9781422275245

Transgender Throughout History There are records of people who did not fit into the two basic assigned genders, as far back as ancient Egypt. Egyptian stories are full of individuals who were often seen in both male and female roles, and many statues portray both sides of one individual. Uganda, in Africa, is another place where history shows the prevalence of men who lived as women. These men were often revered as holy men, and the rest of the villagers looked to them for spiritual advice and healing. Many Native American tribes also acknowledged transgender individuals. This was not the case in all tribes, but records of this have been found dating back to 1711, when the first Europeans arrived in North America and observed the Iroquois nation. Of the tribes that recognize transgender individuals for what they are, the term “two-spirit” has become commonplace. This indicates an individual who contains traits of both the male and female gender or who was assigned one gender at birth and lives life as the opposite gender. The rest of the world also shows a history of transgender individuals. This includes Asia and both ancient Greece and ancient Rome. In the United States, many women took on male identities during the Civil War so they could join the solders in the fight. A majority of these women continued living as men after the war ended. One of the first accounts of life of a transgender individual was written in the early 1900s. This was The Autobiography of an Androgyne (1918) by Jennie June (born in 1874 as Earl Lind). The next most notable individual was American jazz musician and bandleader Billy Tipton. He was born in 1914 as Dorothy Lucille Tipton and lived as a man from the 1940s until his death. Then in 1952, Christine Jorgenson became the first person to be recognized as having undergone gender affirmation surgery. In 1966, there were what were called the Compton’s Cafeteria Riots in San Francisco, and in 1969, there were the Stonewall Riots in New York. These protests were brought about by homosexual and

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Gender Fulfilled • Being Transgender

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