Last month, one of my uncles shared a screenshot of what appears to be a tweet, which contained the following text:
“The transgender child is an American invention. It is a business concept developed by US academics, pharma companies, and health professionals to exploit paediatric medicine and gender for profit. This concept has now been successfully exported to the European Union, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.”
I responded that trans people have been around for thousands of years in locations all around the world, for a lot longer than the United States has even existed.
Then I went on to list a bunch of gender-diverse peoples throughout the world, such as the following:
- Nádleehi among the Dene people of North America
- Lhamana among the Zuni people of North America
- Kathoey in Thailand
- Hijra in India
- Khanith in Arabia
- Mugawe in Kenya
- Inkotshane among the Bantu people
- Muxe among the Zapotec people
- Waria in Indonesia
- Bakla in the Philippines
- Femminielli in Italy
- Fa’afafine in Samoa
- Fakafefine in Tonga
- Vakasalewalewa in Fiji
- Māhū in Tahiti and Hawaii
And that’s not counting several other countries and cultures that have recognized more than two genders before white people ever set foot in what is now the USA.
Saying that the concept of transgender is American and exported to the rest of the world is extremely racist and erases the rich history of gender-diverse people going back thousands of years in many areas of the world.
