Crossdreamers: Were There Transgender Vikings? The Laxdæla Saga Says So.

February 5, 2025

Were There Transgender Vikings? The Laxdæla Saga Says So.

One of the main transphobic arguments these days is that people become trans because of "gender ideology". And "gender ideology" is apparently something new invented by post-modernists, Marxists and progressive leftists. So what if I told you there were transgender people in Scandinavia in the Middle Ages?

Transgender people in history

I have already documented transgender people in ancient and medieval India, ancient Phrygia and Rome, the Roman Empire, ancient Baghdad and late 19th century Berlin, and I have also written a popular article about William Shakespeare being in love with a transfeminine person.

However, with the exception of the poem on gender dysphoria from Kalonymos ben Kalonymus (1322), none of the original sources I have found have been written by trans people. All of the texts, including the one I present here, will therefore have to be read with an open, but critical, mind.

Getting behind the stereotypes
Reconstructed Viking women's clothing.
Photo: Battle-Merchant

Many of the historical texts are written by transphobes or people who do not understand gender variance. Still, even a queer-phobic or transphobic text can be a witness to gender variance, because why would the author imagine cross-gender expressions if the culture had no concepts of gender variance?

Whether the author of the text I am going to present today, namely the 13th century Laxdæla Saga (also written as Laksdøla, Laksdæla or Laxardale), is transphobic remains to be seen.

It clearly refers to negative tropes about both transfeminine and transmasculine gender variance. The story in the saga takes place around 1000 CE, which mean that this may also apply to the Viking age.

Note that I am using the word "transgender" as an umbrella term covering a wide variety of gender variance here. The references found in the saga do not tell us if the people referred to were gender dysphoric or gender incongruent as we use these medical terms today.

The similarities with contemporary gender variance leads me to believe, however, that many of them probably were.

A Norse Game of Thrones

The Laxdæla Saga is an amazing piece of literature, a kind of Old Norse Game of Thrones (but without the dragons). It can be classified as a kind of chivalric romance, a type of literature that was popular in the noble courts of high medieval Europe.

Yet, it is also extremely Scandinavian, especially when it comes to the description of the female characters, who do not in any way live up to the ideals of chaste and demure Christian women.

The lack of a real feudal culture in Norway and Iceland meant that the big farms were the centre of power, and there the women were nearly as powerful as the men, if not on paper so at least in real life.

There are those who argue that The Laxdæla Saga must have been written by a woman, given that the female characters are the ones who drive the narrative. This especially applies to Gudrun, the main character, whose plots and power plays define the saga. Gudrun Osvivsdotter was "the most beautiful of all the women who have grown up on Iceland, and she also seemed to be the wisest."

I have to add that she was also a manipulative badass, as reflected in the part we are going to look at, which covers two of her four marriages.

Sexuality and gender in the Viking age

Note that the sexual practices of Viking Norway and Iceland (from the late 700s to around 1050 CE) were very flexible. Virginity in brides was a non-issue and women could divorce their husbands just by saying so to witnesses. Female divorcees were also entitled to their part of the couple's property.

In Scandinavia, as in the rest of Europe and the Middle East at the time, people did not have a concept of homosexuality, in the sense of an inborn sexual orientation. Same-sex relationships were not banned, but a man that was seen as the receptive or passive partner was looked down upon. In other words: Being seen as "feminine" was bad for a man.

Lesbian relationships are close to invisible in the sources.

By the time the Laxdæla saga was written, Norway and Iceland had become Christian nations, and "sodomy" was seen as a sin. I do not think this has influenced the views of the author of this saga, however.

We have clear indications of gender variance in Viking Scandinavia. A famous Viking warrior burial (Birka Grave Bj 581) in Sweden was long assumed to belong to a man because it contained weapons, armor, and a military strategy game. However, DNA testing in 2017 confirmed that the skeleton was "biologically female". It is probably safe to say that they were some shade of transmasculine, but whether they saw themselves as s a man or a woman is not known.

In Viking society, practicing seiðr, a form of magic and divination, was often associated with women. Men who practiced it were therefor often seen as taking on a more "feminine" role and could be insulted as ergi or argr (a term that implied gender deviance, effeminacy, or homosexuality).

