Thought the irony of transphobes saying when they discover trans people’s skeletons, they’ll only see us as our AGAB. Apparently figuring out a skeleton’s sex is not so cut and dry. Fascinating story regardless.
The whole transphobic claim of being seen as our AGAB by future archeologists is especially ridiculous considering that modern ones are already saying things like this:
While the skeleton’s biological sex is not in dispute, Gowland cautioned that nothing is known about the Ivory Lady’s gender identity, and scholars shouldn’t impose modern gender norms onto past populations.
I thought the article was interesting, but I didn’t really get the point of what OP said. :/
“In the past, it was not uncommon for an archaeologist to find (remains) and say, ‘OK, this individual has a sword and a shield. Therefore, he’s a man.’ Of course, deeply mistaken, because it assumes that in the past gender roles were the way we conceive them today,” García Sanjuán said.
Just to put it out there, but no serious archeologist has believed this for a while.
Consider the two clearly gay women burried together in an Old Norse tomb, with their cannabis seeds and Swastika-engraved Buddha statue. The idea that male dominance and disarming of women is universal is not something anyone can believe after making a serious study of history.
Just consider the Albanian women who took up male identities to become warriors. Note that I’m still referring to them here as women since arguably these historical practices are less about trans identity and more about social positions.
two clearly gay women
Or perhaps, to phrase it like a historian - roommates accidentally buried together
Transphobes stubbornly incorrect. More at 11.
Almost every historical culture has had at least 3 gender roles, third gender usually being ‘effeminate male’
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I’m confused by your comment. The new technique better identifies skeletons without a Y chromosome, which correlates largely (not 100%, very little is 100%) with AGAB.
As far as I can glean (given the dire nature of internet search these days and the amount of noise because of this discovery), the initial identification of the skeleton as male was little more than sexist presumptions about status: the grave was superlatively high status, ergo it had to be a man.
Is your comment simply that mistakes have been made by archaeologists in identifying sex? This isn’t the first, won’t be the last. They come from researchers reading their own society-based assumptions about gender roles & presentation back onto other times. I don’t see how the new findings are a slam against transphobes; this new technique appears to give a far more reliable way to identify a skeleton’s chromosomes and thus (in the majority of cases) its likely AGAB.My comment isn’t about the techniques they were using. It’s a social comment on an absurd argument some transphobes like to use against transfolk saying people digging up our skeletons won’t ever see us as our gender identity, but as our AGAB (assigned gender at birth). As if anyone gives a flying fuck what someone thousands of years in the future thinks about our remains.
It was funny to me seeing this scenario pop up in the news, and the skeleton had been misgendered from the folks who initially examined the pelvis to determine the skeleton’s sex (reinforced afterwards with certain gendered assumptions around the objects found near it). It flips the table on the transphobe’s argument, showing how it isn’t quite as cut and dry as they’d like to believe.
Yes, I understand you weren’t talking about the techniques and it was social commentary.
So identification WAS from examination of the pelvic bones? Where did you see that? Might you have a link you could kindly share or any information to help me find it? I love archaeology and search is turning up the now usual mass of sensationalist articles. Thanks :)
