One important point that came up here is that the concept of there being more than two genders or that gender being more fluid and changeable is something that was not particularly rare in most non-Western, non-Abrahamic cultures worldwide, and have had those concepts for centuries, certainly long enough to overcome any weak platitudes towards historical accuracy. Or, to quote the increasingly common phrase I've been seeing tossed around: "Trans people have always been around, and always will". Of course it's also been pointed out here that "historical accuracy" is rarely if ever the actual point and mostly exists to provide cover for homophobia/transphobia/etc.
Also once more for the people in the back:
Good lord, the world would be a much better place, especially for trans youth, if more people understood this very simple fact.
Historically, there were a -ton- of trans and gender nonconforming people recognized in Mesopotamia.
In Ur, during the reign of Sargon of Akkad, Enheduanna wrote a poem of the goddess Inanna in order to syncretize her with the deity Ishtar of her native Ashur. (Enheduanna is Sargon's daughter, king of Babylon around 2300 BCE)
In the poem, one of the first known pieces of writing, she ascribes to Inanna the power to turn men into women and women into men. And due to pottery, writing, and burial recovery we know that in the temples of Inanna there were trans women priestesses and trans men guards or soldiers. Both of these roles were culturally gender-locked across the Babylonian culture within various temples to various deities. With priests exclusively serving masculine deities and priestesses exclusively serving feminine deities.
Also of note: Worship of Inanna goes back -much- further than 2300 BCE based on various pieces of physical evidence, but either it was a primarily oral tradition without writing, or the writing before the Hymn to Inanna was written has just been lost to time.
Similarly, in the Western Semitic traditions all the way up 'til the early 100s CE, there were -six- recognized genders. Zachar or man, Nekevah or woman, Androgynos who possessed traits of both, Tumtum who lacked sexual characteristics, Aylonit who were called girl at birth and aylonit as adults, and Saris who were born boys and became saris as adults.
Technically eight. As there were Aylonit and Saris Adam and Aylonit and Saris Hamah. Adam in this case being "By human hand" and Hamah being "By divine hand".
So even in Abrahamic cultures there are different gender constructs. It's mostly the Romans who spread the "Only Two" thing through their various conquests.
So yeah. Lots of historical evidence of much older cultures dealing with and accepting people existing as the gender or sex they espoused rather than trying to force them into two boxes. It's really just that Latin dominated other cultures and lacked much in the way of language to communicate such important ideas, even though the cultures the Romans conquered possessed words to describe those things and continued to observe those traditions beyond the conquests.
The six gender-sexes of the Talmud, for example. Or the cults of Asherah, a Canaanite deity with whom Inanna and Ishtar were later syncretized, lasting until at least 500 CE in and around Rome.
Because, ultimately, that's one of the big "Issues" that people are raising. That we don't have 'Fantasy Language' for transness, or a specific cultural ideal of what transness was at some generally handwavey 'medievalish' period that can be mapped onto campaign settings and D&D in general.
And yeah. It sucks. But oh well? When Player Characters get married in games it's generally out of love, not out of a binding legal contract between two houses more out of management of resources and forced blending of bloodlines rather than any affection held between the two individuals. I'm not gonna yuck someone's yum because they didn't denote the exact price of a dowry on their character sheet and RP out the negotiations for children before the other half of the dowry would be delivered or anything.
I've always argued D&D as designed features player characters with a very modern mindset. Freedom of religion, association, due process, equality under the law, etc., etc. are things we associate with good kingdoms or oligarchies. D&D really doesn't require or encourage us to adopt a different mindset. So why not add transgender people to the game? I will admit I find it a little jarring, but I'm happy to say I have a solution. Just keep including transgender characters and pretty soon I won't find it jarring in the least.
EXACTLY! I really appreciate this!
I feel like the Combat Wheelchair and PCs with disabilities will also take a while, but I hope people come to embrace them, too. Even if some of us find it Jarring at first!
