I find this to be very interesting and well, it's peaked my curiosity to learn more about these clergies.
This is an excerpt from an article I was reading, I find it fascinating:
I don't know much about this spirit yet, but I am looking forward to working with her and unlocking some secrets perhaps. Can anyone else give me more insight? Perhaps why it was their choice to live as females? Was there some kind of significance with it?Yet another interesting similarity concerns the existence of transsexual Priestesses within the Sumerian clergy. We find several types mentioned in very early primary sources. The Gala Priestesses apparently petitioned the gods through singing, dancing, and various incantations. The Kurgarra and the Assinnu Priestesses were associated with the goddess Inanna. Their role is not completely clear, although they sometimes acted as surrogates for the goddess during sexually-oriented religious practices.
Although born male, these types of Priestesses lived as women, adopted female names, and spoke the sacred feminine dialect of Emesal. Their existence is traceable to pre-Kurgan times, circa 5000 BCE or earlier. While modern historians struggle to explain their significance, it seems clear that they could not have attained the privileged and honored position they did, without having some genuine spiritual and metaphysical gifts.