“It will come to pass partly because men and women are growing more alike, instead of more unlike…. At the end of this fifth root-race, man and woman as sexes will have nearly passed away…” – Fundamentals Of The Esoteric Philosophy By G. De Purucker
Tip/Ozma who I have been speaking about in parts one and two is ready to take center stage as we reach the conclusion of the character’s journey. I will also bring up other Baum stories that deal with LGBT and postgenderism.
Tip and the gang were unable to recapture Oz themselves. They sought the aid of Glinda The Good. She is queen of the South Country. She seems to be a goddess figure in the Oz mythos, a perfected feminine icon, who never involves herself unless asked nor uses her powers for selfish gain.
She tells Scarecrow that the throne of Oz belongs neither to him or Jinjur but to the daughter of the king before Oz, Pastoria. This daughter is Ozma. Oz had usurped the Emerald City from Pastoria and hidden Ozma. Glinda knew that Oz spent time with Mombi so they seek her for answers regarding Ozma.
Mombi hides herself as a flower. The Tin Man, also called Nick Chopper, picks the rose and keeps it close by him. Had he not done this Mombi would have gotten away.
In the story I see this as Nick, a masculine character, embracing the feminine. Remember that Tip didn’t think a boy could “have any fun standing forever in a flower garden.” Nick, while being male, appreciates the flower, knowing the good in feminity, so the party is then capable of separating the rose (positive feminine) from its thorn (negative feminine), aka Mombi.
Mombi reveals that she had used magic to change Ozma into Tip. Glinda forces her to reverse the transformation.
Tip is reluctant to go along with this. Much like he was at the beginning of the story when Mombi tried to turn Tip into a statue kept in a flower garden. In a certain sense we’ve went in a circle. The end was hinted in the beginning.
Let us look into how the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow feel regarding Tip becoming a girl.
Then we’ll dig a little into those two characters.
“Never mind, old chap,’ said the Tin Woodman, soothingly; ‘it don’t hurt to be a girl, I’m told; and we will all remain your faithful friends just the same. And, to be honest with you, I’ve always considered girls nicer than boys.”
“They’re just as nice, anyway,’ added the Scarecrow, patting Tip affectionately upon the head.”
The Tin Woodman’s preference for girls can suggest that he is more aligned with his own female aspect. He displays traits typically considered to be more feminine than masculine, in the positive sense with his big heart, and the negative with his vanity. When Scarecrow and the gang arrive at the Tin Woodman’s kingdom they are told it is his day for being polished.
“Oh, I see!’ cried the Scarecrow, greatly reassured. ‘My friend was ever inclined to be a dandy, and I suppose he is now more proud than ever of his personal appearance.”
When they see each other after all this time they are quick to hug each other tightly. At the end of the story the Scarecrow decides to live with the Tin Woodman.
Frequently symbolic gay couples have one that is more of a typical guy, here that would be the Scarecrow, and the other plays more of the female role and/or has female qualities, that being the Tin Woodman.
As I tend to repeat, the appearance of one random thing may not be meaningful, but the Tin Woodman focuses on flowers when the other guys don’t, rejoices over a diamond necklace, and makes a statement about girls being better than boys.
For what it’s worth, Tip, who doesn’t recognize his feminity till he becomes a girl again, takes for himself a gold watch, a fancy object usually worn by men.
Now it’s time to cover the female same-sex relationships and those implications. Dorothy kissed a feminine character in the Emerald City who had no name or speaking lines, “The next morning Dorothy kissed the pretty green girl good-bye…”
Glinda isn’t even written as having kissed Ozma and yet the illustrator drew them in full liplock for the 23rd chapter of The Marvelous Land Of Oz. Did he discuss this with Baum and Baum was like, “Oh, I forgot to write in a kiss here. No matter, you can fix it with a visual depiction.”?
In The Emerald City Of Oz Dorothy is invited to live with Ozma as a princess of Oz and be her “constant companion.” Dorothy and Ozma staying together is an echo of the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow.
Several canon kisses exist between Dorothy and Ozma, for instance, “Just then the girlish Ruler of Oz opened the door and greeted Dorothy with a good-morning kiss.”
No wonder the Oz series has an LGBT following.
Rainbow romance in Oz would appear all but explicitly confirmed.
Returning to the story, we will find that Jack Pumpkinhead’s response to his “father” changing into a girl is loaded with meaning reinforced by the acknowledgement of its cleverness.
“I hope none of you will care less for me than you did before. I’m just the same Tip, you know; only-only-“
“Only you’re different!” said the Pumpkinhead; and everyone thought it was the wisest speech he had ever made.
By the same, only different, I think Baum is telling us gender is irrelevant or that society is evolving to a point where that is the case.
It’s a distinction, yes, but one that is fading away.
Many bring up Tip/Ozma as a transgender character. We can also see their journey as the reclaiming of the lost goddess aspect of the individual and/or society as a whole.
“…The lost Goddess represents the psyche of each one of us.”
“It is an allegory for the fall of the psyche or soul into identification with the body and its redemption from the evils of incarnation through the saving power of Consciousness…”
“The cleansing of the psyche is to regain the newness of her former nature.” – Jesus And The Lost Goddess
For the first part of my exploration into The Marvelous Land Of Oz I referenced Tarot and Tip going from The Fool to The Magician through his magical acts of bringing golems to life.
In the end Tip completes the Tarot journey, becoming Ozma, The World.
