It is 222 A.D. You are the transgender Empress Elagabalus, "call me not a man for I am a woman". Transitioning is new and experimental.

It is 1776. You are "Public Universal Friend", a transmasculine Quaker. Transitioning is new and experimental.

It is 1906. You are Karl M. Baer, a trans man undergoing sex reassignment. Transitioning is new and experimental.

It is 1930. You are Lili Elbe. Transitioning is new and experimental. (to be fair you did get a uterus transplant.)

It is 1966. You are in Compton's Cafeteria with a bunch of other trans people when the owners call the cops to throw you all out. You riot. Transitioning is new and experimental.

It is 1969. You are Marsha "pay it no mind" Johnson. You are in a mob-run gay bar when the cops attack. You throw a brick. There is a bit of a scuffle. Transitioning is new and experimental.

It is 2026. You are a transgender adult or child listening to the NYT and British Guardian claim this is the first generation anyone has tried transitioning in. Transitioning is new and experimental.

@CharlotteEowyn

It is ~2280 BCE. You are Enheduanna. You live in one of the largest cities of the world and are the highest clergy in service to Inanna, goddess of your society's greatest religion. You create one of the oldest pieces of world literature. Transitioning is normal and welcomed as part of religious practice.

@CharlotteEowyn

It is 1865. You are Doctor James Barry, stealth transgender man and former Inspector General for the British army. You leave notice that upon your death your body must not be examined. This is not followed, and a media circus follows with a shocking gender reveal. Transitioning is new and experimental.

It is 1876. You are author Marc/Marie de Montifaud. You "crossdress" as a man when visiting the library for research, use the names Marc and Marie interchangably, and your pronouns are known by multiple people to be she/he. Transitioning is new and experimental.

It is 1880. You are known mononymously as the decadent author Rachilde. You delight in presenting publicly as sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes in between. You joyfully describe yourself as "androgynous". Transitioning is new and experimental.

@CharlotteEowyn It is 7th century BCE. You are mythological third-gendered entity Asu-shu-namir, created by the god Enki to rescue Innana after the goddess descended into the underworld to steal her sister Ereshkigal's power. You are impossibly beautiful, neither man or woman, and your goal is to seduce the Queen of the Netherworld and steal the waters of life to revive Inanna. Upon completing your task you are caught, and while Inanna escapes, you do not. You and others like you are cursed by Ereshkigal to suffer economic hardship and social ostracization unto eternity. Transitioning is new(?) and experimental(?).

@CharlotteEowyn it’s erasure all the way down

Curse you, Ereshkigal!

(quoting https://chaosfem.tw/@Willowbriar/116131873058555096 )

SAME AS IT EVER WAS.

@CharlotteEowyn i did a relatively thorough media search and purported surprise at the existence of trans people crops up every eighteen months (i think?) back to the invention of newspapers. anyway, its a constant staple of the news and always has been.

@miriamrobern @CharlotteEowyn
You can always rely on the news to tell us that nobody wants to work anymore, kids are more disrespectful than they used to be, and trans people are new and scary.

@CharlotteEowyn

Some other great trans men of history:

It is 1960. You are Michael Dillon/Lobzang Jivaka, a doctor in the British Navy turned Tibetan Buddhist monk. You were the first trans man to undergo phalloplasty, and among the first trans Westerners to be ordained by a Buddhist monastery. Transitioning is new and experimental.

It is 1991. You are Lou Sullivan. You spent years campaigning on behalf of gay trans people, after being denied gender-affirming care on the basis of your homosexuality. You founded what would become the longest-running FTM group in the world. You are the first reported trans man to have AIDS. Your work will ultimately normalize trans homosexuality. Transitioning is new and experimental.

#ftm

@CharlotteEowyn you are Enheduanna, high priestess of the moon in the Sumerian city-state of Ur, around 2300BCE. Writing is new and experimental (you are the first named author known to history) but transitioning is just such an accepted part of the culture that you write in your poem about the goddess Inanna:
"To turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man are yours, Inanna"

https://notchesblog.com/2017/05/02/evidence-for-trans-lives-in-sumer/

@sleepfreeparent her uncle also sexually assaulted her when she turned down his advances, and then he stripped her title and property, took her across a mountain chain to another city, threw her in the quarter for lepers and eunuchs, tossed a ritual castration knife at her, and told her "this suits you" whereupon she went on to found/revitalize an almost dead religion based around gender bending and queerness.

When she wrote her poetry writing as a concept was only about 200 years old, and the Epic of Gilgamesh wouldn't be finalized for over 1200 years.

You know, the sort of normal shit "cis" people do and experience, right?

@xavierhm @CharlotteEowyn

It is November 1913. You are Amelio Robles Ávila, a fighter in the Zapistas, and will shoot dead anyone who calls you a woman. Transitioning is new and experimental.

@CharlotteEowyn

it is 1990. a TERF comes out with a book describing India's hijra as "effeminate, third-gendered homosexual men." that book conveniently ignores the fact that some hijra take DIY hormones and actively campaign for recognition as women, because transitioning is new and experimental.

it is 2014. the Indian Supreme Court rules that all hijra are third-gendered, neither male nor female, citing said TERF as evidence for their decision. recognizing any hijra as women would, supposedly, violate their Constitutional rights. after all, transitioning is new and experimental.

@CharlotteEowyn It is 1777. You are the Chevalière Charlotte d'Éon de Beaumont. You are negotiating with the king to return to France and be recognized as a woman. Transitioning is new and experimental.