(Due to current refugee/immigration hysteria, this seemed like a good time to remind readers that 1) net migration to the UK has been steadily going down and 2) more than 380,000 British people emigrated FROM the UK last year and 3) that immigration is good for the economy and 4) roughly 28% of NHS doctors who… Read more There is a LONG History of Immigration in Britain
I recently read The Devil’s Historians and I cannot praise this book highly enough. The only reason I give it two thumbs up is because I lack more thumbs. This book is a brilliant analysis of how people use history to craft extremist narratives, and it uses plain language, rather than academic jargon, to explain… Read more Review of The Devil’s Historians: How Modern Extremists Abuse the Medieval Past
Long before John Knox first blasted his trumpet about the ‘monstrous regiment of women’ rulers, the fear of a female head of state was considered just and natural in Medieval Europe. Several kingdoms had codified Salic Law from 500 AD onward to prevent a woman from inheriting a throne. In the 12th century, England had… Read more The Medieval Fear of Women Rulers
Gender is a culturally negotiated process. A child is born sexed (or more rarely, intersexed), but only acculturation can ascribe gender. The child learns to behave in the manner associated with his/her biological sex, either masculine or feminine, in accordance with sociocultural praxis. Gender, like biological sex, has also historically been constructed by Western culture… Read more Biology is Not Gender
There are some advantages to be a middle-aged woman with Asperger’s syndrome, and one of those is that I lived through the 80s as a teen and remember it. And what I remember is that Johnny Depp was known as a ‘bad boy’ with a ‘temper’ and a substance abuse problem prone to attacking people.… Read more Johnny Depp’s History of Violence
Our middle child was born a biological female on 1 May 2007. This summer, that child informed us that his biological sex was a physical misrepresentation of his true gender. That, in fact, he was a boy in his heart and his mind. Thus, we now have a son. His name is Scott, and we… Read more Behold, Our Son
Last summer my family and I took a trip to Cornwall (which is gorgeous), and while there we discovered the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic. It was both fun and informative, which is what I like from both museums and tourist attractions, so I can recommend it. Of course, as someone who writes nonfiction history,… Read more Medieval Folklore of Stones
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. ( Ecclesiastes 1:9) While the terms ‘transgender’ and ‘gender dysphoria’ are new, the phenomenon of believing yourself to be trapped in the body of the ‘wrong’ gender is not. There is archeological evidence of… Read more Medieval Understandings of Being Transgender
I had an epiphany about certain cultural realities almost 20 years ago. At the time, I was newly married, in grad school studying medical anthropology, and living in Dallas, TX. I had been reading copious amounts of scholarly works about ethnicity and culture. I had been trying to explain habitus and systemic racism to undergraduates… Read more The White Fragility About White Privilege
I was a transgender ally, even before my son came out as a trans boy. I was shocked and appalled to learn that not all feminists are trans allies. Some feminists are flat out transphobic. They insist biological sex is the only aspect that truly counts in gender identity, and cis women are the only… Read more Controlling the Dialog