“ “Little Women” author Louisa May Alcott was a transgender man”

[FlatpackHater]

I try really hard to be open minded to transgender thinking.

But reading things like this baffles me.

How can you retrospectively identify that someone who can’t speak for themselves was “a transgender man”.

When half the evidence presented for them being trans is that they didn’t conform to archetypical gendered behaviours, and that being a “tomboy” is held up as evidence of being trans.

How can we be at all sure that someone was trans and not simply rejecting the society’s expectations of how a woman should present and behave?

www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/05/little-women-author-louisa-may-alcott-transgender-man/

Oh good gracious.

I love how they all want to be called by their chosen pronouns but refuse to call Alcott by her chosen pronouns, the ones she used when she was alive.

It's misgendering. Which is transphobic according to Stonewall et al. So there you go.

To be fair the article does refer to Alcott as she/her throughout. And is a bit more nuanced than the headline.

But still it uses all the tomboy tropes as evidence towards being trans. As someone who has always been a tomboy and has had more male than female friends and can generally identify with a lot of what Alcott says, it’s hard not to find it offensive that this can be seen as satisfactory evidence to claim someone is a “transgender man”.

All historical women who made their mark on the world are gender non conforming by default because even 50+ years ago it went against societal norms to be trailblazing woman. It's the opposite of progressive to trans the dead and rewrite women's history in the process.

Oh just fuck off. Little Women was my go to book. Jo was my hero. Not conforming to feminine stereotypes is not trans.

Well indeed.

Today I would be told by one and all that i was a boy stuck in a girl's body. And why?

Because I liked toy cars and cutting up bits of wood. I wore dungarees and had short hair. I HATED pink, cried if I was made to wear a dress.

I was also being sexually abused and would have leapt at the chance to actually be a boy and not have a hole that a man could stick something up (still to innocent to realise if I'd been a boy a different hole would have been used!).

I would have taken the drugs, had the surgery, been angry at the world, and terribly terrible pissed off when I realised that I'd been lied to! And no I was still after all that just a very damaged woman!

LMA was not transgender! You don't get to rewrite history!

I hate the argument that they were only still woman as trans wasn’t a thing and if they were alive today they would be trans.

eyeroll Any woman who has more personality than a doll is considered transgender.

FFS - I spent my entire childhood running around in the woods with pretend guns, pretend fighting with my next-door neighbours. We were all girls, we just liked boy stuff. All my friends in college were boys, we drank, played darts and snooker, and raced around the lanes in our cars.

I had four brothers (probably something to do with my mindset), I preferred the company of men, I was probably a "ladette". Did I have a wonderful time, yes, yes I did. Am I trans, did I ever want to BE a boy, fuck no!

Boiledbeetle.

Oooh I'm a transgender man then am I? One with a fully functional natal vagina? One that got pregnant naturally and had a vaginal birth? Until recently had periods?

I was a tomboy, still am. Have more male friends, love rugby and a pint. I have never wanted to be male. Ever.

Why the FUCK can't they just accept WOMEN aren't all into pink, pretty, sparkly, girly things and can be / are talented at their chosen role? Why do we have to be transgender men for that to be true?

True. Even my teenagers complain about this.

LMA was a woman and achieved everything she achieved as a woman in an age when breaking out of the limitations placed on women required a lot of strength and determination. And she wrote women far better than "a man's soul" could have done. She shouldn't be devalued like this. Leave her alone.

There are a certain number of the people immersed in gender ideology who seem to conflate "in some way, no matter how small, gender non-conforming" with "trans".

Even when it was generally accepted by the people around them. They see it mainly as a language thing, I think. Mainly it seems to be young women who are really taken in by this, I think it's how they explain it to themselves so it seems to make sense.

I do wonder if part of it is a very flat view of women in the past?

I'm clearly transgender too. I spent my childhood with my hair cut short, wearing my older male cousins' cast off trackies. Climbing trees, riding bikes, building dens in the woods. Not doing "girly" things like colouring or ballet. I was regularly mistaken for a boy because of my haircut, clothing and choice of hobbies.

And yet, here I am, an adult human female in a heterosexual marriage, with three children.

Surely you are an adult human female with 3 children in a gay relationship as you are clearly a transgender man

What? LMA was a man? No, I don't believe that. Really? Is it true? Is there evidence?

@Helleofabore thank you! Although I suppose it should really be🍺you know what with me liking manly things!

I'm so glad that I went through my shitty childhood in the 70s and 80s rather than now. As bad as it was I have at least come out the other side understanding why at times I hated being a girl so much, and not just because of what happened, but the other shitty bits, that awkward stage where you didn't need a bra but hated being forced to wear anything close fitting, period pain, creepy older men, and so much more.

If it was now I would be sold on the idea that I could actually be a real living boy. I would see it as the answer to all my problems. It would have been the answer to none of them!

What does this even mean?

it was impossible to be transgender as a woman until very recently, the hormone treatments to achieve the simulacrum of masculinity didn’t exist. Men could have their genitals removed and become eunuchs, but they couldn’t grow man boobs, either, or have implants. They were castrated men, not fake women.

this just seems to be another example of men trying to abrogate any virtue or proficiency to their own sex. She was a good author who wrote some characters who did not conform to the stereotypes of the MTF brigade ( read up about frontier women if you want some real and more ‘extreme’ examples!).

what is that crackling noise? It’s the sound of straws being desperately clutched.

In 10 years time when we realise (again) that people can be gender non-conforming and be happy to be their standard sex, these historical people will cease to be trans. Perhaps they will become the term that is yet to be invented?

I was a Tom Boy had lots of male friends, didn't know I was Trans.