May 6th 2024 sees the start of the first Trans History Week. In this article, I take a look at how
trans, non-binary and gender fluid people have historically been represented in culture, and I'll explore the situation we are in now.
Introduction
When I was sixteen, already fascinated by people who were different from me, I was transfixed by the television programme A Change of Sex, writing in my 1980 diary that it was one of the best things I had ever seen. The documentary followed Julia Grant on her transition journey, watched by nearly nine million people when it aired. Despite some negative coverage by tabloid newspapers, the response from viewers was “overwhelmingly positive” according to the programme's director David Pearson.
Later that year, I was accepted into a trendy group of friends including several young gay men, and the film The Rocky Horror Picture Show inspired us immensely; we were enthralled by the dressing up, the queer characters including"sweet transvestite" Dr Frank-N-Furter (played by Tim Curry), and the music. Here's me and a friend in a Rocky Horror-esque pose (photo taken by my mum, bless her). By my late teens, I dressed more and more in men’s clothes, like Julie Andrews in the film Victor Victoria, which had recently been released. I wanted to be her/him so much. I absolutely loved her look in this film, but more than the look, I loved the idea of gender fluidity, and of the freedom to experiment with different identities. We didn’t have the term gender fluidity in those days; we called ourselves “gender benders.” Victor Victoria spoke ultimately of love without boundaries and of self-acceptance, both of which were so important to me as I explored my own feelings and identity.
Fast forward to the late 1990s, and I became very emotionally invested in another documentary called Paddington Green, which followed the lives of a group of people all living an area of London very close to where I lived. One of those people was Jackie, a trans woman in her twenties, who was a sex worker in the notorious Sussex Gardens area in order to raise money for her surgeries. Behind her positivity, Jackie seemed lonely, scared and vulnerable a lot of the time, and I wanted to go out and find her, comfort her and help her. My maternal instinct has always been strong.
Fast forward again to 2024, and one of my sons is in a relationship with a trans man. They live a quiet, happy, private life away from social media. They don't read the news much and I think they are very wise, as they are both sensitive young men and here in the UK there is a LOT of trans hate in the media at the moment.
Trans representation in ancient times
In order to understand the present, I always look to the past for context and insight, so in Trans History Week, this seems especially relevant. Many ancient civilisations recorded references to same sex attraction and gender fluidity across the cultural spectrum, including in literature, pottery, wall art and sculpture. Ancient religious customs included celebrating and imitating the gender fluidity of the gods and goddesses, and from all the research that's been conducted, it's evident that there was no concept of sexuality or gender as we understand it now.
Hinduism is an ancient religion which has numerous texts demonstrating the fluidity of gender and sexuality. These include the concepts of human transition to a different gender through rebirth, of gods being androgynous, and of gods being able to change gender. A specific example is the story of Prince Sudyumna, who is also Princess Ila, who marries Budh, whose name means "awakening", and who is of indeterminate sex. Another is the story of Shikhandi, who is born with a woman’s body but identifies as a man, and becomes a man later in life.
Hindus were just one of many ancient cultures, including the Ancient Greeks, Ancient Romans, Ancient Egyptians, and pagans, who were known for wearing clothes and accessories of different genders as an act of devotion towards their gender-changing gods. Dionysus was one such god, and he appeared in many forms, including masculine and feminine. The love story of Iphis and Ianthe appears in both Greek and Roman mythology. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, for example, Iphis is born female but raised as male and transforms into a man when she falls in love with Ianthe. Catullus’ Latin poetry includes references to the Roman Galli cult. Their mythical ancestor is Attis who castrates himself, and Catullus questions whether the castrated Attis is a man, a woman, or something else entirely. Attis’ gender shifts throughout the poem. The Galli people were priests and on initiation to the cult, they castrated themselves in homage to Attis, afterwards exclusively wearing women’s clothing.
Other characters in mythology include Siproites, a hunter from Crete, who is transformed into a woman by Artemis after having seen the goddess bathing nude, and Hermaphroditus, the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, who was depicted as a winged youth with both male and female features, usually female thighs, breasts, and style of hair, and male genitalia.
Ancient Greek comedies involved outrageous costumes and characters, and could contain crude and explicit sexual humour. The Poet and the Women is a 411 BCE Greek comedy by Aristophanes, which features Mnesilochus, who is shaved and dressed in drag so that he can attend a women’s festival. This is one example of many in Ancient Greek theatre where a man dresses as a woman for comedic value. Although not a positive representation of women or of trans culture, it does point to the roots of men in drag on stage for comedic effect.
To summarise, in many ancient civilisations, gender fluidity was not only an accepted part of society, it was also revered and even worshipped. So, what changed?
