If the last 30 years have seen a blossoming in academic research on homosexuality in history, they have seen an even more drastic shift in the academic approach to transgender topics in history. It's one thing to take a hard, dispassionate look at attitudes towards transgender topics within the historic context itself. It's a bit more painful to read the work of "modern" academics and recognize how their work is tainted by the application of frameworks that themselves are products of a specific historic and social context. I continue to cover articles like this one for three solid reasons: They often have references to historic sources that others may find valuable. I have a responsibility to my readers to provide guidance regarding the content of publications so that they can determine whether they would find them useful. And once I get to the point of actually reading and evaluating a work, it's already on the schedule to be covered. Blogging is not necessarily advocacy.
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