girlsmoonsandstars:

heringstuff:

s-v-r-d:

Anyways I’m literally a historian of the American 19th century and current trans rhetoric is TEXTBOOK 19th century gender inversion theory…..which referred to homosexuals specifically. In the 19th century, people believe that homosexuals were born with the opposite sex’s brain, which is why they were gnc and homosexual. I believe Oscar Wilde referred to himself as an « invert » referring to this theory specifically. So literally, homophobes thought a lesbian was a man in a woman’s body and a gay man was a woman in a man’s body. They used this to justify horrific conversion therapies and to institutionalize lesbians specifically. Way to take your theory from a historical moment where people thought it was dope to electrocute gay people.

Yep, that’s how people, including gay people themselves, often understood homosexuality. But trans activists today quote the language from that era and use it as proof that gay people at that time were actually trans even though when people of that era talked about having the brains/souls of the opposite sex they didn’t necessarily mean it in the same, very literal, way that people mean it today. It’s frustrating when they take language from the past and assume it means the same thing it does today.

I don’t remember it off the top of my head but there’s a word for it