down to my bones and welcome back to the Bone
Club. It's me, Ashley, here with you, with Stephanie
and our really good friend of ours, Dr. Sam Blatt.
And unfortunately, Jenna is away from us. She
is celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving. So happy
Thanksgiving to all you Canucks out there. I
wish I was able to celebrate it with you this
year. It's my second one I'm missing. It's always
a fantastic time. So we have a very interesting
topic for you, I think, this month. It's on really
the relationship of trans and gender diverse
individuals with forensic anthropology. And it's
one of those topics that got me as an individual
interested in the field, got me sort of just
saying, I want to be. a forensic anthropologist
because i always wondered how would i be identified
if i was to be if i was dead how would i be identified
through my skeleton and luckily for us today
we have dr blatt with us who has published numerous
times and presented numerous times on this topic
and has has been one of those authors that has
been really pushing for change in the field in
how forensic anthropology addresses transgendered
individuals and gender diverse individuals. So
Dr. Blatt, welcome. Welcome, Sam. How are you
doing this evening? Thank you. I'm doing really,
I'm doing well today. I also wish I was celebrating
Canadian Thanksgiving. I forgot about it. Now,
real question. Does Canadian Thanksgiving also
include turkey, ham, stuffing, all the things
that I like about actual Thanksgiving? Not actual
Thanksgiving. That's not what I want to talk
about. But the Thanksgiving that I know. Oh,
yes. Canadian Thanksgiving has all the Thanksgiving
trimmings that American Thanksgiving has, with
the exception of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day
Pareto. I mean, that's valid. That's a lot of
plastic in the air, so it's okay. yeah that's
fine so well I guess to start off with I know
we usually the first thing that we usually do
for you know every episode and so some of our
listeners who have been with us throughout our
little uh I want to say tenure but it's not uh
know that we try to start out with asking what
brought you into the field of forensic anthropology
you know, was it you watched Bones as a child
and things like that? Or like, what really brought
you to love the field? And then what brought
you into liking the topic that we're talking
about today? So I actually have seen like maybe
one Bones episode. So I'm like one of those weird
ones. But I would say initially bioarchaeology.
So I see myself as doing both bioarchaeology
and forensic anthropology. And so. classes in
bioarchaeology and then being in in weird states
like Idaho that initially when I came to Idaho
there were there wasn't really anybody here doing
forensics and so it was like it was it was a
need and I've always I think my interest in this
topic stems from from bioarchaeology where, you
know, we look at gender. Gender is written about
a lot in bioarchaeology and there's a lot of
theories behind it and it has some history to
it. But to be quite honest about it for forensic
anthropology, it wasn't until maybe like 2018
or 2019 where I had a student that asked me,
that had the same question that you just brought
up, Ashley, like, how would I be identified?
And they wanted to know this in forensic sense.
And of course, I could say, oh, in bioarchaeology,
we would do this and design a project like this.
And you would have all this, you know, this archaeological
information that we would be integrating. And
in forensics, I was like, I don't know. And so
it was really like one of the first times I thought
about it. And then I had, I'm friends with founders
of the Trans Do Task Force and who are transgender.
And that was their main question as well. And
there was not an answer or an infrastructure.
And so it became personally interesting and also
just like, why don't we, why isn't. Why is nobody
looking at this? This is a big hole. And because
of my background in bioarchaeology, I feel like
I was more easily able to think about gender
in ways that maybe some forensic anthropologists
don't. Because if you're strictly trained as
a forensic anthropologist, like gender and other...
biocultural aspects of anthropology don't come
into play as often as they do in bioarchaeology.
And so I think that that's helped me a lot in
forensics, maybe to a detriment, some might say,
but the biocultural interest that I have that
extends beyond just the skeleton and stats is
really... I think made it easier for me to be
open and try to be a listener and open to having
other people try to understand why gender is
important just in anthropology and absolutely
is in forensics. But it's a different world to
me. Seeing this in forensic world is a very different
world. But yeah, it started, honestly, not too
long ago. And then we kind of, a group of people
I regularly uh right with kind of we ran with
this and there was other folks doing it you know
looking at this at the same time and um and so
it was really exciting to see where this could
go and we held like a workshop um we had like
400 people this was a webinar in what was it
like 2021 it seems so long ago now um and that
kicked it off um So, yeah, that it's a long story.
I've been around for a while, but like the bioarch
and forensics hasn't like integrated itself so
well until the last few years for me with gender.
And I think that's the thing that I love most
about forensics to me now is that I can bring
in I feel more comfortable bringing in this bioarch
anthropology side and that it is important to
all the students out there like your your classes
and cultural anthropology are important. to being
a biological anthropologist. No, totally agree.
I mean, that's definitely one thing. At work,
we say a lot, and it's probably not enough, if
we're honest, is you're anthropologist first.