“I am the highest realization of your psyche, your thought that has finally become androgynous. I free you from the boundaries of male and female.”
“The circle of celestial clouds surrounding me is nothing other than your exploded azure brain. I erase the frontiers forever. From incarnation to incarnation, transformation to transformation, with certainty and constant joy, I allow you to be what you have always been: an angel, emissary of God.” – The Way Of Tarot By Alejandro Jodorowsky
The name Ozma is comparable to Atma. Baum being a theosophist further establishes the possible link between the two words.
“THE HIGHER SELF is Atma the inseparable ray of the Universal and ONE SELF.”
“…For Atman is the Universal ALL, and becomes the HIGHER-SELF of man only in conjunction with Buddhi, its vehicle, which links IT to the individuality (or divine man).” – Key To Theosophy By Blavatsky
If we examine the relevance of this notion to the story then the pieces line up.
Tip, as a human being, goes on his journey, grows through new friendships and experiences, notably the spiritually significant creation of golems, and becomes capable of having this divine power within him, to be its vessel.
Tip/Ozma is supposed to be an incredible ruler who is loved by her people. She restores good relations between men and women in the Emerald City with Glinda’s help. Much like how in Hinduism Vishnu is said to incarnate in the form of an avatar to restore order.
Ozma is the embodiment of the universal All, the highest conception of God. Whether or not that lessens her potential as a transgender analogy is debatable. However, Baum has another character with transgender undertones.
“You’re a lady hen, aren’t you?”
“Of course. But when I was first hatched out no one could tell whether I was going to be a hen or a rooster; so the little boy at the farm where I was born called me Bill, and made a pet of me because I was the only yellow chicken in the whole brood. When I grew up, and he found that I didn’t crow and fight, as all the roosters do, he did not think to change my name, and every creature in the barn-yard, as well as the people in the house, knew me as ‘Bill.’ So Bill I’ve always been called, and Bill is my name.”
Dorothy asks if she can call Bill “Billina” as that would be a girl name. Although Bill is okay with this she persists in referring to herself as Bill.
“Do you think I’d let that speckled villain of a rooster lord it over ME, and claim to run this chicken house, as long as I’m able to peck and scratch? Not if my name is Bill!”
A related character is Chick the Cherub. Chick can be classified as androgynous or non-binary because the gender of them is never referred to.
“Furthermore, as I discussed in this posting, being gender-neutral isn’t what makes Chick unusual. Rather, that appears to be a natural outcome of being an Incubator Baby–the equivalent then of a test-tube baby today. In essence, Baum was telling Americans that the same modern world that could now save their little premature babies was also rendering their notions of masculinity and femininity obsolete. Baum was the son-in-law of suffrage activist Matilda Joslyn Gage, after all.” – http://ozandends.blogspot.com/2008/06/is-cherub-girl-or-boy.html
Chick the Cherub wraps it all together as Chick refers to a chicken, like Bill. Baum likely knew that male chickens do not have a phallus. Chickens, rather than the common masculine instrument, have a cloaca for breeding purposes.
The result is a less substantial gender divide which is represented with Bill who prefers the masculine name she’s used to. Chick is not a chicken but the name implies the characters own androgyny, hence they are not given any gender pronoun whatsoever.
Chick’s other signifier is, the Cherub, aka, an angel. I doubt there is a coincidence here. Angels are sexless, bisexual (as Blavatsky used the word), or androgynous, whichever term you prefer, and Jesus proclaimed that in a future age humans would be like them.
“For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.” – Matthew 22:30
(Dorothy presenting Red Riding Hood a flower in the show Once Upon A Time)
We can reasonably assume Baum was familiar with Blavatsky’s teachings on the future of humanity. His stories largely de-emphasize traditional relationships between men and women, either by replacing them with same-sex romance, or no romance at all. By doing so he was helping to set the stage for something different than the old fashioned generative process (coitus).
I surmise his characters which broke or transcended gender norms were intended to be precursors to a coming age of humanity, a bridge to a new mode of being.
“Peoples at the end of the Sixth and Seventh Root-Races will be sexless again… empowered by the highest intelligence and spirituality.”
“Men who will be thus transformed by virtue at the end of our Kali Age of Darkness shall be the seeds of future human beings, and shall give birth to the ultimate race that, following the laws of the Krita Age of Purity, will be born of immaculate parents.” – Blavatsky
Some correspondence may be made between these immaculate conceptions and the process of creating a golem, like Tip/Ozma did with Jack Pumpkinhead, the Sawhorse, and the Gump.
Each of these tasks require a superior level of spirituality to bring about new life.
That is why Ozma, named after the Atma itself, the universal All, encompassing within herself male and female (like the final Major Arcana in Tarot, The World), is the symbol for the humanity that will someday come.
“It is only because we have sunken morally and are belated that the phenomenon of virginal birth has not yet appeared on earth as a physical fact; though … it has been ‘prophesied’ in religious mysteries, and the initiation ceremonies contained one where the initiant, after certain conditions had been complied with, was said to be ‘born of a virgin,’ thus anticipating, or rather forecasting, what was to come to the entire race in the future.” – Fundamentals Of The Esoteric Philosophy
The Marvelous Land Of Oz Part 1: Golems And The Uraeus Of Isis
The Marvelous Land Of Oz Part 2: Gender War And Feminism In Oz
The Modern Mysteries 