Did you know there’s credible evidence that a transgender population of people lived around the Black Sea at least 2400 years ago, among a culture known as the Scythians?
Greek writers called them the enarei (singular enaree), which means “effeminate,” though we don’t know what they called themselves. They dressed like women and served a woman’s role in Scythian society, as priestesses.
We don’t known a whole lot about them, but what we do know is so unbelievably tantalizing. The gaps in our knowledge, however, might be even more exciting – I know it’s bad history but I can’t help but imagine what the possibilities might be. In fact, there’s evidence – not conclusive evidence, but evidence nonetheless – that the enarei used an ancient form of trans feminine hormone replacement therapy.
Join me today as I explore the ancient transgender population of the Scythians. We’ll look at what we know and what we don’t know about them, and what could have filled in some of the blanks.