Always Here
Gender Diversity
Michela Guilfoyle, a cultural heritage worker and archaeologist at the Royal Agricultural University in Gloucestershire, England sat down to explain that fluidity of gender expression is entirely human. In her studies of the Bard’s plays, she pointed out that playing with gender identity and crossdressing is a constant theme in the works of William Shakespeare. Another point she made was in studying pre-Columbian civilizations that prove that, historically, there was a diversity of gender and sexuality. Particularly amongst the indigenous peoples of the world.
Before the Western world came in contact with the indigenous nations of Northern and Southern America, there was an understanding and acceptance of the fluidity of gender. Two Spirits have existed in Native communities for countless generations. They have a variety of different names and tribal specific roles amongst the different tribes. Two Spirit serves as an umbrella term for those who have both a male and female spirit inside of them, it does not serve as a catch all for a gay indigenous person.
This is comparable to the sacredness with which transgender individuals were historically treated in ancient India. They were considered to be near-godly beings and held places of honor in Hindu mythology and in holy epics. It was even forbidden in Hinduism for transgender individuals to be abused in any manner or come to harm, lest the wrath of the heavens descend upon those who harmed the favorites of the gods. All this changed with the arrival of British colonial rule and a law was passed in 1871 that firmly identified transgender individuals as criminals.
It wasn’t until 2018 that the World Health Organization removed being transgender from their list of mental illnesses. Setting aside the centuries of stigma world wide, it’s still illegal to be transgender. LGBTQ+ rights are still being fought for and LGBTQ+ history constantly being uncovered again.
LGBTQ+ history is attempted to be buried time and time again even though it has existed since before there has been terminology for it. The first trans clinic in the world, the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, would have been a century old if it hadn’t been torched by the Nazis in 1933. More than 20,000 books were lost that day when the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was destroyed, many of them were rare copies of books that provided a history for noncomforming people. The years of research and data were also never recovered.
