Small Bones Found in All-Male Grave Prompt Reminder Trans People Exist

A “female skeleton" found in a notoriously male-only monastic community in Greece is forcing people on the internet to remind everyone yet again that hey, trans and intersex people exist!

Mount Athos has prohibited women from setting foot on the peninsula since the 10th century, and that even includes most female animals. And yet, when anthropologist Laura Wynn-Antikas was brought in to examine bones found underneath a chapel in the community, she said that some of them appear to be from a woman’s frame.

“While the others were more robust and had clearly belonged to the frames of men, these had measurements that noticeably fell in the range of a female,” she told The Guardian.

All the bones found under the floor look to have been removed from a previous resting place and specifically relocated to the floor under the church, something Wynn-Antikas said would have taken a lot of effort.

“If we are talking about a woman, or indeed more than one woman, it will raise a lot of questions. Starting with who she could have possibly been.”

The possibilities of the who and why of this discover are numerous. And scientists are already beginning to consider both the questions and fragments of answers that could be found from these bones. But one thing everyone seems to be overlooking is, of course, the possibility that these bones were from a trans or intersex man, living in the monastic community among other men, allowed there because he was not, in fact, a woman, despite what the bones may suggest.

While it may not be a more likely answer than any others, at least at this point in the investigation, it's still possible, considering, you know, trans and intersex people didn’t just magically start existing in the last few decades.

Unfortunately, we will likely never have the real answer as to why these smaller bones were dug up and re-buried underneath a church floor, but we can certainly be inclusive in our speculations.