Transphobia in the garden

[literalviolence]

Tell me how you'd know the gender identity of this skeleton? How outrageous for the guardian to be so obsessed with this person's genitals https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/27/isles-of-scilly-remains-iron-age-female-warrior-grave-bryher-sword-mirror

I kid you not. They described the person as both female and a woman. But the person was a warrior so clearly was a transman, right?

It at least mentions (though a bit far down) that mirrors were used as signalling devices. I’ve seen previous reports of finding bodies with mirrors puzzling why a male warrior would have one, which made me doubt the intelligence of the archaeologists (or perhaps the reporters). Legends world wide are full of women warriors, I don’t understand why anyone is ever surprised about them.

That is really interesting and it had never occurred to me.

Even without the signalling device factor, there's nothing at all puzzling about a man having a mirror.

I don’t think mirrors are gender/sex specific

I was honestly frightened to read that article. It makes me realisethe mental cost of all this gaslighting and reality denial in relation to sex. The constant low-level trauma of being told by a paper that used to share my feminist values that 'woman' = femininity. That 2=2=6. That it is hateful to think otherwise.

Such a relief to find that there was not a word in it that foisted current sexist idealogy on to powerful women in the past.

I dunno what you're on about? The whole article is about the role of female warriors... 🤷🏻‍♀️

Are you saying you expected someone to suggest they were trans.

Are you saying you expected someone to suggest they were trans.

There have been similar stories in the guardian and elsewhere that have done exactly that.

I'm not sure about the mirrors as signalling devices theory. The Romans were very hot on describing the military practices of their opponents and AFAIK never mentioned this.

I can quite see mirrors as aids to personal grooming for both men and women. Iron Age men, or those depicted and disinterred with facial skin preserved, were generally clean-shaven apart from s mustache. (Though one can always be shaved by another member of the household.)

Also mirrors as devices to communicate with deities or ancestors etc. Water was very important as a liminal place where different worlds can meet, and a reflective surface could easily perform similar functions.

I heard an interview about this on Radio 4 this morning. I honestly worried that the interviewee was going to say that the mirror/sword combination showed that the woman was non-binary. Thank god she said the sensible thing, which was that the objects suggested she was a high status warrior and that we might need to rethink our understanding of the role of women in Iron Age societies.

So 2000 years on, small fragments of your body can still show that you were a woman. Imagine!

YANBU. Clearly a trans man! It wasn’t his/her/their fault that hormones and plastic surgery weren’t available then weren’t available then.

Oh, wait! Hormones and plastic surgery wouldn’t survive the decomposition process. It’s just bones and grave goods.

And skeletons show sex, you say? Not gender?

So the transman was a…….woman?

Hmmmm. Who knew?

I don’t see anything in the article implying that this woman was a transman.

Surely it is interesting to find this woman may have been a warrior.

Though I should think there is also the possibility that the sword and mirror could be symbolical of a role, status or moral or spiritual idea too.

There have been some other burials where women were found with weapons too.

There was a thread on this article/book 'Lady Sapiens' recently (can't find the thread but found the article).
Different era and re hunting rather than being warriors- but relevent maybe?
Also, wasn't Boudicca iron age?
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/apr/29/prehistoric-women-were-hunters-and-artists-not-just-mothers-book-reveals

Well, some people might need to rethink.

How would Boudicca have raised and lead a force of up to 230,000 (by Roman historians' counting) without having huge status as a leader, and without those fighters being willing to follow a woman?

Tacitus, the Roman historian said that the

Britons made no distinction of sex in their leaders, and he was the son-in-law of Agricola, governor of Britain who arrived on the island less than 20 years after the end of Boudicca's revolt.

Also, the Romans had no problem shoring up Cartimandua, leader of the Brigantes, purely for political reasons of course.

I'm not sure about the mirrors as signalling devices theory. The Romans were very hot on describing the military practices of their opponents and AFAIK never mentioned this.

You wouldn’t go into detail about exceedingly common practices.
One way of detecting military activity is the glint of light off armour or weapons. Even at a basic level, polished metal could be used to deliberately attract attention (as smoke and fire is, but far easier to control). I can’t understand any military commanders not making use of this.

https://nadirkh.medium.com/wireless-signaling-in-ancient-times-a7afd31066c1#:~:text=Heliographs%20which%20are%20considered%20the,their%20many%20wars%20of%20conquest.

Mirrors also featured in Etruscan culture.

It was Sarah Stark (great name), a human skeletal biologist at the University of Southampton, and on the strength of her interview her work seems to be reality based. I hope so, anyway.

I would have thought a sword may be given by the bereaved to help and protect their loved one journey into the next life.

Interesting about teeth enamel. You really can’t hide the XX or XY.

We know that this woman wasn't a transman, however there has been many occasions of

I don’t understand what transphobia has got to do with it, unless it’s a click bait title.

They found remains of a warrior and didn’t know if they were male or female at first so tried working it out and they thought it was a women and then the DNA confirmed it.

Theres no transphobia or sexism.

We're having a laugh at the Guardian's expense

We're expressing mock surprise that the paper didn't claim the body with grave goods normally associated with male and female burials was transgender or non-binary.

Fortunately the source material was sensible.

The Grauniad has, in the past, published stories like this
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/09/1000-year-old-remains-in-finland-may-be-non-binary-viking-researchers-say

@Chersfrozenface thank you for explaining it to me! 😁

Dr Glendon Parker,* *an adjunct associate professor in the department of environmental toxicology at UC Davis, said: “Tooth enamel is the hardest and most durable substance in the human body. It contains a protein with links to either the X or Y chromosome, which means it can be used to determine sex

…

as Robert Winston said: our sex is in every fibre of our body. It can’t be changed.

The point is that half the time the guardian calls people massive bigots for thinking that you can tell if someone is a woman by their body and then it prints stuff like this. This person could easily have been a transman couldn't they if a afab could be a transman. We've no way of knowing. They're hypocrites and failing to examine the implications of the social pressure they're applying to women.