Like, yes, you're doing forensics. Yes, you're
doing forensic techniques. Yes, you're trying
to answer a legal question. But you're an anthropologist
first, and you can't, don't forget that, because
then you're going to skew. To a point where you're
not actually doing anthropology anymore and you're
just doing bad science. There was a line that
we put into a paper in 2024. We need to bring
anthropology back into forensic anthropology.
And that's part of the reason for it. But I'm
interested because I think there's a lot of different.
ways to define these and i know it's the political
gotcha question that's out there every time you
see anything on social media anything you see
on video or tv but how would you define sex and
gender and i I am not, I definitely never considered
myself like an expert in gender. I've learned
a lot from a lot of people in the last few years.
And the biggest thing I've learned is that people
still conflate these two terms. And I never thought
about how badly they do that. Sex, not an easy
thing to define. It's, to me, not a binary where
we have two choices and for a lot of reasons
biologically there are a lot of reasons why you
can go chromosomally you can go phenotype and
like you know secondary sexual characteristics
but there's not one way of defining it and I
think that's been some of the problem and debate
has been caused by that there really is not one
definition and even i mean even amongst the papers
that i've written and people that i write with
we don't all agree and we don't all um we our
ideas change about which terms we should use
depending on we talk about a lot like and they
change And they have in our field too. And so
it's important to realize that that's normal,
by the way, like that's normal in every field,
that every field changes their terms. It is,
there's some, there's usually some politics behind
it and things like that. And so it's really good
to know like the history of that. But the main,
the easiest difference that people seem to, you
know, adjust best to is that there's the biological
differences which number like i said this can
be chromosomally this can be the phenotypic traits
that you see like it can be the skeletal traits
that you use in sex as some skeletal sex estimation
um versus gender which is you know identity and
fluid and changing um it's identity it's your
own identity it's an identity that others perceive
upon you about what your roles are depending
on masculinity and femininity and what you should
be doing and your behavior what you should be
wearing and that's cultural and that is and again
go back to what you are as a base anthropologist
taking cultural anthropology like we learn that
you know there are cultures that have like their
standard of five genders and that they change
through through an individual's life even and
this is what we learn as an anthropologist and
so um you can't just we don't we shouldn't just
forget uh these things um but that that is true
of all culture we we don't think about our own
culture very often um we um outside of male and
female binaries for sex or or But they're defined
also by our culture, which has also changed through
time. And so even when we're looking at like
individuals in Western culture and trying to
not ascribe gender, but understand somebody's
identity, gender identity, you have to understand
the time period, which we're talking about as
well. And so it's not as easy as... stats which
we all think are very hard by the way i think
are very hard but this is harder um understanding
sex and gender is harder than you know statistics
much harder uh and that's probably why there's
such a big argument about it no and it's not
something that can be settled by a single tweet
no no or anything like that no that's also kind
of going back to how you're saying like yes stats
are hard and I chose a degree that didn't have
to do math for a reason and you know whatever
but like the like numbers tend to be binary and
simple but then they also when used to explain
culture miss so much and so I think that's like
one thing that I always a lot of times when I
read reports or like see papers that like are
really really stats heavy which is nice because
like it's like okay you grounded in some numbers
and whatever but what you're trying the answer
like the question you're trying to answer isn't
static like that so the numbers while helpful
aren't the whole picture and i think that gets
lost a lot in forensic anthropology for sure
and people also have the it's easier to say oh
biology is more is this objective thing and so
we should apply stats to it and and then in that
culture this is why we have what we say hard
science and softer like those terms are just
bad terms they're erroneous science um but like
how how you say culture you know if somebody
says studying the humanities and cultures it's
considered a different type of study than biology
um and that's that's incorrect also Um, and there
aren't just, there's not just a yes and a no
answer to anything in, in the biological natural
world. That's just not, that's, there's lots
of evidence against that. Um, uh, there's a great
book that just came out this year, obviously
in Fuentes' book, the, um, Sex is a Spectrum,
um, where he, he even talks about the ideology
basis of, of the binary idea of male, female
versus a spectrum of sex. And it, you know, it,
there is an ideology behind it, which means that
it's, it's not as simple as, as numbers. And
that if you're going to define even biologically,
like, this is what sex is, like, maybe you should
be more specific and say, well, I'm talking about
chromosomes right now, which is not remotely
binary. uh for sex not like we teach this in
our introduction and you know biological anthropology
class like i do um because it's fascinating and
it's and we're talking you know as anthropologists
again we're talking about diversity of humans
and and evolution biologically and culturally
and just looking at uh the diversity of chromosomes
like everybody should be like fascinated i would
think you'd be fascinated by that not not just
wanting something to be more simplistic and that's
just not how the natural world works and so unfortunately
that the answer for that you know defining biological
sex or or um we keep going back to maybe calling
it for for forensic osteological sex or skeletal
sex we haven't really decided there's still that
debate um it's just changing uh there isn't one
And there hasn't been in forensics. And that's
one of the biggest problems is there's not been
a standard of terms with definitions. No, for
sure. We hope there's one coming soon. Yes, we
hope there's one coming soon. We spent a lot
of time trying to write definitions with a lot
of help. But there hasn't been. And I mean, I
had a student, two students last year at AFS.
uh looked at the languages language of sex and
gender in the abstracts of ass for the last uh
20 years and in all of all of the um sections
not anthropology but all of the sections and
and there's been a lot of conflation where sex
and gender are assumed to be the same thing and
are used that way um and then there's just been
in anthropology Interestingly, you see the change
of terminology where it's more common to say
biological sex nowadays when, you know, before,
I mean, they were talking more about sexual determinism
and things like that. Those are more common terms.
