Until relatively recently, many people would have assumed the term ‘non-binary’ had something to do with computers. Yet today, by far the most common usage is to refer to people who reject the so-called gender binary, which stipulates that one’s gender identity must be the same as one’s ‘sex assigned at birth’.
According to the 2021 Census, there are at least 30,000 non-binary people in England and Wales. And note: these individuals actually wrote “non-binary” on the census form (unlike some respondents, they didn’t misunderstand the question). But is there really such a thing as non-binary?
Does it reflect a distinct set of psychological tendencies? Or is it just a label people use because they belong to a particular subculture? Many of us would suspect the latter. Indeed, “non-binary” was barely mentioned on Twitter or searched on Google before 2014.

Enter Eleonore Pape and Nicola Ialongo – two academics from Göttingen University in Germany. They recently published a paper in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal which argues that “non-binary minorities were systematically represented in the burial rite of prehistoric Europe”.
The authors’ method was straightforward. They inferred deceased individuals’ sex using osteological analysis, and inferred their ‘gender’ by checking whether they were buried with masculine or feminine grave goods (weapons, for example, were considered masculine). They then looked to see whether their sex and gender matched. And in roughly 10% of cases, it did not.
The authors concede that their method may be subject to error. And they acknowledge “there is no indication at all of whether such a ‘mismatched identity’ was chosen by their bearers or rather imposed on them, either in life or in death”. Yet they do posit the existence of a “non-binary minority” in pre-historic Europe.
As Pape stated in a press release, “we can no longer frame non-binary persons as ‘exceptions’ to a rule, but rather as ‘minorities’, who could have been formally acknowledged, protected and even revered”. Though her co-author clarified, “this is only one possible interpretation”.
You don’t say! Isn’t the far more reasonable interpretation that people were buried with different objects for all sorts of reasons, and there’s no reason to believe that prehistoric Europeans even distinguished between sex and gender? We in the West have only been doing it for about 10 years.
It’s logically possible, I suppose, that prehistoric Europeans did so. It’s just extremely unlikely. And the mere fact that some men were buried with female-typical objects and some women were buried with male-typical ones shouldn’t really shift our confidence.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And for many academics all they have is gender theory, so the presence of flint blades or arrowheads in a woman’s grave looks like evidence of non-binary gender. The next step, I imagine, will be inferring the gender identity of pre-human hominids.
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Blimey they are getting desperate – for attention, funding, validation. The whole business is such obvious cobblers that bigger and bigger lies and more ridiculous nonsense is required to stop the vast, moth-eaten brocade from falling apart.
Anyway, who cares? I mean it’s probably made up nonsense but let’s say there were non-binary people back then – well, if we think that kind of thing is an aberration now then we think it was an aberration then. Humans are weird creatures different from other animals and have been for a very long time.
They’re not at all getting desparate. They’ve been churning out ahistorical speculations based on their preconceived view of how things ought to be about all conceivable historical topics for a long time. This has brought me to the point – and that’s seriously extreme for me – of throwing away some history books I bought about topics which interested me, sometimes even only half read, whenever I hit upon another one based on a magpie’s selection of bits and pieces of disparate sources and loads of blathering, eg, Ring of Steel, a fairly new book about the civil situation of the central powers after having been cut off from food imports by the British sea blockade from 1914 – 1919.
This book could be regarded as a teaching example of simulated learnedness applied to obscure things instead of revealing them. A tell-tale sign is when people stay clear of any real historical sources because They just can’t be trusted! in favour of perfectly random eyewitness accounts supposed to appear authentic to our modern taste because they’re so personal.
The acid test, I suggest, would be to do the same experiment on European graves from the historic period, when there’s no documentary evidence of non-binaries.
If the pattern were significantly different, it would suggest that transgenderism miraculously disappeared with the appearance of writing until European academics rediscovered it in this century. That would be a remarkable story to explain.
If, more likely, the same phenomenon is observed, then Pope & Iolongo are refuted. What’s the betting they won’t do the experiment to discover the truth!
