For Trans Day of Visibility this year, we want to talk about Madonna Kybele and her priestexes, the Gallae.
In our practice, we work with the Gallae as trans ancestors. Where Kybele’s cult with its priestexes went, a space was created for those whose gender expression was outside the prescribed norm. From the information we have, the Gallae were generally individuals assigned male at birth who presented as women after joining the priesthood. They wore ribbons in their long, curled hair beneath elaborate headdresses. They wore swathed clothing in the style of women of the time. This change in presentation was legally recognized to some degree, but in the form of a loss. The legal rights attached to manhood, such as inheritance, could be lost after joining the Gallae, who seemed to have floated in a legal limbo with their gender. They were denied the benefits of either male or female legal standing, but gained the freedom to live outside of those bindings.
Being initiated into the Gallae involved voluntary ritual castration spurred by a ‘divine madness’ granted by Kybele. Many of the tales of the Gallae focus on this ritual as outsiders struggle to understand why anyone would do such a thing voluntarily. To people who had never heard of (much less experienced) gender dysphoria, it may well have looked like madness to willingly remove a part of your body—this unfortunate attitude still exists today. If we consider that the Gallae are transitioning both physically and socially in this ritual, we can see how their ritual castration offered a path out of madness, not into it.
Joining the Gallae marked you as an outsider who must surely be mad to refuse the privileges afforded by staying within polite society. Many people still look at trans people that way to this day. We are still, in some circles, considered mad for choosing to be ourselves, to carve ourselves a comfortable body to be in, for loving ourselves in a world that calls us unlovable. For trans people, now as it was then, forcing ourselves to stay in society’s boxes can feel like the true madness. We scream, silent and desperate, to be recognized and loved for the truth of who we are. Every year, we lose too many of our trans siblings to this madness: the madness of forcing ourselves to ‘belong.’ The Gallae show us a path to not only survival but joy—after all, what’s a little blood and legal rights shed for a life worth living?
The Gallae may have been outsiders, shamed and shunned, but their priesthood offered a viable social path for our trans ancestors—a social niche to survive in, even if it was shamed and honored in turns. Kybele’s cult was recognized as a state religion in Rome. Her temple was afforded a place of honor on the southwest slope of Palantine Hill in the heart of Rome. Those who joined the Gallae did so knowing they would be shamed by a polite society that often wanted their blessings more than their company. Their presence, their worship, and their rituals brought blessings and luck to the community that granted them a measure of both acceptance and safety. As the mediators between society and the Mother of Gods (and her potential wrath), they were able to present as and be themselves.
The Gallae teach us that cutting off part of our body once can be infinitely more healing than cutting off parts of ourselves daily to fit into a box that was never made for us. We do not have to cut ourselves down to size, chipping away at who we are at all times until we crumble. The world often acts like we’re rude, shameful monsters if we refuse to force ourselves into the teeny tiny box of ‘politeness’ that has only narrowed over centuries. The Gallae ask us which is ruder: refusing to fit into the box, or forcing someone into it knowing they’ll only suffer.
This year, Trans Day of Visibility falls on Easter Sunday: an intersection that can be complicated. Christianity has been made into a hostile place for many trans folx—though, of course, many still find comfort there. While we don’t personally work within Christian or Catholic cosmologies, we do work with the figure of La Madonna. She is the Mother of God, and, in some Italian folk magic traditions, she can represent the kind of mother you personally have need of. She is able to fill the gap left by human mother figures, who are always limited by the flaws of humanity by no fault of their own.
Like La Madonna, Kybele is the Mother of Gods. When we work with the Madonna aspect of any given goddess, Mother Mary included, we’re working with that goddess’s unique version of Motherhood. Madonna Kybele, as we have known her, is the Mother of Wild Things. She nurses lions: fierce, untamable creatures that submit to no one. Yet, her chariot is pulled by lions—not because she tames them, but because she nurtures and guides them with love and comfort. She teaches them how to survive and navigate the world, as a mother lion would her cub.
