The “bones” meme always just shows just how little imagination transphobes have. They have way less faith in archaeologists than I do. Archaeologists are bad asses. Don’t sell them short!
You know what I think archaeologists would discover if they dug up my bones in a millennium? I think their write-up would look something like this:
“Subject approximately 165 cm in height. Buried with female-typical attire. Genetic tests reveal XY chromosomes. Detailed analysis of bones indicates the subtle effects of decades of testosterone suppression and estrogen use. Facial bone structure indicates evidence of surgical alteration. Gravestone marker indicates this person likely identified as binary female. This subject likely represents an example of a 21st century transgender person. In this era, trans people transitioned with exogenous hormones and surgeries before nanobot technology advanced to the point of allowing complete sex reassignment at the cellular, genetic, and organ level.”
The standard “archaeology” meme suffers from two fatal assumptions:
That trans medical treatments have no effect on bones.
That trans people won’t exist in the future, and that our bodies won’t be recognized for what we are by future archaeologists.
I think both are false. Even without having undergone FFS, decades of HRT have likely left subtle impacts on my bones that could be read by a skilled practitioner. Subtle changes in shape, density, composition, etc. And most critically, trans people aren’t going anywhere. We’ve been here for thousands of years. We’re not a fad; we’re a type of human being. You can genocide every trans person on the planet away tomorrow, and in a generation a whole new crop will have grown up, seeking the same treatments and transition process as those that came before. Archaeologists a thousand years from now will know what trans people are, because some of them will be trans themselves.
I think a future archaeologist would likely be thrilled to find my bones. “Holy hell, we actually found one of those rare trans skeletons! I can’t wait to try to figure out what kind of medical treatments she underwent!” That sounds like the type of thing archaeology nerds dream about. And I think they would recognize me, and other trans people of today, as a kind of missing link, an example of early gender/sex transition. In a thousand years, transition might consist of a pill that just completely rebuilds your biology including reproductive organs. In that world, gender transition is common. Hell, most people do it just to see what it’s like on the other side for awhile. Maybe everyone spends a year in college living as the opposite sex. IDK. The future is weird, weirder than we can imagine. And trans people will absolutely be part of that future. And they would recognize us as a step on the road that lead to their world.
The “bones” meme always just shows just how little imagination transphobes have. They have way less faith in archaeologists than I do. Archaeologists are bad asses. Don’t sell them short!
You know what I think archaeologists would discover if they dug up my bones in a millennium? I think their write-up would look something like this:
“Subject approximately 165 cm in height. Buried with female-typical attire. Genetic tests reveal XY chromosomes. Detailed analysis of bones indicates the subtle effects of decades of testosterone suppression and estrogen use. Facial bone structure indicates evidence of surgical alteration. Gravestone marker indicates this person likely identified as binary female. This subject likely represents an example of a 21st century transgender person. In this era, trans people transitioned with exogenous hormones and surgeries before nanobot technology advanced to the point of allowing complete sex reassignment at the cellular, genetic, and organ level.”
The standard “archaeology” meme suffers from two fatal assumptions:
I think both are false. Even without having undergone FFS, decades of HRT have likely left subtle impacts on my bones that could be read by a skilled practitioner. Subtle changes in shape, density, composition, etc. And most critically, trans people aren’t going anywhere. We’ve been here for thousands of years. We’re not a fad; we’re a type of human being. You can genocide every trans person on the planet away tomorrow, and in a generation a whole new crop will have grown up, seeking the same treatments and transition process as those that came before. Archaeologists a thousand years from now will know what trans people are, because some of them will be trans themselves.
I think a future archaeologist would likely be thrilled to find my bones. “Holy hell, we actually found one of those rare trans skeletons! I can’t wait to try to figure out what kind of medical treatments she underwent!” That sounds like the type of thing archaeology nerds dream about. And I think they would recognize me, and other trans people of today, as a kind of missing link, an example of early gender/sex transition. In a thousand years, transition might consist of a pill that just completely rebuilds your biology including reproductive organs. In that world, gender transition is common. Hell, most people do it just to see what it’s like on the other side for awhile. Maybe everyone spends a year in college living as the opposite sex. IDK. The future is weird, weirder than we can imagine. And trans people will absolutely be part of that future. And they would recognize us as a step on the road that lead to their world.