any analysis of any story, a traditional Lambda deep dive, more of a discussion to show this non-binary entity for our day of visibility special. Artemis is a wild deity associated with the forest and the untamed lands between cities and beyond the realms of normal human control. Though Zeus gives Artemis thirty cities when they're just a toddler, Artemis is most commonly thought of as a hunter and patron of the wilds. Much like Dionysus, Artemis was raised in the lands of Chibalae in Asia Minor. As we've discussed a few times before, Chibalae is definitely not an image of a heteronormative figure. Just like Dionysus, Artemis does not emerge from this queer upbringing without developing a sense of queerness for themselves. This is particularly visible in the untamable spirit that Kaibalay and Attis instill in all of their foster children. When overseeing children and fostering life, Artemis operates within the feminine sphere. When Artemis is running through the forest and chasing game, Artemis is more operating with the masculine sphere. Artemis is famous for the bow. While Apollo is generally the archer god called upon in battle, with heroes like Odysseus habitually calling on the archer god for assistance in combat, Artemis is the hunter called upon to guide arrows during hunting expeditions. This fact alone is somewhat surprising. Bows and hunting are often seen as men's work in the ancient world, as Telemachus says so bluntly to his own mother Penelope in the Odyssey, bows are the concern of men. So Artemis' bow alone might be thought of as a manifestation of gender nonconformity. However, this only really holds true in later eras of antiquity. The truth is that there's actually more of a gendered division of hunts in the ancient world. Men go out on men's hunts, such as big game like stags, boars, bears, and mountain lions. Meanwhile, women are often associated with hunting smaller game such as fawns or doe, small cats like lynxes, and other things like birds and hares which can be hunted with nets. So, while human beings could reasonably be expected to stay within their lane, deities are under no such obligation. Dionysus is habitually seen taming lions and yet wears a robe of a lynx. Artemis' chariot is driven by stags or lions, and Artemis is often shown hunting large game. So, while eventually Greek and Roman men took over the act of hunting altogether, the idea, especially in epic or heroic times, was that there was a more gender-delineated style of hunting where both male and female hunters would go after all sorts of game, creating a more well-rounded diet. However, even when Artemis is in the wild and engaging in what would be seen as a masculine pursuit, they are still hunting in ways that are out of line for a traditional female huntress. As we move through these next few examples, remember this facet of Artemis. Much like Athena or Dionysus, it is in a combination of masculine and feminine attributes that makes Artemis who they actually are. Beyond just narratives and mythology, it is in their religious devotion and in their hymns that allow us to see these facets which would never be acceptable in a heteronormative environment. And yet, throughout all walks of life, people still called upon these deities to help them and protect them despite, or perhaps because of, their gender nonconformity. The purpose of this episode is to discuss Artemis as a demi-woman non-binary. While there are aspects of Artemis that are more masculine, such as hunting, it is clear that Artemis is a more female-aligned figure than masculine aligned. If we are to interpret the stories of Artemis properly, we have to understand their gendered expressions and why they are so significant. The Moon. There is a concept among queer pagan communities that the moon intrinsically reflects androgyny. The moon is made of stone and thus has a clear earthy facet. As earth is associated with the fertile and life-generating powers of femininity, so the moon must have some aspect of femininity as well. But the moon is also bright and illuminating, providing the brightest light in the whole night sky. As the bright and life-fostering powers of the sun so often reflect masculinity, so must the moon have some facet of masculinity as well. However, the moon is emphatically not part of the earth, or rather the moon was created off of the earth, nor is the moon actually generating its own light, rather the moon can only reflect the light of the sun. This idea is very powerful. By combining masculine and feminine, the moon is actually part of both, while belonging to neither. Thus the moon becomes a significant liminal being. Now, this idea actually goes back all the way to antiquity and is very closely associated with Artemis. Of course, the Greeks did not understand that the moon was created when another planet collided with the proto-Earth, but they told the story that the moon, Selene, was the grandchild of Earth and Sky. Ancient scholars also deduced that the moon does not shine on its own, but rather described the moon as reflecting the face of the sun. Just as the sun was once manifested by the Titan Helios, before the radiant chariot pulled by the fiery horses of the sun was yielded to Apollo, so was the moon once associated with the Titan Selene, before the gleaming chariot pulled by the moon cattle was yielded to Artemis. So Artemis is the moon, and the androgynous aspects of the moon and Artemis were one in the same. This is important because then, as now, all those who use the power of the moon in their own spell casting must rely upon the power of an androgynous being. The story of Actian. Cadmus the Dragonslayer, that Phoenician prince who was