History Memes

Fear not, we live in enlightened times of research and not mere guesswork.

Originally specialists in singing lamentations, gala appear in temple records dating back from the middle of the 3rd millennium BC.[1] According to an old Babylonian text, the god Enki created the gala specifically to sing "heart-soothing laments" for the goddess Inanna.[2] Cuneiform references indicate the gendered character of the role.[3] Lamentation and wailing may have originally been female professions, so that the males who entered the role adopted its more feminine forms. Their hymns were sung in a Sumerian dialect known as eme-sal, normally used to render the speech of female gods,[4] and some gala took feminine names and roles.[5] This is seen by some scholars as evidence of early social gender transition [6].

Homosexual proclivities are implied by a Sumerian proverb which reads, "When the gala wiped off his anus [he said], ‘I must not arouse that which belongs to my mistress [i.e., Inanna]’ ".[7] In fact, the word gala was written using the sign sequence UŠ.KU, the first sign having also the reading g̃iš3 ("penis") & nita ("male"), and the second one bed3 ("anus") & dur2 ("buttocks"), meaning that might be a pun involved.[8] Moreover, gala is homophonous with gal4-la (𒊩𒆷) meaning "vulva".

In spite of all their references to their effeminate character (especially in the Sumerian proverbs), many administrative texts make mention of heterosexual gala who had children, wives, and large families.[9] In addition, some gala priests were women.[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gala_(priests/)

Now obviously their concepts of gender are not the same as ours, but they seem to show strong indicators of what we could call non-binary or potentially even trans in today's understanding.