The sexual identity of this goddess is controversial. In one late text, Ishtar says of herself: "I am a woman, I am a man." Ishtar could be viewed as a beautiful goddess of love who rules the day and as a bearded god(dess) of war who rules the night. It is claimed that the androgyny of Inanna/Ishtar provided a powerful symbol of the ambiguities of pure sexuality reflected in her cult, and in the transvestism of her cultic personnel (Groneberg 1986).
It is not so clear, however, that Inanna (in contrast to Ishtar) had male or androgynous features. In Sumerian poetry, the goddess repeatedly lauds her own sexual beauty, both in lyric song and mythic narratives. Inanna sings: "These [my] female genitals, ... my moored boat of heaven, clothed in beauty like the new crescent moon ... this high well-watered field of mine: my own female genitals, the maiden's, a well-watered opened-up mound'who will be their ploughman'" (Dumuzi-Inanna Song P, ii 16-26).