Transgender Vikings

I've definitely seen blurb on the stone wall site arguing that Joan of Arc was trans.

Really pissed me off! Any woman that doesn't fit with the regressive gender stereotypes that they are peddling must be trans.

Fuck that. My son is really proud that his mum has studied martial arts and owns swords. He doesn't think this actually makes me his dad! But stone wall thinks I'm trans. FWIW I'm sitting here typing this in a pink fluffy bath robe. I'm not gender fluid, I'm a woman who likes what I like.

The icelandic sagas are full of shield maidens and Norse mythology has the valkyries.
Look at this cute little warrior figure from viking-era Denmark. Typical female knot hairstyle, but obviously a transman...!

this might explain some it - the researcher quoted www.stonewall.org.uk/people/amy-jefford-franks

So, even when the bodies of said Transmaidens are confirmed XX ...

... I can't keep up! Ludicrous.

similarly its been shown that women were also 'hunters' in hunter gatherer society
And women, most likely (from the shape of handprints) were painters in the prehistoric caves
And women were in equal positions of power in Minoan culture, if not IN CHARGE, with teenage girls as well as boys depicted vaulting over bulls.

History has, in the main, been written by men, through the eyes and experience of men. They have assumed that men have always been in charge and women in positions of subservience.

Well, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Caesar and his dress (toga) was trans. All the Louis and their wigs, make-up and tights... etc. etc. Flipping heck, God / Jesus and even the angels are always portray in dresses.

Anyone who married a scot in his lovely kilt (probably the most gorgeous wedding outfit), I just want to ask, were you aware of the obvious implications? Not a fairly modern take on the Highlanders historical plaid, but now reduced to female dress.

So by this reasoning, any woman who does a ‘mans job’ is likely to be trans? I worked as a Systems Developer so I must be transgender.

Yep - welcome to the club (as confirmed by stone wall's trans umbrella).

Please ignore the height/boobs/hips and two kids behind me saying "muuuuum, I'm huuungry" - I'm defo a bloke cos of job.

Disney will be remaking Mulan next. 🙄

The archaeologists make three suggestions and this is just one of them. Archaeologists form hypotheses based on the available evidence but are also prepared to be wrong. It's not unreasonable to explore theories beyond what seems obvious.

this is not just a bad theory, it is also a very offensive, misogynistic bad theory.

"Price said there were other indications that the Vikings thought in less binary terms about gender than was once believed. These include laws preventing men and women from breaking gender norms in terms of dress and behaviour, which he said showed that a few people did subvert these traditions."

You might as well argue that Jim Crowe laws are evidence of a sophisticated understanding of racial identity, and that any black person who did not fit into these narrow confines was 'trans racial'.

I've read about this before... that because shieldmaidens were outside what we consider a "suitable" gender role for women, they therefore had to constitute a separate gender identity. And that women are defined and socially located in reference to their husbands. Not that Vikings had high levels of gender equality and women had high status in those societies. The fact that the genderists can't conceive of women being badass warriors in their own right shows how regressive the whole ideology is IMO. I found this article a few years ago and saved it to my HD, I was spitting teeth about how ridiculous it was. We are ONE sex grouping... introducing gender categorisations splits us and undermines us... classic divide and rule tactics.

Why are males who display/ed nurturing behaviour never suspected of being transwomen?

The comments are great, thank goodness, because that article is a load of offensive nonsense. It's getting to the point where I feel like I need some kind of tattoo or something to stop people from accusing me of being a man because I have short hair and a job.

Thanks for the book recommendation - I saw that it's by Svetlana Alexeivych who also wrote a brilliant though extremely harrowing book about Chernobyl. She is an extremely powerful and overlooked writer. Will definitely be getting this.

Found this gem in the comments:
"We should treat this branch of academia the way that Boudicca treated London."

So by this reasoning, any woman who does a ‘mans job’ is likely to be trans? I worked as a Systems Developer so I must be transgender.

I like seeing Jo March’s comments too - always to the point.

I love Jo March’s comments on the times... I wonder if she’s on here?

The comments are really cheering. Loved them. On the book, making a woke comment to get your article read must be a real low point in anyone's academic career.

I meant to add that one thing that's so good about The Unwomanly Face of War is that the first-hand accounts it contains are decidedly female experiences in a male world.

If you were to have told any of those women they were gender-queer men because they had fought in a war, you would have had a situation on your hands.

Sorry LangClegTheBeardedVulture, I was lazy and didn’t look it up!

Those who control the narrative of the past control the future.

This stuff makes me so cross. They weren’t trans, they were just women in a culture that had more open roles. The vikings that settled in Iceland permitted women to hold property and to Occupy leadership roles. That history is probably a factor in their current international performance on sex equality: a culture where roles are less boundaried. You see women in leadership roles and ‘manly’ occupations like engineering and men pushing prams on the streets of Reykjavik and playing with toddlers in parks during the working day, not because there’s been a mass outbreak of men with ladybrain and women with manbrain, but because they have an equal society and men have the same entitlement to parental/maternity leave. It’s such bullshit.

In scientific research you don't typically ignore the simplest explanation which fits the evidence. Which in this case is that these were non-gender conforming women.

It could be that in a society which had penalties for breaking gender norms that there might be a 'legal fiction' type of arrangement but that would not make these women 'transgender men', it would be something more like 'honorary men'.

It's the logical evolution of trans ideology. Anyone who steps outside the gender norms in a given culture is 'trans'. Therefore feminists shouldn't be trying to change the cultural perception of women's role but should accept males who are attracted to playing that role as women.

For anyone interested in the experiences of woman who go to war, this is the most extraordinary book:

www.penguin.co.uk/books/295/295606/the-unwomanly-face-of-war/9780141983530.html

It is so powerful I could only read it in short bursts. I've never read anything else like it.

Awful article with bugger all evidence for these assertions. Yes, archaeologists should speculate, but by grounding their speculations in something - anything! Love the comments. They reassure me that there are at least some sane people in the world and love the list of warrior women.

DanceLikeEmmaGoldman, just a bit of pedantry, but, The Night Witches were Russian, not German.

But you’re right. Women have always fought. The transwashing of women’s history makes my shit itch.