Queer was always here: the existence and importance of LGBTQ+ history

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The term ‘transgender’ may not have been coined until the 1960s, but that doesn’t mean that people we’d now deem trans haven’t existed continuously throughout history.¹  From Roman Emperor Elagabalus (204-222), to French soldier and diplomat Chevalier d’Eon (1728-1810): queer was always here.

Anachronistic difficulties obviously arise the further we travel back through time, but if we use the American Psychiatric Association’s definition of transgender as “an umbrella term describing individuals whose gender identity does not align in a traditional sense with the gender they were assigned at birth”² and account for the linked notion of gender expression, defined as the “outward manifestation of a person’s gender [e.g] how a person carries themselves, their dress, accessories, grooming, voice/speech patterns and conversational mannerisms, and physical characteristics”³; it is in actuality not hard to find such examples. 

Even if claims towards the antiquity of trans people are disputed, it is still significant to highlight more concrete, 20th century examples, in the important aim of debunking myths such as the ‘rapid onset gender dysphoria’ hoax, which has taken the right wing by storm. Moreover, in establishing the gender binary as a supposed historical constant and inevitability, one neglects to consider a myriad of non-Western cultures, such as the Hindu hijra, or the Mexican muxes, or Indigenous American two-spirit. Trans history exists, too long we have simply ignored it – it is due time we properly explored this undeniable aspect of the past.

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LGBT in the Archives – a selection of brief biographies

Oh, but had the artisan who made me created me instead – a worthy woman. / Today I would be wise and insightful … and I would say, “How lucky am I” to know how to make linen, how to comb [wool], and weave lace … And oft-times, in the way of women, / I would lie down on the kitchen floor, by the hearth, among the pots between furnace and stove … and when I was ready and the time was right / an excellent youth [husband] would be my fortune. He would love me, place me on a pedestal / dress me in jewels of gold / earrings, bracelets, necklaces. And on the appointed day, in the season of joy when brides are wed, for seven days would the boy / increase my delight and gladness … Father in heaven who did miracles for our ancestors with fire and water … Who would then transform me from a man to woman? / Were I only to have merited this being so graced by goodness / I could have now been the lady of the house, exempt from military service! What shall I say? Why cry or be bitter? / If my father in heaven has decreed upon me / and has maimed me with an immutable deformity / then I do not wish to remove it / the sorrow of the impossible is a human pain that nothing will cure / and for which no comfort can be found. So, I will bear and suffer until I die and wither in the ground. Since I have learned from our tradition / that we bless both, the good and the bitter / I will bless in a voice hushed and weak: blessed are you [God] who has not made me a woman.

תפילה להפך – מאבן בֹחן | Prayer for Transformation, from the poem “Even Boḥan” by Rabbi Ḳalonymus ben Ḳalonymus ben Meir (1322 C.E.)⁴

Rabbi Ḳalonymus ben Ḳalonymus ben Meir’s ‘Prayer for Transformation’ is one of the earliest recorded expressions of desire for gender transition, with some incredibly powerful lines which relevancy is prolonged. For instance, we can recognise yearning for medical transition in the expression that “the sorrow of the impossible is a human pain that nothing will cure”, as well as dysphoric reference to “an immutable deformity.” Kalonymus’ lament is also not necessarily uncharacteristic of Jewish tradition, which has long embraced a number of gender identities – the Talmud is regarded as an authoritative collection of Jewish legal traditions, and contains no less than eight gender designations, including: Zachar, Nekevah, Androgynos, Tumtum, Aylonit hamah, Aylonit adam, Saris hamah, and Saris adam.⁵ Additionally, some Jewish academics, notably Rabbi Yirmeya ben Elazar, are reinterpreting scripture in line with these millenia old gender traditions; Rabbi Yirmeya “imagines that the first human was created both male and female … Later, this original human being was separated and became two distinct people, Adam and Eve. According to this midrash then, the first human being was, to use contemporary parlance, non binary … [as] in the hour when the Holy One created the first human, He created him as an androgynos [one having both male and female sexual characteristics], as it is said, “male and female He created them.”⁶ (in reference to Genesis 1:27)

Another notable LGBTQ+ poet is Sappho, who contemporarily is commemorated through not just the term ‘sapphic’, but ‘lesbian’ too, which is derived from the Greek island of Lesbos where Sappho lived, wrote, and died. The Poetry Foundation describes ‘number 31’ as “catalogu[ing] the physical symptoms of love longing in the writer as she watches her beloved chatting with a man.”⁷ Tragically, much of Sappho’s work is preserved only in fragments, and it’s oft-speculated that this literature loss was a product of a mediaeval pope, who considered her desire for women so subversive that her poems were burnt; despite this, her legacy is still rather unanimously regarded as a pillar of LGBTQ+ history.

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17th century Virginia is where our next story begins, and that is the brief biography of Thomas Hall. While thus far this essay has mainly employed the term ‘LGBTQ+’, a more appropriate term especially with this case is ‘LGBTQIA+’, with the explicit inclusion of intersex and asexual identities. As described by the Oxford University LGBTQ+ society, 

“Some intersex people may choose to transition from one gender to another, but many do not. An intersex person may consider themself trans, but not all intersex people do, as gender is different from sex, and intersex is an identity which relates to sex, or physical characteristics, rather than gender identity. However, intersex people may face lots of similar difficulties to trans people, as their physical appearances don’t always resemble binary genders like cisgender people, and they may be perceived as transgender … intersex people are often quite isolated and may lack a sense of community … The surgery frequently performed on intersex children creates a stigma that intersex is something that needs to be ‘corrected’ or hidden, much like attempts to ‘correct’ or ‘convert’ gay and trans people to be cisgender and straight. Consequently, intersex people form a marginalised and often invisible group which deserves a place in the LGBTQ+ community. Of course, not all intersex people consider themselves ‘queer’, but there should definitely be a space for those who do feel a part of the community.”⁸ 

In 1629, English migrant Thomas(ine) Hall was the subject of marked controversy in colonial Warrosquyoack, Virginia. Professor Kathleen Brown, of the University of Pennsylvania, describes that “Hall also occasionally donned female garb, a practice that confused neighbours, masters, and plantation captains about his social and sexual identity. When asked by Captain Nathaniel Bass, Warrosquyoacke’s most prominent resident, ‘whether he were man or woeman,’ Hall replied that he was both.”⁹ This societal confusion led to Hall’s being made to appear in front of the Jamestone General Court, which culminated in the ruling that Hall had a ‘dual nature’ sex, which we would now define as intersex, and thus for many under the trans umbrella. 

Elizabeth Reis’s section in the book ‘American sexual histories’ details the case, alongside a myriad of other examples of intersexual/transgender individuals in Early America. It notes that officials ruled that “hee is a man and a woeman”, and that before Hall’s time, any individual determined by court to be “man and woman” was forced to adopt a permanent male or female identity, typically based on their predominant sex characteristics¹⁰ (note that this signifies the long history of gender convergence, even before Hall’s 17th century case). Due to the intense ambiguity of Hall’s body and lifestyle, the court could not determine what sex they aligned closest with, and thus required them to dress in clothing that symbolised this confusion: Hall was forced to “goe clothed in man’s apparell, only his head to bee attired in a coyfe and crosscloth with an apron before him.”¹¹ Indeed, Kathleen Brown further explains that,

“Hall’s life disrupted the attempts of justices and neighbours alike to treat gender as a set of natural categories. For Hall, the ‘performance’ of gender identity appeared to be as malleable as a change of clothes and at least partially motivated by opportunities for employment … While Hall seemed utterly at ease with gender as a choice of self-presentation distinct from the issues of identity his metamorphoses provoked both his community and the colonial arm of the state to discover and affix a permanent identity.”¹²

Hence, Hall’s gender expression and identity was notably unconventional for their time, and fits with our introductory definition of “not aligning in a traditional sense with the gender assigned at birth”. Indeed, they could be denoted as intersex, and/or perhaps a term like ‘gender fluid’ (a non-fixed gender identity that shifts over time/depending on the situation; these fluctuations can occur at the level of gender identity or gender expression). Regardless, the point of these exploratory examples is not to speculate in assigning anachronistic labels to historic figures, but to highlight the clear fact that gender deviation – which we now recognise as being trans – is not simply a modern phenomenon, as Thomas(ine) Hall’s five hundred years old case highlights.

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James Barry and Albert Cashier, surgeon and soldier, are both highly relevant to our history, due to the fact that they were both assigned female at birth, though are now recognised as men, the gender in which both lived the majority of their lives. 

