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 girlfags
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.
"In an age of strict segregation, they hung out with men at dogfights, hunts, horse races, and chess matches, all the while eschewing such feminine niceties as wearing jewelry and braiding their hair.
"They even took male names. Yet they made no attempt to bind their breasts and were decidedly heterosexual, often painting their male lover's names on their cheeks."
El Feki tells us that according to some accounts there were as many as four thousand ghulamiyyat at the court of al-Rashid. That might be an exaggeration, but the number tells a lot about how common they must have been. There are reports saying that they became quite fashionable.
Given the current phobias of most religious leaders of the Arab world today, it is hard to believe that muslim countries could be this tolerant of gender diversity in the ninth century. But history tells us otherwise.
Al-Tifashi's Promenade of the Hearts
The most important source of Arab trans-gressions in earlier epochs is the ninth century writer Ahmad ibn Yusuf al-Tifashi.
It pains me to say that there is no complete English translation of his most important work, A Promenade of the Hearts, in What Does Not Exist in a Book, available. El Feki says that Daniel Newman is preparing one, however, and as soon as I can get hold of it, I will come back to you with more.
Contemporary girlfags in the Arab world
The ghulamiyyat are still around, but today you won't find them in the palaces of presidents and kings. Arab political and religious leaders now argue that girls bending the genders are an import from the decadent west.
El Feki tells the story about the boyat of the United Arab Emirates, where police squads scan malls and other public places in search of suspicious looking girls:
"Boyat have been variously accused of mental illness, defying God's creation, and sowing moral corruption through predatory homsexuality and same-sex marriage, not to mention Satan worship and jinn possession."
These are similar to the arguments heaped on homosexuals and transgender people by bigots in Europe and North America, as well.
The distinction between lesbian and man-loving boyat is not clear to me, nor to the Arabs it seems.
Most of the boyat, regardless of sexual orientation, are active cross-dressers. Most of them cross-dress in private. In conservative societies with strict gender dress codes, even gender challenging women become visible when crossdressing.
Motivation
I am sure there are those who would like to correct me now, arguing that neither the ghulamiyyat or the boyat are really crossdreamers. Instead they are girls and women trying to express traits and abilities forbidden to women in most parts of the Arab world.
In Afghanistan there is a tradition where parents without a son let their daughter live like a boy until she is to marry. This has the benefit of allowing her to work outside the house and help the family in this way.
But this will be to miss the main point of my argument: These girls dress up as girls out of an inner need, not because their parents ask them too. Most Arab girls would not even contemplate doing this, and their parents would be appalled. The social pressure to stick to the norms is so strong, that it takes an enormous psychological drive to make a girl take on the role of a boy.
If this was a political need only, it would make much more sense for the girl to focus on getting an education and an independent job, if possible. It is easier to achieve such a goal, if you stay under the radar and pretend to be a "regular girl".
As for the sexual part, it is pretty clear that the ghulamiyyat lived an active sex life,while playing the role of boy. It is extremely hard for me to accept that this need was completely decoupled from their sexuality.
Indeed, we have a description of the sexual side to women's gender bending from an Arab serving the Normans on medieval Sicily:
Stephen O. Murray quotes Sharif al-Idrisi (1100-66) describing Arab girls who wanted to be on top:
"There are also women who are more intelligent than others. They possess many of the ways of men so that they resemble them even in their movements, the manner in which they talk, and their voice. Such women would like to be the active partner, and they would like to be the superior to the man who makes this possible for them. Such a woman does not shame herself, either, if she seduces whom she desires. If she has no inclination, he cannot force her to make love. This makes it difficult to submit to the wishes of men and brings her to lesbian love."
In other words: These women may have been heterosexual, but the power struggle of their times pushed them into the arms of submissive women.
The invisible crossdreamers
Hadn't it been for the book by El Feki, I wouldn't have found out about the ghulamiyyat. There is close to nothing about them online in English. A regular Google search yields nothing. Google Scholar brings up a few references.
As in the case of the girlfags of the Kama Sutra it is as if there is some kind of conspiracy going on, aimed at making the crossdreamers invisible -- today as well as yesterday. The current stigmatization of crossdreamers among sexologists, post-structuralist academics and radical feminist only serves to reinforce this invisibility.
It is therefore extremely important to identify examples as the ones given by El Feki. No longer is it possible to say that crossdreaming is a social construct of a "capitalist patriarchal society" or a fetish only. The girlfags of Baghdad and the FTM crossdreamers of ancient India point to an underlying condition that is there independently of the cultural context.
If there are any of my readers fluent in languages like Arabic, Persian, Mandarin, Hindi and Sanskrit who can help me track down relevant literature, I would be very grateful.
See also my post on the ancient Indian girlfags of the Kama Sutra
Gulf News on the Boyat pheonomenon
Sahar Amer: Crossing Borders
Stephen Murray: "Women-women love in Islamic Societies" in Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe: Islamic Homsexualities
 |
| 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 girlfags
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.
"In an age of strict segregation, they hung out with men at dogfights, hunts, horse races, and chess matches, all the while eschewing such feminine niceties as wearing jewelry and braiding their hair.
