Stop Erasing Transgender Stories From History - SAPIENS
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Remembering that human sex and gender lie across a spectrum in the past is vital to curbing violence toward gender-nonconforming people today. ByGabby Omoni Hartemann 31 Mar 2021 
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In 2019, the death of a 78-year-old man, Lourival Bezerra de Sa, made the news in Brazil. Despite the fact that the death occurred by natural causes, his body stayed over three months in police custody. The reason given by the authorities for the delay in allowing Lourival to be buried was that his documents, which identified him as a man, did not match the forensic report, which identified him as a woman because of his genitalia.
The media, appallingly, portrayed Lourival as a liar: as a woman who had masqueraded as a man. The pervasive use of Western binary notions of sex and gender by his society, forensic scientists, and the police effectively erased his identity as a transgender man.
Lourival's postmortem story sadly constitutes yet another example of the erasure of gender diversity in the narratives about past and present times. The ongoing, pervasive belief that humankind is only made up of "men" and "women" contributes to the violence directed at transgender, intersex, and gender-nonconforming people. We urgently need to put an end to this erasure.
In regions of the world influenced by Western worldviews, masculinity and femininity have been directly associated with people's genitalia and reproductive capacities. This notion purports a strictly binary division of human beings according to physical traits (sex), which in turn results in the attribution of social and cultural roles (gender).
While this division of the world's inhabitants might seem natural to many, given the dominance of modern Western worldviews, anthropological and biological research shows that neither "gender" nor "sex" can be taken for granted. The idea of apportioning two options of social roles based on the format of people's bodies cannot be projected onto all other times and cultures. In human bodies and human societies, multiple possibilities coexist in the spectrum of life experiences.
In contemporary societies where these possibilities have been forgotten or forbidden, individuals whose existences transcend sex and gender binaries have become the target of violence. Transgender and gender-nonconforming people count among the most assassinated people worldwide. In Brazil, the country where I live and work as a transgender, nonbinary archaeologist, 124 transgender people were murdered during the year 2019, and 175 in 2020.
The common perception is that something is wrong with us. There seems to be a general understanding that transgender people are a phenomenon of the 21st century, yet another awkward "rebel teenager" fashion trend. The erroneous idea that we, transgender people, "have no past," feeds the notion held by many cisgender people that we don't belong in the present.
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While it is obviously important to expose and condemn transphobic violence, stories of violence, death, and pain cannot and should not be the only stories told about trans people.
As a transgender archaeologist, I often find myself overwhelmed with deep feelings of nostalgia when I learn about ancient times. Human beings have lived with fluid notions of masculinity and femininity in various cultures throughout most of human history without their existences being demonized and violated. Hijras in India, muxes in Mexico, mh in Polynesia, and winkte in Lakota territory are but a few examples of people who are traditionally recognized and respected as belonging both to the masculine and feminine dimensions of humankind.
However, most of the stories about the human past that are produced within academic fields of study, including archaeology, are heavily influenced by the Eurocentric binary. By relying on this division of society, archaeologists and other heritage professionals have silenced many people's existences in their work. They have also encountered many problems in their interpretations.
The erroneous idea that we, transgender people, "have no past," feeds the notion held by many cisgender people that we don't belong in the present.
A significant number of archaeologists have pointed to the fact that the division of humanity is rarely binary in ancient depictions of human bodies. In his study of late Bronze Age figurative art in Greece, archaeologist Benjamin Alberti demonstrated that not only was genitalia completely absent from the imagery, it was also impossible to rely on a clear and systematic association of color coding, physical attributes, or clothing conventions to attribute gender.
Archaeologist Maria Fernanda Ugalde has raised a similar issue in her analysis of over 3,000 clay figures from Ecuador, dating from as early as 3500 B.C. Other combinations of physical and clothing features than the ones fitting Western notions of sex and gender were present in those figurines: For example, breasts were depicted with male dress and a lack of breasts with female dress.
Some individuals buried with objects typically attributed to "men" or "women" have also been identified with a different biological sex. In Peru, the burial of a mummified Moche person from the first millennium was found alongside signs of royal power, such as nose ornaments and gold war clubs, that have typically been interpreted as belonging to elite male warriors. The analysis of the remains, however, surprised archaeologists, who determined that they belonged to a biologically female individual. The story of the Lady of Cao is currently told as one of a powerful woman, possibly a high priestess or even a rare female ruler. That story still fails to acknowledge the possibility that the Lady of Cao may have identified as something other than a man or a woman.
Pamela Geller, a bioarchaeologist who specializes in the analysis of ancient human remains, has pointed out that researchers' estimates of biological sex are typically tied to five categories: ambiguous, female, probable female, male, and probable male. But that ambiguity, she notes, is perceived as belonging to the researchers' certainty, and not to the individual's sex. That, she says, needs to change.
Despite the fact that archaeologists regularly come upon evidence that some people did not fit sex and gender binaries, those researchers still have a tendency to diminish their relevance, relegating them to "anomalies" or "ambiguous cases." That impression is then reproduced by the media and contributes to erasing the stories of people who embodied fluidity in their masculinity and femininity.
