Thereβs actually a lot online that you can find out about on the Androgyne, as a concept of myth and Androgyneβs as an identity especially since as a myth it has connections to religion and mysticism, one of these links, (the one from art forum) is actually dated all the way back in 1975! and of course, the drawings sculptures and pottery of the androgyne would have to span back at least a couple hundred or thousand years! (I donβt think I can comment much else on this since Iβm not a historian and Iβm putting this here myself for my own learning)
A quick(ish) history lesson about transgender terminology in English
I'm deeply passionate about the words of the past and promoting trans history literacy, so I've been itching for so long to write this- a whole timeline of major trans terminology from the 1900s to the present! If that's something that might interest you, read on.
Whenever I say "trans people" in this, please imagine I said "people who most modern people would identify as being transgender." The people at the time, obviously, did not know that word or use it.
Disclaimer: some of these words are offensive when used by a cisgender person. I will not discuss agreed upon slurs or words that are offensive to other minority groups such as Native Americans.
Pre-1910
Lack of recognition and illegality of dressing in opposite-sex clothing led to fragmented communities and few cohesive terms. Most words used by both the in group and out group were derived from words for gay people, as the two weren't distinguished at the time.
Medical/scientific researchers would typically use the word "invert," a reference to sexual inversion theory. They might distinguish trans people as "true inverts." Some may also have used the word "uranian" or "urning," derived from the German field of research into sexuality (more on that later).
In the community itself, "androgyne" or "bisexual" were used to describe having both male and female aspects (not to be conflated with non binary identity), while "female impersonator" might refer to a man who does drag or a person who lives full time as a woman. Other terms for effeminate gay men were used for trans people, including "fairie" and "queen."
1910-1922
In English, most still used the previous vocabulary. However, in 1910 in Germany, sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld coined the term "transvestit." Contrary to our current understanding, the word was meant to describe trans people- Hirschfeld believed that clothes were a reflection of people's deeper contra-sexual feelings, and gave his patients certificates diagnosing them as transvestites to exempt them from cross-dressing laws.
The term was slow to catch on in English, however, and was introduced as "transvestite" around 1922.
1923-1948
In English, the term transvestite caught on during this period and became the dominant word used by both researchers and the community. Older words still existed, and words relating to sexuality were also used.
In Germany, Magnus Hirschfeld was not satisfied with this term, as he believed it wrongly focused on outward signifiers of gender rather than internal cross-sex identity. In 1923 he coined the word "transsexualismus" to replace it. This word did not catch on in English until much later.
1949-1964
Sexologist David Oliver Cauldwell translated the word transsexualismus into English as "transsexual" and "transsexualism," in our modern definitions. The word became increasingly common by people in the know in this time period.
However, it's important to note that popular culture is rarely up to date with terms used by trans people and sex researchers. Perusing news articles about famous trans women from the 1950s, none of them ever use the terms "transsexual" or "transvestite," implying that such words weren't familiar to the general public at the time.
1965-1969
The period right before Stonewall is notable for the introduction of early forms of the word "transgender." "Transgenderism" was coined by psychiatrist John F. Oliven in 1965, and "transgenderal" or "transgenderist" by trans activist Virginia Price in 1969. In my opinion, this was just simultaneous invention. I see no reason to think that Virginia Price had read Oliven's work, and Price's use of the word was almost certainly more impactful overall.
Despite both being essentially the same word, they had two very different intentions in using the word "gender."
Oliven's transgenderism was based on a distinction between sexuality and gender identity. He wished to uncouple the idea that a transsexual person identifies that way due to their sexuality. Instead, he believed it was an innate and separate psychological phenomenon.
Price's transgenderist was imagined as a person who changed their gender identity, but had no desire to change their sex through medical intervention. This doesn't match our modern definition, but it's still extremely important, because it demonstrates that a distinction between sex and gender was being made in the trans community even before Stonewall.
At this point, cutting edge terminology was finally separating gender and sexuality. Both Oliven and Price were opening up the discussion about gay (or at the time considered "heterosexual) trans people.
1970-1989
There honestly doesn't seem to be any landmark changes in terminology during this time period, unless I'm missing something. Primarily, it's shifts in public understanding. The word transvestite slowly becomes less popular, especially among trans people, around the 1980s, although it is still widely used. Transsexual starts out as a distinguisher of a person who has undergone sex reassignment surgery, but transitions into a more common term used by most trans people. Transgender is rarely used.
