What Will Future Archeologists Say?

Thanks to R. E. Ryan for his wonderful sci-fi art on this one!

I originally posted this on Patreon in 2024, but apparently I spaced out on posting it on Alas and Leftycartoons at the time. (Glares in annoyance at own brain.)

It’s weirdly common to see someone try to prove that a trans person is “really” not the sex they say they are by saying something like “in a hundred years, anthropologists will be able to sex your skeleton.” (Here’s a video of professional anti-trans activist Riley Gaines bringing this point up.)

Even putting aside the ridiculous implication that “sex” comes down to the shape of our pelvis bones and nothing else, it’s simply not true that the sex of all skeletons can be identified.

In a 2018 article in “Sapiens,” a trade magazine for archeologists, anthropologist Alexandra E. Kralick pointed out that admitting that some skeletons are “indeterminate” – rather than insisting every skeleton can be determined to be male or female – has increased accuracy in sex identification of skeletons.

In 1972, Kenneth Weiss, now a professor emeritus of anthropology and genetics at Pennsylvania State University, noticed that there were about 12 percent more male skeletons than females reported at archaeological sites. This seemed odd, since the proportion of men to women should have been about half and half. The reason for the bias, Weiss concluded, was an “irresistible temptation in many cases to call doubtful specimens male.” For example, a particularly tall, narrow-hipped woman might be mistakenly cataloged as a man. […]

Allowing skeletons to remain unsexed, or “indeterminate,” reflects an acceptance of the variability and overlap between the sexes. It does not necessarily mean that the skeletons classified this way are, in fact, neither male nor female, but it does mean that there is no clear or easy way to tell the difference. As science and social change in the 1970s and 1980s revealed that sex is complicated, the category of “indeterminate sex” individuals in skeletal research became more common and improved scientific accuracy.

Similarly, a 2015 study in “Journal of Anthropology” showed that when anthropologists use different methods of testing on the same skeletons, it’s common for one test to say “male” while another test says the same skeleton is “female.”

Not that this generally matters. Although some people might be asking these questions sincerely, for anti-trans activists like Riley Gaines, the question is nothing but bad faith. In the video I linked above, Gaines asked an anthropologist if skeletons can be ID’d by sex after 100 years. The anthropologist said a single word – “no” – before being drowned out by jeering and laughter. Gaines could have done follow-up questions; she could have asked what he means. She could have given him more than a single word to answer. But for her, it was about the mockery and the sneering; a desire for actual knowledge never entered into it.

(My guess is that he had been allowed more than one word, he might have pointed out that sex is more complex than pelvic bone shape; that even ignoring that, not all skeletons can be definitely sexed; or many other things. But we’ll never know, because he wasn’t allowed more than one word.)

Anyway, in a way this cartoon makes me a hypocrite, since it’s obviously about making fun of transphobic gotchas rather than gathering knowledge. But 1) it’s a cartoon, not a public lecture and 2) the idea made me laugh.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has six panels.

PANEL 1

A man with a big mustache, wearing jeans and a button-down shirt, has a sneery grin as he points at a woman. The woman, whose back is to us, listens with her hands on her hips. Let’s call the man “MUSTACHE.”

MUSTACHE: In a thousand years, scientists will be able to tell your skeleton was male! HA!

PANEL 2

The same scene, but now the woman’s body language is surprised, and Mustache is grasping at his chest and has an expression of agony.

MUSTACHE: ACK! Heart attack!

PANEL 3

We are viewing Mustache in his open coffin; there’s a casket spray (that’s what the traditional flower arrangements that lie on top of coffins are called, and that’s something I didn’t know until I googled it two minutes ago because I was writing this transcript)  on the coffin. There’s a photo of him when he was alive on a tripod next to the coffin. His eyes are closed and he looks at peace. Ironically, his hands, folded on his chest, are in almost exactly the same position as in panel 2.

PANEL 4

We are looking at a cross-section view of a grave in a graveyard. We can see that a coffin is buried sex feet under. In the background, we can see the skyscrapers of a city.

PANEL 5

We are looking at the same scene, from the same angle, but now a hole has been dug and two sleek white floating robots are lifting the coffin out of the grave. In the background, we can see a sci-fi cityscape, with lots of tiny spaceships in the sky.

PANEL 6

We are in some sort of sci-fi medical research lab. In the background, we can see screens with various graphs and readouts on the wall, including one with a diagram of a skeleton surrounded by labels. One of the robots we saw in panel five is working at a panel of buttons. In the foreground, two scientists with sci-fi looking eyewear are thoughtfully examining a skeleton on an examination table; one of the scientists is scanning the skeleton with a handheld device.

The skeleton is Mustache’s (we can tell because his mustache has somehow survived).

SCIENTIST: The scans are conclusive – this skeleton was an asshat.

What Will Future Archeologists Say? | Barry Deutsch on Patreon