It is time to stop silencing these past and present existences.
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Education is key to stopping the violence toward present-day transgender, intersex, and gender-nonconforming people. There needs to be a certainty for everyone—including archaeologists and the general public—that we, transgender people, are and have been part of humanity since its beginning. People need to learn from our knowledge and life experiences, and fight alongside us for our rights. Making sure we stay alive and visible will help show those who are not used to our presence that we do belong.
It is also crucial that the people telling stories about the past understand that they have a responsibility toward transgender people. These stories, whether they are told to the public in a school setting, in museums, in newspapers, or through movies, should include and highlight the existences of people who do not identify with binary genders.
Specifically, we need cisgender archaeologists to transform the way they look at the archaeological record. Before creating interpretations, they should be ready for possibilities of existences that do not fit a strict division between men and women, or between males and females. Some great work is already underway, including archaeologist Mary Weismantel's "Towards a Transgender Archaeology: A Queer Rampage Through Prehistory."
It might seem scary for cisgender archaeologists and other heritage professionals to abandon binary notions of gender and sex as categories of analysis, given the central place they have occupied in the history of anthropological science and how natural they feel in modern Western societies. But such a transformation represents one possible pathway to preserving transgender lives. Holding on to the Western gender binary causes harm, even death, both in the past and present.
Gabby Omoni Hartemann
For those who falsely claim that transexualism is a modern phenomenon.
Why has transgenderism become such a topic of interest to the left in the last few years. Why all the uproar and interest in such a small segment of society?
Why is the left actively encouraging puberty blockers and surgery on children and keep that information from their parents.
Where do you get that nonsense. There have always been transgender persons. It is not a modern phenomenon. What is fairly modern (since the 1950s) are the therapies and treatments which make it possible for transgender individuals to live longer happier and more fullfilling lives thanks to modern medicine.
It doesn't seem like the left is the ideology passing laws against LGBTQ people.
You must be reading the wrong websites or listening to Tucker or Jones or Bannon.
I didn't think minor children could seek medical treatment without the consent of a parent/guardian
it is because the Left is trying to destroy concepts such as truth and fact. If you can untether people from things like that you can get them to do whatever you want. Basically, we're talking George Orwell's 1984.
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“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open.” - Frank Zappa
I thought the claim was that it was now being normalized.
That is not true as transexualism was normalized 3,000 years ago...
Not for us.
So perhaps it's time to catch up.
It seems odd to me that it bothers anybody not directly affected, anyway. It doesn't affect you in any way if somebody else is transgendered. Nobody is doing involuntary surgery on you, nor injecting you with unwanted hormones.
I don't worry about adults making such decisions, but I do think young children should have parental consent.
Being melodramatic I see.
So why all the hysteria and refusal to read or acknowledge science in your article, Vic?
The insistence on the existence of only two "genders" (when you really mean "sex"), determined solely by X and Y chromosomes? Multiple people were linking to articles about genetic reasons for intersex and ambiguous sex, and you chose to dogmatically ignore them.
You DO realize that chromosomes are the carriers of genetic information, yes? That merely the shape of the chromosome is less important than the genetic information contained within it (and within the other 22 chromosome pairs)? That what's on our chromosomes can affect hair color and texture, eye color, height, weight, athletic ability, cancer risk, risk of addiction, susceptibility to mental illness, IQ, food likes and dislikes, and on and on... But you seem to think that what's on those chromosomes can't affect sexual identity, other than via the shape of the sex chromosomes (vs the genetic information contained therein). That's an extremely arbitrary line, with no basis in logic or science.
Frankly, the attitude of many in that article seemed to be "This is what I learned in high school, and it's enough and I don't want to hear any more." We've learned a lot about genetics since then, Vic. Hell, we've learned a lot about genetics since I was in high school, and even since I was in college. We've mapped the genome since then. We've found not just chromosomes, but what's ON those chromosomes, and how that information affects us, and in some cases, how that information interacts with our environments, and how those interactions affect us.
Maybe it's time to catch up.
I agree with that. I have no problems with transgender people at all and no problems with children identifying with a gender they weren't born with. But no permanent physical changes should be done to anyone under the age of 18, hormonal or surgical. They are just not prepared to make life changing decisions like this.
Without hormonal treatments, which are reversible, at puberty young adults develop very difficult and often irreversible secondary sexual characteristics. It requires years of therapy to reach the point that it is allowed and again, these hormonal treatments only delay puberty and naturally reverse if they are ceases before the final surgery. After which some hormonal treatments will be ongoing...
Without hormonal treatment at puberty trans boys develop breasts and trans girls get hair on their chests and faces.
Hormonal treatments might be reversible but I don't think we know at this time what the long term effects may be.
No they aren't.
h ormonal treatments only delay puberty and naturally reverse if they are ceases before the final surgery.
They can leave kids sterile over a whim they had has teenagers. It's insanity.
