We live in a world of minorities. They have always existed. Only their rights and their recognition have not always been there. Even today, it cannot be taken for granted that all human rights are guaranteed in Europe, or in the rest of the world.
Since the beginning of different civilisations, people have sometimes had more rights and sometimes fewer. The path or struggle towards more rights for women, African Americans, or gay men and lesbians has never been linear. There have always been waves of human rights that rose, broke, spilled over and retreated back into the sea of possibilities.
You could probably assume that more human rights exist today than at any other time. Yet in certain cultures on different continents in earlier times, there was often greater visibility for non-binary people or same-sex love. But because we like to claim that the West is the most progressive, the most modern, we often think that we possess many rights. However, there have always been societies that were far more open than we are today.
And at a time when we increasingly have to stand up and fight for many rights again, perhaps it’s a good idea to pause for a moment and look into the past. Because there we often find treasures of wisdom that we have long forgotten or that our heteronormative society has decided to ignore.
One of them is the society of the Indigenous peoples of America. The West gave them the simple and deeply inaccurate name Indians. When Christopher Columbus believed that he had found the sea route to India, he gave the native population the name Indians.
He and the other Europeans who commenced conquering the new continent for themselves ignored the fact that there was not just one Indigenous people, but many different ones. There were the Karuk, who were at home in what is now Oregon and California, or the Diné, who lived in what is now Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. Perhaps the better-known tribes are the Sioux on the prairies of North America, the Apache in the Southwest, or the Cherokee in the East and South.
All these peoples were different. And those who survived colonisation still differ today in their languages, appearance, clothing, rituals, forms of society and family, as well as their rights.
One of the greatest debates of the twenty-first century surrounding a particular form of identity is non-binary identity: the fact and realisation that a person identifies as neither a woman nor a man, but as something beyond, outside these binary categories. It remains a controversial subject. Right-wing politicians around the world often make fun of non-binary people for using the pronouns they/them. And in the worst cases, they simply refuse to acknowledge their existence.
In the West, an entirely binary society in which we strongly distinguish between and define femininity and masculinity, many people apparently cannot imagine that there might be something beyond them. Among many Indigenous peoples of the Americas, non-binary people traditionally were and still are widespread and have existed for hundreds, if not thousands, of years because they were part of their societies and histories.
The modern term is Two-Spirit. In that sense, a person carries two spirits within themselves. Among the Diné, there is the concept of nádleeh, a third or, simply put, flexible gender. And among the Lakota, there is the term winkte.
Nádleeh may be born with a biological sex, but over the course of their lives they realise that they are different, simply not specifically male or female, but quite simply nádleeh. Being nádleeh also meant holding a highly respected position within society. Often, they were healers or mediators because they stood between, or even beyond, the genders and could therefore understand both more deeply.
This form of identity and gender within the societies of the Indigenous peoples of America has unfortunately been pushed into obscurity through colonialism and the genocide for which European and American settlers were responsible. Yet it is remarkable, though perhaps not surprising, that today, independently of this, similar forms of identity are developing within our own society. Evidently, being nádleeh or being non-binary is not culturally bound, but simply part of being human.
Much further back in time: around 350 BC.
A man, no taller than 165 centimetres, conquers the world. Or the world as it was known at the time. From Macedonia, he moves into Greece, then along the Danube, which would become the northernmost border. He defeats the Persian Empire, conquers what is now Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine. Then he continues into Egypt. There he founds a city and library in his name, before once again defeating the Persian Empire and conquering what is now Iraq and Iran.
He goes even further, all the way to India, but above all it is the eastern Mediterranean that now belongs to him. Or, more accurately: to him and his closest confidant, his partner, the man to whom he entrusted all his secrets and with whom he also shared a tent.
The name of this conqueror is, of course, Alexander the Great. The name of his closest confidant is Hephaestion. If Hephaestion were a woman and her name were Hephaestia, historians and scholars would assume without hesitation that they were a couple. For a long time, Western historians simply regarded Hephaestion as Alexander’s closest ally. Because surely the greatest conqueror of antiquity could not possibly have been with another man.
And he was not exclusively with men. Alexander the Great had three wives: Roxana, with whom he fathered his heir Alexander IV, Stateira II and Parysatis II. A conqueror, a king like Alexander, needs heirs to continue his empire. That much is clear. But the story goes further.
In 324 BC, Hephaestion dies of a fever. Alexander is devastated. For days, he eats nothing. He bans music throughout the empire and orders a funeral in Babylon that is said to have cost millions of drachmas. Alexander the Great also commands that, when he himself dies one day, he is to be buried beside Hephaestion. Sounds like true love. Because at no point does he mention his three wives.
Eight months later, Alexander dies too. During this period, he drinks heavily to forget his grief. Some historians say that his excessive alcohol consumption caused him to die of pancreatitis; others say malaria or a fever. Still others believe that he was poisoned. Because before historians admit that Alexander was bisexual, they would rather claim that one of his wives, or even his own mother, poisoned him for political power. Because when in doubt, it’s easier to blame a woman.
No, the answer is quite simple. If Alexander the Great barely ate after the death of his beloved Hephaestion and constantly drank, then it was the loss of his great love and his broken heart that brought him to an early end.
Furthermore, it was known that Alexander the Great and Hephaestion modelled themselves on the great warriors of Greek mythology: Achilles and his partner Patroclus.
Alexander was obsessed with finding out what Achilles wore, what his armour looked like and even what kind of haircut he might have had. Alexander wanted to be Achilles.
Even then, it was difficult to uncover this information because the Iliad was already several hundred years old during Alexander’s lifetime, and it was uncertain whether Achilles had ever truly existed. Yet at the time, it was widely known that Achilles and Patroclus were lovers, just as Alexander and Hephaestion were. More than a thousand years of our heteronormative society have banished both pairs into the category of best friends.