The case of Albert Cashier – born in 1843 Ireland and given the name Jennie Hodgers – is an interesting one: there are many documented cases (over 400 in fact¹³) of women disguising themselves as men during the Civil War in order to patriotically serve their countries on the front lines; and hey, we all know the disney-fied tale of Mulan! As such, many may be quick to decide that the case of Albert Cashier is just one of these examples, however the fact that Cashier continued to live as a man after the war, as a consistent and nearly life-long commitment to his male identity has prompted numerous contemporary scholars to classify Cashier as a transgender man.¹⁴

Private Albert Cashier enlisted in the 95th Illinois Infantry in 1862, and was reportedly considered “one of the boys” and a good soldier; he served a full three year enlistment until August 17, 1865, with his regiment having lost a total of 289 soldiers to death and disease, across battles at Nashville, Jonesborough, and Kennesaw Mountain.¹⁵ As noted above, though, his post-war journey is much more interesting, and in actuality rather tragic, as described by the American Battlefield Trust:

“Cashier returned to Illinois … [and] continued his identity as a man, and held many different jobs, including farmhand, church janitor, cemetery worker, and street lamplighter. Cashier also voted in elections at a time when women did not have the right to vote … In November 1910, Cashier was hit by a car and broke his leg, at which time his sex assigned at birth was discovered. The local hospital agreed not to divulge his sex assignment, and he was sent to the Soldiers and Sailors Home in Quincy, Illinois to recover. Cashier remained a resident of the home until March of 1913, when due to the onset of dementia, he was sent to a state hospital for the insane. Attendants there discovered his sex assignment and forced him to wear a dress. The press got a hold of the story and soon everyone knew that Private Albert Cashier had been born as Jennie Hodgers. Many of his former comrades, although initially surprised at this revelation, were supportive of Cashier, and protested his treatment at the state hospital. When Cashier died on October 10, 1915, he was buried in his full uniform and given a tombstone inscribed with his male identity and military service.”¹⁶

The National Park Service gives further detail, that “Cashier’s comrades rallied and testified that this was not Jennie Hodgers but Albert Cashier, a small but brave soldier who showed bravery on dangerous missions” and that being forced to wear women’s clothing “took a great toll on his mental state”. Moreover, they report the true facts of his death, for at “67 years old, frail and unaccustomed to walking in women’s clothing, he tripped and broke his hip. He never recovered from the injury and spent the rest of his life bedridden”¹⁷ and died in late 1915.

Dr James Barry is a similar case, not only was he coincidentally also born in Ireland (in 1795), but more importantly, he chose to exclusively live and identify as a man, having been assigned female at birth; and his biological sex became a matter of publicly reported discussion after his death in 1865. The National Archives describe his accomplishments, for he “became a leading doctor with a glittering medical career who did much to raise standards of medical care in and outside the army.”¹⁸ Indeed, their various sources recount that Barry improved the sanitary conditions in army hospitals (bettering hygiene and diet) and helped to reduce the spread of disease.¹⁹ At this time, Dr Barry also performed an early successful caesarean section, saving the life of both mother and baby; he went on to serve in Mauritius from 1828, as well as in the Crimean War and in Trinidad.²⁰ 

As with Cashier, and as occasionally remains the case today – and will be discussed later in this essay – some may argue the notion that Barry transitioned not due to strong identification as a man, but due to prejudices against women. There may be slight merit to this (in Barry’s case), with consideration to the fact that Barry aspired to study medicine, a position which was restricted to men at the time – and it’s reported that his adoption of a male identity coincided with his admission to Edinburgh University as a med student.

However, the narrative cropping up of James Barry as a feminist icon and an inspiring woman who defied gender norms (e.g. ‘A Woman Ahead Of Her Time’) is disingenuous, and arguably dangerously contributing to trans erasure/harmful narratives; especially when added to the allegation of Barry leading a ‘secret life’ or ‘fooling contemporaries’. According to the Science History Institute, “many of those assigned female at birth who later dressed as men did so for a short time only [and] returned to their lives as women when they could support themselves again, were no longer in physical danger, or could be reunited with their loved ones.”²¹ As was seen with Albert Cashier, this was not the case for all people who deviated from gender norms; and the same is true for James Barry, whose biological sex was not uncovered until after his death – indeed, the aforementioned institute regard Barry’s case as having “no such ambiguity”.²² Moreover, they continue:

“Barry never returned to his previous name and never presented as a woman again, living both publicly and privately as a man, signing his letters as a gentleman, and using male pronouns to describe himself. In his medical school thesis he tellingly wrote, ‘Do not consider whether what I say is a young man speaking, but whether my discussion with you is that of a man of understanding.’ … For his entire adult life, James Barry gave no indication that he was anything other than a man. Let’s take him at his word.”²³

Instead of debating (and degrading) Barry’s identity, I’d like to conclude this section of trans military figures by celebrating his legacy – not only was promoted to the highest rank in the army as Inspector General of Hospitals in the British colony of Canada in 1857, but he continued to reform living conditions for soldiers and prisoners and those suffering from leprosy. As with Cashier, he was granted a military funeral, prior to being buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. Furthermore, the National Archives state that “Dr Barry left instructions that his body was not to be examined after his death” and “in documents he consistently identified himself as male and uses male pronouns: he signs himself as ‘Dr James Barry’ and refers to himself as ‘gentleman’ … [a document] concerning a clash he had with church authorities in Canada gives us a little window into his [‘outspoken’] personality but also highlights his constant concern for the soldiers of his regiment”²⁴ – they conclude that “the documents reveal Dr James Barry not as [a] woman living as a man choosing a medical career, but as a man living a man’s life within the society he found himself in. ²⁵ 

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There are three final people that I’d like to highlight, whose trans identities are remarkably unquestionable, and those individuals are Lili Elbe (1882-1931), Karl M. Baer (1885-1956), and Dr. Michael Dillon (1915-1962); all of whom underwent medical, and in the latter cases legal, gender transition throughout the early 20th century. 

“The first of five highly experimental surgeries that Elbe underwent was performed in 1930. Preceding the surgery, which was performed by German gynaecologist Kurt Warnekros, she was examined by German physician and sexuality theorist Magnus Hirschfeld. The series of operations removed her testicles and penis and then transplanted ovaries and a uterus into her. She died of complications not long after the fifth procedure in 1931. Before she underwent her first surgery, it had been determined by her physicians (possibly by Hirschfeld) that Elbe had more female than male hormones and likely had what is now known as Klinefelter syndrome, a disorder of the sex chromosomes that occurs in males.”²⁸

Scientific confirmation of transgender identities will be discussed later, but Elbe’s case does bear significance to a 1995 study which found that a female-sized BSTc (a brain area that is essential for sexual behaviour) was found in male-to-female transitioners, which was not influenced by sex hormones in adulthood and was independent of sexual orientation – the research team conclude that their study shows a female brain structure in genetically male trans women.²⁹ Additionally, a 2000 follow-up study reported that the number of neurons in the BSTc of male-to-female trans people was similar to that of the females, with the neuron number of a female-to-male trans people in the male range; hormone treatment or sex hormone level variations in adulthood did not seem to have influenced BSTc neuron numbers, and overall the findings clearly point to a neurobiological basis of gender identity.³⁰ Hence, Elbe’s reported hormone difference could fit into these scientific findings – in any case, her story is highly significant.

Karl Baer was conversely the first man to undergo modern gender affirmation surgery, having grown up as an intersex child who was assigned female at birth. As is still unfortunately commonplace, Baer’s medical history was not shared with him, and thus as puberty began, signs became clearer that he was intersex, but they were largely misunderstood by him – for instance, he believed his deep voice to be a symptom of tuberculosis.³¹ Moreover, Baer initially found his developing attraction for women confusing, due to the general lack of societal representation for homosexuality and his assigned gender. Baer was a staunch feminist – likely influenced by his lived experience when presenting as a woman – and this advocacy stuck with him as he began to dress and be understood as a man.

Baer found himself in a relationship with a married woman named Beil Halpern, whom he soon formed a suicide pact with, after they resolved that their relationship had no future. In an event that would make any determinist shudder, a day prior to the planned executions, Baer landed in hospital having been injured in an electrical accident.³² Here, Karl Baer took the opportunity to confide in a doctor about his struggles with his intersex identification, and was referred to the above mentioned Magnus Hirschfiled, who would suggest ‘a little surgery’, which was performed in 1906, making Karl the recipient of one of the first modern gender affirmation surgeries.³³ In the following year, he was able to legally change his sexual identification and marry Beile Halpern (who unfortunately died soon after).

