My friend, allow me to share some information with you. Trans people - like gays, lesbians, cross dressers, etc - are NOT a new thing.
There's a sense in which you're right and a sense in which [MENTION=6801554]discosoc[/MENTION] is right. You're absolutely correct that the trait we now identify as "transgender" is biological in nature and has probably existed for as long as humanity has. However, as with homosexuality, different cultures have conceptualized the trait in different ways -- in fact, homosexuality and transgender are often seen as the same thing, as [MENTION=6799630]thallantyr[/MENTION] suggested in his excellent
Roman example upthread. But whether trans people were seen as super-duper gay, as a third gender, as a sort of eunuch, as some combination of all three, or as something else entirely, the view seldom if ever lined up closely with our contemporary understanding. So in this sense it is hardly unreasonable to say that transgender
identity is a new thing.
Reality being, transgender people were often treated with far more respect in the distant past, and the whole nonsense of discrimination is a relatively 'new' thing from a historical point of view (new being relative here)
On this I'm sorry to say that you're simply incorrect. People who do not conform with gender norms have been discriminated against since time immemorial. You can find examples of cultures where trans people were extended a certain understanding, but if you want to make a historical generalization like this then you can't ignore the many cultures where they were
not. (And even where they were, I'd be hesitant to say that they were afforded
normalcy.)
A particularly dense example of everything I've been talking about comes from the Islamic hadith:
A mukhannath ['effeminate one'] who had dyed his hands and feet with henna was brought to the Prophet. He asked: What is the matter with this man? He was told: Apostle of Allah! he affects women's get-up. So he ordered regarding him and he was banished to an-Naqi'. The people said: Apostle of Allah! should we not kill him? He said: I have been prohibited from killing people who pray.
Several things to note here. Most obviously, the people were asking to
kill the mukhannath; however, Muhammad said not to, extending to this person rights as a Muslim. (Still got banished, though.) Also, the mukhannath is matter-of-factly described as a "man" and "him"; there's not even a hint of the woman-in-man's-body idea. But also also, the mukhannath
might have been a man; as I noted above, homosexuality and transgender are often poorly distinguished. And finally, the mukhannath is described as a mukhannath. The Arabs had a word for people like this, a category. The category is well enough recognized that elsewhere in the hadith it is stated that mukhannathun are allowed to enter women's harems -- not because they
were women, but because they were "free of physical needs" (
i.e., not into the ladies), again suggesting a conceptualization with heavy elements of homosexuality and/or eunuchdom.
tl;dr: The past is complicated and usually awful.
