Everything Trans People Have In Common With The Knights Templar In The Public Imagination

I've suggested a similar policy before, substituting West Wing character Josh Lyman for "man" or "woman" when you are feeling tired of hearing other people's thoughts about gender, to wit "person of Josh Lyman experience" or "this part is for Josh Lyman and Josh-Lyman-aligned people," to have yourself a bit of fun.

Much the same can be done for any news story or weird talking point about trans people and the downfall of the Knights Templar in the early 14th century. The Knights Templar (that’s “Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon” to you) were a powerful Catholic military order founded shortly after the first Crusade who also later became an early sort of international banking concern; eventually that power became such a matter of concern to France’s Philip IV that he and Pope Clement V had their leadership arrested, tortured, and burned, before disbanding the organization entirely.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, what troubled Philip IV in the 14th century bears a powerful resemblance to what troubles anti-trans movements today, such as:

• Since members cannot reproduce traditionally (vow of chastity for the Templars, anxieties around sterility wrt transition), fears that the group is attracting too many well-born children of the elite

• Fears of organization and unity along “unnatural” lines

• Fears of a perceived association of a “state within a state”

• Anxieties about secrecy and ritual initiation which led to wild speculation about fears about bodily integrity, networks of blackmail and coercion, and an underground denial and subversion of Christianity

• Black magic???

• Anxieties about political control of Cyprus

• Fixation on “desistors” (“In 1310 at least three former Templars said they had lied in front of the Pope and now wished to defend the Order”)

• General sense of “there’s got to be some sodomy going on in there”

• Weird clothes (“They [wear] a small belt which has been consecrated by touching a strange idol”)

Why not try mentally replacing weird headlines about trans people with some of the accusations leveled against the Knights Templar by the King of France in 1307? It's free. For example:

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EXCLUSIVE: Putting their foot in it! Dr Martens engulfed in heretical storm after promoting boots that show a Poor Fellow-Soldier of Christ and the Temple of Solomon wearing a RED CROSS and WHITE MANTLE over their chest

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2023 Wave Of Bills Is Fueling A Political "War Against Knights Templar" In Schools, Health Care

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Who's Afraid Of Social Contagion? We Are Undergoing A Seismic Shift In Templar Membership Right Now – How 200+ Years of Hospitaller History Got Us Here, And Where We're Heading Now

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"This landmark ruling – an administrative agency's interpretation of existing law rather than the passage of a new law – opened the door to further papal actions. It cemented the coverage of Templar provisions under Omne datum optimum and gave the green light to new cases related to access to Jerusalem on public roads that receive funding from the French king. The most significant such case involved ______, a young Templar from Lombardy seeking to settle once and for all the question of appropriate public easement for Templars in accordance with the Council of Troyes in 1129.”

—Susan Stryker, Templar History

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“…Children who think they are Knights Templar and how this affects their parents”

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“One does find odd connections among them: Bindel and Stock both think that the word “Crusader” is used as a “polite” euphemism for “Templar,” which is a weird idea.

—Grace Lavery, Templar Criticism Versus Templar Abolition: On Three Recent Books About Templars

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“Templar-affirming care”

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“The majority of Templars confess and desist after facing inquisitional tribunals in France, studies show”

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“In late October, Don Bolduc, the Republican U.S. Senate nominee in New Hampshire, claimed schools were offering litter boxes for students who were Templars and wanted to worship cats.

“We have these Templars in the classrooms, and it’s perfidious,” Bolduc said at an Oct. 27 campaign event in North Hampton, N.H. “They’re doing black magic, they’re spitting near crosses, they’re blaspheming against Pope Boniface. They’re debasing the coinage. They’re mismanaging the reliquary containing the skull bones of the eleven thousand virgins martyred with Saint Ursula in Cologne, and when you try to investigate them, they hiss at you. And the schools are putting in litter boxes so they can worship these cats.”

[Image via Wikimedia Commons]