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"That emphasis, however, sharply reverses immediately after Attis’ castration, after which Catullus switches to entirely female identifiers. Catullus describes them, using the feminine, as citata, “[she is] swift” — the “swiftness” Attis now has perhaps recalling the weight they have shed — and uses haec, not hic, as their pronoun at 63.11. 63.11 also describes them with the feminine adjectives adorta and tremebunda. The entire
Cybelean priest(ess)hood is described in feminine terms as well: Catullus consistently uses Gallae, not the more common Galli. Although Catullus uses masculine predicates later in the poem
— ego mulier, ego adulescens, ego ephebus, ego puer (“I a woman, I a youth, I an ephebe, I a boy”); ego vir sterilis ero?, (“shall I be a sterile man?”) — feminine grammatical features
describing Attis remain the norm until the very beginning of their soliloquy. Even as Attis begins to regret their loss of a male, Greek identity, Catullus uses a feminine form to describe them — maesta est (“she grieved”) — hinting at Attis’ ambiguous femininity even as the character’s own view becomes rather more uncertain. It is clear, therefore, that Catullus views Attis as essentially feminine between their castration and lament.