I can't speak at great length for the main examples that Pagilia uses insofar as the Greeks and the Romans vis a vis homosexuality/gender fluidity but even a cursory look at the period of waning power of these polities shows that their respective leaderships were dealing with way more problems than a 'degradation' of sexual identity.

Political infighting, corruption, increasingly inefficient bureaucracy, difficulty enacting reforms, collecting taxes, ineffective military, etc.

Even external factors like environmental changes (natural disasters like droughts, flooding, etc) played more direct roles in weakening these empires than anything sexuality did.

Pagilia seems to also pose that Greek art suddenly became 'less masculine' leading up to their 'downfall' but seems to make no attempt to actually look at the cultural and aesthetic intentions of how the artists and indeed the people of that time viewed masculinity, artistic depiction of the human body, particularly the male and female form, and general contexts of the time.

It's also hard to really critique what Pagilia's saying because she's not making any really concrete claims about historical facts or interpretations and simply bringing up "Romans and Greeks were accepting of fluid sexuality right before they experienced collapses of their civilization".

But as we understand it today, we know these civilizations didn't just 'collapse' and vanish into the ether. Rome was indeed sacked by Vandals but society didn't fall into ruin and the Roman Empire didn't turn into a historical Mad Max apocalyptic world(albeit that would be an interesting novel to write).

Pagilia also seems to not mention that fluid sexuality was well tolerated and accepted during the height of these civilizations "golden" periods.

But I'll address the overarching claim of "transgender/fluid sexuality is a common indicator throughout history of the onset of or ongoing decline of a civilization/polity".

Let's look at Japan.

Japan's history of homosexuality as well as fluid sexual roles is well documented and during both the tumultuous wartorn Sengoku Period as well as the following Edo Period, was widely accepted by the arguably most masculinity focused social group, the samurai.

Japan experienced a great deal of unrest during the Sengoku Period when Japan was ruled by fractious and feuding warlords that were backed by the families and clans of both tightly and loosely connected samurai.

Especially for the most socially elevated and influential families of samurai, the male members of the family were tasked with important duties, of which creating heirs and children were an important part of serving the household. Sex with women was seen as an social and cultural obligation by Japanese men during this period.

That's not to say that sexuality with women wasn't enjoyed by men as well as lauded as a part of a great loving relationship, but even if a man were adamantly and openly derisive of women and despised even the idea of sex, he would be pressured to sire a child due to his obligations to family, clan, society, etc.

On the other hand, many saw male - male sexual/romantic relationships as a purer, truer love because it had to come about from an intimate relationship between two men (sometimes one quite a bit older than the other) and had no 'obligations' built into it. The relationship was purely one of pleasure and adoration, as family, having a child, etc. did not come into it.

The warriors that ruled Japan while dominating both social and political spheres, often dictating laws both formal and informal to the rest of Japan were very much accepting of homosexual and fluid sexual identities (as long as they also fulfilled their duties heterosexually).

As a disclaimer, this shouldn't be taken to mean that Sengoku Japan was some anachronistic paradise where everyone was accepted without issue and everyone enjoyed sexual freedom. But that's for another time.

More importantly, as the Sengoku Era came to a close after the reunification of Japan, the Edo Era reigned with centuries of marked peace and prosperity.

The regular devastation of regular military campaigns was replaced with development of the arts, philosophical and religious contemplation, the strengthening of economic systems and striving for the betterment of lives, both individual and collective.

During this period, both the influential as well as the commonfolk were widely accepting of liberal sexuality. In many ways it had changed for the samurai, as the focus was now the administration of their respective jurisdictions rather than maintaining a constant readiness for war. There was a moral reexamination of the importance of family and in some ways, it became less respectable for a married man to also have a male lover on the side, particularly for the upper crust of society.

But sexual identity and modes of behavior were still relatively liberal. Homosexuality was still fairly common and with the rise of more organized forms of prostitution, popular male prostitutes and male fans courting famous male entertainers was not uncommon either. You can read more about that in Fertility and Pleasure: Ritual and Sexual Values in Tokugawa Japan by William R. Lindsey.

This was arguably one of Japan's 'heights'. The transition between periods could not even be called a 'decline' as it was really a shift in the political realm and social changes were slow in their coming. And interestingly enough, the 'hyper masculine' figures that brought about this change were the most famous proponents of homosexuality and sexual adventures that challenged the traditional sexual norms.

As we move onto to the Meiji Period, we actually see a large influence of Western social mores on Japanese sexual identity and, in their attempt to ready Japan for a world that was quickly become more and more dangerous to 'old Japan', the Meiji leadership enacted sweeping changes both politically and socially.

A major shift was the restrictions and increased government oversight on immoral activities, such as prostitution, adultery, and, of course, homosexual relations as well as anything that diverged from hetero-normative behavior.

The state wanted to emphasize the importance of a moral household centered around the family, and more to the point, around the husband and his faithful wife.

It's important to note here that this was not, as many would characterize it, a blind emulation of Western values. Certainly Western values had a great impact on Japanese government planners on how to change their country for the coming future, but they did not simply 'throw away' Japanese values and replace them with Western values.

They looked carefully and took inspiration from the world beyond their country's borders and brought back what they thought would indeed change their country irrevocably, but also strengthen it.

Anyways, it's interesting that during this progressive period that there was such a strong delineation of 'proper' sexual conduct.

In the Meiji and the following Taisho Period (Japan's interwar period), there was an interesting change though. While there was a social and political pressure to curtail the sexual identity of 'old Japan' and refocus on building the family and building the country, there was an influx of philosophical musings and influence from foreign intellectuals that brought a "Western homosexuality" into Japan. Homosexuality was no longer associated with the hypermasculine, the warrior, the master/apprentice. Now it was the realm of the intellectual, the worldly man, and indeed, the adventurous freewoman.

This brings up another point that Pagilia has consistently associated homosexuality and hetero-normative divergent sexual identity as the realm of the 'intellectual' when historically, it was really the opposite.

It's only within the modern era that we really start to see homosexuality become the 'domain' of the cosmopolitan, the bohemian, the academic, etc.

Historically, homosexuality was not necessarily associated with these things (and indeed could not have been because they were not concepts yet).

I think all in all, we can clearly see that Pagilia appears to be cherry picking historical themes (that aren't very descriptive nor thoroughly thought of, mind you) in service of her commentary on current events rather than really examining the historical events themselves.

Hi,

We don't allow links to hate-filled content. Could you please edit the post to remove the link to the video? You can make it clear what video you're referring to so people can find it, and you're much more likely to get a response if you include a description of the specific points that interest you (you do a great job of that right now). Just please kill the link.

Thanks!