Hermaphroditus and History

Text: Morrigan Fogarty

Disclaimer: It would be misleading to call this an interview, it is instead a collection of thoughts and theorizations about monster theory, queer theory, mythology, and how we read the past. I wrote this because I met Brennan, and it was written in conversation with her and her work, and I’m thankful for the time she spent talking monsters with me. 

A young boy walks alone in the woods. He comes upon a stream where a nymph watches him from afar, infatuated. She advances, he recoils, repudiates, and retreats from her. She throws herself upon him, and as they thrash in the water she calls to be made one. The monstrous emerges, the body both of man and of woman, and the monster speaks, it asks for a wish to be granted. Curse/bless this pool, make it so that others will be like me.

That is the simplest version of Ovid’s tale of Hermaphroditus. Stripped down to the bone the skeleton has little to say. Dear reader, it is our job to be the flesh. 

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Brennan Kettelle is a sort of queer necromancer. 

In my young academic career I’ve noticed a peculiar phenomenon. While discussing my work with peers and professors, at some point I’ll be told of a scholar who I’ve yet to meet that my interlocutor is thus stunned to learn that I haven’t yet encountered. I don’t take this as a unique experience, but I’m happy to report that I’ve yet to be disappointed whenever I do evidently meet with the aforementioned scholar. Brennan was no exception.

I first came across their work in a lecture they gave on Monster Theory and Lilith, arguing for Lilith as a monstrous figure, (who I will not attempt to categorize or explore in this paper), and the role that Lilith held in sexual magic discourses, specifically as the embodiment of an enticing, evil, chaotic, queer figure created in the cosmological worldview espoused by the misogynist, homophobe, and all around weird guy Samael Aun Weor. I was not particularly struck by Aun Weor but instead in the way that Brennan utilized Monster Theory. Jeffery Jerome Cohen gave us Monster Theory in his work Monster Culture, and it’s beautiful in both its simplicity and its ease of execution. In brief, it posits seven theses that act as a mirror with which we can analyze and understand the cultural significance of a monster. In this case Lilith wasn’t just a queer demon going around and sending the unwise into her arms of sodomy and blasphemy. She was representative of anxieties, boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed, and also of thresholds of becoming. Towards the end of the lecture Brennan teased an idea she’s developing, the idea that we can identify with the Monster, that the monster can be valorized, and this relation can be seen between the Monster, and what we call the Queer. 

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When I went to talk with Brennan, I went in with the express intent to have a free flowing conversation. This article was ultimately going to be about a monstrous queer reading of Hermaphroditus, but not knowing everything about the story or Brennan’s familiarity with the subject, I decided to instead focus on Monster Theory and Queer Theory in general. This was the right call, as it allowed a flexible interview lasting about two hours filled with more dialogue than questioning.

After summarizing the story, I asked about the Queer as a Monster, and what kind of cultural associations queerness has had in the past. Brennan told me about pathologization, the idea that the Queer is contagious, for example found in the idea of Lesbian Narcissism, a theory that pathologized and psychologized lesbianism as a mental manifestation of intense dangerous self infatuation. It’s not hard to see how this trend of pathologizing the queer is extended to our times. One only has to briefly look at the news to see right wing fears of children being “groomed” into transition or queerness. This pathologization can easily be connected to monsters - Brennan talked about the history of the vampire being connected to these fears about infection and conversion. The Queer Monster can infect; it is a monster that not only exists at the boundaries but also invites you in to dwell with them. 

When I read Hermaphroditus for the first time, I wanted to read it in a certain way. Being a trans historian means I have an urge or desire to look for people like me in the past. When I hear of a figure whose body is male and female, whose body is in some ways like mine, at a threshold of becoming, I want to say that they’re trans. This is of course a survival strategy. Increasing bigotry and transphobia means we are constantly in fear of being erased, of our stories being undone and untold, when I read of Hermaphroditus, of him asking the gods to leave behind a magical pond so that others can be like him I want to join him in those waters. One might think that being transgender is simple, a want to go from concretely male to female or vice versa, but so often it is about standing at a threshold, at being in between two platonic ideals that nobody actually fulfills and deciding where one wants to define themselves. It’s why Hermaphroditus can feel relatable whereas the story of Tiresias, a blind prophet who was instantly transformed into a woman as punishment, does not. 

It seems fitting that the example of Lesbian Narcissism, like the story of Hermaphroditus harkens back to mythology, to stories and histories that can be interpreted and reinterpreted. Brennan told me about their work on Renée Vivien who “was proud to be a man hating sapphic poet”, and spent her work digging through historical figures to revitalize and valorize them as queer figures, one of which of course being Lilith.This process of taking the monstrous, of looking at them and identifying with them struck me in its profound implications but also its immediate recognition in my own life. Brennan told me that “if you’re going to become monstrous either way then why not work with that”, and it struck to the core of this process. If we are seen as monsters, if we are seen as things to be afraid of, we have to ask why, and what those fears represent. While monster theory is a great tool for examining this, we are still left alone in our analysis. Instead, Brennan spoke of “comrades beyond the veil”, of history as a site of connection that isn’t concerned with one hundred percent factually accurate questions like “was the Roman leader Elagabalus a trans woman?” but instead of how we can connect with hidden legacies, if we can make history be something for us instead of just describing us. I don’t know who wrote the first version of the Hermaphroditus story or what they intended (one particularly humorous explanation is that the Greeks wanted to prevent some barbarians from drinking from a spring so they made the story as a way to scare them away, telling them they’ll grow breasts if they keep using it), but I know that when I read Ovid’s version and I look briefly beyond the veil of textual authority, I can find myself in its words.