Maybe jesus was actually a trans man, and the bible is the first piece of trans positive literature
Jesus said to them: When you make the two one, and when you make the inside as the outside, and the outside as the inside, and the upper as the lower, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male is not male and the female not female, and when you make eyes in place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then shall you enter [the kingdom].
Gospel of Thomas Saying 22
The gnostics were very big on God being both male and female and that our divine selves were androgynous with both male and female aspect. Shame the nascent catholic chruch had them wiped out.
Non english speaker, I thought it wasn’t transphobic to say “female” when referring to “XX people” instead of “XX = girl/woman” that do is transphobic.
It's transphobic to conclude someone is female who does not identify that way because of their genetics.
But I think we all know you're an ally, this doesn't seem purposeful.
Non english speaker, I thought it wasn't transphobic to say "female" when referring to "XX people" instead of "XX = girl/woman" that do is transphobic.
Nah, at least as far as I'm aware, at most when referring to people assumed to be XX you'd call them AFAB (assigned female at birth) and for likely-XY people you'd say AMAB (assigned male at birth).
There are quite a few other combinations of sex chromosomes (XXX, XXY, X, plus some others - you can basically keep adding Xs onto them up to a point) and people with those combinations often don't know they have them, so really it's hard to make too many assumptions about people's chromosomes anyway.
Amaterasu, as sun goddess and her connection to the Japanese imperial family could be considered a "main character." Epona was a horse goddess who seemed to be the pre-eminent goddess of parts of Gaul and even became popular in the Roman Empire. Atabey was the big goddess for the Tainos though shs kinda shares the stage with her husband... uh... Pre-Islamic Arabia, while generally pretty diverse, had three major goddesses who had become main figures around the time Islam was kicking off. Manat and I can't remember the other names.
Of course the big problem is the idea that religions have MCs. While certain codified, organized ones do, polytheistic religions, especially pre-modern ones, would change who was most important depending on location and time period. For example, you might consider Odin the MC of the Germanic Pantheon, but that's due to some cultural evolution and also a limited perspective. There's lots of evidence tribes predominantly considered Tyr (Teiwaz, Ziu [related to Zeus, etymologically]) to be the main god before Odin slowly usurped the position. Or while Aphrodite is mostly a troublemaker in the Athenian version of Classical mythology, the Spartans really respected her and also treated her as a war goddess and thus she was more important.
Just got to an early part of Caliban and the Witch where she talks about how medieval European heretic religions such as Catharism and the Waldensians were much more egalitarian in regards to woman, and who were kinda like medieval proto proletarian/feminist movements. This of course had to be stamped out, as you alluded to.
观音 (Guanyin, Avalokiteshvara) is one of the most revered Bodhisattvas in Mahayana Buddhism and is usually depicted as female or sometimes gender neutral because she can take many forms. According to the Lotus Sutra she is one who hears all suffering and vowed to practice in order to end the suffering of all beings and guide them to the Pure Land called Sukhāvatī which is the realm of the Buddha Amitabha. She is also an important character in the Journey to the West which is one of the most famous Chinese folk tales/books!
Apparently there were some periods where Inanna/Ishtar was the most prominent mythical figure among the Sumerians and some related peoples (it's one of those cases where two separate gods got merged into one). She also appears to have been the main inspiration behind the Canaanite goddess Astarte, and ultimately Aphrodite and Venus.
ishtar is awesome she is basically the goddess of trans and non-binary people. there are interesting texts about her being able to change people's genders and some about her being saved from the underworld by nonbinary people.
We could just make one. We can choose one of our comrades here and elevate her to Goddesshood. The question is who is willing to become more than a mere poster.
Or look into any non mainstream religion, there's bound to be some. Mention yesterday in a different thread La Santa Muerte. Google it my device's battery dying and or I don't know much tbh.
I like the Shaktism branch of Hinduism. It has a female creator god and she takes on hundred of differnt forms depending on what task is at hand.
We all forget Mary laying the egg and incubating it in the manger.
Wasn't --any religion-- started by a wannabe-cult-leader semester?
But yes, wicca especially.
Also here’s a wiki for ur leisure: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardnerian_Wicca
I don't know if everyone counts it as a religion but Theosophy was founded by Helena Blavatsky and the top of their hierarchy is non-personified/non-gendered (to the extent I know anything about this stuff).
there's a Korean Christian cult that says jesus reincarnated in the body of some lady
Christian feminine divinity is usually associated with the Virgin Mary. One of the minor leaders in the Haitian Revolution lead a religious cult by claiming to be speaking for the Virgin Mary. This person was a man who affected a female persona - I don't know what the correct way to express this is without being anachronistic: they would plausibly have been trans nowadays, but that wasn't a concept in French/Creole culture at the time.