Dr. Michael Dillon is our final notable individual, and is commemorated for being the first to use testosterone therapy for the purpose of FTM transition, and to have both Top Surgery (a mastectomy to remove breasts and masculinise the chest) and Phalloplasty. In 1939, Dillon sought hormone treatment from Dr George Foss who’d been experimenting with the hormone; the use of testosterone soon made it possible for Dillon to pass as male.³⁴ Moreover, following the war, prominent plastic surgeon Harold Gillies performed at least 13 surgeries on Dillon between 1946 and 1949 – he officially diagnosed Dillon with acute hypospadias in order to conceal the fact that he was performing sex-reassignment surgery. In 1946, Dillon published ‘Self: A Study in Ethics and Endocrinology’, a book about his trans identity and testament to his knowledge as a medical practitioner himself; posthumously, his autobiography ‘Out of the Ordinary: A Life of Gender and Spiritual Transitions’ was published, including the iconic quote “People thought I was a woman. But I wasn’t. I was just me”³⁵ – highlighting his unequivocal transgender identity, in the wider, rich history of trans and gender nonconforming people globally.

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Cultures Beyond the Binary

So far, we have explored a number of single case studies of strong defiance of gender norms, as well as intersex individuals, which in modernity can be recognised as the long legacy of trans identities – but there is also a rich history of non-Western cultures wherein the gender binary is not the norm which we will now uncover. 

For instance, this essay has already referenced (in the introduction), the hijra, muxes, and two-spirit folk; as well as the eight gender assignatures in the orthodox Jewish Talmud, discussed in the section covering Kalonymus. Dr Imran Mushtaq explains in a 2016 article for the BBC, that not only is gender a non-binary social construct, but “absolutely sex is a spectrum. It’s not binary in any way and we are slowly coming to understand this.”³⁶ He further comments that “I don’t think we should have gender categories: I don’t think that sex should be on birth certificates, I don’t think sex should be on driving licences and I don’t think sex should be on passports.” Moreover, the same article provides a range of other voices, for instance Mark Gevisser writes:

“Transgender is certainly not a western phenomenon. In many cultures all over the world there are traditionally third gender or gender-fluid identities … There are the Hijras in India, what are known as two-spirited people in Native American culture, Muxe in Mexico, and the Bakla in the Philippines. The space these people have occupied has receded with the spread of the Judeo-Christian ethic and western culture, but they’re still very much there … it’s not necessarily a great life.”³⁷

This provides us with insight into not just the existence of cultures with third-genders, but the repression of them, especially as a consequence of Western intervention. Let’s take, for example, India, where in 2014, it was estimated that around three million ‘third gender’ people lived³⁸ (which would’ve comprised around 0.23% of India’s 1.3 billion strong population at the time). In India, a third gender category has legally been recognised for a decade – making it one of just nineteen countries to include this option, including three of its bordering countries: Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The most common non-binary gender identity in this region are the hijra folk. 

Hijras traditionally have an important role to play in many Hindu ceremonies, typically in the form of blessings and curses: a hijra’s blessings of a baby is said to bestow fertility, prosperity, and long life on the child, and hijras will often bless newlywed couples in the realm of fertility; to many Hindus, it is the fact that hijras are third gender that grants them this supreme religious power.³⁹ However, in the era of sweeping British colonialism, the hijra were not met with the same reverence – based predominantly in contemporary Christian belief, the British criminalised all hijra folk in 1871. While this law has since been repealed, the societal contempt towards hijras unfortunately remains, with a Harvard study finding that hijra are almost always excluded from employment and education, resulting in disproportionate rates of poverty, forced prostitution, abuse, and police harassment. ⁴⁰

Another non-binary gender identity is the indigenous two-spirit, who have gradually been seeing greater recognition, with some queer folk choosing to explicitly include ‘2S’ in the wider LGBT+ acronym. That is not to say that two-spirit is a new phenomenon, indeed a Guardian article from back in 2010 on two-spirit culture begins by stating that “Native Americans have often held intersex, androgynous people, feminine males and masculine females in high respect.”⁴¹ As with the hijra, two-spirit folk are often regarded in traditional culture as having unique spiritual capabilities – honestly, it’s a shame that transphobia has become so ingrained in the West that we harass and degrade non-binary people, rather than celebrate their metaphysical magic.. Regardless, the aforementioned article describes that “androgynous or transgender persons are seen as doubly blessed, having both the spirit of a man and the spirit of a woman … They are honoured for having two spirits, and are seen as more spiritually gifted than the typical masculine male or feminine female. Therefore, many Native American religions, rather than stigmatising such persons, often looked to them as religious leaders and teachers. Quite similar religious traditions existed among the native peoples of Siberia and many parts of Central and southeast Asia.”⁴² 

The experience of two-spirit people throughout the 20th century is tragically much the same as the hijra, as Christian colonial forces forcibly imposed notions of a gender binary, and respect for commonplace LGBTQIA+ practices sharply declined. Resultedly, many two-spirit folk were made to conform to Western gender roles, and their marriages were annulled – those who refused to follow these regulations were oft-driven to suicide.⁴³ Since the 1960s, there has been a resurgence in recognition for two-spirit identities – as well as their spiritual significance – which generally aligned with the rise of the transformative ‘Red Power’ movement (in fact this is when the term ‘two-spirit’ and integration into the trans community became predominant over the French ‘berdache’).

‘Red Power’ is a movement that gained traction in the 1960s, and successfully sought to deliver rights to American Indians. 1969 was a year of revolution – from the Stonewall Riots, to the Alcatraz Occupation, the latter of which is often marked as the beginning of the Red Power movement. For a period of 19 months, a group of mainly college students occupied the abandoned prison, having identified it as being built upon indigenous land; one veteran, Eloy Martinez, reflects “There was none of the naysayers around you. There were no rules. We could make our own rules. We had the run of the island.”⁴⁴ Another contemporary, Richard Oakes stated to the press that, “Alcatraz is not an island. It is an idea”⁴⁵ – and that is arguably the idea that sparked the Red Power movement (that is largely ongoing).

Following the Occupation of Alcatraz, numerous protests cropped up around the country, notably in Washington, South Dakota, and the US capital; this was followed by legal successes for the American Indian cause. The University of Massachusetts Lowell Library describes: 

“Differing from the other civil rights movements of the century, which sought assimilation into white culture, the Red Power Movement instead sought protection and autonomy in the face of an encroaching white culture that sought the termination of tribal statuses and culture … Other notable examples of key events are the Wounded Knee Standoff in which Oglala Lakota and the American Indian Movement occupied the town of Wounded Knee in a standoff with government agents that lasted for 71 days … The Red Power Movement was successful in creating a movement among Native Americans that often transcended tribal boundaries in order to stand up to the United States Government. All in all, the Red Power Movement is credited with ending the federal policy of termination, which sought to strip tribal members of their rights, their identities, and their ancestral lands by revoking the recognition of tribal citizenship. Sentiments channelled by the Red Power Movement exist in America to this day and a number of activist groups have emerged in its wake.”⁴⁶

This relates to the liberation of two-spirit folk because a substantial part of the Red Power movement was the rejection of previously imposed Western ideals, including the gender binary and correlated erasure of two-spirit identities. Contemporarily, in Canada, while two-spirit people are not explicitly protected under the Canadian Human Rights Act, “sexual orientation” and  “gender identity or expression” are held as protected characteristics.⁴⁷ The legislation is less clear in the USA, as while a 2020 Supreme Court ruling held that Title VII protections against sex discrimination in employment extends to discrimination against transgender employees⁴⁸, the Civil Rights Act only state “race, colour, religion, sex and national origin” as protected characteristics⁴⁹, meaning two-spirit folk experience no federal protection. Both Canada and the United States do recognise non-binary genders by law, and have done since 2019 and 2022 respectively. 

Mexico is another country to recognise genders beyond the binary, largely due to the strong presence of non-binary muxes. Similarly to the experience of the hijra and two-spirit, the history of muxes is entwined with colonial encounters – this time with the sixteenth century Spanish conquistadors, who, in the words of anthropologist Lynn Stephen, “saw everything through a colonial, Catholic lens … All across Mexico and Latin America there is evidence of the Spanish being very upset about anyone who didn’t conform to what we would now call heterosexual, monogamous, married Catholic life.”⁵⁰

This provides an interesting insight into the societal acceptance of muxes. As noted above, colonial disruption fostered notions of contempt towards the muxes, though Mexico does now recognise the third gender legality of the group. Hence, it is clear to see a similar trend to those of the above examples: non-Western cultures have established, non-binary traditions; outside forces disrupt this; and it has taken advocating work throughout the twentieth century to rebuilt the traditional, cultural respect for third gender assignatures like the muxes – indeed, much of this campaigning is not yet complete, with discrimination (both systematic and colloquial) against these groups unfortunately common.

