The Year of the Rabbit and Ta Yeh, the Gay Rabbit God
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With the “Year of the Rabbit” upon us, here’s a first person account of a listener in Taiwan who went to the temple of the “Gay Rabbit God.” Ta Yeh, supposedly lived as a man in the 18th century and was killed for cruising a ruling official in the bathroom. The greater gods took pity on him and made him the rabbit god, which is considered by the Chinese to be a naturally gay animal.
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Comments
I think it’s an awesome story. Many cultures in the world had all kinds of gender-bending/gay/trickster deities. It’s a pity that the Three Ms (Monotheisms) brought so much homophobia and transphobia.
Happy Chinese new year!
It would be fun to build a popular gay religious cult on this legend.
It’s also cool because Ta Yeh is apparently a deified human. I love the kinds of things that mortals can become gods for in myth and legend. There’s a modern pagan sect dedicated to Antinous, the young male lover of Emperor Hadrian, who drowned in the Nile and then according to custom became worshipped as a minor deity in Egypt, and eventually in Greece as an aspect of Dionysus. And of course Ganymede, who stands out as one of the few boys among all the mortal girls Zeus abducted for his own pleasure.