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PAN card stands for Permanent Account Number. It is one of the documents required for opening of bank account and for carrying out various financial transactions. It is compulsory required for filing of income tax returns. It also serves as a proof of identify.You can apply for PAN Card online through the following two sites:NSDL portal https://tin.tin.nsdl.com/pan/index.htmlUTITSL portal https://www.pan.utiitsl.com/PAN/mainform.htmlStep by Step Procedure for applying PAN Card online through the UTIITSL portal -Log on to the site mentioned above. Click on the link where it is written Apply as an Indian/NRI.Click on the link Apply for new PAN Card (Form 49A). A new tab with online Form 49A will open.On the top of the page there is a link for Guidelines and Instructions. Click on it and read it carefully before you begin to fill the form, to avoid any mistakes.Select the status of the applicant as Individual.Select the title KUMAR, M/S, SHRI, and SMT as per your requirement. 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It is popularly believed that transgender, intersex, and non-binary people only started existing fairly recently and that they are an aberration of modern times. This could not possibly be further from the truth. It is true that the word “transgender” is fairly new, since it was first coined in 1965, but there have been people whom we might consider transgender ever since at least the beginning of recorded history.In this article, I want to talk about some examples of figures from ancient history, mythology, and literature whom we might consider transgender, intersex, or non-binary. Some of these people are fictional; others of them are historical. Not all of them fit perfectly under our modern definition of “transgender,” but all of them are of interest to the discussion of transgender history.Regarding pronoun use, in the following article, I will mostly be using the English equivalents of the pronouns that are actually used in the ancient sources, which may or may not be the pronouns that the individuals discussed here would have preferred to have been used. Unfortunately, the people I will be discussing in this article who actually existed have all been dead for thousands of years, so it is impossible for us to ask what their preferences are.Gala priestsSome of our earliest and most detailed records pertaining to people in the ancient world who might be considered transgender come from the ancient Near East. In the third millennium BC, in ancient Sumer, there were priests known as gala who served Inanna, a very important goddess who was associated with a wide range of things, including love, beauty, sex, war, justice, and kingship.The gala are known to have worked in Inanna’s temples. One Old Babylonian text states that Enki, the god associated with water and inventions, created them to sing “heart-soothing laments” for Inanna. Singing laments therefore seems to have been their primary duty.There is evidence that some gala were cisgender women. A large number of the gala, however, were people who had been assigned male at birth. These people sometimes adopted female names. Hymns meant to be sung by gala were usually composed in the Sumerian eme-sal dialect, which, in literary texts, is exclusively used to render the speech of female characters.There are surviving Sumerian proverbs that seem to suggest that it was popularly believed that many gala engaged in anal intercourse with men. For instance, here is one proverb that has been translated by the mid-twentieth-century scholar Edmund Gordon:“When the gala wiped off his anus [he said], ‘I must not arouse that which belongs to my mistress [i.e. Inanna].’”Based on the information available, scholars have speculated that gala originated as cisgender women whose job was to sing lamentations. Over time, though, the gala developed from merely professional lamenters into an entire priesthood devoted to serving Inanna. As people who had been assigned male at birth began to join the priesthood, they adopted the feminine attributes that were associated with it.So, were the gala what we would consider “transgender”? It’s unclear. Unfortunately, when it comes to the gala priesthood, we’re mostly relying on vague references in four-thousand-year-old cuneiform tablets that can be interpreted in a lot of different ways.There’s no doubt that the order included people who had been assigned male at birth who adopted traditionally female gender attributes. It’s not clear, though, whether these people identified as male, female, or some other gender. It’s not possible for us to raise one of them from the dead and ask them, “Do you consider yourself a woman?”ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of an ancient Sumerian statuette of two gala priests dated to c. 2450 BC, discovered in the temple of the goddess Inanna in the city of Mari in SyriaGalli priestsThe ancient Sumerian gala are similar in many respects to the galli—a much later order of priests who served the Phrygian goddess Kybele. It is not clear when or how the galli order originated or if it is related in any way to the Sumerian gala priesthood. What is known, however, is that it was traditional for galli to castrate themselves, for them to wear their hair long, and for them to wear saffron dresses, perfume, makeup, and earrings.The ancient Romans adopted Kybele into their pantheon in 205 BC, believing that she would aid them in their ongoing war against the Carthaginians. As a result of the introduction of Kybele into the Roman pantheon, the galli became part of the Roman religious landscape.In the Roman Empire, galli generally lived as mendicants and they seem to have primarily funded their lives through donations from others. At festivals, they performed ecstatic dances to the music of pipes, cymbals, and tympana and, in their ecstasy, they were known to flog themselves repeatedly until their backs were covered in blood.Roman people were generally shocked by the way the galli behaved. They were particularly horrified by the self-castration, blatant effeminacy, and self-flagellation. Most Romans seem to have generally regarded the galli as neither fully male nor fully female, but rather as members of a third gender.ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a funerary relief of an Archigallus from Lavinium dated to the second century AD on display in the Capitoline Museums in RomeOne of our most important sources of information about the galli is the satirical novel The Golden Ass, which was written in Latin by the Roman writer Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis (lived c. 124 – c. 170 AD), who came from what is now northern Algeria. The main character in the novel is a man named Lucius who has accidentally been turned into a donkey. In Book Eight of the novel, he is sold to a gallus and he gets an inside look at how the galli live.Apuleius, the author of the novel, was not a gallus himself. In fact, he seems to have been a supporter of the rival cult of the Egyptian goddess Isis. When Apuleius talks about the galli in his novel, he does so only for the purpose of making fun of them. Therefore, everything he says should be taken with a grain of salt.In Apuleius’s novel, the galli are described using masculine pronouns, but they are portrayed as referring to each other as female. When the gallus who has bought Lucius brings him back to the other galli, he addresses them as “puellae,” which means “girls.”In the novel, the galli are also portrayed as extremely lustful for sex with handsome young men. Here is Apuleius’s description of the galli attempting to seduce a young man, as translated by Jack Lindsay:“When all the preparations were concluded, they went off to the Baths and returned later with a lusty young rustic, obviously chosen for his godly proportions; and before the first course of a few herb-dishes had been fully dispatched, they lewdly fetched out in front of the table all the bawdy apparatus for the perfect perpetration of privy perversions. Gathering round the young fellow, naked and variously supine, they turned upon him a steam of horrid solicitations.”Partly on account of Apuleius’s portrayal, many modern writers have described the galli as trans women. Personally, I suspect that they were a diverse group. There were probably some galli who were genuinely what we would consider trans women, but probably others who saw themselves as men and others who saw themselves as neither male nor female.ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of another bust of an Archigallus in the Capitoline MuseumsThe legend of TeiresiasThere are also a number of figures in Greek and Roman mythology who physically change sex that I think are worth discussing here because their stories tell us a lot of interesting things about how ancient people thought about sex and gender.In Greek mythology, Teiresias is said to have been the son of the mortal shepherd Eueres and the nymph Chariklo. There are several different versions of his backstory, but the most famous version of the story holds that, when he was walking along near Mount Kyllene in the Peloponnesos, he came upon a pair of snakes mating. He struck the female snake on the head and was instantly transformed into a woman.Teiresias lived as a woman for seven years. Then, when she was walking along near Mount Kyllene again, she discovered the same pair of snakes mating again. This time, she struck the male snake on the head. As a result, she was transformed back into a man.At some point, Zeus and Hera got into an argument over whether the man or the woman experiences greater pleasure during sex. Hera claimed that the man experiences more sexual pleasure, but Zeus claimed that the woman does. They couldn’t agree, so they decided to ask someone who would be able to settle the dispute for them.Teiresias was the only person they knew of who had had sex both as a man and as a woman, so they summoned him and asked him whether he had personally experienced greater pleasure during sex as a man or as a woman. Teiresias replied that, if you divide sexual pleasure into ten parts, the woman experiences nine of those parts, while the man only experiences one.Hera was furious with Teiresias’s answer, so she cursed him with blindness. Zeus, however, was greatly pleased, so he granted Teiresias the gift of prophecy and decreed that he would live seven times the lifetime of a normal person. Teiresias went on to become a renowned prophet and advisor to the kings of Thebes. He is a fascinating and complicated figure, who embodies multiple paradoxes. He is both human and divine, both male and female, and both blind and seeing.ABOVE: Engraving from c. 1690 by the German illustrator Johann Ulrich Kraus depicting Teiresias being transformed into a womanThe legend of Iphis and IantheThe Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso (lived 43 BC – c. 17 AD) wrote his long narrative poem Metamorphoses in Latin sometime around the year 8 AD. In the poem, he tells several fantastic stories that I think are particularly relevant to the subject of transgender people in ancient times.Near the end of Book Nine of the poem, he tells the story that, on the Greek island of Krete, there was once a freedman named Ligdus who lived with his wife Telethusa. They were very poor and they knew that if they had a daughter, they would not be able to pay a dowry for her. When Telethusa became pregnant, Ligdus told her that, if she gave birth to a son, they would raise him, but, if she gave birth to a daughter, they would abandon her to die in the wilderness.Telethusa begged Ligdus to change his mind, but he remained stubborn. Then, one night, Telethusa had a dream in which the Egyptian goddess Isis, the dog-headed god Anubis, the cat-headed goddess Bubastis, the bull god Apis, Isis’s son Harpocrates, Isis’s consort Osiris, and an Egyptian asp all appeared beside her bed. Isis instructed her that she should raise her child—regardless of whether it was a boy or a girl—and promised to assist her in the future. Then the goddess and all her companions disappeared.ABOVE: Engraving from 1732 by the French illustrator Bernard Picart depicting Isis and the other Egyptian deities appearing at Telethusa’s bedsideIn time, Telethusa gave birth to a girl, but she concealed the child’s sex from her husband and instead lied to him, telling him that the child was a boy. Ligdus named the child Iphis after his own father and the couple raised Iphis as a boy.When Iphis reached maturity, Ligdus, still believing that she was a boy, arranged for her to marry a beautiful young woman named Ianthe, the daughter of Telestes. Iphis and Ianthe fell deeply in love with each other. Iphis wanted to marry Ianthe, but she knew this would be impossible, since she was not really a man, so she prayed to the goddess Iuno to make her a man.Telethusa, knowing that Ianthe would be disappointed to find her husband was a woman, put off the wedding as long as possible by pretending to be ill and claiming that she had witnessed various ill omens. Finally, on the day before the wedding, Telethusa took Iphis to the temple of Isis and, in an act of desperation, prayed to the goddess for assistance.All of a sudden, Isis’s cult statue moved. The altar shook and the doors of the temple flew open. A bolt of blue lightning flashed through the door and struck the crescent crown on the cult statue. Sistra resounded in the darkness of the temple around them. Then, in that moment, Iphis was miraculously physically transformed into a man. As a result of the miracle wrought by Isis, Iphis was able to marry Ianthe, the love of his life. He left a dedication thanking Isis for everything she had done.This story is particularly interesting, because it shows that, apparently, for the ancient Romans, divine intervention to transform a woman into a man was somehow more plausible than a marriage between two women.ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a Roman statue of the Egyptian goddess Isis, who, according to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, transformed Iphis into a man, allowing him to marry the beautiful IantheThe legend of CaeneusIn Book Twelve of his Metamorphoses, Ovid tells the story of a Thessalian girl named Caenis, who was the daughter of Elatus. He says that she was extraordinarily beautiful and that she was sought after by many men, but, one day, when she went walking along the seashore, the god Neptunus spotted her and, being mad with lust, leapt out of the sea and brutally raped her right there on the beach.After he finished raping her, he was so pleased that he promised to grant her one wish. She was so traumatized at having been raped that she told him her only wish was to be a man so that she would never have to have sex with a man ever again. Neptunus granted her wish and she was instantly transformed into a man. From that day onwards, Caenis became known as Caeneus.Caeneus went on to become a hero of great renown and he fought in the famous battle between the Lapiths and the centaurs. During the battle, one centaur named Latreus mocked Caeneus for having been born a woman, addressing him as “Caenis” and telling him to go back to weaving wool.Caeneus slew Latreus with his spear without even getting a scratch. The other centaurs tried to kill him to avenge Latreus’s death, but they found that Caeneus’s skin was magically unbreakable and that he could not be killed with weapons, so they buried him under an entire mountain of rocks and logs.ABOVE: Woodcut illustration from 1563 by the German illustrator Virgil SolisThe legend of HermaphroditosAphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, was usually considered female, but, in the city of Amathos on the island of Kypros, she was worshipped in a male form under the masculine name Aphroditos. In Greek art, Aphroditos is typically portrayed as an androgynous figure; he wears a kind of dress that the Greeks traditionally regarded as feminine, but yet he is lifting up the dress to show everyone his erect penis. In some depictions, he is also shown with a beard to further emphasize his male aspect.ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of an ancient Greek marble herma of Aphroditos, the male form of the goddess Aphrodite, now held in the Nationalmuseum in StockholmAphroditos was sometimes known by the name “Hermaphroditos,” which means “Aphroditos in the form of a herma,” since hermai were a kind of statue that was commonly used in ancient Greece to mark boundaries. Eventually, however, Hermaphroditos became seen not as a form of Aphrodite, but rather the son of Aphrodite and the god Hermes.In Book Four of his Metamorphoses, Ovid tells a story about Hermaphroditos. According to Ovid, Hermaphroditos was raised by naiads in the caves underneath Mount Ida in Phrygia, but, when he turned fifteen, he left Mount Ida to visit the cities of Asia Minor. In the middle of the woods in the land of Karia, he found a beautiful pond filled with the clearest water and was tempted to take a bath in it.There was, however, a nymph named Salmacis who lived near the pond. She saw him and was instantly overcome with mad lust for him. She went to him and attempted to seduce him, but he spurned her advances, so she pretended to leave. Thinking that she was really gone, Hermaphroditos stripped himself naked and went into the pool to bathe. Then Salmacis sprang out from where she was hiding behind a tree and tried to take him by force, wrapping herself around him, kissing him, and pressing her skin against his.Hermaphroditos tried to fight back, but Salmacis prayed to the deities that she and him would become one flesh. Her prayer was granted and their bodies blended into one. Hermaphroditos was horrified to discover that he had the body and voice of a woman, but the penis and testicles of a man. Therefore, he prayed to his mother Aphrodite and his father Hermes to curse any man who tried to swim in the pool he had tried to bathe in and to make him effeminate like him.This myth has had particularly great cultural influence; there are a large number of surviving ancient statues of Aphroditos/Hermaphroditos—some of which are very famous—and the word hermaphrodite was widely used until very recently to refer to the people we now describe as “intersex.”ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a third-century BC Hellenistic Greek marble statue of Hermaphroditos from the city of Pergamon in Asia MinorABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a statue of Hermaphroditos on display in the Lady Lever Art Gallery in EnglandABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the backside of the Borghese Hermaphroditos, an ancient Roman statue of Hermaphroditos sleeping that rests on a mattress carved by the Italian Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo BerniniABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the front side of the Borghese HermaphroditosABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the Borghese Hermaphroditos from aboveDiodoros Sikeliotes’s story of the woman who suddenly turned into a manThe stories of Teiresias, of Iphis and Ianthe, of Caeneus, and of Hermaphroditos are all fairly well known nowadays; a story that is not quite so well known, however, is the tale told by the Greek historian Diodoros Sikeliotes (lived c. 90 – c. 30 BC) in his Library of History about a young woman who supposedly spontaneously transformed into a man.The story goes that King Alexandros Balas, who briefly ruled the Seleukid Empire from 150 to 145 BC, consulted an oracle in the land of Kilikia, who told him to beware “the place of the bi-formed one.” At the time, no one knew what to make of this.Around fifteen years earlier, at a place in Arabia called Abai, a Makedonian man had named Diophantos married an Arabian woman. Together, they had two children: a son, who died at a young age, and a daughter, whom they named Heraïs. When Heraïs arrived at a marriageable age, Diophantos arranged for her to marry a young man named Samiades. They were married, but Samiades had to go on a long journey, so he left his wife with her parents.While her husband was gone, Heraïs was stricken by a bizarre illness. A strange tumescence emerged from her lower abdomen and, as it grew increasingly swollen, she developed a high fever. The doctors tried to employ various treatments to reduce the inflammation. Then, on the seventh day of her illness, when Heraïs was with only her mother and two of their female slaves, a penis and testicles burst out from the location of the swelling.Shortly after this, Heraïs recovered. She continued to wear female clothing and live as a woman, despite having a penis and testicles. Samiades came back from his trip and, not knowing that his wife had spontaneously grown male organs, sought to have her back. Heraïs refused to come into his presence, however, because she was too embarrassed and she didn’t want her husband to find out about her male genitalia.Samiades brought the case to court. Just when the court was about to declare that Heraïs had to return to her husband, she lifted up her dress and showed them all her penis and testicles. She declared that she was a man now and that it was not right for the court to force a man to live with another man. The court therefore ruled in Heraïs’s favor.The man formerly known as Heraïs adopted the male name Diophantos (after his father). Then he enrolled in the cavalry and fought alongside Alexandros Balas. In August 145 BC, Alexandros was defeated in battle and forced to retreat to Diophantos’s hometown of Abai. There, the king was murdered by an Arab and the oracle’s prophesy that he should beware “the place of the bi-formed one” was fulfilled.Samiades, meanwhile, couldn’t bear to live without Diophantos, so he designated him the sole heir to all his property and promptly committed suicide. Diodoros concludes his tale with a sexist remark on the supposed strangeness of the fact that one who had been born a woman was able to display the courage of a man, but one who had been born a man displayed the cowardice of a woman.This story is obviously a folktale and not a true account. Nonetheless, the classicist William Hanson, author of The Book of Greek and Roman Folktales, Legends, and Myths, suggests that stories like this one about women spontaneously turning into men may be inspired by real-life cases of intersex people who were born with seemingly normal female genitalia, only to experience sexual masculinization as they grew older.ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a silver coin bearing the portrait of King Alexandros Balas of the Seleukid Empire, in whose cavalry Diophantos is said to have foughtFavorinus of ArelateWe don’t have to rely on legends to know that there were intersex people in ancient times, however, since there are a few undisputed first-hand ancient accounts of such people’s existence. Probably the most famous known intersex person from antiquity is the Gaulish orator Favorinus of Arelate (lived c. 80 – c. 160 AD). According to multiple contemporary sources, he was born without testicles. As an adult, he couldn’t grow a beard, he had a high-pitched voice like a woman, and his limbs were soft.Favorinus’s slightly younger rival Polemon of Laodikeia (lived c. 90 – c. 144 AD) gives this detailed description of his appearance in a surviving fragment, as translated by Tamsyn Barton:“. . . a eunuch born without testicles, rather than castrated. I doubt whether you could find anyone of this type apart from the one who was from the land known as that of the Celts. He was lustful and dissolute beyond all measure, for his eyes were those of the worst type of man . . . he had a puffy forehead, soft cheeks, a wide mouth, a long, thin neck, thick legs and fleshy feet. His voice was just like a woman’s, and all the rest of his limbs and extremities were soft; and he did not walk upright, but with slack joints and limbs. He took great care of his person, [by nourishing] his thick hair, and by rubbing medicaments into his body, in short, using anything to arouse desire for sex and coitus. He had a voice like a woman’s, and thin lips. In the whole human race, I never saw anything like him or his eyes.”Based on this description, modern medical experts have speculated that Favorinus may have had Reifenstein Syndrome (also known as Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome or PAIS), a condition that partially prevents cells from responding to androgens and therefore causes individuals who would otherwise appear male to appear more feminine.The biographer Philostratos of Athens (lived c. 170 – c. 250 AD) describes Favorinus as an ἀνδρόθηλυς (andróthēlys), which means “hermaphrodite,” but claims that he was nonetheless a notorious womanizer and that he was once put on trial for the crime of having allegedly slept with a consul’s wife.Megillos in Loukianos of Samosata’s Dialogues of the CourtesansOne of the most explicit surviving ancient accounts of a transgender person comes from the Syrian satirist Loukianos of Samosata (lived c. 125 – after c. 180 AD), who wrote a work in the Greek language titled The Dialogues of the Courtesans, which is basically composed of a series of conversations between various courtesans dealing with various subjects.One of the most controversial dialogues in the work is one titled “The Lesbians,” in which a young kithara-player named Leaina tells a man named Klonarion how she was seduced by an individual who she thought was a woman named Megilla. Here is her description of the encounter, as translated by A.L.H.:“You see, Megilla and Demonassa, the Corinthian, sweating and very hot, pulled off her false hair—I had never suspected her of wearing a wig. And I saw her head was smooth-shaven as that of a young athlete. I was quite scared to see this. But Megilla spoke up and said to me:”“‘Tell me, O Leaina, have you ever seen a better looking young man?’”