In summary, from the hijra to the two-spirit to the muxe (among others), there are a multitude of cultures that embrace non-binary gender identities – and if it weren’t for colonial input, acceptance of these identities would largely be more prevalent. Notably, where these folk fit under the label ‘transgender’ is not a one size fits all: some don’t identify with the LGBTQ+ community, but many clearly do, with the qualm for many being that Western labels simply don’t do justice to the complexity of many non-binary identities. Regardless, the history of these folk is longstanding, and innately foils the established gender binary in the West; it fits into the definition of ‘gender identity not aligning in a traditional sense with the gender they were assigned at birth’, and if members of these communities thus wish to be considered in kinship with self-defined transgender people, it is absolutely their right to be welcomed.

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LGB with the T: on community

The T is LGBTQ+ has been embraced since the late twentieth century, but is unfortunately being increasingly contested – mainly by cishet right-wingers, I should note. This has come not just in the form of increased political attacks on trans people (take, for instance, the 516 anti-trans bills that have been proposed in America in just the first half of 2024⁵³), but also movements that seek to completely alienate transgender people from the LGBTQ+ community; as such, the necessity of highlighting the historic overlap between gay and trans folk is becoming all the more urgent.

In a bid to understand the separatist notions of such groups, I found myself on a website that I never thought that I would: that of the LGB alliance. On the surface, their vision of “Lesbians, gay men and bisexuals living free from discrimination or disadvantage based on their sexual orientation”⁵⁴ is perfectly noble and necessary – but it is what the group has morphed into since its 2019 founding that is problematic, and has led to the charity being regarded as an anti-trans hate group. A closer look at their website, and the transphobic propagating is clear, for instance, they state “Fact: Sex is binary. Sex in human beings is binary.” Dr Imran Mushtaq from earlier, the estimated 80 million strong intersex population⁵⁵, and an increasing number of educated British doctors, would all disagree. 

Moreover, for an organisation who claim to be focused on advancing LGB rights, they focus a substantial portion of their time attacking trans equality: when I looked at their ‘campaigns’ window, the most recent article was a celebration of the puberty blockers ban for trans youth; with the post before that purporting that “lesbians, gay men and bisexual people have little in common with those who identify as TQ+.” They do not provide any source to suggest that this is indeed the consensus of LGB people, and YouGov polling has long indicated the opposite: the truth is that just 8% of cisgender lesbian, gay and bisexual Britons felt they had a negative view of trans people.⁵⁶ The group also repeatedly peddles the misinformation that transitioning is being sold to young children as a form of conversation theory – a myth that will be debunked in the next section of this essay. This is largely the damage of groups such as this, who try to hide transphobia behind the guise of ‘protecting LGB rights’ (or indeed women’s rights, but that’s a conversation for another day – trans equality unequivocally infringes on neither of these groups), as these are not the only examples of anti-trans campaigning from the alliance; in fact, there is only one campaign on their website that actually seeks to help LGB people which is an initiative to preserve gay history in the British Newspaper Archive – all of their other campaigns are flat out transphobia. Other instances of transphobia from the site include them supporting the vile practice of transgender conversion therapy (“The Government eventually dropped “transgender” from the proposals … we believe this is the right decision.”⁵⁷) As well as claiming trans people are erasing gay and lesbian folk, and insinuating that trans people don’t even exist (“LGB Alliance defines ‘trans people’ as ‘people who consider themselves, or are considered by other people, to be ‘trans’”⁵⁸). 

One of the most noticeable absences on the site is any actual reasoning as to why the T should be divorced from LGBT. Clearly, then, the organisation is a front for transphobia: their website is rife with malevolent misinformation, and as are their campaigns, which rather than seek the end of homophobia – simply aim to vilify and harass trans people.

Now that that is out of way, time to explore the multitude of reasons why transgender people are, and always will be, members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Throughout history, discrimination faced by gay and trans people has been staggeringly similar. For instance, bathrooms have become a source of increasing anti-trans fear mongering, with a vocal minority claiming that trans women being allowed into women’s restrooms is dangerous and should essentially be illegal – note, this is a minority opinion, as one Reuters/Ipsos poll found that among young Americans, less than 30 percent felt that bathroom use should be mandated by birth certificate.⁵⁹ Moreover, a UCLA study finds that the passage of discriminatory bathroom laws is “not related to the number or frequency of criminal incidents in these spaces” as “reports of privacy and safety violations in public restrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms are exceedingly rare”; the researchers conclude that “this study provides evidence that fears of increased safety and privacy violations as a result of nondiscrimination laws are not empirically grounded.”⁶⁰ Hate crimes against trans people are also on the rise, including in bathrooms, wherein trans people are more likely to be the victim than a perpetrator – in fact, transgender people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization, including rape, sexual assault, and aggravated or simple assault.⁶¹

But how does this relate to the struggles of LGB people? A look at history indicated that bathrooms have long been a breeding ground for discrimination – segregation laws infamously mandated separate bathrooms from those who weren’t white; and police frequently raided bathrooms in the 1970-80s with the intent of arresting gay people. Indeed, the public narrative became overrun with the notion that gay people used public restrooms to solicit sex and molest children⁶² and many cis, butch lesbians have been reporting increasingly high levels of harassment in restrooms, largely as a consequence of these anti-trans bills. The struggles of gay and trans people are entirely intertwined. A further example is the pathologization and in some cases criminalisation of gay and trans people, from the UK National Archives:

“Until recent decades, people who challenged sexual or gender norms were seen as a ‘threat’ to the ‘natural order’ of society. It has never been illegal, as such, to be gay, but the associated sex acts between men have been punishable at various times throughout history. Changing the gender you presented as has not been regarded as a criminal act, but the law and society could make it very difficult … In the Early Modern and Mediaeval period, the church and ecclesiastical courts determined the approach to homosexuality, seeing it as at odds with Christian values of heterosexual marriage and procreation. In 1533 the Buggery Act was introduced under Henry the VIII. For the first time in England sex between men was formally criminalised, with a potential penalty of the death sentence. The last two Englishmen to be hung for sodomy were James Pratt and John Smith at Newgate prison in 1835.”⁶³

The Archives show that “the twentieth century increasingly saw a shift from a criminal view of homosexuality to a medicalised one, seeing it as an illness … [Alan Turing] was given oestrogen injections, rather than a prison sentence, in [an] attempt to ‘cure’ his sexuality.”⁶⁴ Homosexuality was also categorised as a mental illness under the DSM, which it was included in from its first edition until 1974 – gender dysphoria is still included in the DSM. A similar medicalisation occurs still for trans people, though is arguably more nuanced: here the complication is not with the employment of medical treatments like the aforementioned hormone therapy, which in these cases are life-saving gender affirming care; but the way in which this care is highly inaccessible, and trans people are often not granted fair autonomy (in the US, surgery can cost as much as $63,400⁶⁵ and requires various diagnosis/doctoral approval). Additionally, trans people are subjected to significant level of pejorative pathologization, from the allegation that trans people are all mentally ill, to research papers using phrasing like “gender identity disorder”, insinuating that being trans is an issue that must be cured; as has happened historically (and in some cases still does) with homosexual people. This also brings up another shared history in the LGBTQ+ story, that of conversion therapy, which is used against both gay and trans people – present tense as conversion therapy is only banned in 26 countries; Stonewall reports that 7% of LGBTQ+ people in the UK have been offered or undergone conversion therapy, and were consequently more than twice as likely to report having attempted suicide multiple times following the experience.⁶⁶

Finally, it bears mentioning that two black trans women – Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera – are often accredited for throwing the first brick at the pivotal 1969 Stonewall Riot. In actuality, this is not entirely accurate: Johnstone has commented “I have been given the credit for throwing the first Molotov cocktail by many historians but I always like to correct it. I threw the second one, I did not throw the first one!”⁶⁷ Riviera has also noted that she had been present at the Stonewall when it was raided, but when the rioting began “everybody [was] looking at each other”⁶⁸. Essentially, the ‘first brick’ notion is little more than legend, however, the role of transgender people in the riots – and wider movement that was the driving force in LGB(T) liberation and rights – is undoubted.

Unequivocally, transgender people are part of the LGBTQ+ community: through history, through science, through society – the T should never be forgotten nor omitted.

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Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: the pseudo-scientific plague

The words ‘Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria’ are enough to elicit an eye-roll from many advocates for trans inclusion (myself included), as this is a harmful hoax that the right wing have become enamoured by, and used as fuel for relentless harassment of the trans community. It has been refuted scientifically, and the crux of the argument – that identifying as trans is a recent “social contagion” – is ignorant to the multitude of historical and cultural examples that this essay has flagged. Despite this, the theory remains dangerously unchallenged in the wider media; the ROGD theory (and the science debunking it), alongside misinformation such as ‘teenage girls are transitioning to escape misogyny!’ and ‘transitioning is homophobic conversion therapy!’ and ‘gender affirming care is mutilating teenagers!’ (all of which are unexaggerated examples of far-right arguments) are the subjects of refute in this final section.

