Earliest transgender person?

Printer-friendly version

Author: 

Taxonomy upgrade extras: 

Archaeologists in the Czech Republic have discovered an unusual Bronze Age burial, where a man was buried like a woman. Of course the Daily Wail has made the most of it with the usual sort of nonsense, but the pictures and the facts which haven't been distorted are interesting.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1374060/Gay-c...

Comments

How do you find 'em?

Don't tell me you trawl the Daily Mail web site every day ;) To my great shame I used to buy it every day back in 60s (it was a bit different then but my Grandmother always called it the Daily Liar.)

However, it's an interesting story but I'm always slightly sceptical of the reasons archaeologists use for some of their speculations with minimal evidence. I can't help but think they tend to be influenced by current mores rather like science fiction is more a reflection of when it was written than of the future it claims to describe.

There must be story in this for those writers who like TG stories based in the distant past. Thanks for pointing me to it.

Robi

wow great :)

Even though i know the most noterized yet eldest transgender was a greek oracle by the name of tiresias or so i like to believe
ty hunny xx

With Love and Light, and Smiles so Bright!

Erin Amelia Fletcher

Amelia Rosewood Year two.png

With Love and Light, and Smiles so Bright!

Erin Amelia Fletcher

Og have bone to pick with Daily Mails

laika's picture

Og no like article about Og. Not even mention Og invent clothes. Or how Og also inventing coming out, and get to be girl in tribe many seasons with mate Leelee and get buried being who she was. Og think furry little cousins smarter than Daily Mails. Daily Mails call Og gay but Og was cavegirl, not some cavegay. Not that anything wrong with that.

middlesex

It seems a rather bold leap to conjecture that this person was gay when all they have is bones to go by. The soft tissues that have since disintigrated could have appeared female. Maybe she was AIS or intersexed.

Earliest transgender person?

Hermaphroditus was an immortal son of Hermes through Aphrodite. He was changed into an androgynous being, a creature of both sexes, when the gods literally granted the nymph Salmacis' wish, that she and Hermaphroditus were never separated after she embraced him passionately in a pool. He then cursed the pool, saying any man who entered it would lose his masculinity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaphroditus

    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine
    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine

Cavemen and spirits

5,000 years old homosexual. Pretty nice achievement for homosexuality, don't you think? But what's this, o nagging voice? That homosexuality is a social concept from the 1750s*? Nonsense, these are archaeologists, they know everything about homosexuality, so if they say so, then he must have been. Why are you bringing my attention to the Czech article? That the archaeologists speak of transsexuals, not transvestites? And that neither implies a transvestite a transsexual, nor a transsexual a homosexual? What madness you speak of, o voice? Just looking at the words makes it clear---a <trans>vestite is but a <trans>sexual wearing a vest, a trans<sexual> transcends the boundaries of the homo genus to look for the homo<sexual> elsewhere in nature. O voices in my head, why must you plague me with facts and reason? Why do you carry memories of my studies? What is this? A berdache, you say? A two-spirit? A biologically male entity serving the role of the socially feminine, and a biologically female entity serving the role of the socially male? What circumstances could have led me to remember such nonsense? Everyone knows that there is only the male, corresponding with the masculine, and the female, corresponding with the feminine. Wherever did you pull these words from, o silly voices? My Native American Studies class, you say? And that two-spirits are well-documented in academic literature? What fools these mortals be.

Ladies and gentlemen (and nothing in-between, since everyone here knows such a thing is impossible), please excuse my voices. I gave them voice once and they've been vocal ever since, trying to force me to look at things with their rationality and reason.

P.S.: Not to speak against Daily Fail, but in the Czech article, the archaeologists merely considered the possibility of the guy being a shaman less likely. They didn't outright reject it.

P.P.S.: Just in case (and since one can never be sure one won't be misinterpreted on the Internet), the above text was partly humorous. It was in no way intended as a denigration of anyone whose sexuality or sex--gender relation is outside the antiquated Western notion of binary sex and binary gender. I personally applaud everyone who rejects these notions (and yes, that does include me, since I have no other achievements to speak of), as every such person helps make the world a better place, and sincerely hope for the many people on this site and elsewhere that medical and biological advancements progress fast enough to make your lives be lived the way you want them, not the way nature imposed on you.

[*: If memory serves; it's been a while since Gay Studies at the university, so I might be completely wrong.]

END-OF-RANT