“‘But I see no young man here, Megilla!’ I told her.”“‘Now, now! Don't you effeminate me!’ she reproved. ‘You must understand my name is Megillos. Demonassa is my wife.’”“Her words seemed so funny to me, Klonarion. I started to giggle. And I said:”“‘Can it be, Megillos, that you are a man and lived among us under the disguise of a woman, just like Achilles, who stayed among the girls hidden by his purple robe? And is it true that you possess a man's organs, and that you do to Demonassa what any husband does to his wife?’”“‘That Leaina,’ she replied, ‘is not entirely so. You will soon see how we shall couple up in a fashion that is much more voluptuous.’”“‘In that case,’ I said, ‘you are not a hermaphrodite. They, I have been told, have both a man's and woman's organs.’”“‘No,’ she said, ‘I am quite like a man.’”“‘Ismenodora, the Boietian flute player, has told me about a Theban woman who was changed into a man. A certain good soothsayer by the name of Teiresias——Did any accident like that happen to you by chance?’”“‘No, Leaina,’ she said. ‘I was born with a body entirely like that of all women, but I have the tastes and desires of a man.’”“‘And do those desires of yours suffice you?’ I asked, smiling.”“‘Let me have my own way with you, Leaina, if you don't believe me,’ she answered, ‘and you will soon see that I have nothing to envy men for. I have something that resembles a man's estate. Come on, let me do what I want to do and you will soon understand.’”“She pleaded so hard that I let her have her way. And you must understand that she made me a gift of a splendid necklace and several tunics of the finest linen. Then I embraced her and held her in my arms, as if she were a man. And she kissed me all over the body, and she set out to do what she had promised, panting excitedly from the great pleasure and desire that possessed her.”Loukianos’s Dialogues of the Courtesans is a work of satirical fiction; the characters described in it are not real people. Nonetheless, it is a satire based on real life and the fact that Megillos appears in the dialogue is evidence that people like him probably existed in the Greek-speaking world at the time when Loukianos was alive.ABOVE: Illustration of Megillos and Demonassa from A.L.H.’s 1928 edition of Loukianos’s Dialogues of the CourtesansElagabalus: a transgender Roman emperor?Trans people didn’t just exist in ancient times, though; some ancient sources claim that, just a generation after Loukianos, one of them actually became emperor of the Roman Empire. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, also known by his civilian name Varius Avitus Bassianus, and better known today by the posthumous nickname “Elagabalus,” ascended to the throne on 16 May 218 AD when he was only around fourteen years old.Elagabalus is widely cited as an example of a transgender historical figure. Unfortunately, all the surviving sources pertaining to his reign were written by people who hated him and who wanted to portray him as a depraved tyrant. Consequently, as I discuss this article I published in November 2019, the sources are full of all kinds of outlandish claims about his alleged behavior, many of which are totally implausible.For instance, the Historia Augusta, a collection of imperial biographies written in around the late fourth century AD that most historians today regard as predominantly a work of fiction, claims that, when Elagabalus was proclaimed consul, instead of throwing gold and silver coins to the people, he threw live cattle, camels, donkeys, deer, and other large livestock at them. The Historia Augusta also claims that his chariots were sometimes pulled by naked women and that he would frequently get his friends drunk and lock them in rooms with wild animals that had somehow been rendered harmless in order to scare them.Our most reliable source of information about Elagabalus’s reign is the Greek historian Kassios Dion (lived c. 155 – c. 235 AD). Dion is still extremely hostile to Elagabalus, but he at least generally doesn’t say things about him that are obviously made up.Dion claims that Elagabalus plucked out all his body hair and that he often wore makeup and wigs to make himself look like a woman. He says that Elagabalus regularly prostituted himself in brothels, in taverns, and even in a special room that he had set aside in the imperial palace. He claims that the emperor had men whom he ordered to pay for his services as a prostitute and that he would often boast to the other prostitutes that he had more lovers and that he brought in more money than any of them.ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a Roman marble portrait head of the emperor ElagabalusDion claims that Elagabalus’s only sexual relationship that lasted more than a short amount of time was his relationship with his chariot-driver, a blond-haired Greek slave named Hierokles, who came from the region of Karia in Asia Minor. He says that Elagabalus regularly described Hierokles as his “husband” and himself as Hierokles’s “mistress.”Dion also claims that Elagabalus had agents whose job was to scout out the most handsome young men for the emperor to have sex with. These agents supposedly on one occasion reported to the emperor the existence of an extraordinarily handsome Greek athlete named Zotikos, who came from the city of Smyrna in Asia Minor and was rumored to possess an astoundingly large penis.According to Dion, Elagabalus ordered for Zotikos to be escorted to Rome with an enormous retinue. When Zotikos greeted Elagabalus for the first time as “lord,” the emperor assumed a “ravishing feminine pose” and told him, “Call me not Lord, for I am a Lady.” He reports that Elagabalus ordered Zotikos to have sex with him, but the athlete was unable to maintain an erection and the emperor was so offended that he had him banished from Italy.Finally, Dion asserts that Elagabalus promised to pay an enormous sum of money to any physician who could give him a vagina by means of an incision.ABOVE: Gold aureus minted during Elagabalus’s reign bearing his portrait on the obverse and a four-horse chariot pulling the holy stone of Emesa on the reverseUnfortunately, there is no way to tell if any of these stories are true, since it was extremely common for Roman historians to tell stories about the alleged sexual depravities of emperors they didn’t like. (And by “depravities” I mean things that those Roman historians considered “depravities”—not necessarily things we today would consider “depravities.”)Furthermore, many of the stories that are told about Elagabalus are clearly cribbed from earlier stories told about other imperial figures. For instance, the emperor Caligula (ruled 37 – 41 AD) is also claimed to have converted a portion of the palace into a brothel, and the empress Messalina (ruled 41 – 48 AD) is also claimed to have competed with prostitutes to see who could have the most lovers.The claim about the reward offered to any physician who could give him a vagina is unique to Elagabalus, but it was extremely common for Roman writers to portray emperors they didn’t like as effeminate. For instance, the emperor Nero (ruled 54 – 68 AD) is alleged to have taken the role of a bride in a marriage to a freedman named Pythagoras and the emperor Commodus (lived 177 – 192 AD) is alleged to have taken the title Effeminatus. What’s more, we only ever hear these stories about emperors who are alleged to have been cruel tyrants, since the Romans associated effeminacy with cruelty and lack of self-control.So, was Elagabalus what we would consider transgender? I don’t know. I don’t