Kybele is also the bridge between society and the wild, allowing them to live in harmony when she is honored. She’s syncretized with Rhea, Mother of Zeus and foster-mother of Dionysos. Because she aids Zeus, she ushers in the transition from the Age of Titans to the Age of Olympus. When Zeus’s Olympus is beginning to stagnate, as every age does, she forces the wheel to continue turning by raising up Dionysos to usher in a new age. Both Zeus and Dionysos are wild, cut from a cloth unfit for the current era, who make a home for themselves and all like them in the world.
When we work with Madonna Kybele, both of these aspects are crucial. As the Nurser of Lions, she teaches wild things how to survive the world around them—inhospitable worlds included. As the Mother of Gods, she teaches us how to unapologetically carve a space for ourselves in society, even and especially when the current age takes pains to shun those like us.
Kybele is rarely depicted with an infant or pregnant despite being a Mother figure. To us, this is because she guards the survival of living children, not the birth of new ones. She surrounds herself with people, mortal and divine, who have sacrificed their fertility to survive. She understands very well that the ability to have children must sometimes be sacrificed to make our body a safe and comfortable home. In any community, there’s a need for someone able to mother ‘difficult’ children, whether or not those children are her own. She is the mother who steps up when no one else has the ability or desire to help. She teaches her rowdy children to survive by any means—to find joy and a life worth living by any means, including those others shame.
Madonna Kybele guards our life transitions and ensures we survive them. In childhood/adolescence, we learn how the world works, but what we learn about the world may not feel comfortable or even survivable. Kybele guards us through the transition to adulthood, where we figure out who we are. Kybele and her Gallae spur us to live that truth, bringing us joy and an inner peace by ensuring we have no peace until we walk that path. The Gallae’s rowdy music hounds us with the promise of joy just out of reach, bringing the divine madness of Kybele that forces us to take action to not just survive but thrive. That action may look like madness to outsiders, but it’s exactly what will alleviate and allow us to survive the madness of living in a society not made for us.
Madonna Kybele guides us to a life that *we* find worth living. It may not be what others would choose and it may be incomprehensible to outsiders. She reminds us that, at the end of the day, it’s our life and only our own opinion on it matters. Any time we find the urge to make ourselves smaller, silence our joy, or cut off pieces of ourselves to fit someone else’s mold, she appears to whisper: “How long? How long is it worth this suffering to live for someone else’s comfort instead of your own? How long can you afford to wait for it to be your turn to be happy?”
Society often makes queer and trans folx feel like we’re monsters only a mother could love—while encouraging our mortal mothers to disown their ‘monstrous’ children. Wild, untamable, ‘hard to love’ children are the ones Kybele takes under her wings. She raises up lions and half-feral godlings too wild for the current era. With her, there is never a reason to fear that you are too much, too little, or too wrong to be in her care. ‘Difficult’ children are her favorite kind. She seems to take special joy in loving and nurturing children of all ages that others have given up on. She delights in the moment those neglected, abused wildlings in her care finally feel safe and comfortable enough to share their joy without fear or shame.
Even in myth, she is surrounded by mythical attendants much like the human Gallae: the Korybantes, who share much of their symbology. The Korybantes are the attendants who help raise both Zeus and Dionysos. They are wildlings themselves, nurtured by Kybele, who have found their own footing. Like the Gallae, they’ve gone through their initiation and found a way to live that brings them true joy.
The Korybantes welcome in young Dionysos as one of their own, raising him and teaching him as they would any new member of their order to find his own personal path to joy. As the Korybantes welcome Dionysos to the fold and pass on their wisdom, so too can we approach the Gallae as trans ancestors and ask them to share their wisdom with us. They have a great deal of lessons to share around surviving in society as trans people. They’ve felt the building ‘madness’ that forces us to risk the safety of social acceptance for the peace of self-acceptance. They’ve healed the wounds left from cutting off parts of themselves to fit society’s molds and can teach us to heal our own. They’ve learned how to scream their joy loud, proud, and wild without care for how it’s received—because their joy is for them, and no one else. They take deep delight in teaching us how to do the same.