New beliefs under one god
Along came the three big monotheistic (one god) religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Gone were the old traditions of worshipping and revering many gods, including dressing like the gods. Gone also was gender fluidity, replaced by the notion of binary man-woman union and the idea that this was the only natural way to behave under the one male god. Nothing else was acceptable.
Well, almost nothing. Islamic scripture speaks of a group of men in the Prophet Muhammad's city (Medina) known as the mukhannaths. Commentators have given them different labels including homosexuals, transgender women, intersex individuals, bisexuals, and hermaphrodites. However, the actual identity of the mukhannaths remains unclear and we can't apply any modern labels to them. One thing that does seems clear though is that mukhannaths had no sexual desire for women. This allowed them special access to women's private spaces in Medinan society, where they acted as romantic matchmakers. Far from being condemned, mukhannaths were useful, and valued for their important role in society.
Representation in western culture since the onset of religion
For hundreds of years, mythological stories were one of the only acceptable ways to preserve and present same-sex love and gender fluidity in otherwise intolerant religious societies. In the thirteenth century, we find the story of Yde et Olive, a French medieval version of Iphis and Ianthe. The story of Yde and Olive has endured and dramatised, for example into Miracle de la Fille d'un Roy (The miracle of the daughter of a king).
Places to meet your tribe have always played a key role in social culture, especially if you are part of a minority group. In the eighteenth century, London had a thriving underground queer scene, and the “molly house” was the place where men in particular could meet in secret to socialise. It was common for men at the molly house to wear women's clothing and accessories and to have alternative names. One famous trans molly called Princess Seraphina wore her feminine identity in public, and in 1732 brought a case against a man for stealing her clothes. A neighbour described Princess Seraphina in court: “I have known her Highness a pretty while... I have seen her several times in Women's Cloaths, she commonly us'd to wear a white Gown, and a scarlet Cloak, with her Hair frizzled and curl'd all round her Forehead; and then she would so flutter her Fan, and make such fine Curt'sies, that you would not have known her from a Woman: She takes great Delight in Balls and Masquerades, and always chuses to appear at them in a Female Dress, that she may have the Satisfation of dancing with fine Gentlemen. I never heard that she had any other Name than the Princess Seraphina.”
All roles on stage had to be played by men until 1660, but even after that, dressing and performing as a character of a different gender remained popular. In England, the pantomime dame was an acceptable way to portray gay or trans characters. Dames date back to the 1500s, appearing in so-called dumb shows, although the first pantomime dame that we would recognise was a wicked witch in Harlequin, and the Mother Goose; or The Golden Egg, first performed in 1806. The principal boy role in a pantomime is often played by a young woman in male youth's attire, and dates back to the mid nineteenth century. This tradition grew out of laws restricting the use of child actors in London theatre, and was also a rare opportunity for Victorian and early 20th-century audiences to see the legs of a woman covered only in tights.
The inter-war period in the 1920s and early 30s saw an explosion of cultural offerings that were available to increasingly wider audiences, with the emergence of affordable literature, photography, theatre and cinema. But much of the content in the UK and America was soon highly censored. In the 1920s, American filmmakers introduced The Hays Code, banning “sexual perversion,” and similar strict codes were imposed in the theatre. Queer coding was implemented to get around the sanctions as more overt representation would be disallowed. Similar strict rules were implemented in the UK. Published in 1928, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando escaped being banned, maybe because it’s a mythical story. It spans several centuries, during which we are swept up in Orlando’s exotic world as he transitions from a young man into a young woman. On discovering that she has become a woman, Orlando is delighted to find that it’s still a woman who is the object of her affections. The Hays Code was eventually lifted in 1968. This was nine years after Some Like It Hot, in which Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis famously disguise themselves as women. It is a comedy, and they aren't portraying trans people, but it includes themes of tenderness and love. We are laughing with the characters, not at them.
The development of photography as an art form enabled queer culture to be captured, presented and preserved like never before, and many photos survive from various countries, including America during the prohibition era, and Germany during the Weimar period. Search online and you find a host of entertaining, funny and tender images. For instance, in the 1930s, Claude Cahun became well-known for producing self-portraits assuming a wide variety of gender fluid personas, and American artist “Barbette” became very popular in Paris in the 1920s, especially at the Moulin Rouge. Photos of Barbette show a glamorous performer with beautiful make-up, jewellery and hair, wearing flowing gowns and headpieces.
It's well documented that Weimar Germany was a relatively progressive, inclusive place to be in the 1920s and early 30s, where a thriving and legal trans community existed. Trans people were allowed to change their names (from a pre-approved list) and dress how they pleased if they had a "transvestite certificate." They had venues to go to and a magazine to read. In addition, there was an Institute for Sexual Science which supported and advocated for trans people. However, the rise of Nazi Germany saw the rapid destruction of this environment: the Nazis revoked people's certificates and shut down the magazines, the venues, and the institute, effectively erasing trans people from the narrative.