think it is possible for anyone alive today to say. The sources certainly try to portray him as what we would consider transgender, but this may simply be a canard invented by hostile writers in line with the longstanding tradition of portraying “bad emperors” as depraved and effeminate. On the other hand, the Roman Empire had hundreds of emperors and it is surely not unreasonable to think that, out of all those emperors, at least one of them would have been transgender.ABOVE: The Roses of Heliogabalus, painted in 1888 by the English Academic painter Sir Lawrence Alma-TademaWhatever the case may have been, Elagabalus’s reign came to an abrupt end on 11 March 222 AD, when he was brutally murdered in his mother’s arms by members of the Praetorian Guard. He was only eighteen years old. The Praetorians chopped both his and his mother’s heads off. Then they stripped their headless corpses and dragged them through the streets of Rome before finally dumping them into the river Tiber. Many people associated with the emperor, including Hierokles, were reportedly murdered as well.Elagabalus has been demonized and condemned by historians for thousands of years, often in hyperbolic terms. For instance, the English historian Edward Gibbon (lived 1737 – 1794) wrote that Elagabalus, “corrupted by his youth, his country, and his fortune, abandoned himself to the grossest pleasures with ungoverned fury.” (Gibbon is, of course, otherwise known for his theories about the fall of the Roman Empire that basically amount to the whining of a reactionary conservative about supposed moral decline and loss of civic virtues; he would fit in perfectly at the Republican National Convention if he were just a bit less virulently anti-religious.)Of course, Gibbon isn’t the only modern historian to condemn Elagabalus. The German historian Barthold Georg Niebuhr (lived 1776 – 1831) wrote that Elagabalus’s name “is branded in history above all others” because of his “unspeakably disgusting life.” Likewise, the Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer (lived 1854 – 1941) described Elagabalus as “the most abandoned reprobate who ever sat upon a throne” and a “crack-brained despot.”I think this over-the-top hatred of Elagabalus is driven at least partly by the misogynistic belief that men are superior to women and that only a man who was absolutely depraved would ever want to be a woman.ABOVE: Portrait of the historian and full-time conservative bigot Edward Gibbon, painted sometime around 1779 by Sir Joshua ReynoldsAn explicit reference to intersex people in the Gospel of MatthewToday, Christians are usually seen as being opposed to transgender and intersex rights. Curiously, though, certain seemingly pro-transgender and pro-intersex ideas are embedded in the Christian tradition from the very beginning. Notably, one of the canonical gospels contains what seems to be an explicit reference to intersex people’s existence. In the Gospel of Matthew 19:12, Jesus is portrayed as saying this:“εἰσὶν γὰρ εὐνοῦχοι οἵτινες ἐκ κοιλίας μητρὸς ἐγεννήθησαν οὕτως, καὶ εἰσὶν εὐνοῦχοι οἵτινες εὐνουχίσθησαν ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, καὶ εἰσὶν εὐνοῦχοι οἵτινες εὐνούχισαν ἑαυτοὺς διὰ τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν. ὁ δυνάμενος χωρεῖν χωρείτω.”Here is how the passage is translated in the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV):“For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.”When Jesus says that there are “eunuchs who have been so from birth,” he is using almost the exact same wording that Greek writers like Polemon and Philostratos use to describe Favorinus. It therefore seems clear to me that, when he uses this phrase, he is talking about people who are literally born with a penis and no testicles, or with otherwise ambiguous genitalia.ABOVE: Fourth-century AD Christian painting from the Catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter depicting the woman taking hold of Jesus’s himationA reference to women becoming men in the Gospel of ThomasThere are no explicit references to transgender people in the canonical New Testament, but there are a lot of other surviving early Christian texts aside from just the ones that are included in the New Testament, including several apocryphal gospels. The apocryphal gospels date later than the canonical gospels, but they still date to a very early period in Christian history.The Gospel of Thomas, an apocryphal early Christian text that was most likely written in Greek in around the early second century AD, only around a hundred years after the death of Jesus, records the following conversation that supposedly took place between Jesus and the apostle Simon Peter, as translated by Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer:“Simon Peter said to them, ‘Make Mary [Magdalene] leave us, for females don’t deserve life.’“Jesus said, ‘Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven.’”Modern readers often find this passage deeply puzzling. What does Jesus mean when he says that women must become men in order to the enter Kingdom of Heaven? What if they like being women?In order to understand this passage, we need to understand the way that most people in the Greco-Roman world—including most early Christians—thought about gender. As I discuss in this article I originally published in June 2019, sexism and misogyny were absolutely rampant throughout the Greco-Roman world. It was widely believed that men were not just physically and intellectually superior to women, but spiritually and morally superior as well.Thus, some early Christians who came from a Greco-Roman cultural background struggled with the question of how women could possibly attain salvation. The solution they came up with was that, in order to be saved, women would have to become spiritually like men.The conversation between Jesus and Simon Peter about the salvation of women described in the Gospel of Thomas almost certainly never happened. Instead, this conversation was probably made up by some Christian many years after Jesus’s death. It is nonetheless a reflection of a belief that was prominent among early Christians—a belief that I will talk about some more in a moment.ABOVE: The Tribute Money, painted by the Italian Renaissance painter Titian between 1543 and 1568, showing Jesus and the apostle Simon Peter in conversationEarly Christians and self-castrationThe early Christian conception of masculinity is something of a paradox. On the one hand, they lived in a society that regarded masculinity as the pinnacle of all things. On the other hand, as I discuss in this article from May 2020, early Christians generally held fairly negative attitudes towards sexuality, including male sexuality. Consequently, some early Christians took their rejection of male sexuality to such an extreme that they ended up effectively rejecting maleness itself.The Christian historian Eusebios of Kaisareia (lived c. 260 – c. 340 AD) is known for having written one of the earliest complete histories of the Christian church, titled Ecclesiastical History. In Book Six of this history, he includes a lengthy biography of his hero, the scholar and theologian Origenes of Alexandria (lived c. 184 – c. 253 AD).Eusebios claims that, when Origenes was a young man, he read Jesus’s statement about eunuchs in the Gospel of Matthew 19:12 and interpreted it as a command for any man who could not control his sexual desires to literally castrate himself. Thus, Eusebios claims that Origenes followed Jesus’s words to the letter and hired a physician to surgically remove his testicles.This story is quite famous. It is, however, almost certainly apocryphal. A large number of Origenes’s own writings have survived and none of them mention anything about him having castrated himself. Instead, in his Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Origenes explicitly says that only a complete idiot would interpret Matthew 19:12 as a literal recommendation of self-castration.There is something quite interesting, though, about Eusebios’s telling of the story of Origenes’s alleged self-castration and that is how Eusebios portrays it; he portrays it as act of youthful folly, but also a sign of Origenes’s extraordinary faith and devotion to God. Eusebios seems to have written his story with expectation that his readers would be, to some extent impressed (albeit a little horrified) that