Trigger Warning for discussions of genocide, transphobia, and mention of suicide
Note: There are some audio sync issues on this episode between me and Jo. Apologies for that. I'm still learning how to edit audio smoothly. I'm going to leave the episode as is though (unless its just utterly unlistenable). It's a learning experience.
Episode music can be found here: https://uppbeat.io/track/paulo-kalazzi/heros-time
Day 3 will dive deep into the historic context surrounding trans identities, look at the origins of the gender binary, look at famous trans individuals throughout history, and tackle the modern manifestations of transphobia and how it all adds up to a trans genocide. Day 3 features special guest Jo Dinozzi, actor, fight choreopgrapher, and Director of A Sketch of New York.
Episode notes to follow:
Hey, Hi, Hello, this is the History Wizard and welcome back for Day 3 of Have a Day w/ The History Wizard. Thank you to everyone who tuned in for Day 2 last week, and especially thank you to everyone who rated and/or reviewed the podcast. I hope you all learned something last week and I hope the same for this week. This week we’re going to be talking about the trans genocide that is currently ongoing in the United States, this is certainly an issue in other parts of the West, such as Canada and the UK, but I live in the US and that’s the location that I am most qualified and able to speak on. As with last week we’re not going to be starting with what’s happening right now in 2024. We’re going to dive deep into the historical context surrounding trans gender identities and their perpetual position as a marginalized community.
Before we get into that though! I have something special for you this episode! Today we are joined by a guest, my good friend, Jo Dinozzi. Hi Jo, thanks so much for joining me today.
So, I thought we’d start today off with an examination of the gender binary and where it all started. According to Suzzanah Weiss, a feminist writer and sexologist with a Masters of Professional Studies in Sexual Health from the University of Minnesota:
“Arguably, modern notions of the gender binary originated during the Enlightenment,” they say. “That’s when scientists and physicians adopted what historians call a ‘two-sex model’ when describing people’s bodies.”
This model treated male and female bodies as opposites, and as the only two options.
“Up until that point, popular thinkers thought more along the lines of a one-sex model, where male and female bodies were homologous,” explains Weiss.
Case and point: female genitalia were viewed as male genitalia turned inward, and female orgasm was deemed necessary for reproduction since male orgasm was.
Indeed, the one-sex model had its own problems. Mainly, women were often viewed as incomplete men.
“But the two-sex model created new problems, such as the devaluing of female sexuality and the erasure of anyone outside the gender binary,” they say.
You can find more information on the one sex theory and the emergence of the two sex theory in Thomas Laqueur's book Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud.
So far though we’ve just been looking at Western ideas of gender though, many cultures around the world have far more expansive views of gender, though many of these ideas of gender are still attached to biological features and characteristics.
Some examples of these include the Hijra from Hinduism, to further underline how bigoted Western systems of power can be, the British passed a law in 1871 categorizing all Hijra people as criminals.
The Bugis ethnic group of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, recognizes three genders beyond the binary. These are the Calalai, the Calabai, and the Bissu.Something interesting to note is while Bugis gender is often described as a spectrum, bissu are deemed to be above this classification: spiritual beings who are not halfway between male and female, but rather embody the power of both at once.
In Mexico there is a third gender called Muxes which is deeply embedded within the indigenous Zapotec culture. Since the 1970s, every year in November, muxes celebrate La Vela de las Auténticas Intrépidas Buscadoras del Peligro, or the Festival of the Authentic and Intrepid Danger-Seekers, a day of energetic merriment to honor muxes.
There’s also Sekarata from the Sajalava people indigenous to Madagascar. They are viewed as both sacred and protected by supernatural powers.
There is, of course, Two Spirit people. This is a pan Indigenous North American term that was coined in the 1990s as a way for the indigenous LGBTQIA+ for reject white, Western, ideas about queerness and gender identity. There has been some push back against the term Two Spirit as some see it as inherently recognizing the Western Gender binary. Many indigenous tribes such as Niitsitapi, the Cheyenne, the Cree, the Lakota, and the Ojibwe, to name just a few have their own terms for these gender identities that fall outside of the binary. Those terms are, of course, in their own languages and I think I would only insult some people with how poorly I pronounce them. So, suffice it to say, you can find more information about this on the wikipedia article for Two-Spirit under the subheading Traditional Indigenous Terms.
