We've always been at war with Byzantine transmisogyny
And other things that didn't really happen
My latest for UnHerd, a.k.a. more shooting fish in barrels:
Trans activists in the academy have abandoned their training in historical methods in order to reimagine figures from Roman emperors to Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth I (as far as I know, no such attempts have been made on QEII), and author Louisa May Alcott as transgender. Just a few months ago, the North Hertfordshire Museum took the initiative to change up the pronouns the museum used to refer to one of Rome’s most notorious emperors, noting that Elagabalus, “long regarded as mad and one of the worst Roman emperors […] is perhaps now best thought of as a transgender teen”.
But there’s a dark underside to these absurdities. For the vast majority of human history, the concept of gender identity — much less transgender identities — didn’t exist. This isn’t to say that no one before the 20th century ever felt somehow wrong in the body he or she was born in or that no one ever wished that they’d been born a boy instead of a girl.
“Trans” is something else, though: the product of new medical technologies and new ways of thinking about identity that change the meaning of such pains and desires. As the philosopher of science Ian Hacking put it, new concepts and technologies create new ways of being human that didn’t exist before.
There’s a lot of sexism involved. But that’s not the only thing that’s troubling. There’s something grotesque about the way trans activists turn long-dead historical figures into marionettes for a new and radical ideology.
Why are these activists unwilling to acknowledge the newness of what they have created? Surely it would have been possible to argue that — having progressed so far from our benighted past — we have discovered bold new ways of being and doing that deserve recognition and protection. Why not own their invention, rather than impose it on those who came before them?
"don't misgender me!!" but it's perfectly fine to retcon the identities of people who've been dead and gone for centuries without their consent?!
Thanks for writing about this. This topic irritates me also.
Frida Kahlo is another one that trans people are trying to reinvent. Why? Because once, as a joke, she dressed as a man (at the age of 17, I think) for a family photo. In every other instance, she wore feminine clothes, not to mention flowers in her hair. She was a brilliant artist and highly intelligent, even when she was young. Dressing as a man for a picture was just the kind of wry social statement she might think to make, as she understood all about sexual politics. But doing that once didn't make her trans.