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Hermaphrodeities: The Transgender Spirituality Workbook
Transgendered people have long been robbed of their own spiritual history, not knowing that there were once times and places where ours was considered a spiritual path in and of itself. This book explores both our spiritual history and our modern predicaments, shaping the outline of a contemporary spiritual path for those of us who don't fit into just one gender box. This revised and expanded edition of Hermaphrodeities features third gender myths, deities, personal and group exercises, community service project suggestions, rituals, and interviews with people from all over both the transgender spectrum. We are all sacred and it is time that the world knew it.
359 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
17 people are currently reading
247 people want to read
About the author
Raven Kaldera
89 books107 followersA female-to-male transgendered activist and shaman, Raven Kaldera is a pagan priest, intersex transgender activist, parent, astrologer, musician and homesteader. Kaldera is also the author of "Hermaphrodeities: The Transgender Spirituality Workbook" from XLibris Press. The founder and leader of the Pagan Kingdom of Asphodel and the Asphodel Pagan Choir, Kaldera has been a neo-pagan since the age of 14, when he was converted by a "fam-trad" teen on a date. Since then, he's been through half a dozen traditions, including Gardnerian, Dianic, granola paganism, Umbanda, Heithnir, and the Peasant Tradition. He is currently happily married to artist and eco-experimentalist Bella Kaldera, with whom he co-founded the Institute for Heritage Skills.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 24, 2021
I can see how this book was pretty ground breaking when it was written, from the perspective of transgendered spirituality, although some of the language used might seem a little dated in 2021.
The bulk of the book consists of chapters looking at various deities, mythic figures and heroes from spiritual traditions across the globe (although mostly Greece), and their importance and relevance to transgendered lives. These include chapters on Agdistis, Lilith, Shiva, Dionysus, Aphrodite Urania, Athena, Baphomet, The Kurgarra and Galatur, Obatala, the Gallae of Cybele, tricksters and shapeshifters. The myths and history are explored with a focus on their relevance to different transgendered experience, sometimes their importance to intersexed and nonbinary people, sometimes to transwomen, sometimes to transmen, and sometimes a mix of the three. The chapters include meditations, exercises and rituals intended to inspire the reader into action. Each of these chapters ends with an interview with a different transgender and/or intersexed spiritual practitioner exploring how their nature outside the cisnormative binary effects their relationship to spiritual practise.
A small section at the end includes a few essays by different practitioners on their own spiritual practises.
What I liked about this book:
* The chapters exploring the deities included some I expected and knew about, but also others I did not. Some I found surprising and informative.
* The interviews helped give a sense of diversity and range to transgendered spiritual experience that may have proved lacking if the whole book was merely the authors perspective.
* Some of the exercises really challenge the reader to get out there and be involved in their local transgender community and support relevant charities, and whilst those organisations suggested had a very USA-centric focus, readers such as myself in Scotland and elsewhere in the world, could probably find similar local charities and organisations for ourselves as substitutes.
What I disliked:
* My own perspective to spirituality is more agnostic than the very dogmatic sounding certainty used in a lot of the language. I can translate such language into my own terms, but readers of a more materialistic bias may struggle.
* One of the essays at the end is by someone known these days as a very out fascist and white supremacist (or 'European Identitarian' as they like to call themselves). I had a go at reading what they had to say, and sure enough it is full of language we might now recognise as 'TERF' adjacent and gatekeeping. Not something I would have expected Raven to include. Its inclusion is mainly what prevents me giving this book 5 starts, even if it is only a few pages at the end.
The bulk of the book consists of chapters looking at various deities, mythic figures and heroes from spiritual traditions across the globe (although mostly Greece), and their importance and relevance to transgendered lives. These include chapters on Agdistis, Lilith, Shiva, Dionysus, Aphrodite Urania, Athena, Baphomet, The Kurgarra and Galatur, Obatala, the Gallae of Cybele, tricksters and shapeshifters. The myths and history are explored with a focus on their relevance to different transgendered experience, sometimes their importance to intersexed and nonbinary people, sometimes to transwomen, sometimes to transmen, and sometimes a mix of the three. The chapters include meditations, exercises and rituals intended to inspire the reader into action. Each of these chapters ends with an interview with a different transgender and/or intersexed spiritual practitioner exploring how their nature outside the cisnormative binary effects their relationship to spiritual practise.
A small section at the end includes a few essays by different practitioners on their own spiritual practises.
What I liked about this book:
* The chapters exploring the deities included some I expected and knew about, but also others I did not. Some I found surprising and informative.
* The interviews helped give a sense of diversity and range to transgendered spiritual experience that may have proved lacking if the whole book was merely the authors perspective.