We can never fully know why the Gallae took any of their ritual actions, including voluntary castration, because we have no surviving sources written by one of them. The tales of the Gallae we do have are written by outsiders attempting to understand and explain practices that seem to baffle them. We may never know for certain, but certainty can also spell stagnation in a spiritual setting. We can’t say decisively that the Gallae were transgender, no. What we can say is that the actions that baffled their cis contemporaries are familiar and immediately understandable to us as trans witches. We see ourselves and our experiences in theirs. The lessons we’ve learned from working with them and from studying both their lives and practices have been profound. We hope that they share that wisdom with others searching for it. We hope that other trans witches feel empowered knowing that our trans ancestors were the beloved attendants of the Mother of Gods.
This Trans Day of Visibility, we pray to the Gallae, our trans ancestors. May our joy be loud, proud, unashamed, and vibrantly visible, even to those who try to hide their eyes. May we find our way out of society’s madness and into the divine madness of self-love. May we become wild and untamable as our siblings, the lions nursed by Madonna Kybele. Grant us the courage to cut our shackles, not our hearts. Grant us safety under the protective wing of Kybele. May she make a safe home for us in every society. May she guard our revels and the quiet caves we sleep in, never to be found by those searching in hate.
For some ideas on ancestor worship practices with the Gallae and Madonna Kybele, here are some of the workings we'll be doing with them this TDOV/Easter:
- Cooking with the Ancestors is one of our favorite forms of ancestor work. Every human across time has needed to eat and every community has its cooks. Today, we will be calling the cooks among the Gallae. Robin (he/they) will be baking Pane di Pasqua, Italian Easter bread that his Nonna made for the family when they were growing up. This bread, like challah, involves a lot of eggs and is braided. This year, under the instruction of the Gallae, he will be making it as an offering to them. As they braid the bread, they'll be braiding the Gallae's hair as an offering, bonding with them through mutual love and care. Robin's will be topped with honeyed almonds in offering, as almonds are an important symbol to the Gallae.
- We will also be lighting candles and handmade incense in their honor as we welcome them in; we hope to offer our incense to them in our shop if there is interest. Scents we know they're fond of include: dragon's blood, almond, blood orange, roses, pine, and juniper, especially juniper berries. If you're considering leaving out libations, we recommend orange juice, pomegranate juice, gin, wine, or amaretto.
- The Gallae were known for their raucous music and dancing, so let loose in their honor! Their traditional instruments include flutes, drums, cymbals, castanets, and more. Music with a good back-beat and/or trilling high notes call in these aspects and is often ideal for dancing. Put on whatever your favorite dancing music is, whether it's rap, pop, or disco, and invite them to cut a rug with you. Play your music loud, dance as silly or sexy as you want, and share your joy with them.
- The Gallae embody raucous, unapologetic joy; they also embody deep, somber sorrow. However you're feeling today, with any of the complicated emotions that can come with holidays, the Gallae will help you shoulder that burden. The Gallae are no strangers to suffering and have never run from it: their practices include various applications of pain in religious rituals. They understand that life includes sorrow; they also understand how to process those things to alleviate them. They delve into their suffering to feel it deeply and then leave it in their ritual, purging their pain so they can know peace in their daily life. If things feel heavy right now, invite them in to share in and alleviate your burdens. Leave them as large or small an offering as feels feasible right now; a regular glass of water will do. Share your worries, fears, and sorrow with them, knowing they'll sympathize. You'll have no judgment from them for what weighs on your heart. You can cry as loud and ugly or as softly as you like. They will honor your pain, as they honor their own.