exiled from his father Aginor's home and went on to found the city of Thebes, had a bunch of daughters who he married off as part of the business deal that was marriage in the ancient world. One of his daughters was named Otonowe, who got married to Arstaios. Aristaios was a culture hero who first discovered how to tame bees. Up to this point, bees had made their hives in natural places like caves or crannies of rocks, and humans would find the bees, smoke them out, and collect the honey. Arasteos devised the beehive so humans could have some more control over production and collect more for themselves. He was also a master hunter who had learned the arts of using nets, animal tracking, hunting with dogs, and ambush hunting from Artemis. The master hunter Aristaios married Cadma's daughter, and their child was named Actaion. He learned all the arts of hunting from his father and from Artemis. Now he was not necessarily a violent invader of the wild lands, as he was clearly at home in the wilderness, and for most of his life served Artemis well. That is, until the event which would seal his fate. One day Actaion went hunting in the densely forested valley called Gargaphia in Boeotia. Actaion was in an oak tree, lying in wait for a deer when he saw Niaad nymphs in a nearby pool named Hayale. He did not know who he was looking at, but it turned out to be Artemis and their retinue. Now the Naads tried to shield Artemis' body from the sacrilege that would be a mortal beholding the divine form, but it was already too late. Action was frozen for a minute before Artemis splashed the hunter with water from the pool. Immediately his body began shifting from a human to a beast. He tried to flee, but as he ran he fell on all fours and began to change into a stag. Once he was a deer, his own dogs flocked around him and tore his body apart. It is important to bear in mind that Action had overstepped what mortals were meant to experience. He had actually seen a deity against their will, albeit by accident. This was a significant assault on the very divinity of Artemis. This is not necessarily about whether we see Artemis as feminine or non-binary at all. It would have been just as wrong if Action had seen Apollo against his will. This is a sacrilege, a sin against the gods either way. What is important, though, is the way that Artemis is bathing after a day in the woods. Artemis is washing up after hunting and chasing animals all day. Now, generally speaking, unmarried women would go to more private spaces to bathe. Women would bathe sometimes in the female quarters of the house, and public baths would actually be cleared out so that women could bathe in private. While bathing was a communal activity, it was expected that women of any age could do it with a level of modesty. Now, when people go to bathe in rivers, this is by definition a somewhat public and definitely wild space. The fact that it is deep in the woods and that Gargathia is a forest sacred to Artemis does not necessarily change the fact that they were bathing in a wild space. There are actually relatively few cases of people bathing in wild spaces in ancient literature, but the image of a hero like Odysseus bathing himself in the stream comes to mind. Odysseus bathes in private after arriving in the Phaeacian lands. He is grimy and caked with dried salty brine after a full twenty days' tribulation at sea. He cleans himself up and covers himself in oil in private. Well, generally a hero would expect to be bathed by a young woman or an older woman. Odysseus will not allow it as he decides to focus on his own modesty at this point. He is so dirty after struggling against Poseidon himself to survive in the great storm, Odysseus feels too unclean to even be touched by women. Now, Artemis is not surviving a shipwreck, but they are getting back from a day of hunting. Much like when Athena turns any art or craft into the highest form of competition, Artemis always goes all out while chasing game. They have been chasing and running through the woods for hours, caked with sweat and sunburned. Artemis is not merely bathing in a way reminiscent of a hero coming back from war, they're bathing like a man. This is important because while a male hunter would be expected to come back with a few cuts and scrapes and a bit of sunburn, Artemis, though not necessarily injured or getting cuts in the forest, looks like any other hunter coming home. Artemis has been sunburned by the chase and exhausted by the effort. Not only that, but the nymphs are also exerting themselves beyond what any normal female would be expected to do. So the act of bathing in the wild is another way to say they are not clean enough to go home and bathe in a tub. They have to stop in a creek and wash the worst of it off before they can even do that. In this instance, Artemis is behaving more like a male than a female. Artemis is in fact returning from the hunt, just like any other hero would be. Nurses and children. Now there's another key example of Artemis behaving more in a feminine way. Artemis is the nurse of animals and young humans alike. While we have largely focused on Artemis as a wild deity in the forest, Artemis was also called the nurse of children and a helper in childbirth, often associated with soothing the pain of birth itself. This is largely because Leto, Apollo and Artemis' mother, gave birth on the Isle of Delos without any assistance to speak of. When Leto gave birth to Artemis, she suffered no pain in the process, so in future times, Artemis would take on the role of alleviating birth pain itself, though it's always important to remember that Artemis never actually gives birth to anybody else. Once the