* Some of the exercises really challenge the reader to get out there and be involved in their local transgender community and support relevant charities, and whilst those organisations suggested had a very USA-centric focus, readers such as myself in Scotland and elsewhere in the world, could probably find similar local charities and organisations for ourselves as substitutes.
What I disliked:
* My own perspective to spirituality is more agnostic than the very dogmatic sounding certainty used in a lot of the language. I can translate such language into my own terms, but readers of a more materialistic bias may struggle.
* One of the essays at the end is by someone known these days as a very out fascist and white supremacist (or 'European Identitarian' as they like to call themselves). I had a go at reading what they had to say, and sure enough it is full of language we might now recognise as 'TERF' adjacent and gatekeeping. Not something I would have expected Raven to include. Its inclusion is mainly what prevents me giving this book 5 starts, even if it is only a few pages at the end.
May 29, 2018
I should note, I review this as a straight, cis-gendered person, an interfaith minister and as a storyteller who has done some deliberate work with gender-crossing deities and mythic traditions. My perspectives are, obviously, shaped by this.
So firstly and most importantly, I am so glad this book exists.
Raven Kaldera, a self-identified ftm shaman of the northern-European/Heathen pantheon, takes a global and mythic approach to transgender spirituality. In so many traditions, third-gendered and other trans-gendered individuals were seen to have sacred roles, and so many Gods/Goddesses and Divine beings transcend the modern, Western gender binary. Kalderra picks a variety of these, including with Agdistis, Shiva, Lilith, and dedicates a chapter to each.
And these chapters follow a formula. A poem or prayer to introduce. A version of the story of the particular deity on which that chapter is focused. An exploration of an aspect of trans-identity relevant to that particular deity. Some suggestions of inner and outer activities to help engage with that deities concerns. A ritual inspired by that deity. And an interview or two with other trans- spirit workers, almost all of them from under the pagan umbrella, about their life, their gender, their spirituality and how those things are all connected.
It's a tight formula and it makes sense, though about halfway through I began to find the regularity repetitive. Kaldera is a skillful writer and this book feels like it addresses a real need in the world. It's not really for me to imagine how helpful this book might be to a trans-person in helping them contextualise their place in the world, but as a cis-reader it was horizon-expanding, comprehensive, passionate and powerful.
The gripes. Kaldera makes so little effort to cite his sources during his mythic re-telling. Perhaps this only annoyed me because I'd love to go away and do my own follow up research on the story versions, but it also plays into one of my pet peeves with pagan writing. Take, for example, Kaldera's version of Inanna's descent into the underworld. In it, he has her create gender-less beings from the dirt under her fingernails. Great, that's a powerful image. But in most of the Sumer/Akkadian tablet translations I've come across, that particular piece of magic is done by Enki, the trickster. Now there's a whole host of reasons why Kaldera may have decided to write a version in which it was Inanna who carried out this act of creation - perhaps he found a tablet or translation that credited the deed to Inanna. (There's an enormous number of different versions out there!) Perhaps he's worked with Inanna as a Deity and felt like that version of the story had come directly from Her to him. Perhaps he had aesthetic considerations - maybe he wanted to limit the number of deities in his story because it might confuse someone new to the pantheon, or perhaps he wanted Inanna to save herself rather than rely on a male intervention - all of which are valid and heck, I've done them myself in my own reworking of Gilgamesh. But my experience of pagan writing has been that it conflates research, revelation and aesthetics, whereas to me these things are tangibly and importantly different and I want to know which the writer is engaged in.
There's a couple of other minor complaints. I felt like some really obvious characters were missed. (We have a chapter on Shiva but nothing on Shikhandi, for example.) I was also rarely blown away by Kaldera's ceremony writing, an experience I also had with his book of handfasting and wedding rituals. My own taste in ceremony involves a little more "way opening" into the symbolic language of the ritual elements. But that's probably just my own taste as a celebrant working often with bespoke ceremonies for congregations I'm meeting for the first time.
The second edition finishes with a section on Solid Visions, essays from other writers on different aspects of trans-spirituality, for example the congruence of the physical and astral body. These are a very welcome conclusion, especially as they interrupt the by then repetitive chapter structure.
Argh. Once again I've written a review that comes across far more negative than I mean it to. This was a skillfully written, deeply-researched book, accessible, inspiring and entertaining. The world is so much better for "Hermaphrodeities" being in it and I've already ordered another of Raven's that I'm looking forward to reading.
So firstly and most importantly, I am so glad this book exists.
Raven Kaldera, a self-identified ftm shaman of the northern-European/Heathen pantheon, takes a global and mythic approach to transgender spirituality. In so many traditions, third-gendered and other trans-gendered individuals were seen to have sacred roles, and so many Gods/Goddesses and Divine beings transcend the modern, Western gender binary. Kalderra picks a variety of these, including with Agdistis, Shiva, Lilith, and dedicates a chapter to each.
