The premise of so many political fights over trans identity seems to involve the question of its universality. Does the fact that trans identity and trans childhood are not new mean that they are universal throughout time and space? And if this entire system of sex and gender under which trans ness and cis ness makes sense as categories only emerges in the 20th century, what does that mean? I'm so glad you asked this question because it's actually, let me just say, very rare indeed that I get to follow up the claim that trans kids aren't new with the clarification that that does not therefore mean they have always existed in their present form. There is not just no universal version of trans