The words ‘Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria’ are enough to elicit an eye-roll from many advocates for trans inclusion (myself included), as this is a harmful hoax that the right wing have become enamoured by, and used as fuel for relentless harassment of the trans community. It has been refuted scientifically, and the crux of the argument – that identifying as trans is a recent “social contagion” – is ignorant to the multitude of historical and cultural examples that this essay has flagged. Despite this, the theory remains dangerously unchallenged in the wider media; the ROGD theory (and the science debunking it), alongside misinformation such as ‘teenage girls are transitioning to escape misogyny!’ and ‘transitioning is homophobic conversion therapy!’ and ‘gender affirming care is mutilating teenagers!’ (all of which are unexaggerated examples of far-right arguments) are the subjects of refute in this final section.  

Perhaps a product of algorithm, but the first article preview that appears when you search ‘Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria’ reads: “Rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) is a controversial, scientifically unsupported hypothesis which claims that some adolescents identify as transgender and experience gender dysphoria due to peer influence and social contagion.” Honestly, that is in fact all you need to know, but for obvious reasons I will explain further.

According to Lisa Littman, there’s been an exponential rise in youth, especially those assigned female at birth, identifying as transgender, and in her words “peer group[s] where one, multiple, or even all of the friends have become gender dysphoric and transgender-identified during the same timeframe.”⁶⁹ The paper stated that identifying as transgender was an epidemic social contagion, and even claimed that it was comparable to eating disorders. The ‘study’ – a word I hesitate to even use – was conducted without any input from the transgender teenagers it concerned, instead, a sample of just 256 parents completed online surveys. Moreover, the respondents were found by posting these surveys on four websites, one of which openly claims to be “critical about the youth transgender movement”, clearly indicating a skewed sample – MIT technology Review gives further insight:

“The paper, which was based on parent surveys recruited from explicitly anti-trans or trans-sceptical websites and forums, almost immediately drew criticism. Shortly after its publication in August 2018, PLOS One, a peer-reviewed open-­access journal covering science and medicine, issued a comment that questioned Littman’s methodology. Brown University, her then-employer, retracted its press release about the study … PLOS One [later] reissued the study with a large correction emphasising that Littman’s paper was simply a “descriptive, exploratory” one and had not been clinically validated. In 2021, the Journal of Pediatrics published a comprehensive study that found no evidence for ROGD’s existence. More than 60 psychology organisations, including the American Psychological Association, called for elimination of the term.”⁷⁰

Dr. Jack Turban has long been a leading, respected voice in scientific trans research, especially in the paediatric field. I’m going to look specifically at his recent ‘Age of Realisation and Disclosure of Gender Identity Among Transgender Adults’ study, which sought to investigate the ROGD theory, and disproved it in full. With a sample size 10,726.2% higher than Littman’s, the scientists were able to conclude that “The ROGD hypothesis suggests that transgender and gender diverse identities that become clear after puberty don’t last beyond one’s adolescent years … With over 40 percent of transgender and gender diverse adults reporting that they first realised that their gender identity differed from their sex assigned at birth during adolescence, that theory clearly does not hold.”⁷¹ Additionally, they comment that:

“It is notable that study participants in the later realisation group were also more likely to have been assigned a female sex at birth. This further undercuts the ROGD hypothesis, which asserts that people assigned female sex at birth who come to understand their trans identities after puberty will not continue to hold these identities in adulthood … Additionally, the fact that participants in the childhood realisation group took approximately 14 years to disclose their gender identity to another person refutes the notion inherent in the ROGD hypothesis that disclosure of a trans identity to parents coincides with when trans youth first come to understand their gender identities.”⁷²

Numerous other studies have disproved the theory – Diane Ehrensaft, the director of mental health at the University of California San Francisco Child and Adolescent Gender Center, gave further insights, from critiquing Littman’s flawed methodology (“To talk about what children are thinking, feeling and doing, particularly as they get old enough to have their own minds and narratives, you need to interview them”⁷³) to acknowledging that for many transgender children, parents are the last people they tell about their dysphoria, and so, dysphoria in children can seem to appear ‘suddenly’ from the parent’s perspective. This latter inference is largely common sense, and also brings to mind a number of historic examples, which some LGBTQ+ activists have begun to point out ; they raise the clear fact that is not that gay or trans children have only suddenly begun to appear, or that the media is indoctrinating people into being trans: rather, any notion of an increase in trans children is instead a product of perceived societal acceptance, and thus greater confidence in coming out, and living authentically. 

A common example used to highlight this point is the history of left-handedness. In the Middle Ages, you could be accused of being a witch if you were left-handed; unsurprisingly, this led to mainly hiding their dexterity, and this persisted through to the Victorian era. Jacki Lyden and Chris McManus describe the role of the Industrial Revolution, as “machinery would have been designed with the righthander in mind”⁷⁴, alongside the major factor of peer-pressure of social conformity: “it [was] very obvious that there was a lefthander sitting there amongst the great mass of righthanders … A lefthander has to push [the ink pens] across so the lefthanders would have blotted the paper … And those are classic situations in which children become stigmatised as being clumsy or perhaps a bit stupid …the stigma attached to these schoolhouse blues may have had lasting effects.”⁷⁵ In other words, early 20th century society was not an easy place to be left-handed. 

To compare directly, it’s worth looking at the graphs for LGBTQ+ identification – note, though, that this data generally does not extend significantly far back, but the societal reasons for the trends are still clear. Another point of data that confounds the interpretation of societal factors is indeed the difference in LGBTQ+ identification across different generations: a 2021 Gallup poll⁷⁶ saw 20.8% of Gen Z self-describe as LGBT, compared to just 0.8% of ‘traditionalists’ (born before 1946) and 2.6% of ‘baby boomers’ (born 1946-1964), and this discrepancy is assuredly linked to increased social stigma for older generations – the fact that the traditionalists had the highest proportion of no response, 7.1%, could further be seen as proof of this. The UK Office for National Statistics also found in 2019 that “People aged 16 to 24 continue to be the most likely to identify as LGB, however the proportion of older adults identifying as LGB, while much smaller, is also increasing.”⁷⁷ 

Both graphs use data from credible Gallup polling, with the first indicating the changing societal views towards LGBTQ+ people, using the metric of approval of gay marriage: the opinion that gay marriage should be allowed emerges as dominant around 2012 and increases thereafter. The second graph indicates that the LGBTQ+ population has increased in the past decade, from 3.5% of the American populace in 2012 to 7.2% in 2022. As the recorded support for gay marriage grows, as does the share of those disclosing their LGBTQ+ identity – interestingly, in the second graph, there is effectively no increase until 2015, the year in which gay marriage was legalised in the US. It is clear: as perceived (and recorded) societal support increases, as does the recorded number of LGBTQ+ people – not because of some social contagion or indoctrination, but because they feel accepted enough to do so. 

Definitively, there is no such thing as Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria; the scientific community agreed there was no such thing as ROGD, historical analysis also gives this conclusion. But, regardless, the effects have taken vicious root.

