History of Gender

Q: Is gender diversity a modern phenomenon?

Variation in behavior and appearance within the two sexes has always existed. What is new—namely, since the twentieth century—is the idea that such variation must be explained by a separate inner “gender identity,” and that the appropriate response would be medical modification of the body. The historical sources sometimes cited as “evidence” for centuries-old transgender categories generally describe something different from what contemporary activists read into them.

Q: When did medical intervention in gender begin?

Sexology emerged in the nineteenth century. The first “sex-change” surgeries date from the 1920s and 1930s; they often had disastrous outcomes. Contemporary care protocols largely originate from the Dutch Dutch Protocol of the 1990s—a protocol that is now facing international criticism.

Q: How have gender roles changed in the Netherlands?

Women’s position improved enormously during the twentieth century, precisely on the basis of the insight that sex need not determine all roles—without women having to “become men.” Proposals to place self-identification above sex break with that feminist tradition and meet resistance, particularly from women’s rights organizations. In the Netherlands, the bill proposing this was withdrawn in 2025; the 2014 Transgender Act still requires an expert statement.

History of Gender — Foto: Marta Branco via Pexels

The concept of “gender” in its current meaning is a recent one: it was developed and popularized in the second half of the twentieth century. Anyone seeking to understand the history of gender must distinguish between two different things: the centuries-old variation in male and female role expectations—which has always existed—and the twentieth-century theoretical framework that separates “gender” from sex and presents it as an independent inner characteristic.

Early History and Antiquity

In virtually all known civilizations, society was organized around the difference between men and women—not as an arbitrary social construct, but as a practical recognition of a biological reality with far-reaching consequences (reproduction, physical strength, and the care of young children). Gender roles varied in their specific form, but the binary ordering itself has been a constant. What some contemporary authors reconstruct from ancient sources as “third-gender categories” (eunuchs, galli, ur.sal priests) were generally marginalized or cultically distinct groups—not a recognized third sex and not precursors to the modern transgender concept.

It is methodologically risky to apply modern identity categories retroactively to historical sources. A eunuch in Mesopotamia was not a “non-binary person” in our sense; a man who dressed as a woman in a religious context was not a “transgender woman.” Recent historical reanalyses (by, among others, Alice Dreger and Lyndsey Stonebridge) warn against this anachronism.

Middle Ages and Early Modern Period

Medieval European society was strongly hierarchical, with clearly defined roles for men and women. Women who presented themselves as men (Joan of Arc, women who fought as soldiers) generally did so out of practical necessity—to pursue occupations or freedoms that would otherwise have been inaccessible to them. Declaring them “trans” retroactively is an ideological projection, not a historical finding.

During the early modern period, anatomy developed into a serious science. The discoveries that followed concerning reproductive organs, chromosomes, and hormones provided increasingly precise knowledge about the biological dimorphism of the human body—knowledge that does not support the idea that sex is a spectrum.

Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: The Emergence of Sexology

Nineteenth-century sexology (Krafft-Ebing, Ulrichs, and later Hirschfeld) sought to map sexual and gender variation systematically. Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in Berlin (1919–1933) is often presented as a progressive milestone, but it also carried out experimental surgeries whose results were shockingly poor by modern standards—an aspect often omitted from nostalgic portrayals.

The twentieth-century concept of “gender” originates in the work of psychologist John Money (Johns Hopkins, 1950s). Money introduced the distinction between “sex” and “gender” partly to legitimize experimental treatments for intersex children. His most notorious case, David Reimer, ended tragically: a boy who was raised as a “girl” by Money after a botched circumcision was never able to identify with his assigned gender and later died by suicide. This case is a cautionary precedent showing that gender identity cannot simply be imposed or replaced socially. The course of the Reimer case is described in detail at genderid.nl.

The second wave of feminism (Simone de Beauvoir, and later Judith Butler) used “gender” to criticize the social role of women—rightly so. Butler’s far-reaching thesis that sex itself is “performative” and constructed is a philosophical position that has become hegemonic within its own field (gender studies), but has no scientific foundation outside the humanities.

Twenty-First Century: Legal Recognition, Expansion, and a Change of Course

From around 2010 onward, a remarkable phenomenon emerged: an explosive, localized increase in trans identification, particularly among teenage girls in Western countries. This increase—which cannot be explained simply as “finally having room to be yourself”—strongly points to social and media-driven factors. At the same time, legislation was relaxed in many countries, and young people gained access to puberty blockers, hormones, and surgery. In the Netherlands, the Transgender Act abolished the sterilization requirement for changing sex registration in 2014.

In recent years, these developments have come under pressure. The Swedish SBU report (2022), the Finnish COHERE decision, the Norwegian Ukom report (2023), the British Cass Report (2024), and the WPATH Files (2024) have, in a short period of time, undermined the scientific foundation of the “gender-affirmative” youth care model. Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, and the UK have significantly revised their practices. See also: Cass Review, Detransition, Dutch Protocol.

It is remarkable that the Netherlands—the country where the original “Dutch Protocol” was developed—has been the slowest to follow this international reorientation. The weak evidence base, selection bias, and lack of control groups in the original Dutch research are being sharply criticized internationally.

Is gender diversity a modern phenomenon?

When did medical intervention in gender begin?

How have gender roles changed in the Netherlands?