What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. ( Ecclesiastes 1:9)
While the terms ‘transgender’ and ‘gender dysphoria’ are new, the phenomenon of believing yourself to be trapped in the body of the ‘wrong’ gender is not. There is archeological evidence of transgender people, and records of transgender people in antiquity and the medieval period. Some transgender people left accounts of their feelings, such as the 13th century Jewish philosopher and physician Kalonymus ben Kalonymus, who wrote a “lament for being born a man instead of a woman.” There are also multiple medieval accounts of women caught dressing and living as men, and although these women have seldom been called trans men, there is no doubt some of them were exactly that.
Of course, Medieval Europeans conceptualized body dysmorphia and the existence of transgender people differently than we do in the modern era. In John Gower’s 14th century epic poem, Confessio Amantis , the author describes gender dysphoria as a manifestation of sloth, one of the seven deadly sins.
The “Tale of Iphis and Ianthe” occurs in the Confessio’s Book IV on “acedia,” or sloth. Iphis, whose story is bordered by a priest’s penitential advice and thereby related to sloth, is a biologically female youth dressed as a boy and later physically transformed into a man.
Why was gender dysphoria seen as a subset of sloth? It was due to the Medieval understanding of health and medicine.
Iphis was exhibiting the medical ‘symptoms’ of sloth, such as “depression, despair, and sluggishness.” Depression is a commonly recognized expression of gender dysphoria, and in Gower’s poem Iphis was clearly experiencing depression as a result of having a female body. Medieval physicians recognized depression, or melancholy, as a health problem, as well as a spiritual issue. It was believed that a depressed person’s ‘humors’ had become too cold and wet.
Iphis was therefore conceptualized as ill (humors being out of balance) and spiritually afflicted by sin (sloth). Her desire to be a male was sinful, but no more or less sinful than gluttony, or pride. Although the tale of Iphis is based on an older Greek legend wherein Isis transformed Iphis into a boy to answer a prayer, the subtext of Gower’s poem implies that the God of Love who changes Iphis into a male is the Christian God, the only deity that the Medieval reader would see as capable of performing such a monumental task. Moreover, “Gower himself considers the God of Love to be both cause and physician of this ailment.” Since it was God’s will that Iphis had the yearning to become male, the ‘sin’ of gender dysphoria is reframed as normative.
Although Gower is not well known today, during his lifetime he was just as famous an author as his contemporary, Chaucer. Clearly, the Medieval reader was expected to recognize classical tales, such as that of Iphis, and to comprehend Gower’s points about sin, health and gender dysphoria, even if there was not yet a term for transgender.