And although Alexander wanted to imitate Achilles in many ways, which he managed to do in both appearance and glory, he probably did not want to share his fate. Because, like Alexander, Achilles lost his beloved Patroclus. Achilles held funeral games for Patroclus; the kind normally reserved for a king. And Achilles avenged Patroclus’s death. He killed almost all the warriors of Troy, including their greatest warrior, Hector, until he himself was finally killed and reunited with Patroclus in death.
Alexander was denied this fate. Yet it is clear to see that Patroclus was so much more to Achilles than a best friend, and the same applies to Alexander and Hephaestion.
After Alexander’s death, his empire falls apart. His generals begin fighting one another and dividing the empire between themselves. But that is another story.
Alexander’s final wish is not fulfilled. He is not buried in Babylon beside his beloved Hephaestion. His tomb, the lost mausoleum that has never been found to this day, is believed to lie somewhere beneath Alexandria.
And before historians admit that Alexander the Great was bisexual, they are more willing to support the theory that Alexander’s remains were taken to Venice in the ninth century and buried somewhere there.
But the beautiful and tragic thing about antiquity is that so much knowledge has been lost over the millennia. Only now, in the twenty-first century, are young historians and writers allowing themselves to say openly that antiquity was far queerer than people were once willing to admit.
Perhaps Alexander the Great lies buried somewhere beneath Alexandria. But it’s also possible that his generals followed his final command. Hephaestion’s tomb was in Babylon. And Alexander the Great died in Babylon. Perhaps Alexander was buried beside Hephaestion. There may have been a funeral procession to Alexandria, but how can we know that Alexander’s body was actually part of it? After all, we also support the theory that Alexander’s remains were taken to Venice in the ninth century AD and disappeared there.
It’s a beautiful thought to hold on to: that Hephaestion and Alexander lie buried together. Alexander, the greatest military commander of antiquity, whose empire stretched across three continents, loved a man. No empire and no amount of wealth could fill the emptiness left behind by Hephaestion’s passing. And like Achilles, Alexander followed his beloved into death.
Even further back in history: this time, 2250 BC. Around 4,270 years before our time. The Pyramids of Giza have only been standing for around 200 years. It will still be another 1,500 years before ancient Greece, Hellenism, reaches its height. And only in around 2,000 years will the Roman Empire control the entire Mediterranean. Christianity will not dominate Europe for almost another 3,000 years.
Almost 4,300 years ago, the first known female writer in human history was born in Mesopotamia. She was the daughter of the founder of an empire, Sargon I of Akkad, the most important king in the land between the two rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris.
After the king dies, several city-states struggle for supremacy. At the time, his daughter, Enheduana, is the High Priestess in the temple of the moon god and therefore holds one of the most important positions in the kingdom. But she is not only a priestess; she is also a scholar and poet. Her text is the first work of literature to have survived into the present day. In her poem, she asks Inanna, goddess of love and war, to defeat her enemies and bring peace back to the land.
That alone makes it something extraordinary, but above all, there is the fact that this first poem in human history was written by a woman. Because throughout more than 4,000 years of human history, women have clearly been a minority who, like so many others, have had to fight for their rights.
In our Western society, we do not have to look far into the past to recognise this. Jane Austen, who lived only 200 years ago, had to publish her novels anonymously and with the help of her brothers. Today, she is regarded as one of the most widely read and famous female writers of all time.
And although Enheduana held a high-ranking position, it did not protect her from the power-hungry men in her kingdom and in other city-states who saw her influence and her position as the former king’s daughter as dangerous. In the end, Enheduana was forced to flee from her enemies. Yet it was precisely this flight that drove Enheduana to write a poem that would survive the passage of time and has been preserved in its entirety on more than a hundred clay tablets.
The world knows many famous male writers and poets. But the very first writer known to us by name was Enheduana, a displaced woman. And so, we call upon the knowledge and wisdom of the past to remind ourselves of them in the present.
The way we humans see and recognise culture, society, history, and human rights is constantly changing. The original societies of the Indigenous peoples of America have sadly been destroyed. Yet some communities still exist, and they continue the Two-Spirit identity.
The open and homoerotic aspects of ancient society have long been known to scholars in the West, and now, in the twenty-first century, they are finally being acknowledged again. Alexander the Great and the warrior Achilles are famous for their conquests and heroic deeds. And they loved their men.
And throughout the millennia of human history, women have always had the greatest difficulty gaining an education, acquiring knowledge and determining their own lives. Yet the oldest literary text known by the name of its author comes from a woman who asks a goddess to help her defeat her enemies. And this text has survived every war, every social upheaval and every transformation of cultures for more than 4,000 years, only to be rediscovered by people in the present.
Sooner or later, every culture and every society have changed so profoundly that it became something else or even ceased to exist entirely. Every form of homophobia, sexism, racism or transphobia has, at some point, ceased to exist because these ways of thinking are determined and defined by societies. They are finite.
But diversity and the fact that minorities have always existed are infinite. The reason they will never cease to exist is that they are part of humanity, part of being human. Homophobia, racism, sexism and transphobia are not.
And so, I would like to end with the oldest translated lines in human history, written by a displaced woman who pleaded with her goddess of war and love to bring peace back to her land. A text, a wish, that is just as relevant today as it was more than four thousand years ago:
After he had stood there triumphantly, he drove me from the temple. Like a swallow from the window, he made me fly, dragged me away to the thorny scrub of enemy lands. He was able to tear the crown of the high priesthood from me… Must I die because I raised my song that determines my fate? … Mistress of the divine powers, your eternity, light that has risen radiantly, woman of mighty deeds, in blazing splendour of terror… I will now speak a prayer to you. I am Enheduana!
