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Nature Is a Transsexual Woman: Lucretian Metaphysics Reconsidered.

Recent work shows that gender diversity is not a modern phenomenon. In this essay, I make a stronger claim: transsexuality is and always has been center stage, if only in an omitted form. More particularly, I argue that transsexuality lives at the heart of Lucretius' De rerum natura (DRN). Nature, t...

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Published in:Classical Philology Vol. 119; no. 2; pp. 203 - 234
Main Author: DeLire, Luce
Format: Article
Published: University of Chicago Press Apr2024
Subjects:
Trans women
Gender identity
Transsexualism
De Rerum Natura (Poem : Lucretius)
Lucretius Carus, Titus, ca. 99 B.C.-55 B.C.
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Summary:Recent work shows that gender diversity is not a modern phenomenon. In this essay, I make a stronger claim: transsexuality is and always has been center stage, if only in an omitted form. More particularly, I argue that transsexuality lives at the heart of Lucretius' De rerum natura (DRN). Nature, to Lucretius, is female. And nature is a result of self-affirming productive interventions, embodied self-appropriation, fertilizing incision. Nature's femininity is both process and result of feminizing transition.