children are born, Artemis, along with Dionysus, are two key patrons of nurses. Illustratively, the religious title Melissa tied Artemis' role in the moon with alleviating the pain of childbirth. Another religious title is Orselochia, which means helper in childbirth. A third is Paidotrophos, which means nurse of children. Anybody bearing children called upon Artemis for help as an anodyne and ensuring live birth. Anybody nursing children could look to Artemis to ensure adequate lactation. These religious associations directly connect Artemis to femininity. Artemis' role as a patron of nurses was so significant it was not just humans, but animals as well. Artemis is often associated with milk producing animals such as cows, goats, and sheep, as well as facilitating aspects of animal husbandry. Sometimes Artemis is even shown helping to save the lives of injured young animals, even nursing abandoned younglings back to health. This apparently strange occurrence is meant to be interpreted as a glorious miracle. Artemis will protect children and youths of any species when they are at their most vulnerable. So, by understanding Artemis' role in this religious context, we gain a sense of a connotation more discreetly feminine than in any other context described. Occasional outliers such as Zeus giving birth to Athena and Dionysus, or Tiresias giving birth while in the female body aside, the act of giving birth is generally associated with femininity in the ancient world. Additionally, the act of nursing is also affiliated principally with femininity. But here's where things get really interesting. It is not just non-binary Artemis, but gender queer Dionysus who are both patrons of nurses and guardians of young children. So in a somewhat unexpected way, it is actually these androgynous figures who are looked upon to protect young life. I would speculate that this has to do with the fact that we have figures who can walk in both masculine and in feminine circles who are seen as best equipped to protect young life. It would seem that somebody who knows both the ways of femininity and masculinity, yet winds up rejecting both wholeheartedly, might be better at guiding young life than somebody who only knows one or the other. Perhaps another day we can dig into this dynamic more deeply. Both of these figures feature heavily in parts of life where infants become children, and where young males become young men, or girls become young women, Dionysus and Artemis are always called upon in both situations. These are spaces where we might expect to see femininity or masculinity heightened, even exaggerated, so youths could come of age in an environment where they can see visibly the expectations of masculinity and femininity. Yet in these liminal stages it is figures who operate between femininity and masculinity who are actually sought out. Artemis at war. Finally, we have a case that I think ties together Artemis masculine and feminine into one single idea. Artemis is not typically a deity associated with conflict, at least not the grand warfare and battlefield combat so prized in ancient poetry. When Artemis is involved, conflicts are generally smaller affairs, such as Actian invading a private space, or a hero forgetting to sacrifice to Artemis. It's kind of a literary trope, actually, that some tragic hero would forget Artemis and not place offerings on the altar and so incur their wrath. This almost always led to some great tragedy, most iconically, Agamemnon sacrificing Iphigenia to Aulus. Why so many important kings and lords and heroes forgot Artemis so often is difficult to interpret. There's a very good chance that, much like Dionysus, they're a deity associated with the woods in the wilds, and so don't immediately come to mind when one is in the hall of a banquet or preparing for war. Nevertheless, Artemis definitely notices when heroes forget them. This is actually a key facet of Artemis, a certain wild unpredictability and often ironic cruelty directed at anybody who forgets to pay them proper respect. Any god or goddess is totally justified in taking vengeance when they're insulted by some hero. All sorts of bad fortune was often associated in mythology and epic and in daily life with forgetting to honor some god. While these could be minor slights, they could also be major insults before the gods. Nobody would argue that the god was out of line in punishing the mortal for some act. Artemis often goes above and beyond what is required by the situation, just to make a point to the mortals left alive. A counterexample to Actian is the Theban prophet Tiresias, who once saw Athena in a bath in a sacred cave, and Athena made them blind and transformed them into a female as punishment. While this is certainly ironic, seeing Athena against their will was the last thing Tiresias ever would see, and becoming a female forced them to experience feminine vulnerability. Athena chose to leave Tiresias alive. But as we just saw with Actian, that is not what Artemis does. Artemis makes sure that for the exact same sin, Actian is ripped apart and killed. This is the wild aspect of Artemis that Athena's more cultured aspects will not allow. At the end of the story, Actian actually attempts to speak, but is unable to because he has the body of a stag. So he thinks these words Happy Tiresias, you saw without destruction Athena, and you did not die. You did not gain the shape of a stag, you just lost your light in your eyes, and the brilliancy of the eyes of Athena were transplanted into your mind. Alas, Artemis is more dreadful in anger than Athena. Ultimately, Artemis is acting fiercely, but it is Actian who overstepped and is opposed. Of line. So it