Was Hatshepsut transgender?

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

Just saw this tweet form amnesty:

During #LGBTHistoryMonth we are highlighting notable LGBT+ figures from history. Hatshepsut (1507 BC - 1458 BC) fifth Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt, one of the most successful pharaohs in history. born a woman, used female pronouns but presented herself as a King #LGBTHM19 t.co/H4GWvcj7lg

I have to confess my historical knowledge is massively lacking, but I hadn't heard that before?

I’m fairly sure the ancient Egyptian language had no word for a queen regnant, as it was so rare, so she wouldn’t have had much of a choice about what to call herself.

The ancient Egyptians also had and revered a concept called Maat (represented by a woman btw!) which was basically the state of everything being good and stable in the land. Anything out of the ordinary with the ruler would displease Maat and allow for chaos, so it was extremely important for the ruler, whatever their sex, to present themselves as much as possible as the normal status quo. Hatchepsut did have herself depicted as male with the regalia etc and might well have donned the false beard for certain ceremonies, but she was pretty clear she was female. She was aware this might be seen as against Maat which is likely why she had the story of her divine conception added to her mortuary temple.

Disclaimer: not an Egyptologist but interested and have read a lot about her, including Joyce Tyldesley and Kara Cooney’s bios which are both fantastic.

Are we going to find out that all the women who used their husbands name in their title, eg. Mrs John Smith, were in fact transgender?

Honestly, I cannot cope with this level of fuckwittery.

Just thinking of other people ripe for retrospective transing/helping out of the internalised transphobia closet.

Clearly John Simpson (smuggled into Afghanistan in a burka) and Arnold Schwartznegger (first natal man to get pregnant in Junior ).

We've already had Joan of Arc, but may I also offer you Matilda of Tuscany?

And of course God Almighty, who according to Julian of Norwich (suspicious - nun with bloke's name... surely some potential there) was both our mother and our father, therefore gender fluid.

How do you pronounce Hatshepsut?
'Ha-shap-zoot' according to this video:
(OT: Isn't the internet bloody amazing!)

Wasn't the pharaoh believed to be the living embodiment of one of the (male) Gods? (I want to say Osiris). Therefore had to be male - because Osiris was. So when a dynasty threw up a female heir ... she had to whack on a fake beard when she did her sacred duties (like making the sun rise). Nobody - least of all her - thought it was real. It was just a loophole to get round a thorny problem and is evidence of the patriarchal nature of Egyptian royalty and is therefore part of the history of female oppression - and not trans erasure. Though posthumously transing female pharaohs because they worked within the system defined for them is female erasure.

I imagine the reason they let women strap on a fake beard and pretend was because royal blood and preserving the bloodline was so important (hence all the brother/sister marriages) that a male pharaoh would prefer his biological daughter to inherit than some more distant male relative. So even the fact that women could be pharaoh, as long as they promised to cheat, was not so much women's rights as it was service to male dynastic power.

Cleopatra did the same. It's in the horrible histories song:
I am a pharaoh
but they'reoh
meant to be guys
but I don't careoh
I just wearoh
beard disguise.

Seriously, when you can learn a simple fact just by watching a children's television programme, you shouldn't be embarrassing yourself making such ridiculous, inaccurate statements in public.

The fabulous @MaryBeard sometimes posts on Mumsnet. Wonder what she thinks? Although, she's had a horrendous time with vile trolls so may not want to wade into this publicly.

I was thinking of the HH Cleopatra song too. "Julius Caesar, he's an okay geezer..."

They're doubling down on it now, refusing to listen to anything anyone is saying

Well, archaeology is known to involve shovels, so I suppose they thought if they keep digging they might find some artefacts to back up their complete nonsense.

Just to cheer everybody up, here is the Horrible Histories Cleopatra song in all its glory.

I came across a transgrab of Elizabeth the First quite a while ago - can't remember where, delusional batshit of course.

So, because no one can say what her "gender identity" actually was, Amnesty are confident to claim that she was not "cisgender"....

These people are embarrassing fools. It's just so stupid and so obviously misogynistic.

You would have thought Amnesty would have more important things to be doing with its time........

LOL of course they doubling down on it. If you could just reason people out of batshittery the world would be a far easier place! They can say it on Twitter all day, it still doesn't make it true or any less ridiculous. There are people on Twitter happily chuntering about their angel friends, fairies, alien abductions, Elvis sighting etc.

“There are people on Twitter happily chuntering about their angel friends, fairies, alien abductions, Elvis sighting etc.”
Agreed. But they are not usually respected organisations with a previously proud history of robust civil rights advocacy.

'Though she was born as a woman and used female pronouns, she presented herself as a King during her reign, and was portrayed as a man in her art and monuments. There were other female Pharoahs who presented entirely as women, meaning that Hatshepsut was unlikely to have been influenced to present as a man by her cultural environment. So while it's impossible to make a judgement about Hatshepsut's gender identity 3,500 years after the fact, it seems likely that Hatshepsut was not cisgender.'

She was a woman taking on a powerful role in a society where it wasn't usual for women to do so. What is this 'not cisgender' crap? Are Amnesty saying she felt like she was in the wrong body? Or that acting out male gender stereotypes makes her male? No proof for the first, and the second is extremely regressive.

I left Amnesty when they came out in favour of prostitution, to be honest.

She was the ruler. The rulers wore emblems of the pharaoh. Tie on beard and penis in the funery garb (I don’t know about ordinary day wear). It was also normal for siblings of the Pharos to marry. They believed in the book of the dead and animal headed gods. But I’m sure even they knew that you cant change your sex.

Amnesty is trolling.

They now have Dr James Barry on their feed as a trans man....

When did amnesty switch their interests to this sort of thing? When I was a student they wereaways lobbying for real human rights. Not human wants. Well, men’s wants.

Amnesty should ask themselves where are their historical examples of stunning and brave transwomen, who lived their lives as women? Why are there so many examples of women taking on male roles and not the opposite? For goodness sake. It's so bloody obvious. Sexist fools.

What I wish somebody could tell me is how did this happen?

I quite understand how important is is for transpeople to have the same rights and protections as anyone else. To live their lives safely and unharrassed and to be treated with respect.

But how did what is actually a small minority of people get such power? Who benefits? How did we go so quickly to a position where the female penis is accepted as the norm, and Martina Navratilove is labeled a bigot for saying, basically that male bodies are generally physically stronger than female ones. Serena Williams says that she would be lucky to take a game off Andy Murray ffs.

Who or what is behind this? Where is the money?

It's bizarre isn't it - that even Amnesty is swept up by this regressive ideology? It seems to be an attack on feminism, reinforcing gender roles, but I can't see where it's coming from.

I prefer the Blackadder version.
I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a concrete elephant!

There are a tonne of female authors who've used male own names. It doesn't take a genius to work out why.

“, but I can't see where it's coming from.”

This. I keep asking “Cui bono?” but I can’t find an answer.

Betty Chewdoor, presenting as a man:

3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y1jJL_B3vdU/Uirr55tKioI/AAAAAAAADH4/F4UCRWjSChI/s1600/Elizabeth+I+in+coronationro.jpg