The 80s also marks the early adoption of neopronouns in online spaces. So called "spivak pronouns" (e/em), after Michael Spivak, became used in early online communities such as chatrooms and MUDs to describe people without gendered terms.
1990s
In 1990, two significant new coinings happened.
First, activist Riki Wilchins coined the term "genderqueer" to describe anyone whose gender or gender expression is queer/falls outside of expected societal norms. This term became popular in queer zines, and exploded in popularity into the early 2000s.
Second, Elder Myra Laramee coined the term "two spirit" to refer to Native American people who fulfill a "third-gender" (this is an antrhopological term for a non binary gender, not literal) role in their traditional communities. It was intended to make a distinction between Native and colonial concepts of gender, though different cultures have vastly different genders and gender roles that all have their own terminology.
In trans culture, something else was happening. Many trans people who did not or could not have surgeries, or who didn't align with the binary, percieved terms like transsexual as discriminatory or elitist. The implication that a person needed to have surgery to be a "true transsexual" and not a "transvestite" was leading to a rejection of earlier terminology. Instead, a new movement rallied under the word "transgender" as being an umbrella for all trans people, including genderqueers and people who didn't need surgery.
When you see quotes from the late 80s or 90s of famous trans people saying they're not transgender, this new movement towards inclusivity and a new framework is generally what they're referring to. They identified as transsexual or transvestites, not as cisgender.
Oh, and the word "cisgender" was coined in 1994, with "neutrois" being coined in 1995.
2000s
The main change in terminology in this time period is the shift from genderqueer to non binary. By the 2010s, they were about equally used, with non binary quickly surpassing genderqueer. However, no matter how hard I look, I can't seem to find any date or name associated with the word non binary. Similarly to agender, which also rose in the 2000s, it seems to be simply a quirk of language in activism spaces. Discussion of "people outside of the binary" turned into "non binary people," and the rest is history.
By this point, the word transvestite was rarely in use and generally considered old fashioned.
2010s
This is where shit seriously hits the fan, so we're going to skip over specifics and talk about the general trends.
The word "MOGAI" was first used in 2014, the same year that the word "xenogender" was coined by tumblr user Baaphomett. Although this suggests that the "MOGAI movement" started in the mid 2010s, I would argue it started around the beginning of the decade. By MOGAI movement, I mean the popularization of genderfuckery and microlabels among internet folks, responsible for most of the holy-shit-too-many-words phenomena preventing me from going in depth.
Around the latter half of the decade, the rise of transmedicalism and the use of transsexual among them and by other conservative trans people led to its already waning usage to turn into outright disdain. Although few would describe it as a slur by the end of the 2010s, most outside of those groups would not use it to describe themselves and would bristle at its usage.
In conclusion
Phew! That was way too long and nobody is ever going to read it, but I've finally fulfilled my constant desire to write an overview of the history trans language. Hell yeah.
If you did reach the end by some miracle, I hope this was enlightening.
Much of this was compiled from my previous knowledge with dates and names sprinkled in from google searches, so I don't have many specific sources to link, but if you need any for anything I mentioned here don't hesitate to ask.
for anyone who wants to claim that jim's story was unrealistic, that nonbinary people didn't exist in the 1700s, i'd love to introduce them to one of my favourite queer icons:
the public universal friend
so the puf was born in 1752 in cumberland, rhode island. their parents were quakers, and they grew up surrounded by religon. they were quite smart, athletic, good with horses, and could quote the scripture from memory.
in 1776, at the age of 24, they fell ill and became bedridden. they nearly died but made a miraculous recovery, and insisted that their soul was taken to heaven where god sent down a new spirit, tasked with preaching his word. this spirit was named the "publick universal friend" and was entierly genderless, rejecting the women's clothes worn by their body before and refusing to respond to their old name or any gendered pronouns. they dressed androgynously or leaned to masculine styles.
many people found this strange, but for the most part, the friend was respected in terms of their prefrence. when asked if they were male or female, they would simply respond "i am that i am". in text, people would either avoid using pronouns at all with the friend or simply use "he".
they began to travel just as they had been assigned, preaching the word of god and gathering followers as they did. they did not bring a bible with them, but preached from memory, just as they did as a child. they grew a group of followers known as the "universal friends" as they traveled, which makes them the first american to found a religous community.