Last culture I want to go over for today is Judiasm. Jewish law, or halacha recognizes 8 distinct genders. The two classic ones that we all know and have mixed feelings about and then 6 others Androgynos, Tumtum, Aylonit hamah, Aylonit adam, Saris hamah, Saris adam.
So, as we can clearly see, the idea of a strict gender binary of only Male and Female isn’t an idea that was always widely accepted and the fact that is has crept into so many cultures around the world that had much greater levels of acceptance of diverse identities is solely the fault of western colonialism and white supremacy.
Something that should be noted is that gender identity and gender presentation are two different things in a society and often for individuals. I, for example, identify as agender or gender apathetic. I don’t identify with any gender at all really, but my gender presentation is decidedly masculine. In my opinion gender identity is internal and specific to each individual person, whereas gender presentation is external and based on the culture you live in and how that society views the way a specific gender traditionally looks.
With that out of the way let’s talk about the greatest nightmare of Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro… pronouns.
You’ve got them, I’ve got them, everyone’s got them. Well, that might not, actually be true. There might very easily be people who don’t feel that any currently available pronoun fits their own concept of gender. I guess it’s more accurate to say that I have never met anyone who doesn’t use any pronouns.
There’s a specific set of pronouns that I want to discuss today, though we could likely do a whole other episode on just pronouns. I want to talk about they/them pronouns. Cause, those are really the ones that started this whole temper tantrum conservatives have been throwing for the past several years. They say that they/them is a plural pronoun, and always has been. As if language never changes and we were all STILL speaking Old English.
Hell, when the folks who made the King James Bible were translating it they used thee, thou, thy, and thine as singular and ye, you, your, and yours as plural. Also, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Jane Austen all used the singular they in their works. It’s been in the Canterbury Tales, Hamlet, and Pride and Prejudice.
So, if we’re gonna be pedantic about it, I have sources to back up my pedantry and they don’t. But also, language evolves! We have contronyms now! Words that are their own opposites! So, just chill and take the opportunity to grow, if you haven’t already.
Next thing to talk about is, of course, the difference between gender and sex. Gender is an internal identity that is based on your own relationship with the concept of gender. Sex is biological and is, frankly just based on your genitals. No one is out there doing chromosome tests on every single baby born. A doctor just looks at your crotch and decides. They’ll also assign you a gender at birth based on those same characteristics, but just because you’re assigned a gender doesn’t mean you have to keep it.
We also have to note that, just like gender, sex also exists on a spectrum. And listen, you don’t have to believe me. Go watch Season 1, Episode 9 of Bill Nye Saves The World. He’ll tell you too, and if you don’t trust Bill Nye on Science, you’re a fool of a Took.
I’m actually going to turn the mic fully over to Jo at this point as she is far better informed on this topic than I am.
(Insert Jo here)
Now, something that we need to talk about is the Recency Illusion. There are many people that believe trans gender people are somehow a new phenomenon. That they haven’t always existed throughout history. So here are some examples for you to do some more reading on, on your own.
Ashurbanipal (669-631BCE) - King of the Neo-Assryian empire, who according to Diodorus Siculus is reported to have dressed, behaved, and socialized as a woman.
Elagabalus (204-222 CE) - Roman Emperor who preferred to be called a lady and not a lord, presented as a woman, called herself her lover's queen and wife, and offered vast sums of money to any doctor able to make her anatomically female.
Kalonymus ben Kalonymus (1286-1328) - French Jewish philosopher who wrote poetry about longing to be a woman.
Eleanor Rykener (14th century) - trans woman in London who was questioned under charges of sex work
Chevalier d'Eon (1728-1810) - French diplomat, spy, freemason, and soldier who fought in the Seven Years' War, who transitioned at the age of 49 and lived the remaining 33 years of her life as a woman.
