But spoiler alert: transgender people, intersex, non-binary and other genders have been around probably as long as we’ve existed. As far as recorded history, I’m gonna drop a fuckton of info below if anyone is curious about human history outside the gender binary.
A few archeological finds & early historical texts:
(7,000 BCE-1700 BCE) Among the sexual depictions in Neolithic and Bronze Age drawings and figurines from the Mediterranean are, as one author describes it, a “third sex” human figure having female breasts and male genitals or without distinguishing sex characteristics. (The Archaeology of Mediterranean Prehistory by Emma Blake, A. Bernard Knapp)
(1st century) earliest mention of transgender/gender non-conforming people: Philo of Alexandria and Marcus Manilius provided descriptions of transgender people during the early Roman Empire
books.google.com
the remains of a person with Klinefelter syndrome (intersex), circa 1050-1300 in Hattula, Finland
article on phys.org
Kalonymus ben Kalonymus ben Meir (1286-1328) wrote a poem lamenting being born a boy, referring to their (possibly her) genitalia as a “defect” wikipedia.org
A list of the 10 earliest recorded gender-affirming surgeries:
Karl M. Baer (1885-1956) born intersex, assigned female, came out as male in 1904; surgery in 1906
Dora Richter (1892-?) first surgery was 1922, second was 1931
Lili Elbe (1882-1931) transitioned in 1930, and was the first known recipient of a uterus transplant in attempt to achieve pregnancy; she died due to complications
Laurence Michael Dillon (1915-1962) had surgery in 1946 and was an early user of testosterone therapy, starting in 1939
Roberta Elizabeth Marshall Cowell (1918-2011) underwent gender-affirming surgery in 1948 and lived to be 93
Christine Jorgensen (1926-1989) began sex reassignment surgeries in 1952
Charlotte Frances McLeod (1925-2007) struggled with American doctors; she wanted surgery but they wanted to change her gender identity instead which sent her into a deep depression; was quoted as saying “I was miserable and I wanted to die” before moving to Denmark to have her surgeries around 1953-1954. She lived to be 82.
Rina Natan (1923-1979) earliest known individual to undergo gender-affirming surgery in Israel; it was finally granted to her in 1956, after being denied multiple times and attempting the surgery on herself
April Ashley (1935-2021) English model and activist who was outed without her consent; it’s believed her surgery occurred around 1960
Maryam Khatoon Molkara (1950-2012) first publicized Iranian citizen to receive gender-affirming surgeries (first surgery unknown; probably after 1980) In the 1980s she secured a religious decree from conservative Iran’s highest authority to officially allow reassignment surgery for herself and for other trans people in her country
Pre-Islamic Arabia (Khanith and Mukhannath; as early as the Rashidun era 632 - 661)
Cambodia, Laos and mostly Thailand (Kathoey; since at least 1296)
Albanian society, Kosovo and Montenegro (Burrnesha; documented in 1800s but can be traced back to the 1400s)
the Bugis of Sulawesi recognize five genders (Makkunrai, Oroané, Bissu, Calabai, and Calalai)
Southern Mexico/Zapotec culture (Muxe)
the Philippines (Bakla; prior to the Spanish colonial period)
Italy (Femminiello; since at least 1740/1760, see: Il femminiello, painted by Giuseppe Bonito)
Japan (in writings since at least the Edo Period)
the Diné aka. Navajo (Nádleehi)
the Zuni (Lhamana)
many various indigenous american tribes (the Two Spirited)
Igbo people of Nigeria (documented in the 15th century)
pre-colonial Inca civilization in Peru (Quariwarmi)
Native Hawaiian and Tahitian (Māhū; pre-colonial, but first published mention in 1789)
the Itelmens of Siberia (Koekchuch; first recorded in the late 18th century)
There’s so much more, but I’m tired now lol. Hopefully I made my point, which is we have a fuckton of lgbt+ history that no one knows about cause it’s not taught. It doesn’t help that the anti-lgbt+ propaganda likes to postulate that this is all some new-fangled fad, which it is clearly not. It’s our history.
Well part of your problem is your comparing a time where we barely had rights let alone a language for ourselves up against a modern trans reality. All of the gender-affirming surgeries I listed were done by adults at their own behest. Also, this is a history rundown where I mostly focused on trans individuals, not intersex individuals, BUT, historically, most exceptions to the gender binary were all thrown together into single categories back then. In hindsight, sure, a lot of these cultural third gender classifications sound confusing, inaccurate, and too broad a category for our present understanding. But they were working with what knowledge they had at the time
Well it matters to some of us, a lot actually. I spent most of my youth in self-loathing, thinking there was something wrong with me because I learned nothing in school about gender and sexuality other than the binary. The relief at not only finally understanding myself but that others have felt the same way is indescribable. LGBT+ history is human history. And when people are screaming that I shouldn’t exist and that “trans is a fad” or “a modern lifestyle choice”, well, now I have the knowledge that throughout a lot of our history many cultures realized, without the aid of science or politicians or history books or leftists, that sex and gender are not a binary.
… history has little bearing on modern knowledge? Are you trolling me right now? Who says “history has no bearing” and actually means it. It took us this long to have a modern notion of sex and gender, because we’ve been trying to have an understanding of it for thousands of years. Take a wild, homophobic stab in the dark as to why it took this long.
Actually, seeing all your other replies in here I’m thinking this is too much trolling to be a real conversation. I’m going to go cause I really don’t think you’re asking in good faith at this point.