A lead on many trans-related scientific studies, and Director of the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center at The Fenway Institute and the Massachusetts General Hospital Psychiatry Gender Identity Program, Dr. Alex S. Keuroghlian commented that “the damage that has been done to transgender and gender diverse youth and their families by new laws prohibiting them from accessing gender-affirming medical care as well as the toxic rhetoric promulgated by these legislative campaigns is incalculable … It is vital that clinicians, health policy analysts, and journalists familiarise themselves with the facts about gender identity development.”⁷⁸  

Their conclusion is astute, as ROGD has been used not just to stoke culture-wars, but, more dangerously, has been making its way into the decisions of law-makers, as well as damaging the thinking of some parents, causing untold harm to their children. Explained eloquently by MIT technology Review:

“The paper was a turning point … Abigail Shrier’s anti-trans tome Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters sold more than 100,000 copies and has been promoted on extremely popular conservative podcasts. YouTube videos peddling the theory have scored hundreds of thousands of views. Justifications for anti-trans bills, like a memo on Florida’s attempt to stop Medicaid funding for adult transition-related health care, routinely cite the study in their footnotes … Littman believes her study has been misinterpreted, but the concept of ROGD continues to provide scientific fuel to anti-trans rhetoric and legislation, including a current wave of state laws targeting trans youth … It also serves as a vivid example of how questionable science can be weaponized to achieve political goals … Parents unfamiliar with trans issues, who don’t understand gender-affirming health care and don’t have the expertise to read the studies themselves, often fall under its sway 

[…] 

Think of it this way: Your teen, who you think you know better than anyone else does, “suddenly” identifies in a way you never expected. You’re confused … You’re inundated with words you’ve never heard, concepts that challenge a gender binary you’ve never questioned. You panic … You stumble upon a blog post or a news article or a YouTube video that says: ‘This is only bullshit, and somebody is just trying to corrupt your child.’ You learn about ROGD and read about a “social contagion” infecting lonely children online. You discover that there are thousands of parents whose kids have it too, and there’s even a whole book about it. So you go back to your child … And you say, Actually, no, you’re not trans. Honey, you’ve been duped. The problem: Overwhelming evidence shows that your child almost certainly hasn’t been duped. Although some people do reconsider or reverse their transition, once a person starts identifying as trans, it’s quite unlikely they’ll change their mind. No matter how strongly you believe that the internet, social contagion, and positive representations of transgender people turned your child trans, chances are your child disagrees.”⁷⁹ 

Before we debunk some other transphobic misinformation, there is one more data group I’d like to highlight in relation to ROGD, described above as “overwhelming evidence” that “once a person starts identifying as trans, it’s quite unlikely they’ll change their mind.” It is overwhelming indeed: a 2022 Princeton study found that an average of 5 years after their initial social transition (the only transition children ever undertake; but more on that later), most youth identified as binary transgender youth (94%), including 1.3% who retransitioned to another identity before returning to their binary transgender identity; a total of 2.5% of youth identified as cisgender and 3.5% as nonbinary, and cisgender identities were more common among youth whose initial social transition occurred before age 6 years.⁸⁰ A 2021 Review of 27 studies reports a 1% regret rate for gender-affirmation surgery⁸¹ and a survey of The Nottingham Centre for Transgender Health pegged the figure of just 0.33%.⁸² Furthermore, a study which sought to identify factors in detransition identified that “a total of 17,151 (61.9% [of 27,715 total]) participants reported that they had ever pursued gender affirmation, broadly defined. Of these, 2242 (13.1%) reported a history of detransition. Of those who had detransitioned, 82.5% reported at least one external driving factor … e.g., pressure from family, pressure from an employer, and loss of health insurance coverage for gender-affirming hormones … Among [transgender and gender diverse] adults with a reported history of detransition, the vast majority reported that their detransition was driven by external pressures. Clinicians should be aware of these external pressures, how they may be modified, and the possibility that patients may once again seek gender affirmation in the future.”⁸³ Hence, the regret/detransition rates for those who socially and/or medically transition is astronomically low, and are often not rooted in misunderstanding one’s trans gender identity.

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In the introduction to this section I mentioned a series of other falsified transphobic narratives: 1. teenage girls are transitioning to escape misogyny; 2. transitioning is homophobic conversion therapy (think LGB alliance); 3. young children are being forced to take hormones/undergo surgeries. None of this is true: taking them individually, I will attempt to explain why.

Don’t get me wrong, teenage girls don’t have it easy; generally, though, trans teenagers have it worse. To rattle off some statistics (from the Trevor Project’s 2023 survey of over 28,000 LGBTQ young people ages 13 to 24): 16% of trans women, 23% of trans men, and 17% of non-binary youth attempted suicide in the past year, compared to six and eight percent of (LGB) cis boys and girls respectively, and the majority of trans men had considered suicide.⁸⁴ Young trans men were also found to experience the highest rates of depression (66%) and anxiety (76%). Note: other studies have concluded that trans youths who received gender-affirming care of puberty blockers/gender-affirming hormones displayed 60% lower odds of moderate or severe depression and 73% lower odds of suicidality⁸⁵; and that those with supportive families, schools, and/or friends report lower rates of attempting suicide.⁸⁶ Moreover, trans teens are also more likely to be violently assaulted, with 27% of transgender and nonbinary young people reporting that they have been physically threatened or harmed in the past year due to their gender identity, and 64% of transgender and nonbinary young people reported that they have felt generally discriminated against in the past year due to their gender identity.⁸⁷ Also, as I was researching this section, I typed ‘trans teenagers..’ into Google, and the autofill suggestions were ‘..beaten’ and ‘..stabbed’ – take with that fun information what you will!

Furthermore, a 2021 CDC Report found that “57% of U.S. teen girls felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021” and that 13% had attempted suicide that year.⁸⁸ None of these statistics paint an optimistic picture, and while mental health struggles should never be made into a perverted competition, the data indicates that FTM trans teens generally face worse mental health and increased threats of violence than their cisgender female counterparts – hence, the notion that girls are transitioning to lead better or easier lives as men is illogical misinformation. Additionally, claiming an exponential rise in FTM teens rejects to consider the finding of myriad scientists – from Matthew Leinung and Jalaja Joseph report that “the prevalence [of] gender dysphoria has recently been estimated as high as 390 to 460 per 100,000 with a consistently greater prevalence of trans women (MTF) than trans men (FTM)”⁸⁹ to the UCLA Williams Institute who found that the ratio of trans women to trans men to be 13:12. ⁹⁰

This narrative not just irrational, but dangerous; in that it is inherently fear mongering, and pedals the notion that being trans is a choice – given the multitude of statistics displayed in this essay, especially those above, I hope it’s clear that people do not choose to be transgender. 

Many of the above statistics and arguments can also refute the notion of transitioning as a form of conversion therapy – nobody is choosing a life of transphobia over accepting the (more socially acceptable) fact that they’re gay. This notion has been so horrifically prevalent that it has gained the colloquial dog whistle of ‘transing the gay away’, and it genuinely does not happen: trying to find examples for this piece took wading through the myriad of articles about the real issue of the ongoing conversion practices (including but not limited to electric shock therapy) trying to ‘cure’ people of their sexuality or gender identity. The most potent claim appears to be from Kemi Badenoch, who, worryingly, held the title of Minister for Women and Equalities of the United Kingdom since 2022 – the UK is currently in a General Election Period and thus parliament is dissolved, hence the past tense.

An article from the Guardian reports that in the same speech regarding “plans to bring forward a bill to ban conversion practices, which seek to change or suppress someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity”, Badenoch used a singular case, Keira Bell, to argue that girls (meaning trans men) are being “rushed onto puberty blockers by the NHS … [they] now regret the irreversible damage done to them. I believe this is a new form of conversion therapy.”⁹¹ There is a lot to unpack here – firstly, she implies that the regret rate for seeking gender affirming care is high, as seen above this is couldn’t be further from the truth; secondly, puberty blockers, despite what the UK Conservative government (who used emergency powers to pass a ban) would have you believe, are reversible and safe.⁹² Finally, in the UK and elsewhere waiting lists for just a first appointment for gender affirming care can be up to five years: nobody is being rushed into anything. Again, this is plain fear mongering.

It’s also worth pointing out that this argument relies on all binary transgender people being straight (in accordance with their authentic gender), which just isn’t the case; many trans men are also gay, and vice versa. Instead of perpetuating these propaganda claims, those committed to LGBTQ+ rights – or even just LGB rights – should instead focus on actually abolishing conversation therapy. For instance in the UK, the government has reiterated their supposed ‘commitment’ to banning conversation practices since 2018 – but actions speak louder than words. 

Social transition is the only transition that under-16s undertake – that is a fact. In both the UK and US, trans youth must be at least 16 to be prescribed hormones (generally only with parental permission), and 18 to access gender affirming surgery; in both cases, these ages are also rare considering the lengthy waiting times and high costs, and it’s also an interesting note that the World Professional Association for Transgender Health have recently concluded that hormone treatments could safely be started at age 14, and some surgeries done at age 15 or 17- the group acknowledged ‘potential risks’ but said it is unethical and harmful to withhold early treatment.⁹³ Why, then, are right-wingers so obsessed with claiming that young children are being ‘mutatiled’.

Excessively emotive language aside, one potential source may be the widely shared article from the Epoch Times – regarded as an unapologetic far-right blog with a long history of publishing misleading or false claims. The site ran the headline: “‘Transgender’ Toddlers as Young as 2 Undergoing Mutilation/Sterilisation by NC Medical System, Journalist Alleges.” The article claiming transgender toddlers has since disappeared from the website, and the Epoch Times published a new article clarifying that young children are not receiving hormone blockers, cross-sex hormones or surgery.⁹⁴ In typical fashion for brainwashed transphobes, the factual amendment was neglected and propaganda prevailed.

