There Have Always Been Trans People

Summary

The video argues that transgender people are not a recent phenomenon. People whose lives or identities did not fit the gender assigned to them have appeared throughout recorded history, though the meanings of gender and identity have varied across cultures and eras. This history includes community, visibility, and resistance, as well as discrimination and violence.

How the video frames gender and history

• Sex and gender are not the same thing. The narrator describes biological sex as involving chromosomes, hormones, reproductive organs, and other traits. These traits vary, so sex is not always a simple, strictly binary category.
• Gender consists of social norms and expectations associated with sex, including clothing, behavior, appearance, and social roles. Those norms change over time.
• Historical identities cannot always be mapped neatly onto modern labels. Some people discussed in the video may fit a contemporary understanding of transgender identity; others may have belonged to distinct cultural gender categories or had identities that are difficult to determine from surviving evidence.
• The video says it uses they/them pronouns when a historical person’s gender is uncertain, while warning that some original historical accounts may misgender them.

Examples across history

• Prehistoric evidence: The video discusses Mediterranean figurines depicting figures with mixed or absent sex characteristics, as well as a roughly 5,000-year-old burial in what is now the Czech Republic. Archaeologists identified the person as male, but the burial included clothing typically associated with women. These finds may indicate transgender people, third-gender roles, or other cultural meanings; the evidence is not conclusive.
• Ancient Greece and Rome: Greek writers Hippocrates and Herodotus described the Enarei, Scythian priests and healers who performed roles associated with women. Roman-era accounts by writers including Philo and Marcus Manilius describe people who presented as women and, in some cases, altered their bodies. The video also considers Nero’s spouse Sporus and Emperor Elagabalus as possible examples of historical trans women, while noting uncertainty about how to interpret them.
• Religious life and medieval examples: The Byzantine courtier Anastasia is described as leaving life at court and living as a hermit in men’s clothing. The video notes that people who lived as men in religious settings were sometimes later honored as saints. It also discusses Kalonymus ben Kalonymus’s poem expressing a longing to have been born a woman, and the account of Rolandino Roncaglia, who lived and worked in feminine dress.
• Gender diversity in the Americas and Europe: The video mentions a European account of Indigenous people who took on roles and clothing associated with women, while acknowledging the limitations of colonial descriptions. It discusses Thomas(ine) Hall, whom a Virginia court ordered to wear a combination of men’s and women’s clothing; the Public Universal Friend, who rejected classification as male or female; the Chevalier d’Éon, whose gender was disputed; and Jens Andersson, who said they believed they belonged to both sexes.
• Frances Thompson and the Hijra: Frances Thompson, a formerly enslaved Black trans woman, testified about sexual assault during the Memphis massacre of 1866. The video describes how authorities later used her arrest for cross-dressing to discredit her testimony. It also discusses the Hijra, a South Asian community with a long history and distinct customs, whose members were criminalized and surveilled under British colonial rule.
• Early organizing: The video identifies the Cercle Hermaphroditos, reportedly founded in the United States in 1895, as a possible early transgender organization. It cautions that evidence for the group is limited and its historical status remains uncertain.

The modern period: research, transition, and activism

• Early 20th-century developments: Karl M. Baer is presented as an early trans man who underwent gender-affirming surgery and received legal recognition. The video highlights sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, who distinguished gender identity from sexual orientation, studied gender diversity, advocated for LGBTQ people, and ran Berlin’s Institute of Sexual Science. The institute’s work and records were destroyed after the Nazis came to power, and Hirschfeld went into exile.
• Early gender-affirming care: The video mentions Dora Richter’s surgery, Michael Dillon’s surgery in Britain, and Lili Elbe’s unsuccessful procedures. Early interventions were experimental and could carry serious risks. The video also describes Christine Jorgensen’s widely publicized transition in the 1950s as bringing trans experiences into wider public view.
• Resistance and the LGBTQ movement: The video traces early uprisings against police harassment, including the Cooper Donuts riot in Los Angeles and an uprising in San Francisco involving drag queens and trans women. It then discusses the 1969 Stonewall uprising and the role of trans activists, including Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. In 1970, Johnson and Rivera helped found STAR, an organization advocating for transgender and gender-nonconforming people, especially those experiencing homelessness.
• Legal and social milestones: Examples include Sweden’s 1972 legal recognition and provision of hormone therapy, Minneapolis’s 1975 trans-inclusive civil-rights protections, and later advances in public representation and advocacy. The video also describes the founding of FTM International by Lou Sullivan and the introduction of a diagnosis for children in the DSM-III, which it says contributed to harmful treatment of some trans people.
• Recognition and remembrance: Milestones include Althea Garrison’s election to the Massachusetts legislature, Minnesota’s gender-identity anti-discrimination protections, and the first Transgender Day of Remembrance in 1999, established after the murder of Rita Hester.
• The 21st century: The video covers the first flight of the transgender Pride flag at a Phoenix parade, the creation of Transgender Day of Visibility, increased public representation, and workplace-rights cases. It also notes the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, the repeal of the U.S. military ban on transgender service members, and Elliot Page’s public coming-out.
• Backlash and continuing struggles: The video describes recent political attacks on trans people, including restrictions affecting military service, health care, and homeless shelters, as well as anti-trans rhetoric and legislation. It argues that legal and social progress remains vulnerable to reversal.

Central message

The video presents transgender people as a longstanding part of human history, not a trend or ideology. Its closing message is directed especially to young trans people: they are not alone, their lives and voices matter, and they are part of a deep human story. The narrator urges viewers to recognize trans history and continue supporting transgender people’s dignity, rights, and access to care.

Speakers and sources featured

• Tristan — host and principal narrator.
• Mia Mulder — guest voice, notably in the section on Magnus Hirschfeld and the Institute of Sexual Science.
• Other guest voices identified in the video’s credits or metadata: Jessie Gender and AdequateEmily. The supplied subtitles do not clearly distinguish their individual contributions.

Historical sources cited or discussed

Hippocrates, Herodotus, Philo of Alexandria, Marcus Manilius, Tacitus, Cassius Dio, Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, and Jennie June.

Other works referenced

Kalonymus ben Kalonymus’s poem Even Bohan; the film Glen or Glenda; a SciShow explanation of sex characteristics; and the narrator’s earlier video on the gender binary.