“Between the human and the divine”

This chapter aims to shed light on mentalities, structures of power, forms of political self-representation, and on their reciprocal connections. It analyses the adoption of transgender elements in discourse, and illustrate thus the mental structures underlying gender issues in the Graeco-Roman world. The chapter focuses on the practice of cross-dressing in Classical Antiquity and presents significant examples of "performative gender (self)reassignment". A symbolic form of female-to-male cross-dressing, which again does not endanger gender boundaries, underpins the law which forced prostitutes in Rome to wear a toga. The chapter argues that Greek and Roman mentality recognized gender boundaries as a central element, constitutive of the human – their transgression was admitted only as part of a "posthuman world", and therefore considered as revealing a divine nature or a divine protection. The possibility of crossing the established gender boundaries, which are so closely watched, can only be a trans- and superhuman possibility, which implies a divine nature or divine intervention.