Origenes loved God so much that he was willing to literally give up his own manhood.Even though Origenes probably didn’t really castrate himself, we do know that many early Christian men did castrate themselves. When the First Council of Nikaia was convened in 325 AD, one of the very first canons they issued was a prohibition against self-castration. They certainly would not have done this unless self-castration was a real thing that was happening at the time.ABOVE: Illustration from a fifteenth-century French manuscript of Origenes of Alexandria emasculating himself. Medieval manuscript illustrators loved showing him in the act of cutting off his own genitals, even though Eusebios actually claimed that he hired a doctor to do it for him.I don’t mean to suggest that early Christians who castrated themselves for their faith were trans women; there is little doubt that at least most of them still thought of themselves as men in some sense. Most people at the time, though, did not consider eunuchs fully male. In fact, early Christians who opposed self-castration frequently presented their opposition to the practice in terms of opposition to the galli. For instance, the Christian theologian and apologist Augustine of Hippo (lived 354 – 430 AD) writes in The City of God, book seven, chapter twenty-four, as translated by Marcus Dods:“Do the mutilated Galli, then, serve this Great Mother [i.e. Kybele] in order to signify that they who are in need of seed should follow the earth, as though it were not rather the case that this very service caused them to want seed? For whether do they, by following this goddess, acquire seed, being in want of it, or, by following her, lose seed when they have it? Is this to interpret or to deprecate?”“Nor is it considered to what a degree malign demons have gained the upper hand, inasmuch as they have been able to exact such cruel rites without having dared to promise any great things in return for them. Had the earth not been a goddess, men would have, by laboring, laid their hands on it in order to obtain seed through it, and would not have laid violent hands on themselves in order to lose seed on account of it.”“Had it not been a goddess, it would have become so fertile by the hands of others, that it would not have compelled a man to be rendered barren by his own hands; nor that in the festival of Liber an honorable matron put a wreath on the private parts of a man in the sight of the multitude, where perhaps her husband was standing by blushing and perspiring, if there is any shame left in men; and that in the celebration of marriages the newly-married bride was ordered to sit upon Priapus.”“These things are bad enough, but they are small and contemptible in comparison with that most cruel abomination, or most abominable cruelty, by which either set is so deluded that neither perishes of its wound. There the enchantment of fields is feared; here the amputation of members is not feared. There the modesty of the bride is outraged, but in such a manner as that neither her fruitfulness nor even her virginity is taken away; here a man is so mutilated that he is neither changed into a woman nor remains a man.”Thus, Augustine finds self-castration heinous firstly because he associates it with the galli and secondly because, in his view, it turns a man into something that is neither a man nor a woman. Early Christian men who castrated themselves would have therefore been seen by their contemporaries as decidedly un-masculine and akin to the galli.ABOVE: Imaginative portrayal of Augustine of Hippo, painted between c. 1645 and c. 1650 by the French painter Philippe de Champaigne (As I discuss in this article from November 2019, Augustine was born in what is now northern Algeria and was of Berber descent, so, in historical reality, he probably wasn’t quite as pale as he is portrayed here.)The tale of Saint Marinos the MonkUltimately, of course, the Christians who opposed self-castration won out over those who supported it, but some ideas within Christianity that might be considered queer never completely died out. Notably, as result of the sexist belief that men were spiritually superior to women, the Christian tradition is full of stories about saintly women all-but-physically transforming into men. One of the most famous such stories is the tale of Saint Marinos the Monk, which is recorded in a Byzantine Greek text dated to around the early seventh century AD or thereabouts.The story goes that, in Syria, at some point in around the fifth century AD, there was an old widower named Eugenios who had a young daughter named Marina. Eugenios wanted to join a cenobitic monastery, but women and girls were strictly forbidden from entering monasteries, so he told Marina that he would give her everything he had and that she would have to live on her own from that point onwards.Understandably, Marina did not want to live without her father, so she convinced him to cut her hair and dress her in male clothing so that she could pretend to be a boy so that she could join the monastery with him. Eugenios agreed. Thus, Eugenios gave away all his possessions to the poor, Marina adopted a male identity (along with the male name “Marinos”), and, together, they joined the monastery.Marinos grew up in the monastery. Many of the other monks came to believe that he was a eunuch because he had no beard and his voice was feminine. Eventually, Eugenios died, but Marinos remained at the monastery, where he progressed in his faith and lived a life of rigid asceticism. He was so faithful that he gained the ability to heal others and cast out demons.ABOVE: Fourteenth-century French manuscript illustration of Marinos and his father Eugenios entering the cenobitic monasteryOnce every month, the superior of the monastery would send out four monks as apokrisiarioi, or representatives, to minister to the solitaries who lived outside the cenobitic monastery. About halfway along the way, there was an inn where the monks would stay the night.One month, the superior of the monastery, seeing how devout Marinos was in his faith, selected him to be one of the apokrisiarioi. Marinos went out with the monks, but, while they were staying at the inn, the innkeeper’s daughter had sex with a soldier and became pregnant.A bit less than a month later, the innkeeper discovered that his daughter was pregnant, so he became furious and interrogated her to find out who had impregnated her. Desperate to protect her lover, the daughter lied and told her father that “the young monk from the monastery, the attractive one called Marinos” had raped her. The innkeeper went to the monastery in a state of rage and complained to the superior.When Marinos returned to the monastery, the superior condemned him for having supposedly impregnated the innkeeper’s daughter and banished him from the monastery forever. Marinos left the monastery, but he sat down right outside the monastery gate and remained there for months, enduring the scorching heat of summer and the freezing cold of winter. Whenever someone asked him why he was sitting there, he told them it was because he had committed the sin of fornication and had been kicked out of the monastery as a result.When the innkeeper’s daughter gave birth to a son, the innkeeper brought the child to Marinos and threw it on the ground in front of him, telling him to take it, because it was his. Marinos adopted the child as his own. He procured milk from some nearby shepherds to nurse it, despite continuing to live in the dirt outside the monastery gate. The baby cried almost constantly and peed and pooped on his clothes, but he refused to abandon it.Three years passed and Marinos continued to live a life of absolute asceticism while still caring for the innkeeper’s daughter’s son. The other monks, seeing his devotion, went to the superior and demanded that Marinos be allowed to return to the monastery because he had already served his punishment. The superior refused, so the monks declared that, if he did not allow Marinos to return, they would leave the monastery. Finally, the superior agreed to let Marinos come back.The superior assigned Marinos to do all the lowliest chores and the little boy he had adopted followed him around everywhere, saying “Dada, Dada,” demanding food and attention. Marinos devoted himself to his work, doing everything he was told without complaining, no matter how arduous the work was.Many years passed. The little boy grew up and was accepted into the monastery as a monk. Then Marinos died. The other monks found his corpse in his cell, but, when they stripped his clothes in order to wash him and prepare him for burial, they discovered that, to their great astonishment, he had female genitalia. They reported this to the superior, who reported it to the innkeeper. It became clear to everyone that Marinos had not raped the innkeeper’s daughter and he became revered as a saint.This story is almost certainly fictional. There probably never was a real-life Marinos the Monk. Nonetheless, it is a story that was popular among Christians during the Middle Ages, especially in the Byzantine Empire. When the French hagiographer Jacobus da Varagine compiled his famous collection of saints’ lives, The Golden Legend, in the mid-thirteenth century, he incorporated the story of Marinos the Monk.ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a modern cult statue of Saint Marinos the Monk with the innkeeper’s daughter’s son at his feetConclusionI’ve covered a lot of topics here, including eunuch priests, sex-changing figures from Greek mythology, an intersex orator, literary allusions to people who we would consider transgender, an emperor who might have been what we would consider a trans woman, self-castrated early Christians, and transvestite Christian saints.My point in all of this is show that gender and sexuality in the ancient world were just as complicated as they are today. Transgender people, intersex people, non-binary people, gender fluid people, and so forth have all existed in various forms since at least the beginning of recorded history.There are lots of interesting cases from the Middle Ages that would be really interesting to talk about, such as the fascinating case of Eleanor Rykener, but I think I’ve written enough for one article. I may write another article covering the Middle Ages at some point in the future.(NOTE: I have also published a version of this article on my website titled “Transgender and Intersex People in the Ancient World.” Here is a link to the version of the article on my website.)

There are more than a few interesting differences in etiquette and perspectives between Americans and Russians.Here are few that stand out:Russian parents teach their children: look at the road, so you don’t fall and Don’t smile to strangers because they would take you for obnoxious kid who is laughing at them and that would make them feel hostile toward you or think you’re “blessed in the head” and they will pity you.American parents: “kids, don’t forget to smile. That’s a polite thing to do.”Walking is important in Russia, therefore, in Russian society people who go to a place usually walk on the Right and people going out- use Left side. Most indication what side to take is by paying attention which side others use, or opposite to the cars. For instance: if you’re walking on a side walk, if cars and you are going same directions, that’s a wrong way to go. A pedestrian should be facing cars, not letting them drive behind you. That is for safety reasons.Also, you can’t just stop in the middle of the sidewalk. You need to move to the side and not block way from other people. If you’re walking slow, move to the side.In America: no strict rules about that. People stop and slow down as they please and no one can say anything to them.In Russia a male regardless of his age (could be a boy) is expected to hold doors for ladies of any age and give up his seat to ladies, disable person, older person regardless male or female, a pregnant woman, or to a woman considering that these people could be tired and in need of more rest. For safety reasons. ( a lady could be pregnant, or on her period and get dizzy, tired from long walking). People may or may not even say thank you for that. It’s not considered a sign of attention, but an act of respect and care from a male.In America such gesture could be considered discriminatory against elderly, women and disabled people.In Russia when addressing a woman it is perfectly normal and even expected to say, Devushka, and fill in blanks /your question.Devushka is not a girl, it’s used similar to American Miss or gal or Lassie in UK. You can address a lady around 16–18 and older, and stop using that if a woman is around 50. Formal definition of Devushka( девушка)- unmarried lady of 18 and older.When addressing elderly lady, let say you want to help her cross the street, you can say, “Matushka, let me help you or fill in the blanks.”Matushka is Mommy and commonly addressed by men who are younger than her.Matushka May turn to you and say, “Sinok, may God grants you many years of health.” Or something like that. Sinok- is sonny.If a lady regardless of her age has a pretense to some high status or you want to be formal you can address her by saying Gospogza ( Gza- pronounced as ge in garage, only in this case add a at the end.)When addressing an older man, and you want to be informal, you say, “Otez, and fill in the blanks.”Otez is Father. When formal, use Gospodin.A lot of Russian people if want to be close or show closeness to that person, or to be inclusive use informal language to address someone. Persuasion of being like that person.If you want to show distance you address them using formal language.Russian children are told to address a man by saying Dyadya, which literally means Uncle. When addressing a specific man to say Daydya Vlad/ name and fill in the blanks. When addressing a woman Russian children say Teotya( means aunt) and when addressing a certain woman that they know they say Teotya Irina/ woman’s name.In Russian cultures it’s considered rude to call an older person by name unless he or she tells you that.Also, some wives like to call their husbands by his last name. For better illustration I’ll use American names: Erik Smith. Some Russian wives may call her husband, “Smith, what do you want to do tomorrow?”Also, Russian names have first name: Yelena Middle name is her father’s first name: Vladimirovna ( Father is Vladimir. Since she’s a girl suffix is changed to ovna. Yelena’s brother has same father and his middle name is Vladimirovich- suffix ovich added). And the Surmane: if Mom is married then last name of her child’s father. If unmarried then then mother’s last name.Often Russian people address each other by using person’s first and middle name.In American culture: it is expected to use person’s name regardless of his or her age. A person may prefer to be addressed by his or her last name like Mrs Smith. Use Miss, Ma’am, Sir when addressing them.Gifting flowers:It is part of Russian culture to give a woman flowers. A date with a girl? A decent man will bring flowers for a girl. You’re visiting someone? You bring flowers for the lady of the house. When gifting flowers: yellow flowers are given when parting and saying goodbye. It’s common for Russians to give red flowers even to elderly ladies. So, when in doubt go with red. And if you know what color your lady prefers then go with that.You’re a married man? You’re expected to give your loved one flowers. Doesn’t have to be big bouquet, but some odd number because Russians say that God loves Trinity. That why they kiss three times, say Christ is risen also 3 times.When March 8- international women’s day- men expected to gift flowers to women, including random women they see while walk home. To random women they can give one flower.I think in Russian culture it means that even though flowers are not practical and could be considered waste of money, but because women like them and it brings smile to their faces then it has sentimental value.Even number of flowers used for funerals.in America: diamonds are girl’s best friendsPlants are more popularMen and women:In Russian culture a woman brings grace, expectations of cleanliness, order among other things.Husbands are often heard saying something like, “ I’m here by myself because my pretty half is …”Or something like, “ my pretty half said…”You’re having period and walked to your PE class. All you have to say to your teacher regardless of his gender, “I can’t do it today. It’s time.”And male teacher would usually say, “oh, course. Do you think you can rest on a bench or you need to go home and rest there? Do you feel dizzy?”If men noticed a girl of any age or a women sitting on concrete bench, cold