Shereen El Feki's fascinating glimpse into the sex life of the Arab World, Sex and the Citadel, includes the amazing story about female to male crossdreamers in ninth century Baghdad.
As the story has it, the wife of Sultan Harun al-Rashid, Zubayda, was starting to get worried about their son, al-Amin.
My sources are divided as regards his sexuality. Feki argues he was attracted to men, while the Wikipedia article refers to his fascination for castrated eunuchs. Regardless: There would clearly be no heir from the heir to this throne.
Al-Amin and his transmasculine girls
But Zubayda was a resourceful woman. She dressed up some of the slave girls up as boys and cut their hair, in the hope that they would attract the attention of their son.
This seemed to have worked. Al-Amin's favorite boyish slave girl was 'Arib, famous for her beauty and her intelligence -- a singer, poet, chess player and excellent horsewoman.
The story may perfectly well be true. If al-Amin was attracted to eunuchs, he would be what we today call gender queer rather than homosexual, probably with some kind of trans-fascination. If that was indeed the case, an interest in girls taking over the role as boys would not be out of the question.
Be that as it may, to me story sound a little bit like an after-rationalization -- an attempt by non-transgender people to explain the unexplainable: the ghulamiyyat of ancient Baghdad.
There is no doubt in my mind that many of these girls were indeed what I call female to male crossdreamers, and some shade of trans in the wide umbrella sense of that word.
The gulamiyyat
This is what El Feki says about them:
"In ninth-century Baghdad, the hottest girls on the streets looked like boys. These were the ghulamiyyat -- a feminine derivative of the Arabic word for a young man.
"These women were a curious combination of male and female. The ghulamiyat dressed like men, yet wore makeup. While they plucked their eyebrows and painted their lips, they also drew on mustaches in musk.
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| Some of the Jasmines of ancient Baghdad preferred the life of Aladdin (Image: Disney) |
My sources are divided as regards his sexuality. Feki argues he was attracted to men, while the Wikipedia article refers to his fascination for castrated eunuchs. Regardless: There would clearly be no heir from the heir to this throne.
Al-Amin and his transmasculine girls
But Zubayda was a resourceful woman. She dressed up some of the slave girls up as boys and cut their hair, in the hope that they would attract the attention of their son.
This seemed to have worked. Al-Amin's favorite boyish slave girl was 'Arib, famous for her beauty and her intelligence -- a singer, poet, chess player and excellent horsewoman.
The story may perfectly well be true. If al-Amin was attracted to eunuchs, he would be what we today call gender queer rather than homosexual, probably with some kind of trans-fascination. If that was indeed the case, an interest in girls taking over the role as boys would not be out of the question.
Be that as it may, to me story sound a little bit like an after-rationalization -- an attempt by non-transgender people to explain the unexplainable: the ghulamiyyat of ancient Baghdad.
There is no doubt in my mind that many of these girls were indeed what I call female to male crossdreamers, and some shade of trans in the wide umbrella sense of that word.
The gulamiyyat
This is what El Feki says about them:
"In ninth-century Baghdad, the hottest girls on the streets looked like boys. These were the ghulamiyyat -- a feminine derivative of the Arabic word for a young man.
"These women were a curious combination of male and female. The ghulamiyat dressed like men, yet wore makeup. While they plucked their eyebrows and painted their lips, they also drew on mustaches in musk.
