Welcome to #TransTuesday! This thread is one I’ve thought about for a while, but wasn’t sure I was qualified to write. But I’ve got a platform and you need to know, because surprisingly many of you don’t: TRANS PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS EXISTED aka TRANS PEOPLE IN HISTORY.
I’m not a historian. I’m not an expert in trans history, though I find it fascinating. I myself have a lot to learn on the topic, but one thing I DO know is that there have always been trans people. Trans is just something you are, like gay or bi or cis, or blonde or brown-eyed.
And there’s nothing in the world now that could suddenly make people transgender that didn’t exist before, same as with gay people. Nothing MAKES you gay or straight or trans or bi or cis, it’s just how you are and who you are.
But I’ve encountered cis people who just don’t know that, or have never thought about it, and if I’m here to help people understand (and I absolutely am), then this is something I’ve got to talk about because it’s information a lot of people are lacking.
As I am not an expert historian, this means I am going to link you to a lot of other people who’ve done the work already. There will be a lot of outside reading. PLEASE READ IT. Do the homework. This way comes knowledge and understanding. That’s why you read these, right?
These people have done the work in uncovering and talking about trans people in history, I’ve done the work in collecting their evidence and articles, and now you must do the work of reading to understand. But it’s good work! I wouldn’t lie to you. 😌
So let’s first look at why there seems to be “so many more” trans people now than at any previous point in history. There are two main reasons.
One: as our knowledge and understanding of what it means to be transgender increases, more people will realize that they are trans. I’ve mentioned many times how I didn’t even know trans was a thing you could BE until well into my adulthood.
How on earth could I have identified this way when I’d never so much as heard the word before? Or known there were people like me, trans people, who already existed? Yet that didn’t change the knowledge I had deep down that I was not a boy and was in fact a girl.
This is part what abhorrent things like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill are trying to do. If fascists suppress knowledge of our existence, fewer people know or learn about us, and fewer people can thus identify with us and understand they may be trans too.
But that won’t make trans kids in Florida any less trans. My own not knowing I could be transgender did not make me any less trans. It just forced me to live in a broken world, saddled with the pain and misery of dysphoria, thinking there was no way out.
And if you’re thinking what an oppressive, painful, impossible-to-live-through scenario that might be, you’re absolutely correct. That’s why accepting trans kids when they tell you who they really are is so vital when EIGHTY-TWO PERCENT of trans people have considered suicide.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32345113/
Two: as acceptance of transgender people being just another type of person grows, more people feel like they can come out publicly as trans. And I feel like I need to put “acceptance” in quotes, especially given the current climate.
Again, if you’re wondering if part of the ONSLAUGHT of legislation trying to squash trans people out of existence plays into this, you’re absolutely right.
If bigotry against us is accepted, and in many parts of society it is (even in liberal places!), more trans people will be scared to come out. Look at my recent post on Trans Rage 2/Cis Apathy:
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1544360432021880834
Time and again we see evidence that trans people are the one group it’s still “okay” to discriminate against. Even in good ol’ “liberal Hollywood” you can be an active bigoted transphobe and get rewarded for it.
https://twitter.com/TillyBridges/status/1547058215828869121
The fascists came for us first and cis people, as a group, did not care. Still don’t! Bigotry against us is accepted. The collective cis population doesn’t show up for us, doesn’t care that our bodily autonomy is being taken away.
Look at people like Dave Chapelle and Ricky Gervais and JK Rowling, making money off of punching down and adding to the oppression and bigotry against us, and THEY KEEP GETTING MORE WORK.
ALL of this adds to making some trans people feel like it’s too painful, too difficult, too risky to come out. And despite all of this, this is still (SOMEHOW??) the most accepting that our society has ever been to trans people.
Well, there might have been a time in the 2010s, when knowledge and acceptance was growing, and before we became fascist Republicans' latest target, where it felt safer. And so our numbers seemed to rise, and now we see the target on our back growing.
My favorite example of this is this lovely chart of the percentage of the population, over time, that is left-handed.
https://twitter.com/AriDrennen/status/1452495328461017089
Being left-handed is just like being trans or cis or gay or straight. We have no control over it, it’s just how we are, right? So what happened between 1910 and 1960 to make so many more people become left-handed?
As you know nothing makes people BECOME left-handed. But being left-handed was discriminated against and thought to be “evil” (ring any bells?) for a long time in history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_against_left-handed_people
Once the general population realized how utterly wrong that was MORE PEOPLE CAME OUT AS LEFT-HANDED ONCE IT WAS SAFE TO DO SO. WHO’D HAVE THUNK???
But being trans, due to our society or personal reasons, is also something that can take some people a long time to figure out. Coupled with both of the instances above is why estimates of how much of the population is trans are likely SEVERELY undercounted.
Present US census data puts us at 1-2% of the population. But that’s only the people out as trans or who know they’re trans. When you account for all the above barriers to our existence, some estimates put trans/NB people maybe as high as 10%!
So due to lack of knowledge/terminology, and lack of acceptance (both societal and self-acceptance), spotting trans people in history isn’t always cut and dry. Sometimes we have to infer things from context clues, but often it’s fairly obvious.
Did you know that one of the reasons we don’t have a lot of knowledge of trans people in the past, or the reason people in the past didn’t have the terminology, is because information about us was routinely destroyed, suppressed, or outright intentionally misinterpreted?