stone, etc, most men will find it their duty to talk to a girl and tell her that sitting on a cold object is bad for her and will affect her reproductive system and may cause painful periods.In Russian culture men are considered strong half and women are pretty half because Russians believe that in some cases women could be stronger like giving birth to a child, but they differ from men by being graceful thus being pretty half.Men are considered protectors of children, women, elderly, pillars of the Russian land. They are providers for their families. It is expected in many Russian families for a man to hand his paycheck to his wife and she controls the money and pays the bills. Spouses have same account, sometimes even same luggage and a man carries everything. After divorce it is expected that a decent man leaves everything including housing to his wife and starts over from clean slate. Especially if a child is involved. If he does that then he’s of a noble character. If he keeps everything then he’s a greedy bastard who used his wife’s youth and the best years of her beauty and then threw her away to poverty or near poverty.Women are believed to give her husband a child because as we know a child gets his/her Dad’s middle name and last name, therefore, it’s common for Russians to say to a man, “she gave you a child or two children, etc.”Child’s ethnicity is determined by a father. Let’s say Dad is ethnic Russian that is Slavic and mom is Tatar. In birth certificate it will state Russian national, ethnicity: Russian.if Dad is Tatar and Mom is Russian then child’s certificate will state: Russian national, ethnicity: Tatar.Woman’s work is to focuse on breastfeeding and tending to a child.If child ends up taking formula Dad can become really concerned about. And can view this as denying his child of the best nutrition. It’s common for Russian men to tell his wife to protect herself from mastitis.Because pregnancy is considered a huge stress on a body and we know in some cases women had even organ failures, its considered a big deal and therefore, she’s entitled to her husband’s full financial support until child reaches of age to attend preschool.Dad’s who attempt to remove their breastfeeding baby from a Mom, lets say during separation or divorce are said to commit sin by disrupting his natural bond with mother.In Russian families it’s not mandatory for baby’s father to be present during a childbirth. Either father can decline, or mother to be can refuse for her husband to be there and not because she has anything against the Dad, but just because she would feel uncomfortable during the process.In America: we all need to be strong.Ladies use tampons and lets play water polo. We can’t lose because someone is having period.my other half.Most couples have separate accounts. Separate luggage and wife carries her luggage if she needs all those heave things. Wife doesn’t control the money. She might have allowance. Or she need to make her own money if that is the case most household expenses are split.If a man leaves everything to his wife then he’s a loser and she’s a gold digger who got everything she wanted.In American culture a father to be is pretty much expected to be present during childbirth and attend pregnancy related appointments.Women can choose to breastfeed or give formula and it’s not considered something bad or negligent either way.In Russian culture is considered bad manners to brag about yourself or tell people about your strengths. Decent people are modest. That is why when hiring to work a Russian person it might be hard for them to talk about their strengths. Easier with weaknesses. Russian people are expected to criticize themselves and work on self improvement. Russians prefer to have letters of recommendation.In American culture it is expected when getting hired to tell people your strengths and weaknesses. For weakness you can say something like not familiar with company’s policies and procedures.In Russian culture couple’s sexuality is pretty important. If woman filed for divorce and it’s not case of domestic violence or financial crisis it’s pretty common for someone to ask or to say, “ he probably didn’t satisfy her sexually.” Or “he didn’t make her feel like a woman” or “ with him she forgot how it feels to be a woman”- meaning that he didn’t bring her flowers and other things that ladies like or was controlling. Basically no romance in a relationship and he wasn’t a charming husband anymore.Also, in Russian marriage assumes sex contact on regular basis as discussed and coordinated between them. Therefore, if that is denied, one of the spouses regardless of gender may develop an affair on a side and that would be socially acceptable. If the other spouse would complain to someone about the cheating spouse, people would say something, “ what do you expect? He’s a healthy man, or she’s a healthy woman. I’m surprised she/he didn’t divorce you yet and etc.” Or “you’re not a good wife, or good husband.”My mom’s Russian (Slavic) cousin married Volga German lady. His Mom asked his new wife if he’s a good husband and among other things if he’s satisfying her in bed because that’s important and she looks like a shy girl. The lady told my Mom about it and they were laughing together that his mom would even ask something like that. But it’s not uncommon for Russian parents to make sure their married children are sexually satisfied and treated well by their spouses. If their child is sexually not satisfied or not treated with dignity and respect then they will highly recommend divorce. Or if their child is sexually not satisfying his or her spouse or mistreating then they will take their child-in law side and recommend divorce too to prevent or stop “exploitation.”Pornography viewing maybe considered by a wife as tendency to perversion and may affect marriage.In America sexual life of a person or a couple is quite private thing and it’s not common for parents to say anything other than accept or tolerate their child’s spouse.A husband or wife is still expected to be faithful to a spouse even though sexual contact and intimacy is no longer exists. Sexual affair due to lack of sex in a marriage usually kept private and could become a scandal if it becomes wife’s/ husband’s or public knowledge.Pornography in most cases is not considered cheating or something abnormal.in Russia: you remove your shoes by the door. You don’t want to bring Salmonella and others to anyone’s house. You don’t sit on the ground unles you’re drunk and have poor control of yourself.You can’t touch anything without washing your hands with soap and waster:germs are everywhere!You can’t jump wearing street clothes on your bed. Because what are you doing? Spreading dust and germs everywhere around your house and then you breathe that. You put your face there and breath in those spores and parasites.If you want to make a Russian to have a nervous breakdown or really need a divorce that’s something to consider doing.In America: it’s perfectly normal to walk in your street shoes everywhere in your house, jump on your bed, climb on your couch or fabric chair. We’re just spray a freshener and it would do it.( not in all houseS of course)Edit: I forgot to add a significant difference in etiquette: in Russia a male cannot initiative a handshake with a woman and must do it verbally. Handshake with a woman can happen only if she extends her hand for a handshake. A decent man can’t touch a woman without her permission. Husband, brother, father can take it as a personal insult if a woman is touched by another man: like a hand on her shoulder or touching her hand and can order that man to “take your hand off her” and may even give that man a black eye.”A male stranger can do that if he sees a woman obviously unpleased with a man touching her. He would stop and say something to a woman, “ is he bothering you?” Then ask that male, “who is she to you that you’re touching her? Is she’s your family?” If woman confirm that he’s no one related to her, then that stranger man may protect her by telling the man to take his hands off her, and let her walk her way.Similar etiquette applies to Russian night clubs: men are still not allowed to touch a woman even during a dance without her initiating contact with him like putting her hand on his shoulder and etc.If Russian men see that a girl is touched by a male then a problem can happen.