The Allure of Gay Cavemen
Third genders, two spirits, and a media without a clue
by Eric Michael Johnson
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/the-allure-of-gay-cavemen/ (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/the-allure-of-gay-cavemen/)
"We found one very specific grave of a man lying in the position of a woman, without gender specific grave goods, neither jewelry nor weapons," said Semradova. "t could be a member of a so-called third gender, which were people either with different sexual orientation or transsexuals or just people who identified themselves differently from the rest of the society."
Identifying the biological sex of a 5,000-year-old skeleton can be difficult enough, let alone interpreting a persons gender identity from a long forgotten culture. Nevertheless, their archaeological hypothesis is a sound one. The trouble however, as both John Hawks and Kristina Killgrove pointed out, is that the statement was merely part of an outreach campaign and didn't have a scientific paper to accompany it. Nevertheless, the story quickly went viral with news agencies ranging from Ukraine to Vietnam to Saudi Arabia all announcing the discovery nearly simultaneously. The problem lay not with the scientists, who were describing preliminary findings that previewed some tantalizing results, but a media culture that emphasizes sensationalism over accuracy and being first over being right.
I hope he is right in his conclusion, but I will keep exhaling all the same.