this is not an original observation by any means, but it’s infuriating to see people casually throw around the argument that pre-colonial societies all had these expansive and accepting gender norms, and their evidence for this is from anthropologists who “discover” trans women existed throughout history and proclaim look! this culture has an ambiguous third gender of cross-dressing [slur that hasn’t been used in fifty years]. it’s so beautiful how primitive—uh, I mean pre-colonial societies had so many mysterious and diverse genders














