Every so often, someone claims that being transgender is a recent phenomenon—some kind of “woke” invention, a trend fueled by social media, or a modern delusion. Maybe you’ve seen it on the news, in political debates, or even in a heated discussion at the dinner table. The idea that trans people didn’t exist until the last few decades is not only incorrect—it’s insulting, dismissive, and a false representation of our history.
Let’s set the record straight: Trans people have always been here. Across cultures, centuries, and continents, there is overwhelming evidence that gender diversity has existed as long as humans have. The word “transgender” might be relatively new, but the experience of living beyond or between binary gender categories is anything but.
Table of Contents
Is Being Transgender New?
What is gender? Before diving into history, it’s worth establishing what we mean when discussing gender. Western society has largely pushed the idea that gender is strictly binary—male and female—assigned at birth and permanently fixed. However, gender theorists and scholars have been challenging that assumption for decades.
In Gender Trouble, Judith Butler argues that gender is performative—it’s not something we are but something we do. In other words, gender is not an innate, unchanging essence but a series of repeated actions, behaviors, and expressions that create the illusion of a stable identity over time. According to Butler, we learn how to “do” gender through societal expectations, norms, and cultural scripts, which are reinforced in everything from childhood play to workplace interactions.
This means that gender is not a natural or fixed category but a social construct that changes across time and cultures. What is considered “masculine” or “feminine” in one society may be completely different in another. For example, high heels were worn initially by European aristocratic men in the 17th century, and pink was once considered a color for boys. These shifts demonstrate gender norms are arbitrary and fluid rather than biologically defined.
Susan Stryker, in Transgender History, explores how gender categories have shifted across time and cultures. She traces the ways that medical, legal, and social institutions have shaped gender, often to the detriment of those who exist outside the binary. Her work highlights that trans existence is not a modern invention but a constant throughout history, even when it has been erased or suppressed. Stryker argues that the Western gender binary was never a neutral or universal concept but a framework imposed through colonialism and reinforced by institutional power structures. Many societies historically embraced gender diversity until European colonial rule criminalized and erased these traditions. Her work provides critical insight into how trans erasure is not accidental—it is part of a broader history of control and marginalization.
Jack Halberstam, in Female Masculinity, challenges the idea that masculinity belongs exclusively to cis men. Halberstam argues that gender is not a biological reality but a set of cultural narratives and power structures. By documenting historical examples of masculine women and gender-nonconforming individuals, he demonstrates that rigid gender categories have never truly fit human experiences. He also critiques the way masculinity has been constructed as inherently tied to maleness, showing that there have always been people who defy these norms. His work disrupts the assumption that gender expressions must align with assigned sex and illustrates how masculinity has existed in diverse and expansive ways throughout history. In doing so, he highlights how the policing of gender is less about biology and more about maintaining societal hierarchies and power dynamics.
Riley Snorton, in Black On Both Sides, further complicates mainstream understandings of gender by exploring how race and transness are deeply interconnected. Snorton traces the ways that Blackness and transness have been historically linked through medical, social, and political constructs. His work highlights how the rigid enforcement of binary gender has been used as a tool of colonial and white supremacist control, disproportionately affecting Black and Indigenous communities. This reinforces the fact that gender, as we understand it today, is not a fixed biological reality but a socially constructed framework designed to serve specific power structures.
Gender has never been a single, universal experience but instead exists on a spectrum that shifts across cultures and periods. Many societies have long recognized identities outside of the male/female binary, proving that Western notions of gender are neither neutral nor absolute. When people argue that being trans is a new invention, they’re usually operating under the false belief that gender itself is rigid and biologically determined. But history tells us otherwise.
Trans and Gender-Expansive People Throughout History
Many Indigenous cultures across North America have long recognized identities beyond the Western male/female binary. The term “Two-Spirit” (coined in 1990 but based on older traditions) is used by some Indigenous people to describe a sacred, non-binary gender identity. However, many tribes had their own terms and understandings of gender variance long before European colonization. For example:
- The Navajo have historically recognized a wide spectrum of genders, some of which include: asdzáán (feminine female), hastíín (masculine male), dilbaa (masculine female), and nádleehi (feminine male).