Sorry for the late reply.
I don’t think examining grave goods for European graves from the historic period will be representative. Burying bodies with grave goods has long been discouraged in the Christian traditions. I’ve no doubt it still happened (happens) but it will be more selective and less simply burying the body with the deceased’s ‘tools of the trade’.
Quite why one of my sisters asked that Mum should be buried ‘with a clean tissue in her pocket’ escapes me – but it was certainly not worth risking a rift over.
Postmodern pseudo-historians absolutely love prehistory. We have no real information about that (that’s why its called prehistory), hence, they don’t even have to justify why they’re ignoring all sources which might exist in favour of their own speculations based lack of knowledge.
This so-called paper is a work of fiction and not of science. And it’s not even coherent: Non-binary is supposed to refer to people who are neither men nor women because they don’t feel like either. That there are two distinguishable styles for burying people, one regarded as stereotypically male and the other as stereotypically female doesn’t even theoretically support this hypothesis. Further, If they seem to have been warriors, they cannot have been women! (and vice-versa) just betrays the misogynistic (and misandristic) prejudices of the authors of this piece political phantasizing.
I agree with you, Noah. I call ”cobblers” on this paper! So you get a female skeleton but because it’s been buried with weapons it was a ”non-binary” person? So women never fought in battles in years gone by? And men never baked or cooked anything either?? Jeez…Well I’m glad the authors acknowledged their conclusions have more holes than a Swiss cheese factory.
As to this whole ”non-binary” business, it’s in vogue and all part of the Woke movement. To my mind non-binary equates to people being either one or a mix of the following; confused, experimental or they have a mental disorder, the latter is in no way meant as an insult as ‘gender dysphoria’ appears to be something else which has blown out of all proportion lately, as I had barely heard of this legit diagnosis a few years back. I think this is just another example of the current obsession with sticking labels on people so that they can be pigeon-holed, as it suits the social engineers that want to pit us against each other, and I don’t think a label necessarily equates to a healthy sense of self. Be self-confident and comfortable in your own skin, shove social conformity and gender ideology and keep your labels for sticking on jars.
Don’t you know that women can’t fight and men cannot cook? Sheesh … one could almost believe you must have partially grown up in the 20th century while such enlightended statements about gender stereotype where temporarily no more en vogue. Thankfully, this has since been fixed by the people who really need them. A man will turn into a woman the very moment he even come close to a cooking pot!
By their stupid “logic” the chef profession is dominated by non-binary people.🤦♀️ Do you wanna tell Gordon Ramsey or shall I?🤣
Yes indeed this whole issue highlights the incredible rigidity of gender stereotypes that we apply in our world with regard to clothing, appearance, things and activities deemed feminine or masculine. With some of the children’s trans literature I have seen, it talks about; do you feel like a girly girl, typified by Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz or like a rough tough boy, typified by Huckleberry Finn?
The stereotypes and images seem to be counted as more important than the basic fact of male and female in human reproduction.
Indeed. Women fought. Women were warriors, queens, owners of estates, virgins, prostitutes, mendicants, house slaves, free women, high born, low born. There were many disciplines for women.
A woman buried with nothing is still a woman – because she has ovaries and a vagina.
A woman buried with 1000 swords is still a woman – because she has ovaries and a vagina.
A woman buried with a dead cat is still a woman – because she has ovaries and a vagina….
Vaguely on topic
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65809944
England cricketers become first LGBT couple to read CBeebies bedtime story
erm… how do we know?
Also:
Are they the first cricketing couple to read on CBeebies bedtime story? (probably)
Are they the first couple to read on CBeebies bedtime story? (quite possibly)
They’ve had many famous people read on that show – some have been much better at it than others. I have grandchildren, so I was allowed to watch it with them.
This should trigger an instant set of complaints: Pride is a political adult activity supposed to celebrate some people’s non heterosexual (so-called) sex lifes. That’s not something children below 16 are supposed to be saddled with, no matter how many savilley BBC perverts really want this.
