austro-nesian:

shawnhnichols:

Trans | Seattle, Washington - 2015 

YES. They have. For example in the islands now known as the Philippines we have records of transgender people and it was accepted. Hell those who were transgender were considered more divine and closer to the spirits, ancestors, and deities than straight cis people were. They were considered an entire gender all together and among the Bisayans were spiritual leaders, they married, and were socially and culturally accepted to not receive tattoo’s which in our precolonial culture if you weren’t transgender or gay and you didn’t receive a tattoo you were a coward and wouldn’t be accepted by the ancestors and gods in the afterlife. Where as those who are transgender or gay didn’t have to because they were already connected with them especially those who became our spiritual leaders who were 2nd in power to the reigning Datu’s, Lakans, and Rajah’s. Hell among the Tagalogs, who were Muslim at the time of the Spaniard but practice Folk Islam, they had a widely worshiped and respected transgender deity. It wasn’t until the Spaniards and Christian missionaries came and arrived in the islands where this acceptance gradually decreased and though we do have a high lgbt community and acceptance there is still a lot of discrimination, especially toward transgender people not to mention the Church pretty much ruling every aspect of of our country from politics, to laws, to everyday life.

But to say those who are lgbt are just a modern thing is fuckin bullshit because we have records in history, especially in Asia where the lgbt community were alive and well and generally accepted until Western and Christian influences arrived.