"They even took male names. Yet they made no attempt to bind their breasts and were decidedly heterosexual, often painting their male lover's names on their cheeks."
El Feki tells us that according to some accounts there were as many as four thousand ghulamiyyat at the court of al-Rashid. That might be an exaggeration, but the number tells a lot about how common they must have been. There are reports saying that they became quite fashionable.
Given the current phobias of most religious leaders of the Arab world today, it is hard to believe that muslim countries could be this tolerant of gender diversity in the ninth century. But history tells us otherwise.
Al-Tifashi's Promenade of the Hearts
The most important source of Arab trans-gressions in earlier epochs is the ninth century writer Ahmad ibn Yusuf al-Tifashi.
It pains me to say that there is no complete English translation of his most important work, A Promenade of the Hearts, in What Does Not Exist in a Book, available. El Feki says that Daniel Newman is preparing one, however, and as soon as I can get hold of it, I will come back to you with more.
Contemporary girlfags in the Arab world
 |
| Arabian boyat. The image was found doing a Google search. |
El Feki tells the story about the boyat of the United Arab Emirates, where police squads scan malls and other public places in search of suspicious looking girls:
"Boyat have been variously accused of mental illness, defying God's creation, and sowing moral corruption through predatory homsexuality and same-sex marriage, not to mention Satan worship and jinn possession."
These are similar to the arguments heaped on homosexuals and transgender people by bigots in Europe and North America, as well.
The distinction between lesbian and man-loving boyat is not clear to me, nor to the Arabs it seems.
Most of the boyat, regardless of sexual orientation, are active cross-dressers. Most of them cross-dress in private. In conservative societies with strict gender dress codes, even gender challenging women become visible when crossdressing.
 |
| Arabian boyat found on the Web. I have blurred the faces to protect the persons' identities. |
Motivation
I am sure there are those who would like to correct me now, arguing that neither the ghulamiyyat or the boyat are really crossdreamers. Instead they are girls and women trying to express traits and abilities forbidden to women in most parts of the Arab world.
In Afghanistan there is a tradition where parents without a son let their daughter live like a boy until she is to marry. This has the benefit of allowing her to work outside the house and help the family in this way.
But this will be to miss the main point of my argument: These girls dress up as girls out of an inner need, not because their parents ask them too. Most Arab girls would not even contemplate doing this, and their parents would be appalled. The social pressure to stick to the norms is so strong, that it takes an enormous psychological drive to make a girl take on the role of a boy.
If this was a political need only, it would make much more sense for the girl to focus on getting an education and an independent job, if possible. It is easier to achieve such a goal, if you stay under the radar and pretend to be a "regular girl".
As for the sexual part, it is pretty clear that the ghulamiyyat lived an active sex life,while playing the role of boy. It is extremely hard for me to accept that this need was completely decoupled from their sexuality.
Indeed, we have a description of the sexual side to women's gender bending from an Arab serving the Normans on medieval Sicily:
Stephen O. Murray quotes Sharif al-Idrisi (1100-66) describing Arab girls who wanted to be on top:
"There are also women who are more intelligent than others. They possess many of the ways of men so that they resemble them even in their movements, the manner in which they talk, and their voice. Such women would like to be the active partner, and they would like to be the superior to the man who makes this possible for them. Such a woman does not shame herself, either, if she seduces whom she desires. If she has no inclination, he cannot force her to make love. This makes it difficult to submit to the wishes of men and brings her to lesbian love."
In other words: These women may have been heterosexual, but the power struggle of their times pushed them into the arms of submissive women.
The invisible crossdreamers
Hadn't it been for the book by El Feki, I wouldn't have found out about the ghulamiyyat. There is close to nothing about them online in English. A regular Google search yields nothing. Google Scholar brings up a few references.
As in the case of the girlfags of the Kama Sutra it is as if there is some kind of conspiracy going on, aimed at making the crossdreamers invisible -- today as well as yesterday. The current stigmatization of crossdreamers among sexologists, post-structuralist academics and radical feminist only serves to reinforce this invisibility.
It is therefore extremely important to identify examples as the ones given by El Feki. No longer is it possible to say that crossdreaming is a social construct of a "capitalist patriarchal society" or a fetish only. The girlfags of Baghdad and the FTM crossdreamers of ancient India point to an underlying condition that is there independently of the cultural context.
If there are any of my readers fluent in languages like Arabic, Persian, Mandarin, Hindi and Sanskrit who can help me track down relevant literature, I would be very grateful.
See also my post on the ancient Indian girlfags of the Kama Sutra
Gulf News on the Boyat pheonomenon
Sahar Amer: Crossing Borders
Stephen Murray: "Women-women love in Islamic Societies" in Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe: Islamic Homsexualities
But will it be really correct to conflate sexual roles (like active versus passive) with gender identity? Can you really say that girls who take the active role in sex are having an inner male identity evgen partly?
ReplyDeleteCan't girls with a total feminine identity be active in sex roles? I would guess it could well be.
