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| Kazimierz PuĊaski (Casimir Pulaski) |
It seems these women are considered by our modern technology to be intersex, outwardly appearing to be men when in reality they are biologically women. It is rather a sticky wicket as far as modern society sees these things.
The issue is not only the identity of the skeleton but the public outcry that would have these intersex skeletons declared male or female and an end put to the whole question. That is not going to happen when women are denied their proper place in history (at least in the case of women being exhumed and found to be Viking warriors.) Will this too become a sticky wicket because the exhumed body appears to be female or the person who was interred passed as male though s/he is being considered intersex -- neither one or the other or both male and female in one body?
There are those, like talk host, Ben Shapiro, talks about how men and women are biologically determined and speaks out about blurring the gender lines. he forgets that all through history there have been men posing as women and vice versa and that is endemic throughout history. This gender fluidity is not new but has been around since the beginning of time. It seems that man-made gods do make mistakes -- or so it seems when intersex skeletons shatter our certainty about the factual evidence when male graves are exhumed and the male turns out to be female, as in the case of Casimir Pulaski the Polish soldier who fought in the American Revolution and is the father of the American cavalry, except that Kasmierz Pulaski's grave shows a female was buried instead of Casimir.
The point is that Casimir lived his life as a male, appeared to be a male, but was actually intersex, having the features of male and female. He had the soft features of femininity but had a mustache and male pattern baldness and his skeleton was definitely female. Casimir who has a holiday in his honor in Illinois and Chicago specifically lived his/her life as a male and is remembered for his exploits as an officer in Washington's army. No one questioned his gender or his identity as he was purportedly a male -- or at least posing as a male, specifically a male officer. He passed for a male, identified as a male, and was buried with honors as a revolutionary war hero, a male. It wasn't until now when his grave has been exhumed that his skeleton is definitely female. There's the rub.
There really is no issue, not in modern times, when the public at large accepts sexual reassignment was the father of the cavalry) the cavalry, and was buried with honors. That his skeleton proves him to be otherwise than he saw himself and passed for male doesn't matter. He chose his gender and lived his life as a man. He is who and what he said he was and his female skeleton does not change that at all.
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| Female Viking? A 19th-century illustration of the contents of the tomb, which was quickly identified after its discovery as that of a high-ranking warrior. Evald Hansen/The Swedish History Museum |
Unlike modern times, a man passing for a woman or vice versa is something we expect and seldom say anything. This is not someone who is a female, decidedly so, who has chosen to take hormones and has had the surgery to become a male, but someone whose gender is considered intersex, having the features of a man, dressing as a man, and being buried as a man being found to be a female.
This is not one of those cases. This is a biological anomaly that has been discovered long after the fact and does not fit in with the male/female dichotomy of the past. Most likely, his parents didn't bat an eye at their son being intersex and accepted him as he was. He earned honors and excelled at being a soldier, fighting in the Revolutionary War, earning honors as a horseman, being so good at it that he created (surgery as normal, de rigueur.)
Would liberals, or others so inclined, change the history to favor the female skeleton found in his grave or will we simply let it go and let him be who and what he decided to be? I think it is possible that though we can change the physical appearance of a man to be a woman or vice versa, we should let history decide what had already been decided. We should accept Casimir Pulaski as a male and let history show him as a male, reserving our opinions to ourselves. What does it matter that Casimir was intersexed, both male and female, and let history remain as it was and is forever?
In a sense, Casimir Pulaski is a genetic oddity and there are many such genetic oddities that have been and always will be. Liberals can have this one since Casimir and his parents decided how to deal with his intersexuality and call him male. No one needs to change anything, just live with the knowledge as a fact we found out long after it mattered to him and his family. Nothing will be harmed nor should it be. Nor should it matter to historians, anthropologists, and #MeToo proponents that sometimes gender doesn't matter. It's all about who and what the person was when they were alive, not now that anthropologists and historians have discovered the world is far more complex and interesting than it originally was.
The same is true of whether or not women were Viking warriors. No doubt, some of them were also intersex and their original gender matters only to nitpickers now that their skeletons have been exhumed and what we thought we would find turns out to be different than we originally expected to find. If a skeleton turns out to be male or female, the fact remains that during their lives they were who and what they were and we cannot change the past nor can we predict the future. Let them be and move on. Celebrate what they achieved and do not seek to tack a gender to their exploits or use them to further your gender cause now or ever.
Sometimes people choose to be inside and their appearance to the world at large should allow them to be what they feel they are and the manner they wish to be seen. Gender is fluid and we have reached the point where a person can choose to be whatever gender they decide. We have the surgical techniques to reshape their outward form to coincide with their inner truth and accept them as they are or as they wish to be. That is all and all about it. They decide how they wish to appear and we should applaud them for their deeds and exploits and not pin them to whatever makes US happy when it is the person's desires and wishes that are paramount. That is all that matters.
That is all. Disperse.
