Rituals of body modification and castration were in fact a feature of sects and cults in which adherents led cross-gender lives. In 2002, the remains of a Roman gala (a eunuch priest of the goddess Cybele) were found in Catterick, north Yorkshire. She was dressed in women’s clothes and jewellery. The galli castrated themselves during an ecstatic celebration called the Dies sanguinis, or ‘Day of Blood’. They bleached their hair and wore makeup. The discovery of the remains in Catterick provides evidence that there were ritually castrated feminine galli present in Britain as long ago as 4 CE:
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