And, of course:
Sylvia Rivera (1951-2002) - Gay liberation and trans rights pioneer and community worker in NYC; co-founded STAR, a group dedicated to helping homeless young drag queens, gay youth, and trans women
Marsha P. Johnson (1945-1992) - Gay liberation and trans rights pioneer; co-founded STAR with Sylvia Rivera, the woman who threw a brick to start the Stonewall Riots
And, I would be remiss if we didn’t talk about my favorite trans gender individual in history, the Public Universal Friend. The Public Universal Friend was originally a Quaker born in 1752. However, The Friend contracted a very serious illness, suspected to be typhus, in 1776 and nearly died. Once the Friend had recovered they shunned their original name and all gendered pronouns. Asking to be referred to only as the Public Universal Friend, the P.U.F. or simply as the Friend. Whenever someone asked if the Friend was male or female, the Friend would merely reply. “I am that I am”. The Friend would go on to form an offshoot of Quakerism called the Society of Universal friends which, unfortunately, ceased to exist in 1860, 41 years after the Friend’s death in 1819. The congregation's death book records: “25 minutes past 2 on the Clock, The Friend went from here.”
We’re starting to make our way to more modern issues now, next on our docket is the looting of the Institute of Sexology in Berlin in 1933. On 6 May 1933, the Institute of Sexology, an academic foundation devoted to sexological research and the advocacy of homosexual rights, was broken into and occupied by Nazi-supporting youth. Several days later the entire contents of the library were removed and burned. The Institute was founded by Magnus Hischfield in 1919 and was the earliest institution to be doing research into gender affirming surgery, as well as offering contraceptive services and sexual health education. The Institute actually performed one of, if not the first, gender affirming surgery in 1931. It was bottom surgery for a trans woman named Dora Richter. She is believed to have died in the initial attack on the Institute.
On May 10th, the German Student Union, a group of young Nazis, dragged every single book and bit of research out of the Institute, piled them in Bebelplatz Square and set them on fire. This was the first, and largest book burning of the 3rd Reich, with over 20,000 books burned. There is no telling how far back trans gender health research was set by this event. Hirschfield wasn’t in Germany when the book burning occurred. He was on a world speaking tour and remained in Nice, France after he finished. He died there of a heart attack in 1935.
We’re getting closer and closer to the modern day now dear listeners. Before we get there I want to talk with you about a resource I like to use called the Pyramid of Hate. It was designed by the ADL based on the Alport Scale of Prejudice, which was created by psychologist Gordon Alport in 1954. The Pyramid illustrates the prevalence of bias, hate and oppression in our society. It is organized in escalating levels of attitudes and behavior that grow in complexity from bottom to top. Like a pyramid, the upper levels are supported by the lower levels; unlike a pyramid, the levels are not built consecutively or to demonstrate a ranking of each level. Bias at each level reflects a system of oppression that negatively impacts individuals, institutions and society. Unchecked bias can become “normalized” and contribute to a pattern of accepting discrimination, violence and injustice in society.
The second level of the Pyramid included bigoted humor as one of these hallmarks of systems of oppression. There are many people who feel that humor is somewhat sacred. That it falls outside the standard array of ethics and that anything can be joked about, because it’s just a joke and there’s nothing serious about it.
If you are the type of person who believes that… well you probably haven’t made it this far into the episode. Regardless, let me draw everyone’s attention to a PhD dissertation written by former appellate attorney of the Texas 5th Circuit Court Jason P. Steed. Steed says, and I’m quoting directly from a series of tweets he made a few years ago: You're never "just joking." Nobody is ever "just joking." Humor is a social act that performs a social function (always). To say humor is a social act is to say it is always in social context; we don't joke alone. Humor is a way we relate/interact with others. Which is to say, humor is a way we construct identity - who we are in relation to others. We use humor to form groups… ...and to find our individual place in or out of those groups. In short, joking/humor is one tool by which we assimilate or alienate. We use humor to bring people into - or keep them out of - our social groups. This is what humor *does.* What it's for. Consequently, how we use humor is tied up with ethics - who do we embrace, who do we shun, and how/why? And the assimilating/alienating function of humor works not only on people but also on *ideas.* This is why, e.g., racist "jokes" are bad. Not just because they serve to alienate certain people, but also because… ...they serve to assimilate the idea of racism (the idea of alienating people based on their race). A racist joke sends a message to the in-group that racism is acceptable. (If you don't find it acceptable, you're in the out-group.) This is why we're never "just joking." To the in-group, no defense of the joke is needed; the idea conveyed is accepted/acceptable. The defense of “just joking is only ever aimed at the out group. If you're willing to accept "just joking" as defense, you're willing to enter an in-group where the idea conveyed by the joke is acceptable. If "just joking" excuses racist jokes, then in-group has accepted the idea of racism as part of being in-group.