is Actian who must be punished. But when Artemis does go to war, it doesn't generally go as planned. During the conflict of the gods during the Iliad, Artemis and Apollo line up to fight against the Greeks. During the fight, Artemis squares off against Hera. The queen of the gods mocks Artemis for even trying to fight in a battle. She reminds Artemis that their bow is for use against women and wild animals. Bows used in war are the purview of Apollo. After Hera's insults, she grabs Artemis by the wrists and knocks them to the ground. Hera boxes Artemis' ears and knocks the bow and arrows to the ground. Artemis flees Troy back to Olympus. A similar episode happens when Artemis joins the battlefield to attack Hera in the Bacchic campaign in India. This time Artemis empties their quiver at Hera, but the Queen of Olympus keeps becoming a cloud and Artemis does no damage. Then Hera conjures a great chunk of hail and throws it at Artemis. This ice strikes like stone, and Artemis collapses upon the impact. After a few more insults from Hera, Apollo carries Artemis out of the battle. So Artemis is a hunter, not a warrior. As we discussed, Apollo is the god of using a bow in combat. Artemis is the hunter's god. So we can see, much like Athena or Dionysus, Artemis is a queer deity whose queerness allows them to better carry out their roles in the divine order. Artemis could never be a big game hunter and a heteronormative woman. They could not protect women and babies if they were a heteronormative male. The only way Artemis can play all the roles assigned to them is if they adopt a gendered queerness. Only by mixing the masculine and the feminine could they actually be the savior and non-binary champion humanity needed. Artemis' non-binary nature appears to be slightly more female aligned, running counter to Athena's non-binary nature, which is slightly more masculine aligned. Athena is a great craftsman who is as at home weaving as they are building ships or siege engines. It doesn't seem to matter what the craftsmanship is, Athena will do it better than just about anybody else in the universe. Artemis is a great hunter who is as at home dancing with the graces or running wild in the mountains. For this reason, it makes sense to discuss Artemis as a demi-woman non-binary. Today we chose to think about Artemis as a non-binary figure. Through their role as a hunter and general deity of wild spaces, Artemis adopted so many associations which blended masculinity and femininity. They were critical when guiding archers and hunting hounds. They could be wildly unpredictable, yet at all points they were acting within their rights as a god. Artemis protected women and children during some of the most vulnerable periods of their lives, like childbirth and childhood. So often we get the image in literature of arrogant male figures like Agamemnon or Actian who forgot to pay Artemis the proper respect and so were punished. But as we saw in the opening hymn, those who showed respect to this redeeming savior who looks masculine could expect great benefits from Artemis. Thank you for tuning in to our non-binary People's Day special. I hope you enjoyed another deep dive into Artemis. I know I did. We queer people collectively live in trying times, and non-binary people are perhaps second only to trans folks in the crosshairs of the global neoconservative bile. Yet I'm always inspired by the way non-binary people can survive and thrive through this adversity. And by thinking outside the binary, we all can gain greater access into the very constructs of sex, gender, and the very nature of human existence. Have a good international non-binary people's day. Notes and comments. Even when I was young, I felt like I was meant to relate more to heteronormative figures like Ares or Aphrodite, but when I looked to the Pantheon, I saw a vaguely feminine figure who loved running and exploring in the woods and mountains. I saw someone who is a figure I could relate to, not because I saw Artemis as a role model to aspire towards, but because I could see myself and my own wildness in Artemis. Even now, as I tramp through the woods and the fields, there is this wild, androgynous, yet vaguely feminine spirit I tend to bring as I work in contract archaeology. Thank you for exploring Artemis as a non-binary figure with me today. The opening hymn is an amalgamation of the Orphic hymn number 36 to Artemis, Homeric hymn number nine, and Homeric hymn number 27, both to Artemis. Telemachus reminds his mother Penelope that bows are men's business in the Odyssey, book 21, verse 353 through 354. It isn't just in Greek and Roman literature either, but also said by the Canaanite hero Akat to Anathu, or Anat, the Ugaritic goddess of hunting and warfare. We might return to this fascinating gender-nonconforming figure and the Ugaritic texts a bit later. The story of Actian is drawn from Nonos Dionysia, Book 5, verse 212 through 336, and Ovid's Metamorphosis, Book 3, verse 155 through 286. Odysseus bathes himself in a manner reminiscent of Artemis in the Odyssey, Book 6, verse 215 through 231. The story of Artemis' birth without causing any pain to Leto is preserved in Callimachus' hymn number 3 to Artemis. The deathbed speech or thoughts of Action was drawn from Nonos Dionysia, Book 3, verse 333 through 354, though the general idea is borrowed from Callimachus, hymn number 6 to Athena. Artemis is defeated by Hera in the Iliad, Book 21, verse 470 through 514. Artemis is defeated by Hera in the Dionysia, Book 36, verse 1 through 80. That's all for this week, folks. Remember to tune in next Monday for our episode about Dionysus as a demisexual deity. Have a good non binary people's day.