Dude Looks Like a Lady

Question: What are the different pantheons' takes on sex and gender? There are several stories of gods changing sexes and sleeping with other gods or beings. How do they view this and how does this mesh with the patriarchal systems prevalent in many of the pantheons?

A complicated question, and one I'm not sure I understand the intent of. I can actually only think of one or two true sex-swaps in myth similar to the one you describe, like Vishnu appearing as Mohini to seduce Shiva, and I'm not sure if even that counts since Mohini was an avatar and not actually his normal body in the first place.

A pantheon's "take" on sex and gender is insanely complicated, but if you want to boil its simplicities down, it's not hard to understand: ancient gods have ancient attitudes, which generally means that men are considered stronger and more capable than women, while women are considered better at nurturing and representing sexuality than are men. Ancient societies were all quite sexist, though the degree varies between them, and while badass ladies exist in mythology, they are the exception. Another of the very rare sex-swap stories, that of Caenis, illustrates this pretty well: when she was raped by Poseidon, she demanded that he turn her into a man so that she would have the power to defend herself in the future, which he granted, surprised by her moxy. The underlying social theme is not just that men are more powerful than women, but that women would really prefer to be men in the first place anyway, and just aren't that lucky. (And even Caenis doesn't get to really swap sexes forever - when she's later seen in the Underworld, she seems to have been reverted back to female again.)

Actually, two previous posts probably help answer this question a lot better: check out our earlier discussions on women in positions of physical or military power in mythology and ancient attitudes toward homosexuality in myth.

Which leaves us with transgender gods and how that works out, exactly, which is an interesting question. In most cases, I think, it's basically a non-issue; for Vishnu, for example, there's no conflict because it's Mohini having sex with Shiva, not Vishnu himself, so it's not like he's actually giving up any of his manliness to do so (the great thing about avatars is that they both are and are not you, so you can get away with a lot of this kind of bullshit). Zeus transforming himself into Artemis in order to get into Callisto's pants is another fudging area - it's hard to tell if he really transforms or just uses and illusion, and either way it's moot because he turns back into himself when it's time for the sexing, making it clear that the switch between sexes was a temporary ruse, not a genuine swap.

The Africans, however, are a special case: for example, Obatala transforming himself into a woman and not only having sex with Aganju but actually bearing a son to him is definitely transgenderism, and nobody seems to mind one bit. The reasons behind this are twofold: for one, nobody cares if Shango's mother was actually a dude, because the idea of him having two fathers is an intentional one to highlight his own masculinity - he's SO MANLY that he could not have a woman involved anywhere in his conception (though even that, of course, is revealing - even though he has all the womanly parts and is even giving birth, Obatala is still considered male there despite his female form, because otherwise the symbolism doesn't work). The other is a peculiarity of indigenous African religion, in that the sex/gender of deities often appears to be totally fluid and basically unimportant. It was very confusing for European settlers and colonists to hear stories about Oduduwa the fecund mother of gods and then wander over to the next village and hear stories about Oduduwa the mighty male warrior; the Africans simply didn't think that assigning a gender to their gods was all that important, because they were gods and gods kind of transcend gender. What the god does and represents is way more important than whether or not it looks like a man or a woman to humanity, and while some gods, like Shango, have always been considered firmly one sex, others weren't solidified into a constant gender until after colonial expansion had seen Europeans write down stories of the gods as one particular sex and influenced the locals into beginning to change their worldview. There are still some traces of this general disregard for choosing a side even in the New World versions of African religions - Obatala, for example, is syncretized with Our Lady of Mercy in modern Santeria, because the fact that both figures are white-robe-wearing bringers of comfort, mercy and the promise of freedom is more important than the fact that one is traditionally a dude and the other traditionally a lady.

So, for Scion's purposes, I'd say that Loa Scions are in a uniquely good position if they want to play with gender roles and swapping between them. While male Loa are still more likely to be in powerful positions and respect one another than female Loa, the fact that female Loa could simply become male to tip the scales and what that might mean to a modern feminist or modern transgendered person is an interesting question.

And Loa aren't the only ones, either; while there would surely be some stigma in many pantheons attached to changing sexes - males who became females would probably be treated derisively, much like homosexuals in many cases, while females who became males would probably still not have the same level of respect as already-male gods - the instinctive patriarchal attitudes at play may still cause gods to instinctively respond better or worse despite knowing that this isn't a Scion's or god's original form. And really, once you've been a lady for more years than you spent as a mortal dude, who really has room to argue?

Keep in mind, however, that these are sensitive issues for some people and any players or Storyteller who want to tackle them have to know their fellow gamers well enough to know if it's going to press buttons. That shouldn't stop anyone, but, like all sensitive issues at the gaming table, it also shouldn't be ignored.

Man, I hope some of that is coherent. Writing about transgenderism in mythology at six a.m. after a long night of wedding planning and being sick is kind of a mind-melting experience.