What Transness Can Teach Us About Western Science
On colonialism, head wraps, and trans history.
In a recent video, a made a brief argument for trans inclusion using one of the core tenets of scientific thought: independent verification. It’s mostly a retread of my podcast episode about colonialism and the history of gender, this time spotlighting the PBS Map of Gender Diverse Cultures.
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I liked this video, but in trying to make a video shorter than 3 minutes for once, there was one thing I said that needed more clarification. Per one commenter…
I agree with you, but I wouldn't say transness is a western concept, you help conservatives in the global south when you say that
While I disagree with the idea that my video is in any way helping conservatives, I completely understand what they were trying to get at. Here’s what I said in the video…
For one thing, biological sex isn’t even a binary, but also, we can look at so many examples of gender variance from across history! Countless two-spirit traditions, Yoruba culture, the 6 genders referenced in the Talmud, Eunuchs in Jesus’ time…none of these we can call “transgender”, since that’s a very modern/Western concept, but the fact is, gender just isn’t naturally binary!
Cultures from around the world and across history keep independently coming to the same conclusion that gender is transient! And yet conservatives like to think that was invented on Tumblr in 2014, since delegitimizing these experiences allows them to maintain control over our culture.
What I meant was this: if you, a transgender person in America, went up to an Indian Hijra person, or a Hawaiian Māhū person, or a Balkan sworn virgin, or a Lakota winkte, and said to them “You are transgender”, you would get one of a few responses.
“Yes! I identify with that term.”
“Ehh, sure, that’s the closest cultural analog between my culture and yours, so fine yeah.”
“Absolutely not, this is our cultural practice, not yours. Get out of here, colonizer.”
“Çfarë është një transgender?”
“I genuinely don’t know! Our community is constantly having internal discussions about where we fit in to this modern cultural discourse!
You might think that “transgender”, or more specifically the “cisgender/transgender” distinction, is a universal concept for which Hijra, winkte, etc. are just culturally-specific versions of that idea. But there’s a good reason why anthropologists avoid using modern, Western terms like “transgender” or “non-binary” for other cultures. Even here in the States, historians have to be really careful using these words for people even just 50 years ago, who may have self-identified as “transsexual” or “transvestite”.
For a simpler example, let’s look at head wraps. Obviously, no one culture has a trademark on the idea of tying your hair up. From the Polish babushka, to the Muslim hijab, to the Hindu pagri, plenty of people around the world have used head wraps to display their cultural pride, spiritual connection, and fashion sense. This obviously goes deeper than aesthetics: the hijab is an important symbol of empowerment, faith, modesty, humility, and—in the face of Islamophobia—bravery that’s clearly culturally distinct from other kinds of head wraps.
Head wraps can also hold real political significance. During American chattel slavery, white people passed laws that literally make it illegal for Black women to wear their hair in any other way than in a head wrap. So, they turned it into a tool to express their individuality and femininity—something that dehumanization takes away from you—and they even used wraps as a way to communicate secret messages with one another. Later in the 1960s, head wraps became a symbol for Black liberation in the civil rights movement.
What’s my point here? Well, imagine if I said that a babushka was functionally the same as a hijab, or a Black woman’s head wrapping. Imagine if I said that the idea of putting your hair up is a universal concept, and that all of these wrap styles are just different ways of putting your hair up with minor aesthetic influences. I’d probably be laughed out the room, because doing so would be missing so much of what makes these wraps so culturally significant.
We can apply the same logic to gender variance throughout the world: there’s so much more to gender than the Western, medicalized notion of the transsexual. Winkte aren’t “trans girls but make it Indigenous”, they have a culturally-specific spiritual role in their communities, literally being thought to have two souls. Hijra are thought to be closer to the gods, performing blessings at weddings and new births. All of these cultural practices deserve to be understood on their own terms, not as an extension of our Western ideas about gender. And much like cultural appropriation vs appreciation, we can be inspired by these practices—I, for one, love the idea that throughout history, people who occupy liminal genders have been considered healers, spiritual guides, teachers, and generally sacred—but we shouldn’t outright steal from them.
Now, what does this have to do with science? One of the key problems with Western science, and Western thinking in general, is universalism, the idea that our worldview can be applied in all cases. I hate to say it, but believing that your experiences are universal, or that all features of life and the universe can be understood through the lens that you yourself use, is a colonizer mindset. There are plenty of ways to distinguish Western science from Indigenous ways of knowing, but chief among them are the latter’s trust for inherited wisdom, local verification, and a connection between the physical and metaphysical worlds. The search for a Grand Unified Theory of Gender is a fruitless effort, not just because gender is a fickle, fluid thing, but because a Grand Unified Theory of Anything is probably impossible, if not impractical.
So that’s my rant about how Western/colonial science is bad for this week! We didn’t even get into the history of the word “transsexual”, which started as a medical term, or how the use of “transgender” (first coined by Virginia Prince) rightfully de-medicalized the term but nonetheless continued the cisgender/transgender binary split. If you want a deeper dive into this, let me know in the comments!
Action Item
It’s time to order Girl Scout cookies, so why not do it from a trans girl scout? Erin In The Morning has collected a list of trans and non-binary girl scouts, which you can buy online. I just got my Do-Si-Dos from Troop 67485, whose whole group is trans-affirming. Show them some love, and once you get your cookies, consider making some cookie butter after!
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A brief information to propaganda! (Related: my post about how the news makes you hate trans people)
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And now, your weekly Koko.
That’s all for now! See you next week with more sweet, sweet content.
In solidarity,
-Anna