History of nonbinary gender: Difference between revisions

    From Nonbinary Wiki
    imported>Sekhet
    (→‎Twentieth century: Adding Claude Cahun's activism in WWII.)
    imported>Sekhet
    (→‎Nineteenth century: Creating subheadings for decades.)
    Line 46: Line 46:
    ==Nineteenth century==
    ==Nineteenth century==


    * The earliest known true [[transsexual]] genital conversion [[surgery]] of any kind was performed in 1882 on a [[Binary genders#Transgender men|trans man]] named Herman Karl.<ref>James Sears, ''Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Issues in Education.'' p. 109. [http://books.google.com/books?id=w7365W7rQKQC&amp;lpg=PA109&amp;ots=gSa98lwR0v&amp;dq=sophia%20hedwig%20transgender%20herman%20karl&amp;pg=PA109#v=onepage&amp;q=sophia%20hedwig%20transgender%20herman%20karl&amp;f=false Google Books link]</ref> However, "earliest transsexual genital conversion surgery" depends on one's definition. [[Eunuch]]s have been around for all of human history, and while many eunuchs consider themselves [[Binary genders#Cisgender men|cisgender men]], many others consider themselves another gender that isn't female or male, such as [[hijra]]. Some sources credit the first trans male genital conversion surgery as, instead, the one performed on a trans man named Michael Dillon in the 1930s, perhaps depending on how one defines that surgery.
    [[File:We-Wa, a Zuni berdache, weaving - NARA - 523796.jpg|thumb|We'Wha, a Zuni Two-Spirit (''Lhamana'') person who lived 1849-1896.]]
    * [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We%27wha We'wha] (1849–1896) was a Zuni Native American from New Mexico, and the most famous ''lhamana'' on record. In traditional Zuni culture, the ''lhamana'' take on roles and duties associated with both men and women, and they wear a mixture of women's and men's clothing. They work as mediators. As a notable fiber artist, weaver, and potter, We'wha was a prominent cultural ambassador for Native Americans in general, and the Zuni in particular. In 1886, We'wha was part of the Zuni delegation to Washington D.C.. They were hosted by anthropologist Matilda Coxe Stevenson and, during that visit, We'wha met President Grover Cleveland. Friends and relatives alternated masculine and feminine pronouns for We'Wha. We'wha was described as being highly intelligent, having a strong character, and always being kind to children.<ref name=Stevenson37>Matilda Coxe Stevenson, The Zuni Indians: Their Mythology, Esoteric Fraternities, and Ceremonies, (BiblioBazaar, 2010) p. 37</ref><ref name=Bost139>Suzanne Bost, Mulattas and Mestizas: Representing Mixed Identities in the Americas, 1850-2000, (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2003, pg.139</ref>
     
    {{Clear}}
     
    === 1870s ===
     
    [[File:Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (from Kennedy).jpg|thumb|150px|Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895), who described "a neutral sex" that was not physically intersex.]]
    [[File:Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (from Kennedy).jpg|thumb|150px|Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895), who described "a neutral sex" that was not physically intersex.]]
    * Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895) developed a theory in which men who are attracted to men and women who are attracted to women are thus because they are members of a third sex, a mixture of both male and female, and with the psyche or essence of the "opposite" sex, even though their bodies look like cis-gender male and female bodies. The terms "homosexual," "bisexual," and "heterosexual" didn't exist yet, so he coined terms for them all. The overall phenomenon he called [[Uranismus]] (in the original German, ''Urningtum''), gay men were uranians (German ''urnings''), lesbians were uraniads (German ''urningin'', as ''-in'' is the feminine suffix), whereas heterosexuals were ''Dionings'', so bisexual men were ''uranodionings,'' and so on, all of which were distinct from ''zwitter'' (intersex). Ulrichs based this naming system on "Plato's ''Symposium'', where two different kinds of love [...are] ruled by two different goddesses of love-- Aphrodite, daughter of Uranus, and Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus and Dione. The second Aphrodite rules those who love the opposite sex." <ref>''We are everywhere: A historical sourcebook of gay and lesbian politics.'' P. 61. https://books.google.com/books?id=rDG3xdtDutkC&lpg=PA64&dq=urning&pg=PA65#v=onepage&q=urning&f=false</ref> Ulrichs argued that their condition was as natural and healthy as that of