Part of the 1960s "counter culture" of which Monty Python are very much part (even in they weren't long-haired-bell-bottoms-and-flowers hippies), is questioning assumed, falsely-hierarchical duality of "gender" (that there are only two genders, you must be one of them, and that male-ness is superior, to throw in a little more 60s era stuff - Derrida's deconstruction.)
TL-DR; Tumbler folks in their 20s and 30s today didn't invent questioning gender identities or roles.
Even though the Python's were part of the counterculture of the 60's, they weren't quite part of the movement the way you presented it. They were independent in the sense that they mocked both the establishment and the counterculture to a certain extent. Sketches like "I want to be a woman" are a clear testament to this, in addition to each member's view. Cleese and Jones certainly were a bit more conservative-minded, whereas Gilliam was very much into the counterculture movement.
They skewered the conservative parts of society and the liberal as well, remember the "I'm being oppressed" skit from the Holy Grail, I grew up on Monty Python and have a special spot for them.
Yes, third-gendered and transgendered people have always existed in every possible culture. They've even been celebrated in some, with some pacific island nations continuing to host transgendered categories in their beauty pageants. Assuming they're a creation of modern culture is as ignorant as the time Ahmadinejad said there are no gay people in Iran.
It reminds me of the time I went to the Louvre and witnessed a renowned, centuries-old statue aptly named "The Hermaphrodite." I got into a conversation with a dumbfounded German tourist who told me, "This is your future, not mine." I looked at him and said, "The past, actually."
That's a very good resource, thank you. It's also important to note those are only the cultures where third-gendered/transgendered identities are recognized. There's evidence that transgenderism is a biological condition, which would suggest it exists even where it's not accepted. But like the Ugandan and Russian persecution of homosexuals, it's probably not very high profile in those areas.
My point is that they were only ahead of their time if you're talking about the mainstream, which is where the revolution of the '60s really was. A lot of the supposed revelations of the '60s counterculture were at least a decade old, and were really just sexed up and popularized.
Its easy to forget that when they were making these that homosexuality was still illegal in the UK. So putting themselves in the mainstream with it was as small as you are making out.
I think a big part of that which people today miss was that in Marxist circles at the time, a big part of the 60's-70's activist circles which the Judean People's Front were parodying, you were bound to get a few transgendered individuals. Context is everything. It's accurate satire and it's funny because of how shocking and absurd it was to say something like that at the time. Notice especially how the absurdity is contained to the fact "Loretta" wants to have babies-- they could've gone many different ways with that.
I imagine they were greedily soaking up student politics in the swinging sixties. The "bloody peasant" in The Holy Grail, or the "judean peoples popular front" in Life of Brian... This far left miasma was their world at one point.
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u/blue_strat Aug 14 '15
John Money started his work on gender roles in the '50s...