Even after the lifting of severe censorship, sympathetic portrayal of real trans people, as opposed to mythological or comedic characters, remained pretty much non-existent in popular culture until recent years. The first book about a transgender person undergoing surgery was published in 1946 by Michael Dillon. Entitled, Self: A Study in Endocrinology, it’s an autobiographical account by the first trans man to undergo phalloplasty surgery. It recounted Dillon’s journey from Laura to Michael, including surgeries undertaken by pioneering surgeon Sir Harold Gillies.
By the start of the 1980s, it really felt as if we were experiencing something wonderful, and that all kinds of positive cultural shifts were finally happening. Films depicting trans characters in a more sympathetic light finally began to emerge, as I mentioned at the start of this article. Then along came Thatcher with her Section 28 legislation, banning the promotion of being gay (and reigniting phobia and hatred of anyone who wasn't straight and cisgender), and of course the AIDS crisis fuelled the hatred even further.
American and British television largely shied away from serious depictions of LGBT+ people at this time. It felt like we were going backwards. By the 1990s, things were starting to improve again, with the television series Tales of the City, based on Armistead Maupin's series of books, which had a central gay character and a trans landlady, and with films such as The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, in which Terence Stamp portrays a tired old trans performer who is dragged reluctantly into performing once again by the young and fabulously flamboyant Guy Pearce. Here in the UK, we experienced a series of TV LGBT+ watershed moments, including ITV’s Coronation Street featuring the first trans character in a TV drama in 1998.
What's happening now?
Twenty-first-century culture provides more opportunities and platforms than ever before for people to express themselves and be heard. And there’s some good news about LGBT+ representation. In 2021-2022, American TV had the highest percentage of LGBT+ representation since records began, and various shows such as Ru Paul's Drag Show and Queer Eye have brought trans people and gender fluidity to our screens. Serious portrayals of trans people as rounded human beings who are played by trans actors have finally begun to emerge too, such as Mackenzie in Neighbours in 2019, and Teri in the recent Baby Reindeer.
BUT.....and it is a very big but...
Despite seeing more representation, and having more media outlets than ever before, something very disturbing is going on. We are seeing a whole heap of negative stereotyping and fear-mongering, where increased representation and visibility seems to be fuelling homophobia and transphobia. This reminds me of what was going on in the 1980s. Then, it was mainly gay men who were the targets, This time, it's mainly gender fluidity and trans people.
In America, for instance, Tennessee has recently made it illegal for drag acts to perform in public places. And here in the UK there is a deeply worrying situation. On BBC1’s Question Time in early 2023, a woman in the audience said this to trans panelist India Willoughby: “There are trans and there are predatory trans and that’s a fact. Women have to be safe. Women and children have to be safe (Applause). There’s nothing on their head to say whether they’re predatory or not.... In my opinion they are still men. In my opinion you can’t change sex. That’s my opinion (Applause).” Unfortunately there is a very small minority of trans women who commit criminal acts. Each case has to be looked at separately and it's a very complex and sensitive issue. But instead of an informed debate about this and about how the needs of both trans women and cis women can be met, we got that. Trans people are openly ridiculed in certain press in the UK and the US, and false accusations fuel the hatred even further, such as saying that people identify as cats or as seasons. Right now in the UK, we have new guidelines that deny trans young people any rights in schools, MPs who say that gender identity doubts are just a phase and that girls are girls and boys are boys, the Cass Report on services for young trans people which could lead to cuts in vital support, and an NHS consultation on trans people's care, focussing on where trans people might be allowed in hospitals. All these current guides are supposedly to protect everyone, but it is clear to me that they are there to "protect" anyone who isn't trans, as if all trans people are a threat. And this is happening in an election year, when the anti-trans rhetoric is allover the news and trans people are being used as political pawns in order to garner votes. It is deeply cynical and deeply scary how quickly society can regress if those with the power choose to enable this and encourage it.
All this hatred and negative press has a cost of course. A survey reported in the QueerAF e-newsletter in April found that only one in three LBQ+ women and trans people in the UK feel ‘very safe’ in their own neighbourhood. In public spaces like gyms and leisure centres (a highly contentious topic in the current culture war about trans people), only one in two LBQ+ women and trans people felt ‘very safe’. But the worst rankings for safety were on public transport and in nightclubs, where only one in ten LBQ+ women and trans people in the UK felt ‘very safe'. The Trevor Project have also recently reported that 90% of young LGBT+ people feel that current discriminatory politics have an adverse affect on their lives. That's shameful. Another study shows that trans youth report suicide attempts at rates more than six times higher than cisgender youth. Discrimination just makes it worse; it’s a key risk factor for LGBT+ youth who are depressed, abusing alcohol or drugs, self-harming, or attempting suicide.