- The Lakota recognize winkté, individuals assigned male at birth who live as women.
- The Zuni people honor lhamana, individuals like We’wha, a well-documented historical figure who was assigned male at birth but lived as a woman and played an important role in her community.
These identities were not seen as anomalies but as integral parts of their societies—until European colonization imposed rigid, binary gender norms and violently suppressed these traditions.
Trans and gender-diverse people also appear throughout ancient history, often in roles of spiritual significance or social importance.
- In Mesopotamia, the gala were priests of the goddess Inanna, who spoke in a dialect associated with women and may have been what we’d now call trans or non-binary.
- In ancient Greece and Rome, galli were priests of Cybele who underwent ritual gender-affirming surgery and lived as women.
- In India, hijras—a community that includes people who are intersex and also those assigned male at birth (AMAB) who may identify as women—have been documented for thousands of years. They hold a unique social and spiritual status, despite facing discrimination under British colonial rule.
- In medieval Europe, figures like Eleanor Rykener, a 14th-century trans woman in England, navigated gender in ways that defied binary expectations.
The 19th and 20th centuries saw even more visible examples of trans people living openly:
- In 1912, Alan L. Hart, a trans man, underwent one of the first known gender-affirming surgeries in the U.S.
- Dora Richter, one of the first known trans women to receive vaginoplasty, was part of the Institute for Sexual Science in 1920s Germany—an institution destroyed by the Nazis in 1933.
- Lucy Hicks Anderson, a Black trans woman born in 1886, lived as a woman, married twice, and even ran a successful business before facing legal persecution for her gender identity.
Trans people have always existed. What changes over time is how society treats them.
The Myth of “Social Contagion”
A common argument from anti-trans voices is that trans identities are “spreading” because of popular media or social influence. This idea suggests that people, especially young individuals, are being “recruited” or “influenced” into identifying as trans—an argument eerily similar to past moral panics about homosexuality, left-handedness, or even rock music.
However, research shows that increased visibility of trans people does not create more trans people—it simply allows more trans people to recognize themselves and feel safe enough to come out. Studies, such as those published in Pediatrics, have found no evidence that social influence is responsible for gender dysphoria. Instead, what we see is that when trans people feel supported, their mental health improves. And, when they are denied care or recognition, their mental health suffers.
More people feel comfortable living authentically when society becomes more accepting of any marginalized group. That’s not contagion—it’s progress.
The Word “Transgender” is New, But the Concept is Ancient
Language is constantly evolving. The word transgender may feel contemporary, but its emergence reflects the evolution of language more than the novelty of the experience it describes. It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that transgender entered our vocabulary, largely thanks to figures like Virginia Prince, who coined transgenderism as an umbrella term for various gender-diverse experiences. Before this, early sexologists like Magnus Hirschfeld introduced terms like transvestite and transsexual in the early 1900s to describe specific aspects of gender variance. These early attempts to define and categorize gender paved the way for the broader, more inclusive language we use today.
The rise of the term transgender coincided with shifts in understanding gender as distinct from sex, allowing for a framework that could encompass a broader range of identities and experiences. Over time, the word moved from academic and medical circles into everyday use, embraced by the trans community to describe themselves in their own terms. While the language has evolved, its purpose has always been the same: to give a name to something that has existed long before words could capture it.
We’ve Always Been Here, and We’re Not Going Anywhere
Denying trans history serves a political agenda. If being trans is “new,” then it can be dismissed as a “fad.” If it’s “unnatural,” then it can be legislated against. Many of the same people who claim trans identities are a modern invention also push laws to restrict trans rights, suppress access to gender-affirming healthcare, and limit education about gender diversity.
Throughout history, those in power have sought to erase marginalized identities to maintain control. The erasure of trans people isn’t about historical accuracy—it’s about enforcing a rigid, oppressive view of gender that benefits the status quo.
History, theory, and lived experience all tell the same story: gender diversity is part of the human experience, and trans people are not going away. So next time someone tries to tell you that being trans is a trend, remind them of We’wha, the galli, Lucy Hicks Anderson, and Dora Richter. Remind them that history is full of people who lived as their authentic selves long before “transgender” was a word.
We’ve always been here. We always will be.