There may have been an overlap between Viking and Sámi cross-gender magical practices. Many shamanistic cultures allow for transfeminine shamans, and this seems to apply to the shamanism of both Germanic and Sámi tribes in Scandinavia.

Valkyrie or shield-maiden
from Hårby in Denmark
Photo: Gilwellian,

Some Viking graves contain both male and female artifacts, which could indicate people who lived outside of strict binary gender roles. We have graves with male skeletons wearing female dresses and jewelry. There are also stories about female warriors, or shield maidens, in the sagas.

Crossdressing and gender transformations were also known from Norse religion. Loki transforms into a mare and has intercourse with a stallion. Disguised as a woman Odin managed to beget a son to avenge Balder, and he practiced seiðr, which - as noted - could be seen as unmanly.

Transfeminine crossdressing in the Laxdæla saga

In the Laxdæla Saga accusations of crossdressing are used to achieve certain objectives.

It is clear that the crossdressing is seen as something negative and stigmatizing by most of the characters in the saga. This is why accusing someone of using clothes made for "the other" gender works.

However, it is not obvious that the author shares this disdain.

Interestingly, the story makes use of crossdressing accusations twice, first against a man and next against someone assigned female. There is nothing in the text that implies that the man is transgender, but the author is deliberately vague when it comes to the female assigned character.

My Old Norse is not good enough to give you a direct translation of the relevant parts of the saga, but I have made an English language version of the relevant text based on Danish, Norwegian and Swedish translations, and you can read the whole text over at my Sidebar blog. There you will also find references to the various translations.

So let's go back to Gudrun, the main protagonist and her desire to divorce her husband Thorvald. Gudrun wants to be with Thord and Thorvald is in her way.

Thord, on the other hand, is married to Aud, a woman he married for money and not for love. So he has to get rid of Aud if he is to hook up with Gudrun.

One day Gudrun demands more jewelry from her husband Thorvald, and he responds by hitting her in the face, arguing that she has become too greedy. Gudrun does not take this lightly and answers with the kind of understatement the sagas are know for:

"You have given me, by your standards, a great adornment—a good complexion. Rest assured, I will trouble you no further."

She then meets up with Thord:

She recounted the humiliation she had endured and asked what revenge she should take. Thord laughed and said, "I have a good suggestion: sew him a low-cut shirt! When you see him wearing it, you can demand a divorce and exercise your rights."

A Swedish translation adds the words: "for the law permits such, when the man dresses as a woman". Whether these additional words are included in any of the many Norse versions of the saga or if this is something the translator has added, I do not know.

The Icelandic version I could find does not have the Swedish addendum:

Þórður brosti að og mælti: "Hér kann eg gott ráð til. Gerðu honum skyrtu og brautgangs höfuðsmátt og seg skilið við hann fyrir þessar sakir."

Still, the added text makes sense, as the gender role violation is implied in all versions.

Viking serks. Photos from Grimfrost.

Why the Icelandic text uses the Old Norse word skyrtu and not serkr, I do not know, but they both refer to the serk, a Viking linen garment that might function both as a shirt or tunic for men and an underdress for women. As far as I know, the women's version could be longer than the male one (but did not have to be).

However, Thord does not refer to the length of the garment, but the length or the width of the opening. In the saga this is clearly meant to be a signifier of gender.

Whether this is a Viking thing or something that makes more sense in the 1240's, I do not know. Male serks have not been found, and the women's ones that have been found do not necessarily have deep necklines. However, the drawing below, from the Ulvdal stave church in Norway (late 12th century), shows a woman's serk with a deep neckline, so when the saga was written this was clearly a thing.

From Aftenposten

What the text tell us is therefore the following:

The author, writing in the mid 13th century, clearly thinks that for a man to wear a woman's shirt/serk/underdress was seen as a sign of some kind of femininity. This was so bad in the Viking age that it was cause for divorce.

In the saga Gudrun is granted divorce on the basis of this accusation. Thorvald's defense is not known, as the saga does not spend much time on his real gender identity.

The saga is in general pretty detailed when it comes to describing all the people included and what happens to them, and most experts argue that it is based on real people and real events.

Still, the author's interpretation of what happened in Iceland and Norway around 1000 CE might have been colored by their own life experiences around 1240 or so, which means that we cannot say for sure if this crossdressing story is from the Viking age.

