glumshoe:That’s nice, but no. I’m a
Mar. 21st, 2020 12:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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glumshoe:
That’s nice, but no. I’m a non-binary person tired of all the infighting over who is “allowed” to see their experiences reflected in the lives of historical figures. Trans people have always existed, but it is nearly impossible to conclusively determine exactly how long-dead individuals would have chosen to define themselves by today’s standards, because most of them lived in a world quite different from our own, driven by motives that aren’t as obvious to us now, and may have had quiet personal feelings they kept to themselves that might surprise us today. I suspect that some of them felt much like I do—unable to identify their location precisely on a contemporary gender map, and not really interested in trying.
I think the vicious intracommunity tug-of-war over whether individuals were binary trans men, trans masculine non-binary people, or who women who were butch or GNC or simply preferred to live as men for practical or professional reasons is stupid. I would bet my life that in a game of “guess my gender”, we would guess incorrectly as often as we were right, or be confounded by the answers we got. I think it is probably better to think of historical LGBTQ people as further back on a phylogenic tree—common cultural ancestors, more or less, though not necessary an exact match to how we have branched off and how we think of ourselves today.
We should use the pronouns and language that the people used for themselves in their time, but this attitude of “you can’t look at this person as part of your own cultural forebearers because they were definitely A instead of B”—this sense of exclusive ownership over people who can’t speak for themselves in the context of modernity—helps no one. We cannot carve historical LGBTQ identities at the joints and perfectly ascribe modern taxonomy, which is itself imperfect.
officialkittendorf:
This reads like a cis person finding out that trans people have always existed throughout history, and would like us to stop reminding them of it.
glumshoe:
Frankly I don’t see the point in fussing over the precise gender identities of historical figures and what they would hypothetically describe themselves as were they alive today. They’re not fictional characters—they’re dead people whose opinions on a continuously evolving topic are largely unknowable, but are part of a shared history nonetheless.
For example, whether a historical figure lived secretly as a man because she was a woman in a society where that was her only option to actually do the things she wanted to do, or because he was just more comfortable that way and wanted to be recognized as a man… how can we know? How can we determine that it was not both? How can we look back through history to a world so different from ours and come to conclusions about things that are often complicated and indistinct in our own time?
I just don’t see what is accomplished by trying to sort and separate trans history from GNC history based on factors we can’t truly be certain of. In an earlier generation, I think I may have lived and presented quite differently based on the choices available to me and the ease with which I may have pursued them. The world changes so much in so many ways and I can barely make sense of myself in my own time—it seems more practical to simply say, “Ah. Relatable. I can see much of myself in the record of your life.” and leave it at that. Our history is cultural, not ancestral, and in a hundred years we may be the source of just as much confusion and consternation even if we believe ourselves clear today.
glumshoe:
That’s nice, but no. I’m a non-binary person tired of all the infighting over who is “allowed” to see their experiences reflected in the lives of historical figures. Trans people have always existed, but it is nearly impossible to conclusively determine exactly how long-dead individuals would have chosen to define themselves by today’s standards, because most of them lived in a world quite different from our own, driven by motives that aren’t as obvious to us now, and may have had quiet personal feelings they kept to themselves that might surprise us today. I suspect that some of them felt much like I do—unable to identify their location precisely on a contemporary gender map, and not really interested in trying.
I think the vicious intracommunity tug-of-war over whether individuals were binary trans men, trans masculine non-binary people, or who women who were butch or GNC or simply preferred to live as men for practical or professional reasons is stupid. I would bet my life that in a game of “guess my gender”, we would guess incorrectly as often as we were right, or be confounded by the answers we got. I think it is probably better to think of historical LGBTQ people as further back on a phylogenic tree—common cultural ancestors, more or less, though not necessary an exact match to how we have branched off and how we think of ourselves today.
We should use the pronouns and language that the people used for themselves in their time, but this attitude of “you can’t look at this person as part of your own cultural forebearers because they were definitely A instead of B”—this sense of exclusive ownership over people who can’t speak for themselves in the context of modernity—helps no one. We cannot carve historical LGBTQ identities at the joints and perfectly ascribe modern taxonomy, which is itself imperfect.
officialkittendorf:
This reads like a cis person finding out that trans people have always existed throughout history, and would like us to stop reminding them of it.
glumshoe:
Frankly I don’t see the point in fussing over the precise gender identities of historical figures and what they would hypothetically describe themselves as were they alive today. They’re not fictional characters—they’re dead people whose opinions on a continuously evolving topic are largely unknowable, but are part of a shared history nonetheless.
For example, whether a historical figure lived secretly as a man because she was a woman in a society where that was her only option to actually do the things she wanted to do, or because he was just more comfortable that way and wanted to be recognized as a man… how can we know? How can we determine that it was not both? How can we look back through history to a world so different from ours and come to conclusions about things that are often complicated and indistinct in our own time?
I just don’t see what is accomplished by trying to sort and separate trans history from GNC history based on factors we can’t truly be certain of. In an earlier generation, I think I may have lived and presented quite differently based on the choices available to me and the ease with which I may have pursued them. The world changes so much in so many ways and I can barely make sense of myself in my own time—it seems more practical to simply say, “Ah. Relatable. I can see much of myself in the record of your life.” and leave it at that. Our history is cultural, not ancestral, and in a hundred years we may be the source of just as much confusion and consternation even if we believe ourselves clear today.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-21 12:32 pm (UTC)Skeptical criticism of Politically Correct Thought is neither invited nor welcome.
Ever.
Four legs good, two legs bad! Four legs good, two legs bad! Four legs good, two legs bad! Four legs good, two legs bad!