It is a decision that should be made by the patient, their parents and their doctor. Trans boys and girls are at their highest risk of suicide at puberty when boys get breasts and girls develop facial and body hair. The hormonal treatments you worry about reverse automatically without continued use. The medical community has decades of experience with using these types of puberty blockers. So, yes we really do know...
Doctors do know delaying puberty a few years is not harmful.
On the other hand, a trans boy developing breasts is highest risk of killing himself. The long term effects of that are well known!
So what? Some English guy wants to tighten their controls?
Many rightwingers want to interfere with people's personal decisions that should only be between patients and doctors!
Puberty blockers are only prescribed by doctors when the risk of not prescribing them is deemed more dangerous...
By the patient, their parents and their doctors. Not By You!
The only way that anyone can get puberty blockers without parental consent in the United States is with a court order...
And why would a court order that over parental consent?
I stand by the science. Your side lies about it.
Glad to hear that.
We've all posted sources, Vic. Nonpolitical ones. You post only dogma, and ignore science.
Because the judge decides it is in the minors best interest.
This is only done when someone sues on the child's behalf...
Remember we're talking about at puberty and not younger...
That usually would be a patient's doctors and psychologists.
Exactly, because those doctors and psychologist are in a much better position to petition for those pubescent children than their parents....
In some cases, yes...
Let us clearly differentiate between the two:
Science is when you point out that there are only 2 genders: male and female.
Dogma is when someone disingenuously conflates hormal treatments for sex altering operations, which are not reversable.
Science is when you affirm that a man can never have a baby.
Dogma is when one graduates from Harvard Law School, yet cannot define what a woman is.
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False.
What you just posted is dogma ignoring science that has been posted, with links to evidence.
Intersex is a thing, according to science. Denying that doesn't make it disappear.
You have "no choice" to comment? Aren't you commenting?
There's the shuffle we've come to expect.
Who said male and female don't exist? Or that we don't reproduce sexually?
Nobody.
Shuffle, shuffle.
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They're not luring me into a van with candy and then trafficking me, either, That doesn't mean we should let people do that to children.
No. Absolutely not.
Try taking your 8 year old into a bar and ordering her a whisky. Nobody is going to acknowledge your "consent". Everybody realized that anybody who would make such a decision on behalf of a child should be utterly disregarded.
Society has enacted rules to protect the child not only from themselves but from the stupidity/ineptitude or mental illness of those who supervise them.
And that's just over a drink.
So how much more thoroughly should we disregard "consent" for medical treatments with permanent consequences?
Do what? What have you seen me advocating for anybody to do to children?
Clearly not when it comes to this.
For example?
No. The only thing being 'normalized' is hate for the other.
Yes, and if some of out normally empty public libraries are now full up with kids on Saturday mornings because this guy is reading fully appropriate kids books to children, then explain why that such a bad thing?
She looks like what I imagine the Tooth Fairy looks like
she looks pretty good in a skirt and heels...
Do you think she will sexualizing anyone?
Laugh? Yes! Boys sporting wood? Nope...
She might be aiming for sexualizing the Tooth Fairy but she's missing the mark...by a long shot
No, but Dame Edna has a sparkling smile!
Is that who that is? I've heard of her.
My USN Doc was a friend, confidant and personal doctor.
He was a Naval flight officer and a Flight Surgeon on 2 Space Shuttle missions.
Despite his many successes and beautiful wives and ex-wives he was secretly very unhappy.
After 19 years active duty and despite an upcoming space mission he filed the paperwork to change his official records and banking info from Chris to Christine.
He never flew that next space mission, in fact, just about the only place you can find pictures of him in his Naval Dress Whites or Orange NASA flight suits are now in her very successful medical practices.
While it's not impossible to find some Naval Records about him, NASA literally scrubbed him from the internet and their history.
Now she does manage patients who wish to transition but you are much more likely to find her doing face lifts for the rich and famous or doing pro bono cleft palate repairs at the very hospitals that 20 years ago refused her hospital privileges based on rumor, inuendo, prejudice and fear. She is now very respected and much sought after for her surgical skills and public speaking abilities, not what was on her birth certificate.
She assists local universities in training and educating medical students and faculty about transgender medicine, while serving on an advisory board to the Surgeon General.
It's not what's between your legs that makes you, you, it what's between your ears.
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It was only a matter of time before this become an issue. Regardless of what a person identifies as, the accepted science, in this instance, contradicts all claims this was a man.
That's all good looking at clay figures. Now lets examine human skeletal remains. If we fast forward 2000 years and Lourival is exhumed (for what ever reason) archeologists are going to examine the skeletal remains and determine Lourival is a woman. Not because some clay figures / dolls / what ever. But based the physical evidence and accepted science.
Because she was.
The article is correct, there have always been cases of men and women with a sexual fetish that drives them to cross dress. Body dysmorphia has always been a real condition afflicting younger people and sometimes older. It was just recently our mental health community and or medical community decided to abandon actual science and shoe horn the wishes of delusional activists because they fear repercussions. The science is just not there on this issue.
That being said, I could care less if you want to wear women's panties or a dress. Whatever, you still look like the sex you were born with.