To Think That Archaeology Proves That Men Cannot Be Women

[MrsMappFlint]

A burial site has been found in Cardiff. It dates from the 6th or 7th Century.
The skeletons are all women.

In death, when all genitals have gone, the skeleton retains the truth about the simple fact-it is either male or female.

There is no third way. That's science and hundreds of years after death, the truth of biology is retained in the bone.

Your sex is in your very bones-male or female-that's it. In the end, that's all there is.

Men can pretend to be women but skeletons tell the truth.

The story is on the BBC website.

Your second statement is incorrect. Some DSDs arise precisely because an individual's chromosomes do not fit the typical XX or XY binary.

Came on to say what @Archymum and @SummerFeverVenice said. Skeletons are not always crystal clear because humans are not actually that dimorphic, and there's a good deal of interesting gender stuff in the archaeological record (as well as the historical record).

The strict gender binary is culturally, geographically and chronologically specific.

individuals have had gender identities that do not always conform to their biological sex

That's a modern cultural construct. I'm surprised that a trained archaeologist is making the basic mistake of using their own culture's beliefs and values to interpret past societies.

No, gender identity is really not a modern construct. Archaeology spans from modern to medieval to ancient to prehistoric. For all periods and most cultures/civilisations where we have contemporaneous written records (modern, medieval and ancient) we DO find gender identities albeit often called by another name than “gender identity” which do not always match the biological sex. Different cultures and civilisations had different third gender concepts and values but they did in fact exist before modern times.

That is absolutely not at all what I was doing. Historical, written documents from past civilisations, as well as eyewitness interactions with living, non-Western cultures (i.e. anthropology and archaeology) demonstrate that gender identity is anything but a modern, Western cultural construct.

Yeah we are not the ones imposing our own beliefs on all of past human history!

A woman buried with weapons was not necessarily a warrior. She could have belonged to a warrior caste or free class, with the weapons denoting status rather than indicating that she actually took part in warfare.

In pagan Anglo-Saxon graves children, even young ones, are sometimes found with adult sized weapons. They could hardly have used them, so the weapons most likely denote membership of the free class

Go away and shut up you mean? We've had several years of threats made against us, countless battles, violence and lies, damn right we're going to celebrate the moment that sense finally prevailed.

Humans are Mammals. Mammals can't change Sex.

Is it time to repost the Human Beings Aren't Clownfish" video? 🙄

Yes well, I trust the PhD level archaeologists and osteologists that have examined these finds to be able to tell the difference between a woman that died in battle as evidenced by perimortem bone trauma then buried with her weapons vs a woman or child buried in a settlement graveyard with a ceremonial dress sword.

I find your post very interesting.
Please correct me if I'm wrong. However, isn't the gender roles a slightly different point?
IMO the discovery that 20% of Viking warriors were women isn't so surprising and points to the fact that we tend to make things black and white in interpreting the past.
In my entirely amateur dabblings in much more recent history I have regularly come across women following supposedly male occupations, normally when a husband/father died.
A woman doing a 'man's job' is a little different from a man living as a woman or vice versa.
Of course, there have also been examples in modern history of woman living as men eg as soldiers.

Yes it is, but gender roles get to the heart of what does it mean in human society to be a man or be a woman?

The impact our sex does or does not have on the gender roles assigned or open to us varies through time, location and culture.

So it’s only the tiniest scratch on the surface to say XX skeleton = female and XY skeleton = male. It doesn’t tell us what it then meant in that society to live as a woman, a man or any third option and sometimes as a pp pointed there were several third gender options.

For a woman doing a “man’s job” vs living as a man, we tend to rely on the contemporaneous accounts of the people living in that society then as to what the meaning behind the outward gender nonconformance meant.

Yes. We Do.
Yes. We Do.
Yes. We Do

Keep Shining a Light On It.

Thank you for this @MrsMappFlint

You're quite right.

I was replying to the comment that sex in living creatures has been around for millions of years. And saying it’s not true for all living creatures.

Thinking about this breathtaking post of yours, @BallerinaRadio

Have a little think.

When the judgement was announced, that all the Trans Activists say, "We have had our court judgement, We Lost. That is enough?"

NO THEY DIDN'T

What did they do?

THEY TOOK TO THE STREETS CARRYING PLACARDS WISHING DEATH TO TERFS, PISSING IN THE STREETS, DEFACING STATUES AND VOWING TO TAKE NO NOTICE OF THE JUDGEMENT

But was that just their last gasp, their dying yelp?

NO. THEY HAVE AT LEAST 15 OTHER MASSIVE DEMONSTRATIONS PLANNED FOR THIS WEEKEND

Well, at least the MP's accept it and that's what counts?

NO. SEVERAL HIGH RANKING MPS, INCLUDING DAME ANGELA EAGLE HAVE BEEN FOUND OUT DISCUSSING HOW TO REVERSE THIS JUDGEMENT IN REAL TERMS.

So, is this the moment for women to take your advice say, "We've won. That is Enough" and quietly slink off while powerful voices unite to undo the judgement?

No. IT IS NOT. IF WE MAKE THIS MISTAKE, WE LOSE. THE JUDGEMENT HAS BEEN MADE BUT IT HAS NOT BEEN DELIVERED. WE LOOK THE OTHER WAY AND WE WILL BE BACK TO SQUARE ONE.

So, @BallerinaRadio we could only say 'we've won' and quietly wait only if all the activists supported that we have won and shut up. They Don't and They Won't.

Why don't you have a word with them, telling them we've won and that is enough?

I'm guessing your advice is only given to women and I'm guessing I'm right in coming to that conclusion.

You read quite a lot into that (wrongly I might add) when really I'm just fed up of all the posts about it

Really? That's all?
But not bothered about the violence the TRAs have planned for us? And the violence already perpetrated against us? No?

You've got your priorities wrong.

Who is us?

There is no place for violence, I'm against that just as much as I'm against violence against trans people many of whom have been dragged into this unwillingly. In the real world these subjects are only a lived experience for a tiny minority of people.

Who is us?

GC women.
Who did you think I meant?

Perhaps, instead of identifying as women , men could start identifying as fish.

Problem solved.

I'm opposed to violence against anyone by anyone. I'm also opposed to what has already happened to me once, before this judgement: aggressive questioning by the self appointed bathroom police. I'm worried for my transgender son who, due to a physical health condition has a full beard and presents as male. Fortunately (this is dark irony) he is a wheelchair user, so can use the disabled toilets which are unisex.

I'm worried that this ruling isn't going to be a victory for anyone because of the practical real world consequences.

I'm also laughing at those who refuse to look at the archaeological and anthropological record when it doesn't support their fully binary view of the world. The world isn't simple. People still haven't learned that.

In the real world these subjects are only a lived experience for a tiny minority of people

I wouldn't call the whole of womankind a "tiny minority of people".

This ruling affects all women.

How many women have been directly affected by a trans person using a bathroom? Directly affected. Not that many, it can't be

Well no, the Cardiff graveyard proves nothing of the sort. There's no evidence of people changing gender at that point in history, that is more of a late 20th century thing. Before that people might dress up in the opposite sex's clothing but that was about the limit.

More to the point, the discovery doesn't need to prove something that is bloody obvious.