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Comment by weakfish | Hacker News Reader

> The sexual identity of this goddess is controversial. In one late text, Ishtar says of herself: "I am a woman, I am a man." Ishtar could be viewed as a beautiful goddess of love who rules the day and as a bearded god(dess) of war who rules the night. It is claimed that the androgyny of Inanna/Ishtar provided a powerful symbol of the ambiguities of pure sexuality reflected in her cult, and in the transvestism of her cultic personnel (Groneberg 1986).

https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-a...

Weird source but I’m in mobile.

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Nice reference. It’s a source from 1986 about text written thousands of years ago. Well before so called woke culture. I wonder if BaculumMeumEst will admit to jumping to conclusions and realize that they might be a victim in this instance of a propaganda induced reaction.

Maybe this gender fluidity notion isn’t just post-modern made up nonsense.

The particular source, for anyone interested in hopping an intermediary link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25683215

(I'll leave this helpful comment for historians of future). "Fluidity" is the trip wire word that is not immediately suggested by the Goddess' pronouncements regarding its sexual ambiguity and or nature. 'Diversity' would be the non-ideological term of choice.

For example, castration for the goddess was a big deal. (Kali had her crazed devotees as well. Modern S&M gives you echoes of this urge of the male pysche..) So there is no going back, no back and forth, no "fluidity" when you plop ye old bloody member on the temple floor in front of the goddess. Gender change. Yes. Fluid? No.

Btw, can't recall the source, but there are mystic schools that insist the '[Mother] Goddess' slaughters all these males because she is seeking her Perfect Man/Lover. So the drones that go 'fluid' for her are really just playing their part in the selection process.

https://aratta.wordpress.com/2015/08/02/inannas-sumerisk-og-...

[p.s. for historians. Since this comment was posted, I have lost 10 karma points in minutes - it is a touchy topic that elicits emotional responses. ;)]

I’m no expert on the precise definition of gender fluidity. Groneberg used the terms transvestism and androgyny. In colloquial language that’s an aspect of gender fluidity, right? Maybe gender fluidity is the wrong term but it’s certainly a splash of cold water, so to speak, to those that think this is all wokist nonsense. A scholar in 1986 uses transvestism and androgyny to describe beliefs of people from thousands of years ago.

Human sexuality is a very complicated business and I agree that the binary norm is (obviously imo) not the only naturally present modality, and historic matter shows this was also recognized for thousands of years in various cultures. I only remarked on the word fluid and the implied facility, substitutability, and reversibility of the transitions and modalities of human sexuality.

I assume that the 'fluidity' is referring to Ishtar _herself_ rather than the behaviour of her worshippers, though like I say above I'm pretty sure the author is being somewhat tongue in cheek.

(Though, also, where are you getting the castration thing? There were definitely goddesses whose priesthoods went in for that in that general part of the world, eg Cybele, but I don't think Ishtar was particularly one of them?)

I agree that it likely refers to the divine but as you say it also leaves the door open for confusing mere mortals. I am not certain about Ishtar's priesthood, you may be correct. This article mentions Inana/Ishtar:

https://www.willsworld.org/priests.html

I don’t think a source saying the deity’s gender was controversial and calling their followers “transvestites” supports the description “defender of gender fluidity”.

I was responding to your response of dude, come on. That response said much about your frame of mind. You didn’t know about the research article that weakfish linked to when you made it. It appears you had no context or knowledge on the topic of this deity or its followers’ beliefs. It appears it was a knee jerk response assuming the reporter was engaged in some wokist propaganda.

An intellectually honest response to the link supplied by weakfish would be to question why defender of gender fluidity is the right description while acknowledging that this is new information and that your initial response was wrong. That the description defender of gender fluidity might have some merit to it but you remain skeptical and would like to learn more about why people use this description.

> It’s a source from 1986 about text written thousands of years ago. Well before so called woke culture.

A bit unacknowledged fact is that many books Nazi burned were about transexuality. The modernity they hated was also this. Transexuals and gays were particular target.

I did not know this. It seems like an apt bit of knowledge and context given current events.

Look up Magnus Hirschfeld. The famous photo of Nazi book burnings was from the Hirschfeld Institute.

I did!

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