Thread by @PinkNews

Non-binary and trans people have always been here, in every recorded society – from the ancient world onwards. But why is it that they’re missing from history books more often than not? #LGBTplusHM 1/12 🧵

Perhaps it has something to do with how history is recorded. People from groups that fear being ostracised and persecuted often only reveal their true selves to a few people. The historical visibility of LGBTQ+ people is usually limited as a result. 2/12

Historians are now beginning to look more carefully for these important LGBTQ+ stories. Our understanding of transgender identities has evolved, and it’s now widely accepted that gender identity is separate from gender expression, creating a new context for historical tales. 3/12

The words we now use to describe gender identity and gender expression would have been alien in the 18th and early 19th centuries, but many from that era would still have understood these concepts. 4/12

Some lesbians and sapphic women presented as more masculine in those times, whether for personal gratification or to be accepted by society. Anne Lister, or ‘Gentleman Jack’, is a good example. 5/12

Under 19th-century ideas of gender, she would have been seen as quite masculine, and it wasn’t until 1988 when the biographer Helena Whitbread decoded her diaries that the true extent of her lesbian relationships and life were discovered. 6/12

No thanks to historical gender roles, other women presented as men in attempts to further their careers because they wanted to make life choices denied to the half of the population assigned female at birth. 7/12

In the American Civil War, Franklin Thompson and Harry Buford were soldiers who fought and spied for the Confederate States. Both were women passing as men, or, as historian Matthew Teorey says, women who “unsexed” themselves. 8/12

Even earlier in the 18th century, King Louis XV’s spy Chevalier D’Eon became a minor celebrity before claiming political exile in England. D’Eon presented as a man and a woman at various points in their life until age 50 when they then lived permanently as a woman. 9/12

Elsewhere, a third gender, or Mahu, has long been a part of Polynesian culture and means a gender between male and female, or gender fluid. In Hawaiian and Tahitian cultures, Mahu people are still highly respected as keepers of oral traditions and historical knowledge. 10/12

The Navajo tribe from the south-west United States have a gender category called Nadleeh, which can refer to binary transgender and gender-fluid people. Nadleehi have a spiritual function as well as being respected tribal members in their own right. 11/12

Read more about gender identity and gender expression in history with the full story on our website: 12/12
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