After his death this debate began: Did Tipton live as a man simply in order to work as a musician in a male-dominated industry or because of lesbian oppression?
It is true that women’s oppression, especially under capitalism, has created profound social and economic pressures that force women to pass as men for survival. But this argument leaves out transgendered women—women who are considered so “masculine” in class society that they endure extreme harassment and danger. Many of these women are forced to “pass” in order to live. Of course transgendered women also experience the crushing weight of economic inequity and, in many cases, anti-lesbian oppression. These factors also play a role in forcing “masculine” women as well as non-transgendered women to pass.
If “masculine” women are acknowledged at all, it is implied that they’re merely a product of decadent patriarchal capitalism and that when genuine equality is won, they will disappear.
It’s “passing” that’s new
Transgendered women and men have always been here. They are oppressed. But they are not merely products of oppression. It is passing that’s historically new. Passing means hiding. Passing means invisibility. Transgendered people should be able to live and express their gender without criticism or threats of violence. But that is not the case today.
There are legions of women and men whose self-expression, as judged by Hollywood stereotypes, is “at odds” with their sex. Some are forced underground or “pass” because of the repression and ostracism they endure.
Today all gender education teaches that women are “feminine,” men are “masculine,” and an unfordable river rages between these banks. The reality is there is a whole range of ways for women and men to express themselves.
Transgender is a very ancient form of human expression that predates oppression. It was once regarded with honor. A glance at human history proves that when societies were not ruled by exploiting classes that rely on divide-and-conquer tactics, “cross-gendered” youths, women and men on all continents were respected members of their communities.
“She is a man”
“Strange country, this,” a white man wrote of the Crow nation on this continent in 1850, “where males assume the dress and perform the duties of females, while women turn men and mate with their own sex.”
Randy Burns, a founder of the modern group Gay American Indians, wrote that GAI’s History Project documented these alternative roles for women and men in over 135 North American Native nations.
The high incidence of transgendered men and women in Native societies on this continent was documented by the colonialists who referred to them as berdache.
Perhaps the most notable of all berdache Native women was Barcheeampe, the Crow “Woman Chief,” the most famous war leader in the history of the upper Missouri nations. She married several wives and her bravery as a hunter and warrior was honored in songs. When the Crow nation council was held, she took her place among the chiefs, ranking third in a band of 160 lodges.
Today transgender is considered “anti-social” behavior. But amongst the Klamath nations transgendered women were given special initiation ceremonies by their societies.
Among the Cocopa, Edward Gifford wrote, “female transvestites were called war’hameh, wore their hair and pierced their noses in the male fashion, married women and fought in battle alongside men.”
Wewha, a famous Zuni berdache who was born a man, lived from 1849 to 1896. She was among the tallest and strongest of all the Zuni. When asked, her people would explain, “She is a man.” Wewha was sent by the Zuni to Washington, D.C., for six months where she met with President Grover Cleveland and other politicians who never realized she was berdache.
Osh-Tische (Finds Them and Kills Them), a Crow berdache or badé who was also born a man, fought in the Battle of the Rosebud. When a colonial agent tried to force Osh-Tisch to wear men’s clothing, the other Native people argued with him that it was against her nature and they kicked the agent off their land. They said it was a tragedy, trying to change the nature of the badé.
A Jesuit priest observed in the 1670s of the berdache, “They are summoned to the Councils, and nothing can be decided without their advice.”
But the missionaries and colonialist military reacted to the Native berdache in this hemisphere with murderous hostility. Many berdache were tortured and burnt to death by their Christian conquerors. Other colonial armies sicked wild dogs on the berdache.
Why such hostility?
Why were the European colonialists so hostile to transgendered women and men? The answer can be found back on the European continent in the struggles that raged between the developing classes of haves and have-nots.
Ancient societies on the European continent were communal. Thousands of artifacts have been unearthed dating back to 25,000 B.C. that prove these societies worshipped goddesses, not gods. Some of the deities were transgendered, as were many of their shamans or religious representatives.
We have been taught that the way things are now is roughly the way they have always been—the “Flintstones” school of anthropology. The strong message is: Don’t bother trying to change people. But a glance at history proves that human society has undergone continuous development and change.
A great debate has raged for more than 150 years about the role of women in ancient societies. To hear Jesse Helms and his ilk rant, you’d think that the patriarchal nuclear family has always existed. That’s not true.
Twentieth century anthropologists recognize that matrilineal communal societies existed all over the world at an early stage in social development. Women were the heads of gens or clans that bore little resemblance to today’s “family.”
But many argue that matrilineage could co-exist with the subjugation of women, and that there is no confirmed documentation of any culture in history in which women consistently held leadership positions. This ignores the relationship between male domination and private property, and implies that women’s oppression is merely a result of “human nature.”
This ideological argument is as much a weapon of class warfare as prisons are.
Rosalind Coward offers an invaluable overview of this debate in her work Patriarchal Precedents. Coward shows that most 19th century European scholars held the patriarchal nuclear family and male inheritance to be universal. But by the latter part of the century, European colonialists studying the peoples of Southern India and Southwest Asia disputed that view.
In 1861, Johann Bachofen published his famous book Das Mutterrecht (Mother Right)—a scientific study of the family as an evolving social institution. His work was regarded as a fundamental contribution to modern anthropology.
Lewis Henry Morgan, the great ethnologist and one of the founders of anthropology, wrote his significant work Ancient Society in 1877—an exhaustive study of communal societies with kinship systems based on women. He studied the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) on this continent, and numerous indigenous peoples in India and Australia. His research on social evolution confirmed that the patriarchal form of the family was not the oldest form of human society.
The research of Bachofen and especially Morgan was the basis for Frederick Engels’ great 1884 classic, Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Engels argued that early societies were based on collective labor and communal property. Cooperation was necessary for group survival.