Honestly, there is little more to say on that matter, other than the myth simply is not true. Not to mention, anyone who thinks stating the straw-man ‘I just don’t agree with mutilating children!’ is some gotcha moment is sorely mistaken; we trans activists agree with you there, so isn’t it great that that’s not happening?

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Over ten-thousand words later, firstly thank you if you are still reading; I hope this piece has been insightful and taught you something new to widen your perspectives on the historical, cultural, and scientific reality of transgender people – from the story to Thomas Hall to debunking pseudoscience and propaganda, it has been a ride. All that I have left to say is to echo the sentiment from the introduction, and that has underpinned this whole piece: LGBTQ+ history exists, LGBTQ+ history is important; queer was always here.

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1. Erin Blakemore, ‘How Historians Are Documenting the Lives of Transgender People’ (History24 June 2022) https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/how-historians-are-documenting-lives-of-transgender-people?loggedin=true&rnd=1717356458796. ↩︎
2. Jack Turban, ‘What Is Gender Dysphoria?’ (Psychiatry.orgAugust 2022) https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria. ↩︎
3. Ibid. ↩︎
4. Aharon N Varady (transcription) Meir Aharon N. Varady (translation), Nir Krakauer (translation), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation), Steven Greenberg, Ḳalonymus ben Ḳalonymus ben, ‘תפילה להפך – מאבן בֹחן | Prayer for Transformation, from the Poem “Even Boḥan” by Rabbi Ḳalonymus Ben Ḳalonymus Ben Meir (1322 C.E.) • the Open Siddur Project ✍ פְּרוֺיֶּקט הַסִּדּוּר הַפָּתוּחַ’ (the Open Siddur Project ✍ פְּרוֺיֶּקט הַסִּדּוּר הַפָּתוּחַ11 October 2018) https://opensiddur.org/prayers/civic-calendar/international-civil-calendar/transgender-day-of-visibility/prayer-of-kalonymus-from-sefer-even-bohan-1322/. ↩︎
5.  Rachel Scheinerman, ‘The Eight Genders in the Talmud’ (My Jewish Learning 8 February 2022) <https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-eight-genders-in-the-talmud/>. ↩︎
6. Ibid. ↩︎
7.  Poetry Foundation, ‘Sappho’ (Poetry Foundation 2019) <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sappho>. ↩︎
8.  Oxford University LGBTQ+ Society, ‘Why and How Is Intersex LGBTQ’ (Oxford University LGBTQ+ Society) <https://www.oulgbtq.org/why-how-intersex-lgbtq.html>. ↩︎
9.  Kathleen Brown, ‘“Changed… Into the Fashion of Man”: The Politics of Sexual Difference in a Seventeenth-Century Anglo-American Settlement’ (1995) 6 Journal of the History of Sexuality 171 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/3704121?seq=2>  ↩︎
10.  Elizabeth Reis, American Sexual Histories (Wiley-Blackwell 2012). ↩︎
11. Ibid. ↩︎
12.  Kathleen Brown, ‘“Changed… Into the Fashion of Man”: The Politics of Sexual Difference in a Seventeenth-Century Anglo-American Settlement’ (1995) 6 Journal of the History of Sexuality 171  ↩︎
13.  American Battlefield Trust, ‘Albert Cashier Aka Jennie Hodgers’ (American Battlefield Trust 26 February 2019) <https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/albert-cashier>.  ↩︎
14. Ibid. ↩︎
15. Ibid. ↩︎
16. Ibid. ↩︎
17.  National Park Service, ‘Albert Cashier (U.S. National Park Service)’ (www.nps.gov 13 January 2022) <https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/albert-cashier.htm>. ↩︎
18.  The National Archives, ‘Dr James Barry – Why Was He Significant in 19th Century Medicine?’ (The National Archives) <https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/dr-james-barry/#:~:text=He%20chose%20to%20exclusively%20live>. ↩︎
19. Ibid. ↩︎
20. Ibid. ↩︎
21.  Rebeeca Ortenberg, ‘How History Keeps Ignoring James Barry’ (Science History Institute 20 October 2020) <https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/how-history-keeps-ignoring-james-barry/>. ↩︎
22. Ibid. ↩︎
23. Ibid. ↩︎
24.  The National Archives, ‘Dr James Barry – Why Was He Significant in 19th Century Medicine?’ (The National Archives) <https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/dr-james-barry/#:~:text=He%20chose%20to%20exclusively%20live>.  ↩︎
25. Ibid. ↩︎
26.  Naomi Blumberg, ‘Lili Elbe | Danish Painter | Britannica’, Encyclopædia Britannica (2020) <https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lili-Elbe>.  ↩︎
27. Ibid. ↩︎
28. Ibid. ↩︎
29.  Jiang-Ning Zhou and others, ‘A Sex Difference in the Human Brain and Its Relation to Transsexuality’ (1995) 378 Nature 68.  ↩︎
30.  Frank PM Kruijver and others, ‘Male-To-Female Transsexuals Have Female Neuron Numbers in a Limbic Nucleus’ (2000) 85 The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 2034. ↩︎
31.  Harper-Hugo Darling, ‘Karl M. Baer’ (Making Queer History) <https://www.makingqueerhistory.com/articles/2022/12/11/karl-m-baer>.  ↩︎
32. Ibid. ↩︎
33. Ibid. ↩︎
34.  Falmouth & Exeter Students’ Union, ‘LGBTQ+ History Month Profile: Michael Dillon & Mark Weston’ (www.thesu.org.uk) <https://www.thesu.org.uk/news/article/6013/LGBTQ-History-Month-profile-Michael-Dillon-amp-Mark-Weston/>  ↩︎
35.  Michael Dillon/Lobzang Jivaka, Out of the Ordinary (Fordham Univ Press 2016). ↩︎
36.  BBC, ‘Do We Need More than Two Genders?’ (BBC News 13 January 2016) <https://www.bbc.com/news/health-35242180.amp>  ↩︎
37. Ibid. ↩︎
38.  Kristofer Rhude, ‘The Third Gender and Hijras’ (Harvard Divinity School 2018) <https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/religion-context/case-studies/gender/third-gender-and-hijras>.  ↩︎
39. Ibid. ↩︎
40. Ibid. ↩︎
41.  Walter L Williams, ‘The “Two-Spirit” People of Indigenous North Americans’ (The Guardian 11 October 2010) <https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/oct/11/two-spirit-people-north-america>.  ↩︎
42. Ibid. ↩︎
43. Ibid. ↩︎
44.  Allison Griner, ‘Occupying Alcatraz: The Spark That Lit the US Red Power Movement’ (www.aljazeera.com 20 November 2019) <https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2019/11/20/occupying-alcatraz-the-spark-that-lit-the-us-red-power-movement>.  ↩︎
45.  National Park Service, ‘Red Power on Alcatraz, Perspectives 50 Years Later (U.S. National Park Service)’ (www.nps.gov 14 June 2023) <https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/redpower50.htm>.  ↩︎
46.  Sara Marks, ‘LibGuides: The Occupation of Alcatraz, 1969: Red Power Movement’ (libguides.uml.edu 13 October 2022) <https://libguides.uml.edu/c.php?g=945022&p=6820187#:~:text=All%20in%20all%2C%20the%20Red>.  ↩︎
47.  Government of Canada, ‘Canadian Human Rights Act’ (Justice.gc.ca 2019) <https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/h-6/page-1.html>.  ↩︎
48.  U.S. equal employment opportunity commission, ‘Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) Discrimination | U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’ (www.eeoc.gov 2020) <https://www.eeoc.gov/sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity-sogi-discrimination>.  ↩︎
49.  U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, ‘Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964’ (www.eeoc.gov 1964) <https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/title-vii-civil-rights-act-1964>.  ↩︎
50.  Patrick J. McDonnell and Cecilia Sánchez Vidal, ‘The Muxe, Mexico’s “Third Gender,” Are Part of a Worldwide LGBTQ+ Movement’ (Los Angeles Times 11 January 2024) <https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-01-11/muxe-third-gender-isthmus-tehuantepec-mexico#:~:text=The%20muxe%20population%20numbers%20in>  ↩︎
51. Ibid. ↩︎
52. Ibid. ↩︎
53.  American Civil Liberties Union, ‘Mapping Attacks on LGBTQ Rights in U.S. State Legislatures in 2024’ (American Civil Liberties Union 2024) <https://www.aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights-2024>.  ↩︎
54.  LGB Alliance, ‘Policies – LGB Alliance UK’ (lgballiance.org.uk 7 February 2022) <https://lgballiance.org.uk/policies/>.  ↩︎
55.  United Nations, ‘OHCHR | Intersex People’ (OHCHR) <https://www.ohchr.org/en/sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity/intersex-people#:~:text=Intersex%20people%20are%20born%20with>.  ↩︎
