Transgender History: The Important If Somewhat Bizarre Story of the Chevalier d’Éon. And Intersex 101

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Transgender History: The Important If Somewhat Bizarre Story of the Chevalier d’Éon

Chevalier d'Éon depicted as Trans Person

Chevalier d'Éon Caricature

Christian fundamentalists & right-wing Republicans try to create the impression that transgender identity is the concoction of a leftist woke mob but Out-FM's Pauline Park argues that the story of the Chevalier d’Éon shows that there were people who anticipated contemporary transgender identities going back centuries.

Chevalier d'Éon Fencing Performance

Chevalier d'Éon Fencing Performance

 
hashtags: #Éon #ChevalierDÉon #France #DonaldTrump #transgender #LGBTQ #history #Intersex
 
illustrations: Éon caricature & Éon fencing
 
musical selections:
 
Jean-Philippe Rameau, "Les Vents" (The Winds) from the opera "Les Boréades"
(Jordi Savall conducting Le Concert des Nations)
 
François Couperin, "Les Barricades Mystérieuses"
(Eduardo Antonello on the harpsichord)
 

Intersex is not one specific thing, it's a multidimensional phenomenon found throughout nature.

Professor Carrie Gabriel Costello

Professor Carrie Gabriel Costello

Pauline Park interviews Carrie Gabriel Costello is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is also an intersex trans man. Who is married to an intersex trans woman. And we're going to talk about intersex, what it is, what it isn't. Its relationship to transgender, and what the implications are for public policy and for society.

One of the things that was constantly asserted in the recent election was that there two and only two sexes. You're assigned to a biological sex, that's it. There's no such thing as gender identity apart from the sex you're assigned at birth. But you know, both from personal experience and also from deep study and knowledge of this issue, that there are, in fact more than two sexes. In this show we’ll talk about the sex gender binary and how it's a false dichotomy.

  1. Costello's sociology blog, A Sociological Eye:  https://asociologicaleye.blogspot.com/
    1. The election post discussed in the interview is on that blog here: https://asociologicaleye.blogspot.com/2024/11/How-not-to-think-about-2024-election.html
  2. Costello intersex blog, The Intersex Roadshow: https://intersexroadshow.blogspot.com/
  3. Costello trans advocacy blog, TransFusion: https://trans-fusion.blogspot.com/

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