Our government was more supportive a few years ago. Trans people were recognised in law under The Gender Recognition Act and the Equality Act. Under the 2004 Act, trans people can obtain a gender recognition certificate, just as trans people did in Weimar Germany a hundred years ago. MPs came out as LGBT+ allies, including Liz Truss. In 2018, the government conducted the biggest LGBT+ survey ever done, and reported findings in 2019. Twenty-four per cent of the 108,000 respondents had accessed mental health services in the preceding year. Those most likely to access services were bisexual people and trans people, including a staggering forty per cent of trans men. That survey seems such a long time ago now as the political tide has turned so dramatically. Our Prime Minister now talks about the concept of binary gender as "making sense," Liz Truss regrets saying that she ever stated she was an LGBT+ ally, and even Kier Starmer, our Labour leader, is now stating that trans women are still men. I feel certain that the laws we have protecting trans people are now under severe threat, as are services and support for trans people.
To know that I live in a country where ill-informed personal bias wins out over intelligent, evidence-based discourse, where discrimination led by our media and our politicians is commonplace, and where trans people are afraid to go out, makes me ashamed to be British.
What’s wrong with women wearing trousers? In modern society, nothing, but a hundred years ago it was considered shocking in Western culture. What’s wrong with men wearing skirts and make-up? In many nations, men wear robes and ceremonial make-up and in Scotland they wear kilts. And what’s wrong with drag? Drag is fun, flashy, and fluffy; it’s glorious, gorgeous, and gregarious. And it doesn't turn kids trans, just like same sex story books don't turn kids gay.
Many cultures not associated with monotheistic religion have continued to accept and embrace gender fluidity. In each of these cultures, non-binary and gender fluid people have a particular role in society, for example as a nurturing figure in the family. Here are some examples from around the world:
Fa'afafine people in Samoa
The Bugis people in Indonesia, who recognise Calalai, Calabai and Bissu (three genders beyond the binary)
Muxes people in Mexico
Two spirit people in North America
Bakla people in the Philippines
Sekrata people in Madagascar
Kathoey people in Thailand, sometimes labelled ladyboys
Hijra people in Bangladesh/Hindu culture
Our government refuses to accept that gender is anything except binary. You are either male or female. It's very sad that here and in many other nations, the view that gender is binary and fixed continues to dominate, despite scientific evidence to the contrary and the lived experience of many individual people who are non-binary and trans. One large study recently found that over thirty-five per cent of men and women identified to some extent as either the other gender, or as being both male and female, or as neither male nor female. Scientific research into intersex is indicating that up to 2% of people may be born intersex (although it's currently impossible to be sure). And in addition to emerging scientific evidence and people's lived experience, history confirms categorically that being trans is nothing new.
I have had just a taste of what hate speech feels like as I have been marketing my book about LGBT+ culture and history. On social media, I’ve been accused by strangers of promoting child-grooming and of sinning. I’ve been told I am evil and that I am encouraging men to pretend to be women in order to spy on little girls in toilets. I’ve been told to fuck off, that I am a rapist, and that I am full of shit. It’s been an education.
Being trans does not automatically mean you are a pervert, sick, someone to be ridiculed and bullied, or someone who is trying to convert everyone. When have you ever seen a trans person trying to convert anyone to being trans? And yet, many in society try to convert LGBT+ people to being straight. The irony! The overwhelming majority of trans people just want to live their lives in peace. Some brave souls put themselves in the public eye to try and raise awareness, knowing they will be trolled, while many others just want a quiet life, my son and his boyfriend included.
I hope Trans History Week is a resounding success and helps to raise awareness that trans people have always existed, that they are going to continue to exist, and that they have every right to exist. I stand with trans.
Parts of this article are based on chapters from my award-winning book.
Bent Is Not Broken. Buy the eBook (various platforms) or get the paperback on Amazon via:
***Queer Indie Awards 2023 Winner:
Best Non-Fiction***
To read more blogs about about LGBT+ culture and history, and to find out more about the author, head to www.bentisnotbroken.com
Image credits:
Trans flag image courtesy of Vecteezy.com
Image of trans women in Weimar Germay sourced from Weimar Republic 101: The 'New Woman' in Post-War Germany (byarcadia.org)
Photo of man in robes and make-up by Jamal Yahyayev: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-man-wearing-traditional-wear-3007321/
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