This segues us into our next topic fairly smoothly. We’re going to be talking about the AIDs crisis. You might be wondering how this is a smooth segue, well that’s because when the AIDs epidemic first began in the 1980s, the Reagan administration treated it as a joke.
Here's the first exchange between Speakes and journalist Lester Kinsolving from 1982, when nearly 1,000 people had died from AIDS:
Lester Kinsolving: Does the president have any reaction to the announcement by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta that AIDS is now an epidemic in over 600 cases?
Larry Speakes: AIDS? I haven't got anything on it.
Lester Kinsolving: Over a third of them have died. It's known as "gay plague." [Press pool laughter.] No, it is. It's a pretty serious thing. One in every three people that get this have died. And I wonder if the president was aware of this.
Larry Speakes: I don't have it. [Press pool laughter.] Do you?
Lester Kinsolving: You don't have it? Well, I'm relieved to hear that, Larry! [Press pool laughter.]
Larry Speakes: Do you?
Lester Kinsolving: No, I don't.
Larry Speakes: You didn't answer my question. How do you know? [Press pool laughter.]
Lester Kinsolving: Does the president — in other words, the White House — look on this as a great joke?
Larry Speakes: No, I don't know anything about it, Lester.
Because they saw the AIDs epidemic as one big joke, and because of the massive amounts of homophobia in American politics the Reagan administration did nothing about the thousands and thousands of people dying. But why, why I can hear you asking. Because AIDs, the so called “gay plague” was thought to only affect gay men. They also thought it could be spread through saliva, so there was a joke from a later press conference about the President banning kissing as a way of fighting the spread of AIDs.
But I digress. AIDs was thought to only affect a specific part of the population. Gay men. A segment of the population that the Reagan administration didn’t want in American society. So when they heard they were dying, instead of doing research, or raising public awareness, or even expressing compassion for the suffering of fellow humans, they did nothing and made bad, poor taste jokes, because they wanted gay men to die.
Now, many people will look at this and say that it wasn’t a genocide because the deaths weren’t caused by government action, but by government in action. These people are wrong. This was DELIBERATE in action, knowing and planning for that inaction to kill as many people as possible. This was, as clear as it can be, deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the group, in whole or in part. Now, no one is saying that Reagan CAUSED AIDs, but he saw what it was doing and specifically did nothing to prevent any of the deaths that it caused.
This, finally, brings us to the modern day and the ongoing trans genocide. We have established our historic context, we have set a historic precedent for inaction as a form of genocide. Now we can really get into it.
Remember the Pyramid of Hate that we touched on briefly earlier. Well, Level 3 is Systemic Discrimination and includes Criminal justice disparities, Inequitable school resource distribution, Housing segregation, Inequitable employment opportunities, Wage disparities, Voter restrictions and suppression, and Unequal media representation. There are, according to translegislation.com, in 2024 alone 530 anti trans laws have been placed before various state and federal legislations. I remind you that it is only April 2nd, when this episode first releases. 16 of them have passed, 87 of them have failed, and 430 are still currently active.
These bills seeks to discriminate against trans people in almost all areas of life, with the 3 most prevalent categories being Education, Sports, and Healthcare. In 2024 alone 132 bills have been proposed to deny or restrict access of trans people to gender affirming care.
But why is this important? Other than because healthcare is a human right that should be freely available to everyone. A new study from the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, using data from U.S Transgender Population Health Survey found that 81% of transgender adults in the U.S. have thought about suicide, 42% of transgender adults have attempted it, and 56% have engaged in non-suicidal self-injury over their lifetimes.
