the uniform was supposed to kill Helena

Earlier, I noted the passing of Stana Cerović, one of the last recognized members of the South Slavs’ ancient trans-male / third-gender category, and described how even before Stana’s death, younger transgender people in the Balkans have come to be treated as a new phenomenon, severed from historicity and often attacked. Today, let's look at one of those “new” trans people, “Major Helena” — forty-something activist Helena Vuković, who is well-known in the Balkans but little-noticed in English-language media.


Like many trans women, Helena long knew she was not a man.^1,2 As a child, she grew her hair long to curl it, and put on feminine clothes when no one was around.¹ At 13, she found a copy of the book Šta treba znati o polnom životu (“What one needs to know about sexual life”), which helped her realize she was transgender.² However, again like many trans people, she found herself in a hostile culture that expected her to be nothing but masculine.² In an effort to conform, she married young and joined the Serbian military, rising to the rank of major: “uniforma je trebalo da ubije Helenu,” she said: the uniform was supposed to kill “Helena”.^2,3 It couldn’t.

the last virgin in Montenegro

The last known virdžina (“virgin”) in Montenegro, Stana Cerović, died on August 1st, at the age of eighty.^1,2 Montenegro’s virdžine were part of a set of closely-related trans-male or third-gender categories found among the South Slavs, who also call them tobelije or muškobanje, and the Albanians, who call them burrnesha or virgjinesha. They are people who were initially (right after they were born) assumed to be women, but who later adopt masculine clothes and tasks, refer to themselves as men, and are respected as such after they take an oath to remain chaste — the reason they are collectively known as “sworn virgins” or just “virgins” in those local languages and in English.^3,4

As in many other societies, the influence of neighbouring binary-based cultures made the Slavic third gender a closed class even before Stana died. There are as many young transgender and non-binary people in the Balkans as there have always been in every society, but because they have been severed from their historicity and are treated as if they were a new phenomenon, they are often rejected. One thing everyone can do to overcome such claims that transgender and non-binary people are new and noisome is remember people like Stana, and remember just how ancient such people are.