skeleton a comic.   Panel 1: A TERF in a t-shirt identifying her as a REAL HUMAN FEMALE yells at a trans woman, “HEY FREAK!!! WHEN ARCHAEOLOGISTS FIND YOUR BONES, THEYRE GOING TO SEE A MAN!”  Panel 2: The trans woman seems surprised and worried, she sweats noticeably. She says, “Oh wow- do you really think that could happen? A stranger misgendering me? …if that actually happened, I dont know what I would do!”  Panel 3: The trans woman, momentarily appearing Normal, pauses. “Excuse me a moment,” she says, holding up a finger to the TERF. She turns to a counter where a barista hands her a cup of coffee. “Your coffee, sir.” “Thank you.”  Panel 4: The trans woman resumes, suddenly fearful and sweating again, “anyway - something like that happening would FULLY destroy my fragile sense of self and invalidate all the joy I experienced in life!!! Do you think I can find someone to carve my pronouns into my bones?”ALT

The most ridiculous thing about this shit is that the idea that skeletal remains can be easily and unambiguously 'sexed' is absolutely bunkus

In 1972, Kenneth Weiss, now a professor emeritus of anthropology and genetics at Pennsylvania State University, noticed that there were about 12 percent more male skeletons than females reported at archaeological sites. This seemed odd, since the proportion of men to women should have been about half and half. The reason for the bias, Weiss concluded, was an “irresistible temptation in many cases to call doubtful specimens male.” For example, a particularly tall, narrow-hipped woman might be mistakenly cataloged as a man. After Weiss published about this male bias, research practices began to change. In 1993, 21 years later, the aptly named Karen Bone, then a master’s student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, examined a more recent dataset and found that the bias had declined: The ratio of male to female skeletons had balanced out. In part that might be because of better, more accurate ways of sexing skeletons. But also, when I went back through the papers Bone cited, I noticed there were more individuals categorized as “indeterminate” after 1972 and basically none prior.
Allowing skeletons to remain unsexed, or “indeterminate,” reflects an acceptance of the variability and overlap between the sexes. It does not necessarily mean that the skeletons classified this way are, in fact, neither male nor female, but it does mean that there is no clear or easy way to tell the difference. As science and social change in the 1970s and 1980s revealed that sex is complicated, the category of “indeterminate sex” individuals in skeletal research became more common and improved scientific accuracy.

Source: https://www.sapiens.org/biology/intersex-biological-sex/

Cis transphobes, you too could have your skeleton miscategorised hundreds of years after your death, because neither gender nor sex are the clear binaries you want them to be. Which you would know if your view of science in these fields wasn't perpetually stuck in the first half of the 20th century.

(another good article from Sapiens on transgender perspectives on archaeology/anthropology - https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/transgender-people-exist-in-history/ )

Anyway I just wanted to put this here to say that the assholes who go "when they find your bones" aren't even correct, in recent decades that narrow approach has been challenged in the fields of archaeology and anthropology, and don't let anyone invalidate the joy we feel in life.

Trans joy now and forever.

confidential to our Tumblr followers, we love you the most.

Reeeeeee, why AREN’T you wearing gloves? Digitization does not obviate physical preservation.

Gloves are not best practice for handling rare books! We follow the guidelines followed also by the Smithsonian Institution and the British Library among many others.

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Basically there are very few instances where we might wear gloves, and it would probably be to protect us (in the case of, for example, bindings made with arsenic) and not to protect books.

Photographs and museum artifacts have different rules around gloves! But we only handle books on our channel.

Read more here and also here.

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I made this a few years ago and stand by it

Signed, an archivist

YES THIS!!! I LOVE IT!!!!

There’s also this useful flow chart!

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I am DELIGHTED

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and different types of collections have different guidelines. i’ve definitely handled some objects where the gloves were there for my protection.