If you are a trans individual and you need mental health services or support, please reach out to the Trevor Project at (866) 488-7386 or call the Trans Lifeline at (877) 565-8860. You’re not alone, and you never will be.
Now, to return to our regularly scheduled educational program.
The US deliberately blocking people from accessing gender affirming care is genocide. Full stop. End of story. According to an article titled Suicide-Related Outcomes Following Gender-Affirming Treatment: A Review, by Daniel Jackson, which is a meta analysis of 23 different studies on the effect of gender affirming care on trans suicide rates, having access to gender affirming care greatly reduces the risk of suicide among trans youth and adults. So if you know that having access to these services will help keep a group of people alive, and you deliberately block access to that service, you are actively trying to kill them. This is, just as with the AIDs epidemic, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the group, in whole or in part. It is also, causing severe bodily or mental harm to members of the group, which is another way in which genocide can be committed. Florida even went so far as to pass a bill, SB 254, banning gender affirming care for minors. They call it child abuse, and will take children away from their parents if the parents try and get the GAC. This is “transferring children of the group to another group” which is a third way in which the US government is committing a trans genocide.
There are two more things I want to talk about today. First is detransitioning. There are some people who transition from one gender to another and then go back. Conservative talking heads would have you believe that there is a massive majority of trans people feeling this regret and returning to the gender they were assigned at birth. As with all things, they are lying to you.
The results published in the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey found that 8% of respondents reported having ever detransitioned; 62% of that group reported transitioning again and were living as a gender other than the one assigned to them at birth at the time of the survey. About 36% reported having detransitioned due to pressure from parents, 33% because it was too difficult, 31% due to discrimination, 29% due to difficulty getting a job, 26% pressure from family members, 18% pressure from a spouse, and 17% due to pressure from an employer. There will certainly be some people who will transition and then find that they don’t actually identify with the gender they transitioned to, but that’s a fantastically small number, and while those people deserve our empathy and support, they are not representative of the overall trans community.
Also it should be noted that you don’t have to medically or physically transition to be trans. Many people do this because of gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia. But surgery and/or hormones are not requirements for being trans. I’m technically trans, as I identify with a gender other than the one I was assigned at birth, but I have no intentions of taking hormones or having surgery. I’m just gonna hit the gym and get big muscles.
The last thing I want to cover is the epidemic of transphobia that infects this country, and in the present day nothing exemplifies that more than the tragic death of Nex Benedict and the inattentiveness and inaction of her school in protecting her. New was a 16 year old non binary youth attending Owasso High School in Oklahoma. After a year of bullying over her gender identity Nex was attacked by 6 girls in the bathroom. They beat her into unconsciousness. Instead of calling the police or an ambulance, the school called Nex’s mother Sue and told her that Nex was suspended for two weeks. Nex was examined by hospital staff, spoke with police, and then was discharged. They went to bed complaining of a sore head. The next day, when getting ready to go with their mother to Tulsa, Nex collapsed and had stopped breathing before the ambulance arrived. The Medical Examiner eventually ruled Nex’s death a suicide caused by Benedryl and Prozac, stating that it had nothing to do with the beating Nex received from students at their school.
I think that’s bullshit. I have nothing more to say on that other than Fuck Oklahoma and Fuck the Owasso Public School Disctict.
That’s it for today dear listeners. Stay angry, stay safe. Don’t let the bastards get you down. Stick around for the outro.
We’ve got some more reviews over the past week. Some of them aren’t technically reviews. Spotify apparently has a Q&A feature, and defaults to “What did you think of this episode?” so I’m going to read those too.
*Read Reviews*
Jo, thank you so much for being here today and for providing your valuable insight and knowledge. Do you have any projects that you’d like to plug before we sign off?
Alright, that brings us right up to the end.
Have a Day! w/ The History Wizard is brought to you by me, The History Wizard. PLease remember to rate, review, and subscribe to Have a Day! On your pod catcher of choice. The more you do, the more people will be able to listen and learn along with you. Thank you for sticking around until the end and, as always, Have a Day and remember, Trans Rights are Human Rights.