56.  Matthew Smith, ‘What Do Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Britons Think the British Public Thinks of Them? | YouGov’ (yougov.co.uk 11 August 2023) <https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/45983-what-do-lesbian-gay-bisexual-and-transgender-brito>.  ↩︎
57.  LGB Alliance, ‘Resources – LGB Alliance UK’ (lgballiance.org.uk 4 February 2022) <https://lgballiance.org.uk/resources/>  ↩︎
58. Ibid. ↩︎
59.  Daniel Trotta, ‘Exclusive – Women, Young More Open on Transgender Issue in U.S.: Reuters/Ipsos Poll’ (reuters.com 21 April 2016) <https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0XI11C/>.  ↩︎
60.  Amira Hasenbush, Andrew R Flores and Jody L Herman, ‘Gender Identity Nondiscrimination Laws in Public Accommodations: A Review of Evidence Regarding Safety and Privacy in Public Restrooms, Locker Rooms, and Changing Rooms’ (2019) 16 Sexuality Research and Social Policy 70 <https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13178-018-0335-z>.  ↩︎
61.  Rachel Dowd, ‘Transgender People over Four Times More Likely than Cisgender People to Be Victims of Violent Crime’ (Williams Institute 23 March 2021) <https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/ncvs-trans-press-release/>.  ↩︎
62.  Sarah Frostenson, ‘It’s Not Just Transgender People: Public Restrooms Have Bred Fear for Centuries’ (Vox 27 May 2016) <https://www.vox.com/2016/5/27/11792550/transgender-bathroom>.  ↩︎
63.  The National Archives, ‘The National Archives – Homepage’ (The National Archives) <https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/the-history-of-lgbtq-rights-in-britain/#:~:text=In%201533%20the%20Buggery%20Act>.  ↩︎
64. Ibid. ↩︎
65.  Cara Smith, ‘How Much Does Gender-Affirming Surgery Cost?’ (NerdWallet 11 October 2023) <https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/health/how-much-does-gender-affirming-surgery-cost#:~:text=Gender%2Daffirming%20surgery%20can%20cost>.  ↩︎
66.  Prishita Maheshwari-Ariaplin, ‘7 Things You Might Not Know about Conversion Therapy’ (Stonewall 8 October 2021) <https://www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/news/7-things-you-might-not-know-about-conversion-therapy>.  ↩︎
67.  Reiss Smith, ‘Who Threw the First Brick at Stonewall? A Final and Definitive Answer to the Internet’s Favourite Question’ (PinkNews | Latest lesbian, gay, bi and trans news | LGBTQ+ news 27 May 2020) <https://www.thepinknews.com/2020/05/27/who-threw-the-first-brick-at-stonewall-uprising-riot-pride/>.  ↩︎
68. Ibid. ↩︎
69.  Littman, Lisa. “Parent reports of adolescents and young adults perceived to show signs of a rapid onset of gender dysphoria.” 2018, https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202330.  ↩︎
70.  Ben Kesslen, ‘How the Idea of a “Transgender Contagion” Went Viral—and Caused Untold Harm’ (MIT Technology Review 18 August 2022) <https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/08/18/1057135/transgender-contagion-gender-dysphoria/>.  ↩︎
71.  Jack L Turban and others, ‘Age of Realisation and Disclosure of Gender Identity among Transgender Adults’ (2023) 72 Journal of Adolescent Health.  ↩︎
72.  Fenway Health, ‘New Study Undercuts the Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria Hypothesis – Fenway Health: Health Care Is a Right, Not a Privilege.’ (fenwayhealth.org 20 March 2023) <https://fenwayhealth.org/new-study-undercuts-the-rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria-hypothesis/>.  ↩︎
73.  Amelia Hansford, ‘“Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” Theories Dismissed by Leading Experts’ (PinkNews | Latest lesbian, gay, bi and trans news | LGBTQ+ news25 August 2023) <https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/08/25/rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria-debunked/>  ↩︎
74.  Jacki Lyden, ‘Study: Lefties Rare in Victorian England’ (NPR22 September 2007) <https://www.npr.org/2007/09/22/14623524/study-lefties-rare-in-victorian-england>  ↩︎
75. Ibid. ↩︎
76.  Jeffrey Jones, ‘LGBT Identification in U.S. Ticks up to 7.1%’ (Gallup 17 February 2022) <https://news.gallup.com/poll/389792/lgbt-identification-ticks-up.aspx>.  ↩︎
77.  Office for National Statistics, ‘Sexual Orientation, UK – Office for National Statistics’ (www.ons.gov.uk 27 May 2021) <https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/sexuality/bulletins/sexualidentityuk/2019>.  ↩︎
78.  Fenway Health. “New Study Undercuts the Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria Hypothesis” 2023, https://fenwayhealth.org/new-study-undercuts-the-rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria-hypothesis/  ↩︎
79.  Ben Kesslen, ‘How the Idea of a “Transgender Contagion” Went Viral—and Caused Untold Harm’ (MIT Technology Review 18 August 2022) <https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/08/18/1057135/transgender-contagion-gender-dysphoria/>.  ↩︎
80.  Kristina R Olson and others, ‘Gender Identity 5 Years after Social Transition’ (2022) 150 Pediatrics <https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/150/2/e2021056082/186992/Gender-Identity-5-Years-After-Social-Transition?autologincheck=redirected>.  ↩︎
81.  ​Valeria P Bustos and others, ‘Regret after Gender-Affirmation Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Prevalence’ (2021) 9 Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery – Global Open <https://journals.lww.com/prsgo/fulltext/2021/03000/regret_after_gender_affirmation_surgery__a.22.aspx>.  ↩︎
82.  Christina Richards and Jessica Doyle, ‘Detransition Rates in a Large National Gender Identity Clinic in the UK’ (2019) 34 Counselling Psychology Review 60.  ↩︎
83.  Jack L Turban and others, ‘Factors Leading to “Detransition” among Transgender and Gender Diverse People in the United States: A Mixed-Methods Analysis’ (2021) 8 LGBT Health <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8213007/>.  ↩︎
84.  The Trevor Project, ‘2023 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ Young People’ (2023) 82 E-Journal Menara Perkebunan <https://www.thetrevorproject.org/survey-2023/assets/static/05_TREVOR05_2023survey.pdf>.  ↩︎
85.  Diana M Tordoff and others, ‘Mental Health Outcomes in Transgender and Nonbinary Youths Receiving Gender-Affirming Care’ (2022) 5 JAMA Network Open <https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2789423>.  ↩︎
86.  The Trevor Project, ‘2023 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ Young People’ (2023) 82 E-Journal Menara Perkebunan <https://www.thetrevorproject.org/survey-2023/assets/static/05_TREVOR05_2023survey.pdf>.  ↩︎
87. Ibid. ↩︎
88.  CDC, ‘U.S. Teen Girls Experiencing Increased Sadness and Violence’ (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention13 February 2023) <https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2023/p0213-yrbs.html>.  ↩︎
89.  Matthew C Leinung and Jalaja Joseph, ‘Changing Demographics in Transgender Individuals Seeking Hormonal Therapy: Are Trans Women More Common than Trans Men?’ (2020) 5 Transgender Health.  ↩︎
90.  Andrew Flores, Jody Herman and Kathryn O’Neill, ‘How Many Adults Identify as Transgender in the United States?’ (Williams InstituteJune 2022) <https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-adults-united-states/>.  ↩︎
91.  Aletha Adu and Aletha Adu Political correspondent, ‘Gender-Affirming Care for Children “Form of Conversion Therapy”, Says Badenoch’ The Guardian (6 December 2023) <https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/06/gender-affirming-care-for-children-form-of-conversion-therapy-says-badenoch>.  ↩︎
92.  Mayo Clinic Staff, ‘Pubertal Blockers for Transgender and Gender Diverse Youth’ (Mayo Clinic 14 June 2023) <https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gender-dysphoria/in-depth/pubertal-blockers/art-20459075>.  ↩︎
93.  Lindsey Tanner, ‘Trans Kids’ Treatment Can Start Younger, New Guidelines Say’ (AP NEWS 15 June 2022) <https://apnews.com/article/gender-transition-treatment-guidelines-9dbe54f670a3a0f5f2831c2bf14f9bbb>.  ↩︎
94.  Kate Yandell, ‘Young Children Do Not Receive Medical Gender Transition Treatment’ (FactCheck.org 22 May 2023) <https://www.factcheck.org/2023/05/scicheck-young-children-do-not-receive-medical-gender-transition-treatment/>.  ↩︎