Amazonian attitudes to LBGT

[Lex Luthor]

How the hell do you have Trans Amazons? No Hormone treatments to make them more manly and how the hell are Trans men going to get to the island?

its fantasy you can make it happen im sure. also im going to need for you to switch your tone or this exchange ends here

[Doctor Bifrost]

it is a all-ages book so subtitle is the best way

Why? Kids know about gay people these days. They can hardly miss it. A same-sex couple doesn't have to be any more "sexually graphic" than a mixed-sex couple, and we've had those in superhero comics since 1938.

[Doctor Bifrost]

It would be like going out their way for people to know that Superman or Batman is straight.

Superman's involvement in heterosexuality has been a staple of the character since 1938, and has been shown in dozens of different ways, from his crush on Lois Lane (who, alas, only loved him as Superman, not as Clark Kent!), to him pining over Lori Lemaris, to Superman-Blue and Superman-Red choosing between Lois and Lana, to in-continuity stories in which he is married to a woman. So I'm sure glad they never "went out of their way" to let people know he was straight - I'd be scared to see what that looked like!

(Sure, you can pretend that really he's bi and not straight, but there's not much textual evidence for it.)

Any writer can indicate that some Amazons are in lesbian couples without going any further "out of their way" than that. If they want to.

[Doctor Bifrost]

Here's something that I wondered since the Perez origin (which I still consider the gold standard, although not the only possibility): if a trans woman, born biologically male but considering herself a woman and living as a woman, was killed by "men's violence," could her soul be taken into Gaea's Womb and later reincarnated as an Amazon?

I would hope so, and I would have liked to see it.

[Outside_85]

Here's something that I wondered since the Perez origin (which I still consider the gold standard, although not the only possibility): if a trans woman, born biologically male but considering herself a woman and living as a woman, was killed by "men's violence," could her soul be taken into Gaea's Womb and later reincarnated as an Amazon?

I would hope so, and I would have liked to see it.

I would imagine that depends entirely on the Goddess' doing the picking. And in case they just had something or someone to do it automatically for them... I am not sure they would. I mean the Gods didn't exactly have a sitdown with each and every soul to have a closer look at who might be a future Amazon... plus I dont imagine there were many cavemen that lived as women, which was the state these souls were taken from.
That said, the Gods likely dont see the world as we do it, even less so when it comes to people's souls... so it could be much like that Sandman story where a trans woman was killed by a falling building but her friend saw her as a woman standing besides Death in a dream. So in that manner: certainly.

[Doctor Bifrost]

I would imagine that depends entirely on the Goddess' doing the picking. And in case they just had something or someone to do it automatically for them... I am not sure they would. I mean the Gods didn't exactly have a sitdown with each and every soul to have a closer look at who might be a future Amazon... plus I dont imagine there were many cavemen that lived as women, which was the state these souls were taken from.
That said, the Gods likely dont see the world as we do it, even less so when it comes to people's souls... so it could be much like that Sandman story where a trans woman was killed by a falling building but her friend saw her as a woman standing besides Death in a dream. So in that manner: certainly.

They didn't all come from "caveman" times. Hippolyta did, but she was the first. The implication was that they came from a wide variety of times from before the creation of the Amazons, which would include, for example, Babylonian and Mesopotamian civilizations, as well as various indigenous cultures from around the world. And there have been biological men living as women in such cultures for as long as we can see. In many such cultures they played special, sacred roles (such as the Native American berdache and the South Asian Indian hijra).

I was actually thinking about the Sandman story when I wrote the post. In fact, the "gods" didn't recognize Wanda as a woman, or at least didn't seem to. She didn't get to go on the journey with the other women. Her response was "the gods can shove it up their sacred recta! I know what I am!" And it's one of the points of Gaiman's stories that gods and other immortal, powerful entities can be wrong, and often utterly miss the point. And the image of Wanda as a woman alongside a smiling Death suggests that Wanda got it right, and the gods can... well, you know.

[superduperman]

Okay, here's the thing: The whole idea of the Amazons is that they are supposed to be a superior species to "normal" humans. That means that they would supposedly be above petty human prejudices (minus men themselves of course) That having been said, I don't know that a trans Amazon would exist. If for no other reason than the fact that they are supposed to be female by design. At least that was the original origin that was given them way back in 1987. As for lesbianism, Rucka's run hinted that Diana herself was at least bi. She certainly was more than fine with homosexuality. Remember Myndi Myer's brother? He was clearly gay. Now, if we're talking about the souls of women pulled at the moment of death being trans at the time, I guess if you want there to be one, you can imagine one. Though a lot of that depends on if the Perez origin is still canon. Which we have no way of knowing.

