Thought the irony of transphobes saying when they discover trans people’s skeletons, they’ll only see us as our AGAB. Apparently figuring out a skeleton’s sex is not so cut and dry. Fascinating story regardless.

  • emma@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    I’m confused by your comment. The new technique better identifies skeletons without a Y chromosome, which correlates largely (not 100%, very little is 100%) with AGAB.
    As far as I can glean (given the dire nature of internet search these days and the amount of noise because of this discovery), the initial identification of the skeleton as male was little more than sexist presumptions about status: the grave was superlatively high status, ergo it had to be a man.
    Is your comment simply that mistakes have been made by archaeologists in identifying sex? This isn’t the first, won’t be the last. They come from researchers reading their own society-based assumptions about gender roles & presentation back onto other times. I don’t see how the new findings are a slam against transphobes; this new technique appears to give a far more reliable way to identify a skeleton’s chromosomes and thus (in the majority of cases) its likely AGAB.