Above: Hatshepsut's Temple in Deir el-Bahri 

Hatshepsut was born to Thutmose I, the third Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. As a teenager, she was married to her half-brother and Pharaoh-to-be Thutmose II. They had a daughter named Neferure together, and Thutmose II had a son with a lesser wife named Iset. This son was also called Thutmose, making him Thutmose III. After the death of the eldest two Thutmoses, the next male in line for the throne was Thutmose III, who was two years old at the time. Hatshepsut had likely assisted Thutmose II during his reign – some historians go so far as to suggest she may have been the brains behind his rule – and was primed to ascend to leadership. However, naturally, the male toddler was declared Pharaoh, with Hatshepsut acting as the queen regent. They had a successful regency, and slowly took on powers usually reserved for a King. In 1478BC they staged a coup and seized full power from ten-year-old Thutmose III. 

The role of Pharaoh was understood as a holy position – rulers were seen as an intermediary between gods and ordinary people. The title was also traditionally linked to manhood, passed down from father to son. This means that when Hatshepsut assumed the title of Pharaoh, they took on a new identity of masculinity and divinity. Hatshepsut asserted that their real father was the deity Amun, who they alleged appeared to their mother to conceive a demi-goddess; they declared ‘He, greatest of all the gods, speaks to me as a father to his son!’. They claimed it was Amun’s will that they become Pharaoh, and that upon their conception he had charged Khnum, the god of creation, to ‘fashion her better than all gods in the great dignity of a King’. In carvings, Hatshepsut appears on Khnum’s potter’s wheel as a boy. 

Above: Sphinx of Hatshepsut, New Kingdom, ca. 1479–1458 B.C. via The Met Collection

Though gender roles in Ancient Egypt were predominantly binary, Hatshepsut’s life shows us that there was an understanding of different gendered experiences. Having ruled as queen regent, it was known by the Egyptian people that they were not a cisgender man. However, throughout their reign, they used a combination of masculine and feminine gender identifiers, both visual and linguistic. They were referred to as ‘Son of the Sun’, ‘Lady of Both Lands’, and ‘Her Majesty, the King’; they wore a false beard and masculine attire; their statues and portraits portray a mixture of gendered characteristics. In one statue they show their breasts while wearing a king’s headdress, in some temple reliefs they are shown in female-coded gowns in specifically masculine poses, or engaging in masculine past times. They are sometimes portrayed as a Sphynx – a creature that was exclusively seen as male by Ancient Egyptians. The statues of their temple in Deir el-Bahri show Hatshepsut as fully masculine. 

After Hatshepsut’s death, despite paving the way for their daughter to succeed them, Thutmose III became Pharaoh. At the end of his rule, he tried to remove all evidence of Hatshepsut’s rule from historical and pharaonic records. Statues were destroyed, carvings were chiselled from walls, walls were built to cover reliefs, some depictions of Hatshepsut were replaced with images of Thutmose I or II. By removing their name from this Earth, Thutmose was not only denying their reign; according to Ancient Egyptian belief systems, he was also killing Hatshepsut’s spirit. Luckily, a few traces of Hatshepsut remained untouched – their reign remains remembered, their spirit intact. 

If you're interested in learning more about ‘the King herself’ from a trans angle, I’d recommend looking at ‘Before We Were Trans’ by Kit Heyam.