Magnus Hirschfeld had one of the largest and most extensive collections of books and information and research on trans people. He ran a clinic and helped trans women transition. In Germany pre-WWII!
And guess (oh can you guess?) what one of the nazis’ earliest targets was? Do you UNDERSTAND that the rising transphobia and violence in the US from fascists is history repeating itself?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-forgotten-history-of-the-worlds-first-trans-clinic/
LGBTQIA+ people were targeted and forced into concentration camps by the nazis and are often forgotten about (or intentionally left out of the discussion) entirely.
https://time.com/5953047/lgbtq-holocaust-stories/
Good thing the Allies freed everyone who was still alive in the camps! Except did you know THEY DIDN’T? THEY LEFT LGBTQIA PEOPLE IN THE CAMPS AND FREED EVERYONE ELSE. How horrified does that make you?
“Under the Allied occupation, some homosexuals were forced to serve out their terms of imprisonment … The Nazi version of Paragraph 175 remained on the books of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) until the law was revised in 1969…”
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gay-prisoners-germany-wwii/
Did you know that? Are you appalled that even the “good guys” aren’t on our side? Are you starting to get the truth of the situation? Welcome to the club. Here’s a good thread for you about the willful ignoring or hiding of trans people in history.
https://twitter.com/lisaquestions/status/1525187671936512000
In spite of all that’s stacked against us, trans people have still always existed. Always persisted. So let’s look at some examples of trans people in history. Again, for many we have to use context clues, but you’ll see it’s pretty clear when you pay attention.
If we’re talking trans people in history, we absolutely have to start with Marsha P. Johnson, an activist who was at Stonewall and was forever leading the charge for LGBTQIA+ rights. I hope you’re already familiar with her.
https://www.outhistory.org/exhibits/show/tgi-bios/marsha-p-johnson
One famous example you’ve heard of and probably had no idea was trans… the author of Little Women, Lou Alcott. Despite not having the terminology to identify as transgender at the time, look at this evidence and try and tell me Lou was not a transgender man.
https://twitter.com/peytonology/status/1516612189687324673
Here’s Mark and David Ferrow, two trans brothers in the 1930s who had the support of their parents (it seems like a miracle when this happens TODAY, that it happened in the 30s? Extraordinary) and transitioned in their teens.
https://twitter.com/EliErlick/status/1520805459166482432
There’s the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, a priest, an activist, a non-binary/gender fluid/potentially intersex icon. Again, as they did not have the terminology, we cannot be exactly sure how they would identify today, or what pronouns they would use.
https://www.paulimurraycenter.com/who-is-pauli
Here’s Lucy Hicks Anderson, a trans woman who was a philanthropist and activist and ran a bordello! She was cooler than I’ll ever be.
https://www.aclu-ms.org/en/news/highlight-lucy-hicks-anderson-black-trans-pioneer
Here’s one of my favorites, Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d'Éon de Beaumont. She’s a trans woman who used brilliance and trickery to get transphobic society to declare her legally a woman by making everyone think she was AFAB and a trans man! GENIUS.
https://www.them.us/story/chevalier-d-eon-trans-woman
And if you want another example of how despite all of that evidence people will go out of their way to say she wasn’t actually a trans woman (because she didn’t “seem sick” enough?? Who says you get to decide???), here you go.
https://twitter.com/AlinaBoyden/status/1479925768272629760
Here’s Roberta Cowell, a trans woman race car driver and fighter pilot! Also so much cooler than I will ever be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberta_Cowell
Here’s Wendy Carlos, the film composer who did the scores to A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Tron! She also worked with Weird Al! (okay, every trans person in history is cooler than I’ll ever be, I gotta step up my game).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/wendy-carlos-the-electronic-music-pioneer-who-happens-to-be-transgender/2020/10/22/fa4f511e-d5ac-11ea-930e-d88518c57dcc_story.html
Even Buzzfeed, of all places, has done an article on trans people in history.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/shawnstensberg/a-brief-history-of-being-trans
Okay, these are all still fairly recent, I hear you (annoyingly) saying. Can you go back further? Sure! Here’s a lovely article about trans people in the old west!
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/trans-history-wild-west
Here’s a video about Scythians from thousands of years ago who may have used urine from pregnant mares (which is high in estrogen) for hormone replacement therapy for trans women!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABpT6e-KlOo
And here’s one of my favorites, medieval French philosopher Kalonymus ben Kalonymus. This translation touched me so deeply. It moved me. I can feel that pain. I KNOW that pain. I hope you’ve read everything I’ve linked to, but absolutely you MUST read this.
https://twitter.com/TheRaDR/status/987171135535149056
That is the agony, the despair, the longing of gender dysphoria. How can ANYONE read that and not say Kalonymus ben Kalonymus, living IN THE TWELVE HUNDREDS, was anything other than a transgender woman?
The only way is if you’re actively trying to suppress the knowledge that we have indeed always existed, and being trans is just a normal part of life and the way some people happen to be.
This is not an exhaustive list, and again I’m not a historian. I hope you’ll do more research, there are so many of us AND THERE ALWAYS HAVE BEEN.
All you have to do is pay attention. We’ve always been here, we’ll always BE here. This is who we are.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillystranstuesdays.com