“I guess this is different experiences with different education systems throughout the country. Im pretty old and I was taught about non xx, xy conditions in both health classes and biology. Now granted over time you forget much of the details. So things like this don’t seem hidden to me. Now granted particular bodies that have been found not so much but im not sure when the particular archeological discoveries where made. Some may be after I was in high school. I still see them having little bearing on the modern notion of choosing ones gender as opposed to it being the same as ones sex (with intersex people by and large being in one and just trying to fit in). All the same I believe everyone has the right to be who they want to be as long as they are not hurting anyone else. When it comes to bathrooms and sprots teams we could always get rid of the distinctions anyway. Small ones have usually been either or sex with a lock for privacy and larger ones just need the floor to ceiling style stalls. Mens teams have for a long time allowed anyone who can compete we just get rid of the men/women thing and do leagues like we do now. A, AA, AAA or whatever.”
which is not a generality. I really don’t get how I could be using whataboutism as I did not even bring up the whole historical aspect but just responded to it. I do wonder though if folks are seeing complete conversations and indeed if I am. I have noticed a think where I get notifications but then I can’t see them in the threads. This makes me wonder if I or others are seeing all the conversations. Some of the replies I get here sound like I brought up some sort of trans is not historically supported thing and as I have said. I did not even bring that up as for me the history does not matter as historical stuff can be bad (if you saw my slavery remark). Its about bodily autonomy for me. Now as for why myself or others are may not be seeing everything its either something about the federation system but it could also be (at least for me) because I have blocked domains, magazines, sites, and folks. So maybe I did that to myself.
Heres a decent timeline of trans history. If you hate wikipedia, there’s the citations at the bottom to browse through. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_transgender_history
But spoiler alert: transgender people, intersex, non-binary and other genders have been around probably as long as we’ve existed. As far as recorded history, I’m gonna drop a fuckton of info below if anyone is curious about human history outside the gender binary.
A few archeological finds & early historical texts:
A list of the 10 earliest recorded gender-affirming surgeries:
Many cultures around the world have recognized more than two genders:
There’s so much more, but I’m tired now lol. Hopefully I made my point, which is we have a fuckton of lgbt+ history that no one knows about cause it’s not taught. It doesn’t help that the anti-lgbt+ propaganda likes to postulate that this is all some new-fangled fad, which it is clearly not. It’s our history.
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Well part of your problem is your comparing a time where we barely had rights let alone a language for ourselves up against a modern trans reality. All of the gender-affirming surgeries I listed were done by adults at their own behest. Also, this is a history rundown where I mostly focused on trans individuals, not intersex individuals, BUT, historically, most exceptions to the gender binary were all thrown together into single categories back then. In hindsight, sure, a lot of these cultural third gender classifications sound confusing, inaccurate, and too broad a category for our present understanding. But they were working with what knowledge they had at the time
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Well it matters to some of us, a lot actually. I spent most of my youth in self-loathing, thinking there was something wrong with me because I learned nothing in school about gender and sexuality other than the binary. The relief at not only finally understanding myself but that others have felt the same way is indescribable. LGBT+ history is human history. And when people are screaming that I shouldn’t exist and that “trans is a fad” or “a modern lifestyle choice”, well, now I have the knowledge that throughout a lot of our history many cultures realized, without the aid of science or politicians or history books or leftists, that sex and gender are not a binary.
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… history has little bearing on modern knowledge? Are you trolling me right now? Who says “history has no bearing” and actually means it. It took us this long to have a modern notion of sex and gender, because we’ve been trying to have an understanding of it for thousands of years. Take a wild, homophobic stab in the dark as to why it took this long.
Actually, seeing all your other replies in here I’m thinking this is too much trolling to be a real conversation. I’m going to go cause I really don’t think you’re asking in good faith at this point.
I don’t know as I did not say that. I said:
“I guess this is different experiences with different education systems throughout the country. Im pretty old and I was taught about non xx, xy conditions in both health classes and biology. Now granted over time you forget much of the details. So things like this don’t seem hidden to me. Now granted particular bodies that have been found not so much but im not sure when the particular archeological discoveries where made. Some may be after I was in high school. I still see them having little bearing on the modern notion of choosing ones gender as opposed to it being the same as ones sex (with intersex people by and large being in one and just trying to fit in). All the same I believe everyone has the right to be who they want to be as long as they are not hurting anyone else. When it comes to bathrooms and sprots teams we could always get rid of the distinctions anyway. Small ones have usually been either or sex with a lock for privacy and larger ones just need the floor to ceiling style stalls. Mens teams have for a long time allowed anyone who can compete we just get rid of the men/women thing and do leagues like we do now. A, AA, AAA or whatever.”
which is not a generality. I really don’t get how I could be using whataboutism as I did not even bring up the whole historical aspect but just responded to it. I do wonder though if folks are seeing complete conversations and indeed if I am. I have noticed a think where I get notifications but then I can’t see them in the threads. This makes me wonder if I or others are seeing all the conversations. Some of the replies I get here sound like I brought up some sort of trans is not historically supported thing and as I have said. I did not even bring that up as for me the history does not matter as historical stuff can be bad (if you saw my slavery remark). Its about bodily autonomy for me. Now as for why myself or others are may not be seeing everything its either something about the federation system but it could also be (at least for me) because I have blocked domains, magazines, sites, and folks. So maybe I did that to myself.