Think being trans is a 'trend'? Consider these 18th-century 'female husbands'

[Jilly_in_VA]

Whenever the subject of transgender identities comes up today, there is a tendency for conservative politicians – perhaps most of all in the United States – to trot out a particularly specious argument: that the idea of being trans is a “new” concept, a notion that “no one” in their right mind had heard of, or would entertain, in previous eras.

At its most extreme, this argument suggests that a peculiar concoction of things is to blame for our existence – from social media, indoctrination by well-paid gender studies professors, or even an excess of supposedly hormone-altering substances, like soy or arcane chemicals, in our diets. Non-binary identities particularly confound conservatives.

This, of course, is absurd, given the fact that people who defied gender norms in notable, consistent ways – and who might well have identified as transgender today – have existed throughout human history.

Consider, for example, that in the 18th century, a landlord in England realized, to her consternation, that one of her tenants, whom she had long assumed was a swashbuckling married man, might actually, at least in her eyes, be something else entirely.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/10/transgender-history-18th-century-female-husbands