Saxon a spectrum

I’m sorry I slurred you as a shandy drinker 😉

I was intrigued by the Eurovision one.

ApocalipstickNow · Today 17:06

That is Sheffield! honestly. 🙄 you’re from the South aren’t you?

Newcastle. And anyway, how do you know that Barnsley doesn't identify as Sheffield? Eh eh?

Massive bigotry showing there!

😃

That is Sheffield!

honestly. 🙄 you’re from the South aren’t you?

😂

From the conference
’Onni Gust, Thinking with Merfolk: Writing Transgender History in the Context of Global Climate Catastrophe ‘

I feel Gust will go far.

ApocalipstickNow · Today 13:42

I am most disappointed this is not about the Heavy Metal band from Barnsley.

Def Leppard?

Is there a mechanism to complain your tutor is a moron and get another one?

@JanesLittleGirl faintly reminiscent of all the modern-day U18 AFAB NB Germans 😉

(For anyone wondering what I’m blithering on about, the German for girl is “das Mädchen”; a counterintuitively neuter word.)

I think that they were simply confused by their own language. Early English had three genders and the word for woman, wifman, was masculine with he/him pronouns. They probably just mixed up over the sex of the person they were burying and chucked in a sword and a shield.

Only slightly tongue in cheek.

Well, colour me surprised that there might be an agenda at play.

I found Eowyn annoying, in the film more than the book, but at least Tolkien wrote her as a woman who knew she was a woman. I assume he must have had a textual inkling that a woman could wield weapons, Like Brunnhilde and her sisters.
Odin and Loki were gender fluid, Loki in fact changed sex and bore offspring as a horse, but they remained themselves in essence. Can't imagine either of them being hurt by misgendering. There obviously was an idea of freedom to shift your nature, if you were a god, with a tendency to the dark arts. So perhaps drawn from life.

James Davison he/him was not always a he/him.

So human remains designated as male in the 1950s excavations had feminine grave goods and dental decay suggesting high status?

Maybe some DNA testing could take the guesswork out of this?

Something not dissimilar was found in Finland - turns out the individual had Klinefelters.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/33A89DB1D7E4900F017833D87C997D3D/S1461957121000309a.pdf/woman_with_a_sword_weapon_grave_at_suontaka_vesitorninmaki_finland.pdf

They've all got long hair though and I'm sure at least one of them used to wear a bit of eyeliner, so they're probably women.

😁

I am most disappointed this is not about the Heavy Metal band from Barnsley.

I mean “TransHistorical” is at least accurate, because what they’re doing can’t be described as History.

Children used to know (sadly they’re probably taught this twaddle now) not to try imposing modern socio-cultural norms/ideas/constructs/interpretations etc onto the past. A grown adult not simply indulging in, but actively promoting, this twaddle, is deeply depressing.

Some of the delights from last year's conference:

Trans*Historical 2023 Conference, Online, University of Liverpool, 10-11 July 2023 — International Center of Medieval Art

Exactly!

Wherever there are gender stereotypes there will also be non conformity.

And the more rigid the gender stereotypes are, my guess is that the non conformity starts to be a prescripted, controlled aspect of culture too. For example forced trans in Iran, or other cultures with specific "third gender" roles in order to deal with homosexuality or allow women to run households.

The theory has been put forward by James Davison, a PhD candidate and tutor of medieval history at the University of Liverpool, who also convenes the TransHistorical Conference.*

So Mr Davison has skin in the game and a conference to sell. Colour me shocked.

No, you absolute effing numpty, having women warriors and men sitting around eating bonbons doesn't make anyone trans. It means gender roles vary through cultures and eras, which anyone with half a brain would know.

Trans is a recent cultural invention. Gender non-conforming is a tale as old as time, and does not need retrofitting to squeeze into new ideologies.

Vikings had some really interesting ideas around the social status of widows as well. Basically, they retained their social status and inherited directly from their husbands. Trying to crowbar our modern views of societal roles onto 1000-year old Norse society doesn't work!

The Anglo-Saxons and the later Vikings culture wasn’t as restrictive by sex as other contemporary and later cultures. There were indeed women warriors, and rune carvers. There were indeed men sorcerers and weavers (typically female occupations). The article only covers a few of the now dozens of DNA tests on remains that were previously recorded as male or female based on grave goods alone but DNA tests have shown they were the opposite sex from that expected by the sexist archaeologists of the past.

Their presence though doesn’t mean that women warriors and rune carvers were living as men or that men sorcerers/weavers were living as women. We cannot even say if they had a similar concept of gender that we have today (not likely). In addition, gender is an internal identity, the only way to know with any certainty if anyone long dead was similar to the transgender concept of today is to read their words (or runes) on the subject.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YpGnzfd8KGs
What would they make of the shero of this song who was a gallant sailor and 'a maiden all the while'.
Unlike other versions of this song, she doesn't enlist to follow her lover, she seems to do it just for the hell of it ☺ I love the last verse, where she says she'll happily 'put off my hat and feathers and I'll run the rigging again'.
I'm a bit disappointed about the fine lady in London grassing her up to the captain, though...

(The singer is Tríona Ní Dhomnaill, sister of the equally great Maighréad and the late Micheál, and founder member of the influential 70s group Skara Brae.

File this with the Mary Rose nit-combs, I suppose.

it is such tiresome tripe. Seriously.