Hey Stella!

Sorry I couldn’t help it! When I read “...a carved commemoratory stone called a stela…” the first thing that popped into my head was the scene from “A Streetcar Call Desire.”

A friends sent this article…

3,000-Year-Old Carving Challenges Bronze-Age Perceptions of Gender
The newly unearthed funerary stone suggests that ancient societies may not have adhered to strict gender binaries.
Hypoallergenic
By Elaine Velie
November 28, 2023

A recently discovered Bronze Age funerary monument in Spain is shedding light on prehistoric notions of gender. The object — a carved commemoratory stone called a stela — depicts a figure with male genitalia wearing a headdress and necklace accompanied by two swords. Previous scholarship assumed that headdresses and necklaces signified female identity and swords noted male identity, but the presence of both adornments in the roughly 3,000-year-old carving suggests that Bronze Age societies may not have adhered to strict gender binaries.

You know how the conservatives keep harping that transgender, and non-binary is something new under the sun… well this poke holes in that big enough to drive a truck though.

“Las Capellanías is demonstrating that many of our assumptions were wrong,” Díaz-Guardamino told Spanish news outlet El País. “These investigations mark a before and after in the scientific interpretation of these beautiful prehistoric sculptures.” She added that the recent discovery “questions previous interpretations concerning the gender of the figures represented.”

In Iberia, stelae are thought to have communicated legends. According to the researchers, the stela’s mixture of male and female attributes could suggest that those myths conveyed fluid notions of gender in their portrayal of heroes and heroines.

We don’t have to look far to see examples of trans people in North America…

Why Two Spirit People Are Important To The Navajo Culture
Indian Country Extension
By Mika
October 12, 2022

Navajo two spirit refers to a male-bodied person who identifies as having a feminine essence, or a female-bodied person who identifies as having a masculine essence. This is different from most western understandings of gender, which are based on a binary system of male and female. For the Navajo, gender exists on a continuum, and two spirit people are seen as occupying a middle ground between the genders. Two spirit people are often considered to be healers and mediators, and they play an important role in Navajo ceremonies and rituals. They are also sometimes seen as having the power to change their gender, or to transform into animals. The term “two spirit” is relatively new, and has only been in use since the 1990s. It was coined by Native American activists to help create a space for people who don’t fit into the western gender binary. Two spirit people have a long and rich history in many indigenous cultures, and are only now beginning to be recognized and understood in the west.

An umbrella term that refers to the United States and Canadian First Nations communities that are both native American and indigenous. When a person identifies as Two Spirit, he or she is distinct from the others. Many people identify by the term in order to gain a better understanding of a historically significant event that is largely unknown. Two Spirit, as a term, refers to the gender roles that existed prior to the emergence of Western non-native society. Individuals who identify as two spirits may be referred to as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or pansexual. Between 1879 and 1890, thousands of Two Spirited people were expelled from their tribes by the U.S. government. Two Spirit people were the first to be recognized as transgendered and have defined sexuality in non-native cultures ever since.

Mister right-wing conservative… we have been around since day one. It just that your Christian religion wiped us out. By not letting native people learn their own religion you have destroyed their heritage and culture.

• In Mexico we are known as the “Muxhe are Zapotec.”
• In India we are known as the “Hijras.”
• In Samoan we are known as the “Fa'afafine.”
• In Indonesia we are known as the “Calabai” and the “Bissu”
• In Africa we are known as the "Moyo" and the "Isithandla" by the Zulu.
• In Africa we are also known as the Mbokolo by the Nguni people, the Ndi by the Herero people, and the Muxe  by the Zapotec people.
  

These are just a few examples of the many trans people who exist around the world. I suppose that the Republican will blame that the internet made them trans.

It was when the missionaries came holding up the Cross in one hand, and the Bible in the other and killing the infidels. It was the Christians who killed the pagan and destroying their cultures… Believe what I believe or I’ll kill you! Even today we see people being killed because they don’t worship the “right religion.”

Once again the Christian right-wing wants to eradicate us. They have been trying to do that ever since the missionaries set foot on foreign soil.

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While I was researching this article I came across this,

For America's 1st Indigenous transgender lawmaker, Pride is 'a statement of survival'
Kansas state Rep. Stephanie Byers on politics, transgender youths and the significance of LGBTQ Pride Month.
NBC Out News
By Julianne McShane
June 1, 2023

When state Rep. Stephanie Byers, a former high school music and band teacher, decided to run for office to represent Kansas' 86th District as a Democrat in the Republican-majority state House, she didn't know what to expect. The district, which includes much of Wichita, was nearly evenly divided among Democratic, Republican and independent voters, said Byers, who also happens to be transgender.

After her win in November, she's now Kansas' first transgender elected official and the country's first trans Native American elected official. (Byers is a descendant of the Chickasaw Nation.)

"When you add in the uniqueness of myself as a candidate, being a trans woman, nobody really knew how this district was going to play out," said Byers, 58. "There was uncertainty the whole time."

So when she found out that she had fended off her Republican opponent by 11 points, she was elated, she said. Her win, she said, was "indicative of where the people of Kansas are."

"We're more of a purple state than people realize — we're just a purple state that always seems to go red," she said. "It really is that the people are more accepting than the politics are."

I didn’t know, did you know that there was a trans elected official who is Native American?