J. Patrick Pote
Aug 26, 2017 · 1 min read

I think anyone interested in both human sexuality and history, such as myself, would find this a fascinating read. Thank you for sharing it.

However, I don’t think it does anything to prove that gender is fluid. The only thing it ‘proves’ is something that any reasonable person can easily infer for themselves: just as a tiny portion of humans today are trans, a tiny portion of humans throughout history were probably also trans. In fact, the article itself mentions that “many trans men, by passing as straight men, had quietly taken their place within it. Before Kerwineo’s “true” identity was made public, he was able to live as a classic American male: straight, married, employed, respected.” My own experience with trans people is admittedly limited, but this fits more with those trans people I have known, all of whom did not want to be seen as trans, just as a man or a woman.

As has been pointed out many times, the idea that gender is fluid, a social construct, is paradoxical with the idea that you can born with a brain/body mismatch. You can’t be both ‘born that way’ and have the ‘fluidity’ of being able to choose.

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