Sexual Ambiguity: Development of Judgement and Evaluation Criteria over the Centuries

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Plastic Surgery, Bordighera-Milan IT, Bordighera, Italy

This chapter has been translated with permission from Kurtis Editore srl. Original publication: L’ambiguità sessuale: evoluzione nei secoli dei criteri di giudizio e valutazione, in “Il Transessualismo”, 1999, E. Belgrano, B. Fabris, C. Trombetta, ISBN 978-88-85030-33-5

Sexual ambiguity has always interested human beings and has taken on very different meanings over different periods according to cultural changes, moral principles and religious ethics. It has inspired beliefs, tales of mythology, exquisite works of art and impassioned verses. Later, the topic was mulled over by philosophers, naturalists and legal experts followed, in modern times, by endocrinologists, sexologists, psychologists and surgeons, although the concept of hermaphroditism, pseudohermaphroditism and homosexuality long remained confused. The literature on the subject is therefore characterised by substantial shifts.

In ancient times, fascinating legends and myths were offset by the realistic views and medicolegal principles set forth in Talmudic and Roman law texts and the thoughts of Greek philosophers. The ethical, religious and legal issues raised at a later stage, though often contradictory and confusing in their interpretation, nevertheless revealed an attempt at scientific investigation. As research progressed and scientific concepts were rationalised, the subject was mainly dealt with from a medical angle, opening the door to our present-day judgement and evaluation criteria. The outcome has been the emergence of an intersexual being, with normal opposing male and female traits and a gender identity that is no longer forced to suffocate and conceal itself.

2.1 Summary of Historical Research

2.1.1 Ancient Period

Sexual ambiguity has been the subject of religious beliefs since the most remote times: one clear example is Astarte, the hermaphrodite moon goddess, worshipped by the Neo-Babylonian and Egyptian peoples, as well as the bearded Venus of the ancient Cypriots. This concept spread to Greece towards the end of the tenth century BC, with grotesque figures transformed into classically accepted male and female forms of beauty, such as the hermaphrodite of Polykleitos (fourth century BC), the “Mirecourt” hermaphrodite (second century BC), the sleeping hermaphrodite (second century BC) and the bathing hermaphrodite, kept in the Museum of Naples (Kylices of the fifth century BC).

Mythology includes a wealth of references to the subject and inspired the poets Hesiod, Horace, Martial and Lucretius, who all wrote passages referring to such legends. Ausonius (epigraph LXIX, C and CI) provided the most comprehensive descriptions of this disorder. Ovid wrote impassioned verses referring to the fable of Salmacis, who was madly in love with Hermaphroditus, son of Hermes and Aphrodite and, due to her inability to seduce him, successfully appealed to the gods to join them eternally to form a single male and female body (Metamorphosis, book IV).

Among the philosophers, naturalists and historians, mention must be made of Aristotle (De generatione animalium – Latin translation) who observed the anomaly in sheep, while Plato, who referred to a case of hermaphroditism in humans, considered that this must have been the condition of the first living beings. In his Histories, Herodotus harks back to the “female sickness” of the Scythians, of which Hippocrates provides a scientific explanation in his work On Airs, Waters and Places. Strabone in Geography and Pliny in Historia mundi also provide explanations of the origin of the term. The interest of legal experts was present from ancient times: the topic was dealt with on a legal level in Talmudic writings, when it was strictly related to religious ethics, considering four types of androgyny: male, female, male–female and neither man nor woman. Rules of living were laid down for each one, with severe penalties for transgressors.

In the Roman Digest, sexual ambiguity crops up repeatedly and the chapter “De statu hominum” establishes that hermaphrodites should be attributed the gender of which they demonstrate the most evident traits (Fig. 2.1).

Fig. 2.1

Sleeping Hermaphroditus. Hermaphroditus: Greek marble, Roman copy of the second century CE after a Hellenistic original of the second century BC, restored in 1619 by David Larique; mattress: Carrara marble, made by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1619 on Cardinal Borghese’s request

Customs and moral principles gradually changed with the rise of Christianity. By the time he wrote his “Letters to the Romans”, St. Paul was already condemning homosexuality and obviously any inklings of sexual ambiguity. St. Augustine mentioned it in his De Civitate Dei, while in the scientific field, Galen’s effective and conscientious description specified the anatomical and clinical traits, suggesting criteria of surgical treatment for the androgyne.

2.1.2 Mediaeval and Renaissance Period

Mediaeval literature on sexual ambiguity was inspired to a large extent by the works of Paul of Aegina (seventh century AD), who leaves us an anatomoclinical classification distinguishing three different forms of male hermaphrodite and two forms of female hermaphrodite. The suggested treatment is brutal removal of the “excess parts” because they are superfluous or harmful (Fig. 2.2). One exception was the most severe male form, which he considered to be incurable.