Trans Skeletons and “Just So Stories”
According to The Daily Mail, some “scientists” may have found evidence of “the first non–binary person.”
Stone Age societies embraced “complex identities” and flexible gender roles, experts have revealed, after unearthing the skeleton of a woman who was buried like a man 7,000 years ago. Studies of 125 skeletons across several cemeteries in Hungary have found that while the majority of people were buried according to their gender, some defied the norm.
Since people who lived 1000 years before Abraham didn’t post their pronouns on social media, we’ll just have to trust the “research article” that was published in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology under the title “Fixed and Fluid: The Two Faces of Gender Roles—A Combined Study of Activity Patterns and Burial Practices in the European Neolithic.” The gist is that back then, men tended to be buried in one way and women in another. However, a few unearthed skeletons do not quite fit the burial pattern. Also, the bones of some of the women showed evidence of consistent kneeling in life, a practice more commonly associated with men at the time.
In the absence of real biological, genetic, or developmental science to support transgender ideology, these researchers found a way to inject it into paleontology. After all, who needs evidence when one can rely on a newspaper to make a “just so” claim that these findings “could shed a whole new light on gender fluidity in the Neolithic.” It’s all common practice in the evolving field of evolutionary psychology.
The most obvious irony is that the claims of this research are based on examining skeletons known to be male and female, which shows that the researchers know perfectly well the difference between them. Within all cultures are norms of masculinity and femininity, with individuals varying in how they express who they are as male and female. These differences do not change the fact that human beings are sexually distinct. The fact that researchers can tell the difference between a boy’s bone and a girl’s bone undermines the idea of “gender fluidity.”
It’s also just bad scholarship to suggest conclusions from a sample of very few graves in a few locations. We know very little about ancient Egypt, much less about ancient Europe. Suggesting that Neolithic cultures had “gender fluidity” based on a few graves is like suggesting polling results for a sizable city relying on vague conversations with two or three people. It’s an example of historical presentism, a way of looking at the past through the lens of the present.
Not to mention, even if conclusive evidence were found of ancient transgenderism, what difference would it make? The discovery of a “gender-fluid” society in ancient Europe says nothing about how people then or now ought to live. After all, there is ample evidence of ancient cultures that practiced incest, slavery, human sacrifice, and cannibalism.
In the early 80s, researchers in Mexico found remains of 42 children who had been sacrificed in the fifteenth century. In 2018, The Daily Mail also reported that some 345 infants, mostly girls, were found in a Pakistani garbage dump. Just 15 years ago, investigators in Philadelphia discovered the horrors of Kermit Gosnell, who just died in prison. None would claim that egregious behavior by one group from another time justifies the same behavior now.
In fact, evolutionary psychology often succumbs to what might be called “just so stories.” Borrowing a title from Rudyard Kipling, this is the tendency to announce conclusions that “simply ‘must be so’ because they are required by assumptions that must not be questioned.” For example, there is a long history of explaining past behaviors through the lens of neo-Darwinian assumptions, especially natural selection. Increasingly today, the assumptions of gender ideology and “sexual orientation” are behind the “just so stories” masquerading as science.
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5 Things Every Christian Must Know about the Transgender Debate
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John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.
The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.
BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.