I can just imagine a hairy arsed caveman dragging his women into the cave by her hair before asking “oh, Sorry, do you identify as a woman?”
In your imagination is the hairy arsed caveman male or female?
More importantly how the hell did that get into my head to the extent that I asked the question?
🤣🤣🤣
All that hair must have been difficult to see though!
It’s only polite so that you know which entrance to use.
And you don’t mean, entrance to the cave do you?🤣
Occam’s razor: Academics make shit up! 😀
Academics are the stupidest people on Earth. Dangerously stupid.
Based on the same models that predicted millions of covid deaths and deadly global warming, no doubt.
I don’t think there could have been ‘non binary’ much before 1945 because sex and gender meant the same thing up to that point, both determined biologically.
‘Sexologist John Money introduced the terminological distinction between biological sex and gender as a role in 1955.
Before his work, it was uncommon to use the word gender to refer to anything but grammatical categories.
However, Money’s meaning of the word did not become widespread until the 1970s, when feminist theory embraced the concept of a distinction between biological sex and the social construct of gender.’
Scholarly Community Encyclopedia
Thanks for confirming that that’s indeed a notion straight from the 1950, ie, stuff teenage babyboomers absorbed in ther youth (who would then become academic feminists in the 1970s and rules of the world shortly after 2000). Isn’t it great when a supposedly modern society must suddenly be catapulted backwards by almost 50 years because of stuff so-called middle-aged people learned in their youth and aren’t willing to let go off despite times have moved on? That’s soo progressive!
‘….the “Dialectical Left,” which includes Communism, achieves its agendas most effectively by strategically changing the meanings of words.’
‘…there are just three terms that have been profoundly subverted and are being used to transform our society by Communists for Communist ends. These are inclusion, democracy, and citizenship.’
‘Three Terms Communists Redefined to Subvert Society’ James Lindsay Sept 2022
I suspect the change in meaning of ‘gender’ has come about from a well left of centre agenda.
Quite how it helps implement that agenda is not clear since it has opened up a clear divide between different sectors of the ‘Dialectical Left’, much to the amusement of many…..
An University of Pittsburgh classroom erupted with laughter after a Professor argued with swimmer Riley Gaines that an archaeologist cannot discern whether a person was male or female by examining their bones. He complained, after laughter subsided that he had a PHD and should know what he was talking about.
So, how did these two tell from ostelogical analysis the sex or gender of the skeletons if it can’t be done? Is there, perchance, a possibility that someone is telling porkies? Perhaps they need to get their ducks all in a row behind one
fibtheory/fact. I am only a simple soul and am easily confused by clever people so I would really appreciate it.The very obvious way of distinguishing male and female skeletons is by the differences between their pelvic girdles. Common sense 101.
And as IVF wasn’t invented back then, just how did these non binaries procreate?
I carry a broadsword around with me in case people mistake me for a woman.
Would you be that easy to mistake for a woman? 😁
You can never really know the gender of a bearded guy who isn’t carrying a large edged weapon!
🤣🤣🤣
It is quite amazing that the tendency survives. Presumably it is not genetic otherwise I would expect it to disappear in one generation.
I wonder how much they were paid, and by whom/what, to come up with their flight of fancy?
The modern trait of academics looking at history through a twenty first century viewpoint only confirms their ignorance, as all things, as in science should be conducted objectively not subjectively. Historically cooking pots were a measure of wealth, and ownership did not infer whether the owner was a man or a woman, just wealth.
These people are not historians. They’re defense archeologists looking for something ancient (prehistory strongly preferred) which can be interpreted such that it seems to support a preexisting theory of them.
There was no such thing as straight or gay until around 150 years ago in Western civilisation.
David Benkoff’s article in Daily Caller from 2014 is a great summary of the anthropology:
Nobody is ‘born that way,’ gay historians say | The Daily Caller
How we’ve gotten to this level of confusion is something future historians will mock us mercilessly for.