Yes, Trans People Existed in the Middle Ages
Lately, there has been some controversy over the re-interpretation of a 1,000-year-old grave, which had initially been discovered in 1968. The grave is located in Suontaka, Finland and its occupant had originally been identified as female, based on expensive jewellery and a feminine dress. Curiously, the supposedly female warrior was buried with a sword that had evidently not been used in battle. Recently, researchers re-examined the body and its associated artefacts and came to an unexpected conclusion: The buried person may have been non-binary.
This conclusion was met by some backlash online, ranging from strong claims about clothes and gender in 11th-century Norway (of which many people are apparently experts) to a spectacular claim which, if true, would undermine the findings entirely: Transgender people didn’t exist in the middle ages.
This claim derives from the notion that because “binary gender roles” and “transgenderism” were not actively recognised until the 20th century, it would be impossible for someone to have identified as transgender. But that’s not how being transgender works. It goes without saying that the experiences and self-identification of a 21st-century trans person would differ from someone living hundreds (or thousands) of years ago, but in order to qualify as ‘transgender’, a person simply needs to recognise the sort of behaviour their assigned gender is supposed to entail and think, “that’s not who I am, or want to be.”
