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You only have to look at how cis hetero people try to interpret being transgender to see how history and anthropology inherently biased
“So they used to be female, but they’re now male”
“Sort of, but the thing is, he was never female. He was simply assigned the gender at birth but later recognized he was male.”
“But his records show he was female”
“I’m saying he’s never been female, he was just falsely identified as female”
“I don’t get it. So like, they used to be female but are now male biologically???”
“No… ugh, never mind, just understand they’re male”
They don’t get it because they don’t have context for it, so try to apply a context they understand. It’s not accurate, but it’s the kind of argument that becomes moot when they understand the most important details.
That’s what happens in history and anthropology as well.
There are existing concepts that colonial historians DO NOT HAVE ANY CONTEXT FOR and they will therefore attempt to apply their own context to those concepts, even if they are incorrect.
I use transgender people as an example because that’s one of the many concepts largely misunderstood by early colonial historians. They don’t GET the concept of a “third gender”or a “spiritual female”/ “Spiritual male” accepted as part of the community, they don’t understand that two genders are a concept THEY have that the community they study DOESN’T. They don’t understand that the language DOES NOT HAVE GENDERED PRONOUNS thereby eliminating hangups on gender that they themselves have.
Then they attempt to apply their own context – ie the context of a largely heterosexual, largely cis, and largely male community with pre-programmed ideas of what women are to them rather than what women are to the community they are studying. A society which, given English and other European languages, gender their pronouns in a way that isn’t done in other societies.
It’s the historical equivalent of 4Kids Dubs changing original Japanese names from anime into weird English names.
History and anthropology must be challenged CONSTANTLY by different outlooks less affected by white imperialist colonial mentality so that anything misunderstood in the past century or two can be remedied.
Like the fact that Viking women were warriors and buried as warriors, among other biased misinterpretations.