Gender identity, gender fluidity...
Gender is on everyone's lips right now.
We've seen some profound changes - like the legalisation of gay marriage
in many countries and a more open approach to sexuality.
And we're grappling as a society
with the idea that gender is not purely biological.
But is this really so new?
We could learn a lot from the poet Sappho,
who lived in the 6th century BC on the Greek island of Lesbos.
It's because of her that we use the word "lesbian"
which originally just meant "someone from Lesbos".
"Sweet mother, I cannot weave -
slender Aphrodite has overcome me with longing for a girl."
Her poetry made her famous in antiquity.
But the ways in which she and her work have been treated
show only too well what it is to be judged and labelled.
If Sappho were alive now,
would she identify as a lesbian woman?
Would she celebrate the freedom of identity choice?
What would she think of our debates about gender?
Answering these questions is a challenge
because much of Sappho's work is lost.
But the little we have is remarkable.
In her day, it made her one of the few women to be pictured on pottery -
the ancient Greek equivalent of appearing on primetime TV.
We can't know for sure whether she had sexual relationships with women
and, if so, whether she was open about them.
But in ancient Greece, it would have been no cause for scandal.
Although men and women were expected to marry,
homosexual feelings and relationships were seen as normal.
So, all we have to go on is the poems themselves.
Sex and sexuality is everywhere here.
Sappho's poems play with our expectations of gender
and set up teasing questions about sexuality.
Who is speaking? Male or female?
Who is the beloved? Male or female?
One of her best known poems
is spoken by someone looking at a beautiful girl,
and envying the man talking to her.
"That man seems to me to be equal to the gods.
He who sits opposite you and hears you nearby
speaking sweetly and laughing delightfully,
which indeed makes my heart beat faster."
Translators from the 15th Century on have assumed that the speaker,
the person who desires the beautiful girl, is another man.
But in the original there's a big hint that this isn't so.
There's a line...
The word "chlorotera" in the Greek
is the form you would use if it were a woman speaking.
Sappho wanted her poetry to make people think about experiences
that are transgender, or that transcend gender.
She wanted them to imagine the feelings of a gender to which
you do not, or may not, belong.
Sappho's poems on her most important subjects - sex and love -
are about everyone.
They are gender fluid,
and they are gender blind.
Sappho does not care who we love.
It is still love.
So, she might tell us,
"Don't worry about labels. Just get on, and..."
After all - she did write…
"Some say an army of horsemen,
others say foot soldiers,
still others say a fleet of ships
is the finest thing on the dark earth.
I say it is whatever one loves."
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