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History is Gay

6. Three Genders? In Ancient Egypt? It's More Likely Than You Think

History is Gay

Leigh Pfeffer

History, Society & Culture

4.6 β€’ 536 Ratings

πŸ—“οΈ 19 March 2018

⏱️ 99 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In today's episode, Leigh and Gretchen head way back in time to Ancient Egypt. That's right, get ready to walk like an Egyptian! Take a tour through Egyptian mythology to discuss what Set and Nephthys imply about Egypt having a concept of third gender. Plus, the dancing woman mummy, gender transformation in burial, the gender presentation of women pharaohs like Hatshepsut, and Gretchen's favorite gay Egyptian tomb! By the end, you'll see why having 3 genders in Ancient Egypt is more likely than people think!


Outline
0:00 – Introduction

5:38 – A Note on Mythological Sources

9:44 – Gender Ambiguity in Mythology

30:29 – What Does this Have to do with Gender?

40:00 – Other Evidence of Non-Cisheteronormative Gender

54:58 – Linguistic Evidence of Third Gender

1:07:36 – Two Famous hm Priests: Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep

1:23:52 – Takeaways

1:29:39 – How Gay Were They?

1:36:51 – Closing and Where to Find us Online


Find our full list of sources and bonus content atΒ www.historyisgaypodcast.com. Get at us on twitterΒ @historyisgaypod, tumblr at historyisgaypodcast, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts! Don't forget to rate and review so more folks can see the show!

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello, and welcome to History is Gay, a podcast that examines the underappreciated and overlooked

0:06.0

queer ladies, gents, and gentle enbies that have always been there in the unexplored corners of history,

0:12.1

because history has never been as straight as you think.

0:32.2

Music Hey, folks, I'm Lee.

0:33.2

And I'm Gretchen.

0:37.3

And in this episode, we are talking about ancient Egypt.

0:38.4

Yay.

0:42.6

Getting that good, good old mythology fun in here.

0:43.2

I know.

0:43.9

I know.

0:51.3

I don't know about whether this is still a thing, but like when I was young, like everyone had an Egyptian phase where you were just like. Oh, yeah.

0:52.2

Obsessed.

0:53.5

I mean, I'm still in that phase.

0:55.7

Let's be real.

0:56.6

Let's be real.

0:57.1

No, I never left.

0:58.2

I have a couple of degrees in ancient Near Eastern, like linguistics and history.

1:03.6

So, I mean, I may have like shifted a little bit around the Mediterranean Sea.

1:09.7

But like, I still love everything about ancient

1:12.8

Egypt.

1:13.1

I wrote a paper about ancient Egyptian viniculture for an archaeology class.

1:17.2

I just wanted to talk about wine.

...

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