However, we can with certainty say that there must have been male assigned persons on Iceland and in Norway in the 13th century who wore women's clothing, at least in privacy. Given the stigma attached to femininity in men, we can assume that the drive towards doing so was very strong. This was not something you did in jest.

This means that there must have been transfeminine people in Iceland and Norway at that time. I see no proof there being a 13th century leftist transgender ideology/conspiracy that caused trans people to become trans in the high middle ages, so it is a fair guess that something like this could have happened in the Viking age as well.

Transmasculine crossdressing in the Laxdæla saga

Now that Gudrun had gotten rid of her husband Thordvald, Thord needs to get rid of his wife Aud. Gudrum has clearly learned from her own success, because now she copies Thorvald's original plan:

One fine day, while riding over Blue Forest Heath, Gudrun suddenly said, "Is it true, Thord, that your wife Aud frequently wears trousers with a flap on the back and straps down into her shoes?" He replied that he had not seen it.
"Then it must be idle talk if you haven’t seen it," said Gudrun. "But why then do people call her Trousers-Aud?" Thord replied, "That name probably hasn’t been used for long." Gudrun commented, "But she will be called that for much longer."

Gudrun points out that the punishment for a woman wearing trousers is the same as for as a man who wears a woman's low-cut shirt, exposing his chest. Both acts give grounds for divorce.

Baggy viking trousers with ribbons
over leg bindings.
Photo: Burgschneider

So here we go again, with someone slandering the reputation of people by accusing them of cross-gender expressions.

I have not found any archeological evidence of Viking trousers with a flap in the back, but we do know of trousers with a striped woven band running along the bottom of each leg. Moreover, Viking men often wore leg bindings—long strips of wool wrapped around the lower legs from ankle to knee.

(Not that this makes any difference as far as proof of cross-gender expression goes.)

I have not been able to find Icelandic or Norwegian laws from the Medieval period that punishes crossdressing, but there are apparently paragraphs in the Icelandic Grágás (Gray Goose) law and the Norwegian Gulathing and Frostathing laws that say that accusations of crossdressing are valid reason for duels. So Gudrun's explanation is not unreasonable.

Thord then goes to the Thing (i.e the law assembly/court), takes witnesses and declares himself divorced from Aud because she wears men’s trousers. Note that this is not something the assembly decides. He is there for the witnesses. When Aud learns of the divorce, she says: "Well, now I know it, I shall remain alone."

Later that year Thord and Gudrun gets married.

What I find interesting here is how the author does not spend any time on what happened to Thorvald after his humiliation. They spend much more time on Aud and her revenge.

Aud's revenge

The next summer Aud gets some intel from a shepherd up in the mountains. He tells her that Thord and Osvif are alone at their farm:

“You’ve done well,” she said. “Keep two horses saddled when the people go to bed.” The shepherd did as she instructed, and just before sunset, they both mounted their horses; at that point, it could be that Aud was wearing trousers.

In other words: The rumors about her manliness might have been true.

And Aud does indeed live up to her manly reputations when she rides down to Thord and Gudrun's farm and molests him with a knife.

Thord was sleeping on his back. Aud woke him, but he turned onto his side when he realized another person was there. She then drew a large knife and stabbed Thord, wounding him severely in his right arm and both nipples. She struck with such force that the knife stuck fast in the bed frame. Afterward, Aud went out, mounted her horse, and rode home.

Thord did not die, and when Gudrun comes back he stops her plans of revenge, saying that Aud was within her rights to act as she had.

To me the text seems to communicate admiration for Aud and not contempt. Because of this I do understand why some argue that the author must have been a woman. I would guess that she is also a wronged woman, and maybe even on the transmasculine side herself. But we cannot know this for sure.

But we can conclude that there were trans people in Iceland and Norway in the mid 13th century. I also find it reasonable that the crossdressing stories have an older origin, and that they also reflect Viking ideas about gender roles, even if the text is colored by 13th century experiences.

When we add this saga to the archeological finds, what we know about seiðr and mythological Norse gender transformations, I would argue that we with great certainty that, yes, there were transgender Vikings.

Read my translation of the crossd-gender parts of the Laxdæla Saga here.