Trans culture gallery

One myth about trans people is that we’re a new thing, or a temporary fad, when nothing could be further from the truth. Trans people have existed in every town, city and country since before recorded history.

Trans people do and have lived on almost every continent, including this one. Australia is home to some of the longest living trans cultures on earth, and Sistergirls and Brotherboys show up in every Aboriginal nation in this country. Find out more on Trans Mob.

It’s always good to be reminded that when gender diversity manifests today, that’s because it’s always existed. Finding out about it can be more challenging though, particularly since many cultures pass on history through story-telling and art, not in books written in English. To help us start learning more about our history and where we came from, we’ve created a gallery of trans history and culture.

This gallery presents only some of the rich tapestry of trans people throughout different cultures and times. This means that we only have access to glimpses of history from specific perspectives. Many trans people may also have gone under the radar for survival purposes. As you wander through this gallery, it’s also important to think about how politicised and complicated trans history is.

Though the trans experience has been actively suppressed, destroyed or misinterpreted by colonial forces for hundreds of years, trans leaders continue to emerge and make a powerful difference for their communities.

Click on someone to check out some significant people from our community histories. Could you add some more?

Language and history 

Language isn’t set in stone, and we often create or repurpose words to describe things that we don’t have words for yet.

The passage of time, increased global population, and the advent of the internet has given modern society new ways to connect and understand in ways that would have seemed impossible to our ancestors. The trans experience is a great example of this: originating with doctors, then reclaimed by community members to name an experience that didn’t have common language beforehand.

One reason we use this language (especially umbrella terms) is to talk about, and fight for, the range of similar experiences of not being cis, which we can see reflected in people throughout history.

This is not any different to looking at early members of homo sapiens and calling them the “first humans”. These people definitely didn’t use those words at the time (they were barely using any words at all, let’s be real), but it’s a useful way of looking back and categorising groups with similar experiences to talk about them clearly.

When we look at historical figures, they might not have used the language we use now, but we can see that they had similar desires, needs, and actions to other trans people throughout history, and even today.