they beleived that anyone with free will, regardless of gender, could gain access to god's light, and they preached celibacy, though in the end they expressed the right of their followers to choose whether or not to marry or obstain from sex. they valued peace and humility to everyone, and in this they condemned slavery, urging those who followed them to free their slaves. many followers were also black.
they said that women should "obey god rather than men", and there were four dozen women amongst the universal friends known as the faithful sisterhood who remained unmarried and took on leadership roles usually reserved for men.
in 1785, the friend met sarah richards and her husband. her husband died shortly after and sarah began to live with the friend, dressing in a similar androgynous fasion and dubbing herself "sarah friend". sarah friend continued to live with the puf for the rest of her life, eventually dying and leaving her daughter in the friend's care.
at 2:25 on july 1st, 1819, at the age of 67, the friend died after a long period of illness. it's often debated on whether or not the friend would have identified as nonbinary or even trans in any fasion, but their legacy remained one of peace, tollerance, oportunity, and equality regardless of sex or race.
our flag means death takes place in 1717, and though it's before the birth of the puf, there's no doubt that gender non-conformity (or gender fuckery, if you will) has existed in some fasion for a very, very long time. i don't find the way people treat jim unrealistic for the time period at all. people love to nit-pick when it comes to history that they know nothing about.
this is only a fraction of the friend's story, so if you're interested i highly reccomend looking into it further. they were a very interesting person, and trans history is undertaught yet so, so important to know.
EVERYONE!! GO CHECK OUT THIS NEW BOOK ON THE VARIOUS GENDERS FOUND IN TALMUD!!
Trans Talmud places eunuchs and androgynes at the center of rabbinic literature and asks what we can learn from them about Judaism and the project of transgender history. Rather than treating these figures as anomalies to be justified or explained away, Max K. Strassfeld argues that they profoundly shaped ideas about law, as the rabbis constructed intricate taxonomies of gender across dozens of texts to understand an array of cultural tensions.
Showing how rabbis employed eunuchs and androgynes to define proper forms of masculinity, Strassfeld emphasizes the unique potential of these figures to not only establish the boundary of law but exceed and transform it. Trans Talmud challenges how we understand gender in Judaism and demonstrates that acknowledging nonbinary gender prompts a reassessment of Jewish literature and law.
Trans Talmud places eunuchs and androgynes at the center of rabbinic literature and asks what we can learn from them about Judaism and the p
During yet another quick research dip into Wikipedia, I stumbled across Macaroni fashion in the 1700s.
As in "Stuck a feather in his hat / and called it Macaroni"
I was aware before now that Macaroni referred to the Macaroni Club-- though I had been told that it was an actual fashionable club in Italy, whereas Wikipedia claims that it's a ribbing term for men who took a Grand Tour in Europe and became Worldly and Cosmopolitan as a consequence-- a club that's entered by doing a thing, rather than a specific group of people who know each other (the way we use the Mile High Club in the modern day). The name itself references the fact that people who'd spent time in Italy would come back with a taste for pasta.
Macaroni gentlemen were fashionable. Very fashionable. Kinda extremely so. Which leads us to caricatures like these of such people:
But what really struck me was a contemporary description of members of the Macaroni Club:
"There is indeed a kind of animal, neither male nor female, a thing of the neuter gender, lately started up among us. It is called a macaroni. It talks without meaning, it smiles without pleasantry, it eats without appetite, it rides without exercise, it wenches without passion." -- The Oxford Magazine, 1770
Now take the above caricature and compare it to this one:
Because when you look at the Fashionable Gentleman in this (yes, racially insensitive) cartoon, he's got big hair, sure, but nowhere near as big of hair as either of the Macaronis were portrayed as having. And for all his fashion sense, he's missing the Macaroni ruffles. His lady friend, however, is not.
Another quote from the Wikipedia page:
Design historian Peter McNeil links macaroni fashion to the crossdressing of the earlier molly subculture, and says "some macaronis may have utilized aspects of high fashion in order to affect new class identities, but others may have asserted what we would now label a queer identity".
And the thing that really gets me is that not too long ago, I noticed another bit of queer history from this rough time period, specifically the Italian cisibeo-- often an openly gay man who'd act as a woman's companion at social events in place of her husband.
And I wonder how many young people went on their Grand Tour, stopped in Italy to see all these openly gay people in parties, and came back having learned a thing or two about themselves. And meanwhile the folks back home are all going "seriously, what's going on in Italy that's making all our boys turn androgynous? Is it the pasta? Must be the pasta."
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