@Abhirup
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! And the more real freedom you give women (and men), the more likely they are to violate traditional gender stereotypes.
I live in one of the most "feminine" countries in the world and see women unite typical "masculine" and "feminine" traits and interests every day. This applies to men as well. In the 1960s you would not see a man pushing a stroller. Now they are defining how the stroller is to look!
This is also the case for crossdreamers. I suspect the reason both male to female and female to male crossdreamers so often tend to fantasize about fulfilling traditional gender roles, is that they subconsciously seek to express a forbidden side of their psyche. Given that this side is not embraced by society it is often suppressed and underdeveloped, leading to submission fantasies among the male bodied and domination fantasies among the female bodied.
Could there be more to it than this, in the sense that men are predisposed for domination and women not? I doubt it, but if this is the case the difference would be statistically small and confined to sexual interactions only. In other words: A woman that is dominant in bed is in no way a pervert.
The reason the girlfags of ancient Baghdad is reported to be proactive and dominant, is that these traits make them stand out. Girfags who are not aggressive are seen as "normal", and people are less likely to talk about them.
How can you be certain that the tales mentioned in El Reiki's books are indeed true? How could El Reiki delve into so many secret sex lives? I find them just short fables rather than any stories based in reality.
ReplyDeleteShe is refering to research based on contemporary sources. The fact that they are so unexpected makes them credible. Writers often avoid tales that threaten gender stereotypes. In this case the very exostence of girlfags could not be denied and was therefore reported by writers living at the time.
ReplyDeleteI will try to get access to English translarions of the original sources.
By the way, the description of girlfags in the Kama Sutra makes these stories even more believable.
@Jack,
ReplyDeleteBut how do you think these writers get to know about the most secret sex lives of people? Especially those that are so intensely taboo and private?
As regards contemporary sources, most of the information comes from therapists and from anonymous surveys.
ReplyDeleteLately it has also been possible to track down a lot of life stories online. If you search the comments on this blog, or visit some of the crossdreamer and girlfag forums, you will find many comments made by crossdreamers.
El Feki is also relying on news sources, especially as regards the amazing story of UAE police hunting down lesbians and girlfags. If the police finds it necessary to persecute girlfags, they are likely to exist.
Its interesting to note that even though many of the Middle Eastern countries have such strict codes, at one time they were much different. During the ninth century and much of the Dark Ages in Europe their was a great collection of intelligence in these countries, that brought us a lot of new math such as Algebra. So it is quite possible that at that time they were more open to things because of the influence or various groups of people.
ReplyDeleteAlso I think that one of the main reasons why this is so hidden is because it disrupts peoples views of the world. When peoples views of the world are disrupted they tend to find it uncomfortable and I don't think the people that certain people want this.
@Sean
ReplyDeleteI believe you are right. Sometime in the late Middle Ages, there was a reaction in the Muslim world which killed off much of the curiosity driven science, philosophy and theology of the previous era.
This didn't mean the end of a more tolerant Islam, however. The sufi tradition continued to preach its gospel of love and openess, which is why the current fundamentalists (salafis, whahhabis and the lot) try so hard to defeat the sufis.
I couldn't comment here for a while but I can help with Persian if you need me Jack. interesting post. there's so little information about ftm CDs, I would be happy to know more about me :)
ReplyDelete@Rayka
ReplyDeleteThank you very much!
If you come over anything written in Persian that may throw light over the crossdreamer and girlfag phenomenon, please let me know.
You can email me at jack.molay@gmail.com .
I have already gotten hold of some studies looking into the ayatollah's support for SRS for MTF transsexuals, but it seems to me that is more of a reflection of a pretty traditional view of sex identity and gender roles.
sorry for answering too late but all I have found was the tones of apparently homosexual love between our famous old poets and the handsome young boys. I guess girls were locked up in their homes in those days!
ReplyDelete@Rayka
ReplyDeleteThank you for looking into this, Rayka.
" I guess girls were locked up in their homes in those days!"
Probably. Unless the people who edit and present the historical information we have access to, believe this is how girls should behave, and only present material that reaffirms this belief.
One example: Most Norwegians believe that Viking culture was paternalistic, testosterone-driven and brutal, and that women had no active role in Norse governance.
Indeed, they were a brutal lot, but if you look at the literature of the time, you soon see that the women were not passively sitting by the fire waiting for their men to decide.
They were actively involved in politics. Some of them were warriors (shield maidens) and took part in the conquest of foreign lands.
And all the way up to modern times women had the keys to the farm. They were the CEOs of Norwegian farms, so to speak. The man was more like the chairman of the board.
It was not until the industrialization of Norway that women lost this power.
Still, the impression most people have is that Norwegian gained no power until the beginning of the 20th century. That is all wrong.
The girlfags of Baghdad tells me that maybe we are misreading the role of women in the North African/Middle Eastern area, too.
your welcome. I guess homosexuality in that time was something like the ancient Greek in Iran and actually there are several female warriors or lead characters in our literature, though they are mostly beloveds but though i'm a feminist, the male beloveds seem more appealing to me, can't help it ;-)
ReplyDelete