[Chrysalis_Changling]

i feel like people create these kind of threads just to start flame wars and laugh at the results....there's no way to avoid a stupid argument with stuff like this

[superduperman]

They didn't all come from "caveman" times. Hippolyta did, but she was the first. The implication was that they came from a wide variety of times from before the creation of the Amazons, which would include, for example, Babylonian and Mesopotamian civilizations, as well as various indigenous cultures from around the world. And there have been biological men living as women in such cultures for as long as we can see. In many such cultures they played special, sacred roles (such as the Native American berdache and the South Asian Indian hijra).

I was actually thinking about the Sandman story when I wrote the post. In fact, the "gods" didn't recognize Wanda as a woman, or at least didn't seem to. She didn't get to go on the journey with the other women. Her response was "the gods can shove it up their sacred recta! I know what I am!" And it's one of the points of Gaiman's stories that gods and other immortal, powerful entities can be wrong, and often utterly miss the point. And the image of Wanda as a woman alongside a smiling Death suggests that Wanda got it right, and the gods can... well, you know.

I just recently got that volume! And yeah, it does seem that divine beings are somewhat more picky about gender than humans are. Though that story was written 25 years ago so you could get away with that sort of thing a lot more easily then than you could now. All things considered, I would say that Gaiman was very sensitive to trans and queer people for that time. Everything is about context. And keep in mind, Thessaly didn't specify which gods she was calling upon in the story. Or, at least, I don't recognize the names she is referencing.

[Outside_85]

They didn't all come from "caveman" times. Hippolyta did, but she was the first. The implication was that they came from a wide variety of times from before the creation of the Amazons, which would include, for example, Babylonian and Mesopotamian civilizations, as well as various indigenous cultures from around the world. And there have been biological men living as women in such cultures for as long as we can see. In many such cultures they played special, sacred roles (such as the Native American berdache and the South Asian Indian hijra).

I didn't get that implication. Nor do I normally see the reason why the Olympians would have a net that wide, but that's a discussion taking place elsewhere.

I was actually thinking about the Sandman story when I wrote the post. In fact, the "gods" didn't recognize Wanda as a woman, or at least didn't seem to. She didn't get to go on the journey with the other women. Her response was "the gods can shove it up their sacred recta! I know what I am!" And it's one of the points of Gaiman's stories that gods and other immortal, powerful entities can be wrong, and often utterly miss the point. And the image of Wanda as a woman alongside a smiling Death suggests that Wanda got it right, and the gods can... well, you know.

If I am not entirely mistaken, all of that was through the witch-woman's interpretation of scripture rather than the gods themselves offering an opinion.

I just recently got that volume! And yeah, it does seem that divine beings are somewhat more picky about gender than humans are. Though that story was written 25 years ago so you could get away with that sort of thing a lot more easily then than you could now. All things considered, I would say that Gaiman was very sensitive to trans and queer people for that time. Everything is about context. And keep in mind, Thessaly didn't specify which gods she was calling upon in the story. Or, at least, I don't recognize the names she is referencing.

Thessaly likely worshiped either Hecate or some pre-Olympian equal since her name is that of a city of witches from Greek myth.

Despite what I said above about it being Thessaly doing interpretations; if she had a direct line to a gods mind and eyes, it could again be a matter of a god interpreting a mortal. Like the Gods are not human, they see the world differently and perhaps to them humans are like fish or dogs are to us. they can talk to us, they have the sense we get what they are saying, but they don't necessarily understand the human mind or respect personal human choices. And this becomes even more odd when, also in Sandman, that gods a technically 'gender-fluid' their gender depends on who is looking at them, which means it does not mean they actually are one thing or the other. Which goes hand in hand with some of the old myths where a single god of either gender creates new life... like Hera in some myths gives birth of Hephaestus by striking the ground.

[Doctor Bifrost]

I didn't get that implication. Nor do I normally see the reason why the Olympians would have a net that wide, but that's a discussion taking place elsewhere.

Actually, it wasn't the Olympians per se, it was Gaea. And I always thought that the fact that the Perez Amazons were of different races was meant to reflect the races of their original incarnations.

If I am not entirely mistaken, all of that was through the witch-woman's interpretation of scripture rather than the gods themselves offering an opinion.

Well, her, and the talking tongue nailed to a wall. The argument being Wanda and the tongue was a pleasure to behold.