And these chapters follow a formula. A poem or prayer to introduce. A version of the story of the particular deity on which that chapter is focused. An exploration of an aspect of trans-identity relevant to that particular deity. Some suggestions of inner and outer activities to help engage with that deities concerns. A ritual inspired by that deity. And an interview or two with other trans- spirit workers, almost all of them from under the pagan umbrella, about their life, their gender, their spirituality and how those things are all connected.
It's a tight formula and it makes sense, though about halfway through I began to find the regularity repetitive. Kaldera is a skillful writer and this book feels like it addresses a real need in the world. It's not really for me to imagine how helpful this book might be to a trans-person in helping them contextualise their place in the world, but as a cis-reader it was horizon-expanding, comprehensive, passionate and powerful.
The gripes. Kaldera makes so little effort to cite his sources during his mythic re-telling. Perhaps this only annoyed me because I'd love to go away and do my own follow up research on the story versions, but it also plays into one of my pet peeves with pagan writing. Take, for example, Kaldera's version of Inanna's descent into the underworld. In it, he has her create gender-less beings from the dirt under her fingernails. Great, that's a powerful image. But in most of the Sumer/Akkadian tablet translations I've come across, that particular piece of magic is done by Enki, the trickster. Now there's a whole host of reasons why Kaldera may have decided to write a version in which it was Inanna who carried out this act of creation - perhaps he found a tablet or translation that credited the deed to Inanna. (There's an enormous number of different versions out there!) Perhaps he's worked with Inanna as a Deity and felt like that version of the story had come directly from Her to him. Perhaps he had aesthetic considerations - maybe he wanted to limit the number of deities in his story because it might confuse someone new to the pantheon, or perhaps he wanted Inanna to save herself rather than rely on a male intervention - all of which are valid and heck, I've done them myself in my own reworking of Gilgamesh. But my experience of pagan writing has been that it conflates research, revelation and aesthetics, whereas to me these things are tangibly and importantly different and I want to know which the writer is engaged in.
There's a couple of other minor complaints. I felt like some really obvious characters were missed. (We have a chapter on Shiva but nothing on Shikhandi, for example.) I was also rarely blown away by Kaldera's ceremony writing, an experience I also had with his book of handfasting and wedding rituals. My own taste in ceremony involves a little more "way opening" into the symbolic language of the ritual elements. But that's probably just my own taste as a celebrant working often with bespoke ceremonies for congregations I'm meeting for the first time.
The second edition finishes with a section on Solid Visions, essays from other writers on different aspects of trans-spirituality, for example the congruence of the physical and astral body. These are a very welcome conclusion, especially as they interrupt the by then repetitive chapter structure.
Argh. Once again I've written a review that comes across far more negative than I mean it to. This was a skillfully written, deeply-researched book, accessible, inspiring and entertaining. The world is so much better for "Hermaphrodeities" being in it and I've already ordered another of Raven's that I'm looking forward to reading.
April 16, 2016
This is an inspired, thought-provoking study of the nature of gender (pangender, transgender, no-gender) as represented through the deities and beliefs of different faith traditions. Written by a self-declared "trouble-maker", the book suggests activities to raise the profile of transgender spirituality, and is packed with suggested ceremonies, spiritual practices, interviews with non gender binary people, and thoughtful descriptions of the various deities that Kaldera has worked with. Provocative, grounded, and well researched, this (for me) was an unexpectedly powerful read – a text that I shall undoubtedly return to in the future.
February 3, 2016
This unique, valuable book presents a wide variety of spiritual role models for genderqueer, trans*, and intersex people, as well as anyone looking for a nonbinary approach to the gods and goddesses of their faith tradition. Personal essays are interspersed with legends from world religions. The organization of material was rather random, though, and could have benefited from an index.
March 17, 2023
Read the second edition of this book. Was pretty good. Can definitely recommend both for the deities mentioned as well as the insightful commentary from the author and other sources referenced in the book.
March 19, 2020
This was definitely interesting and gave me some thoughts on ritual design and relevant myths, though it wasn't really that connected to my spiritual approaches.
February 13, 2022
This book is very outdated, i can see why it's recommend very infrequently. This is more of a history book now, or for an older (50+) person just now coming to terms with their gender queerness
November 29, 2014
A unique book that reveals mythical characters and archetypes of gender transgression, such as the story of Agdistis and Attis. It's valuable to have these collected all in one place and given a modern interpretation. The book also includes interviews with real people about their interpretations and experiences of being transgender.
Want to read
August 19, 2008Ordered on Amazon, expecting it to come in soon.
June 12, 2016
Parts of this book really resonated and made me cry, but the spirituality / true-believe side of the writing was a bit too much for me. I suspect it might be a bit heavy for most people.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews