Sed illae puellae: Transgender Studies and Apuleius's The Golden Ass

Abstract:Within scholarship on The Golden Ass, Lucius's time among the devotees of the goddess Cybele (8.24–30) is usually understood as one more picaresque episode that lambasts the depravity of the Roman empire, while its galli are rarely seen as more than as mincing punchlines. Here, bringing insights from transgender studies, I argue that when Lucius reports on the galli, he is unknowingly observing an alternative community of trans women rather than cinaedi. Further, a transgenderstudies reading of the novel recuperates the galli as developed characters with their own interiority and agency and allows us to see how their transing in Book 8 sheds light on Lucius's bodily and spiritual transformations later in the novel. As both historical figures and characters within the narrative, the galli set a compelling precedent for an ancient trans identity that conceives of the self as authoritative, without recourse to the physical body as a source of truth.