Hello

this tweet is absolutely taking me out

in aotearoa, june isn’t our pride, it’s theirs. marsha p johnson and sylvia rivera are their historical figures, not ours. the phrase that “you owe your rights to Black trans women” is true there, but here we owe our rights to (mostly) Māori historical figures. i have the freedoms i do because of the legacy of an entirely different set of people operating in an entirely different context at entirely different times.

But because of american cultural imperialism, most queer people in Aotearoa don’t even know our own queer history. Carmen Rupe, Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, the Dorian Society, Gillian Laundon, Georgina Beyer, and the Wolfenden Association are some of our queer history. We should know their names! we should know what they did for us! but because of the power of the american imperial machine, we don’t.

our national pride month should be july, the month that the Homosexual Law Reform Act passed in 1986. our two largest cities hold their pride festivals in february and march, respectively. american queer history has very little (or nothing, depending on who you ask) to do with our queer history. anecdotally, from my own queries, queer youth in aotearoa know more about american queer history than our own.

If anyone sees this garbage take around please feel free to share this Twitter thread.

“In 1000 years when archaeologists dig up your skeleton, they’ll know what sex you REALLY were!”

Bullshit.

#archaeology 🧵 (1/7)

Most burials will never be excavated by archaeologists. In the U.S., the policy is to leave burials alone, unless they are in imminent danger of destruction. (2/7)

The majority of burials that are excavated by archaeologists contain only partial remains, due to soil conditions or previous disturbance. In most such cases, no sex determination is possible (3/7)

Human remains are sexed on a scale, not a binary: male, probably male, indeterminate, probably female, female. A significant percentage of adult human skeletons have mixed or indeterminate traits. (4/7)

Sex is not gender, and archaeology is getting better about recognizing the colonial origins of the rigid sex binary. Many cultures historically have recognized more than 2 sexes or genders. (5/7)

In most cases, archaeologists are more concerned with the presence or absence of human remains than in determining sex characteristics. This is your preoccupation, not ours. (6/7)

In conclusion, your premise is based on a severely limited understanding of what archaeologists do. Stop trying to co-opt us into your transphobic, anti-science nonsense. (7/7)

Biology isn’t binary and nature couldn’t care less about the unnaturally rigid boxes people decided to obsess over. That diagram isn’t a scale of femininity or whatever, it’s a scale of function. A pelvis that might have to let a baby through it develops to be wider and flatter. One that won’t have to let a baby through will develop to be narrower and tighter. That’s it.

Is it common to get a lot of individuals with some features scored 1 and others 5? No (though it does happen!). Is it common to have individuals with scores of 1-3/1-4/3-5etc? Yes. Very. All the time, to the extent that I always notice and think ‘wow’ when I find I’ve given an individual straight 1s or straight 5s.

Give your friend a neolithic burial

and exomis:

Since we are here might as well share the dhoti and the lungi

https://www.wikihow.com/Wear-a-Lungi

https://www.wikihow.com/Wear-a-Pancha-Kachcham?amp=1

It’s only men in the photos but really anyone can wear them. I am wearing a lungi right now.

The world of period dramas.