Sometimes we need to take a step back and we
need to look at what is going on in our field
so that we can understand where we came from
and maybe why. There are probably historical
reasons for why some of these terms were changing
out, but anthropology is the one that's changing
them. Everybody else, all of these other sections
are really staying the same. They're not investing
in definitions. anthropologists then we why aren't
we we can do that then I I'm not you know I'm
not an English professor but like I can look
up things that I can tell you what I think about
them and if we need to help you know other sections
in forensic sciences have more of a standard
by which we can have a shared understanding of
a word then we should be doing that because anthropologists
seem to be the ones most motivated to do that
and so um so what we're doing yet now hopefully
in this one paper is trying to do that um again
but it's it's these are these are living terms
they're going to change as needed but hopefully
people will stop using some terms and use other
ones and at least have a definition for them
so if you're using a term i can at least know
what you mean well i wonder if that's because
Like I had said, we're trying to bring anthropology
back into forensic anthropology, and I wonder
if that's because that is happening with, I don't
want to say younger, but this more sort of younger
set, the usses, the collective usses right now,
in the field that have that mindset of trying
to say, you know, the sociocultural anthropology
is not that bad and we need to incorporate it.
Because I remember when I first started coming
to AFS, the very first meeting was when they
dropped the term physical from the anthropology
section. And that was a big deal because, well,
that means that the cultural anthropologists
could come in and there were a lot of... older
people that did not want that to happen. But
now you have younger individuals who are more
willing to embrace our cultural cousins, academic
cousins, and bring in those theories, bring in
those ideas. But when you look at the other sections,
the other areas of forensic science, they don't
have that humanities sort of subfield. that's
related to them there's no humanity's side of
pathology pathology is pathology you have clinical
and you have forensics and anatomical but you
don't have a humanities side there's no humanities
toxicology there's no humanities biology so we
have that sort of side piece that we're able
to build on, that we're able to turn on, and
we're able to relate to because they're in our
departments. We're able to talk to them and we
can sort of turn up these definitions and turn
up new ideas that the other sort of areas of
forensic science just don't have access to. Well,
I think a lot of it goes back to, I mean, I feel
like I probably bring up my thesis every episode,
but it all goes back to people thinking that
they can be objective when you can't because
you're people. And so like, I mean, my thesis
itself was seeing if like gendered clothing affected
sex assessment. And that is getting at that exact,
like. Is what you're seeing contextually affecting
how you pretend to be objective for this skeletal
sex assessment? And the answer is yes. And so
it's like, let's not, I think it's so much of
science and especially for like forensic science,
like for anthropology specifically, there's been
such a push for so long to say we're separate
from that. We aren't. We aren't bioarchaeologists.
We're not cultural anthropologists. We're forensics.
We're hard science. We're objective. We can be
the ground truth of what biology is. And there
just isn't that because people are doing the
science. And so it's like trying to pretend to
be something that we're not and that we can be
in ourselves binary in our decisions doesn't
help. I think we have, we have. in as forensic
anthropologists like you have another level of
of responsibility to use your knowledge like
all of it and direct it in a way and and that
can be difficult because you're we're in an interesting
position of like more of an academic kind of
background than a lot of forensic scientists
are and but that does and so you have to communicate
in a new way um but I think that that shouldn't
mean that you drop certain things like I mean
they're just the last couple years there's a
couple of articles you know trying to reintroduce
you know evolutionary theory and forensic anthropology
too and it's like well how would that how is
that ever lost like we're literally looking at
variation but yet it It's sort of lost because
you have to talk to different types of people
in a way that they can understand. But that doesn't
mean that you avoid the truth of the matter,
even like the truth of our statistics. Don't
simplify it to the point that it's wrong. And
I think that that has got away from some people.
that it needs to just be reiterated to especially
to students when you know if you're a lover of
bones and taking biological anthropology and
want to do forensic anthropology and because
I've met some students like this that don't want
to take that cultural class or even like an archaeology
class that we reiterate to them in biological
anthropology why you need that class. That it
is going to be a daily part of your operations
as an anthropologist. You're there as an anthropologist.
You're not just there as somebody who looks at
bones and numbers because that's your results
and then you need to interpret them and that's
a broader ability and that's broader information.
contextual information and don't forget that
you need that and don't forget who you are as
an anthropologist because I think you can forget
that when you're working in the government or
with law enforcement all the time because those
because it's a different type of environment
from where you came from right yeah I guess I
have I have one question for both of y 'all having
done this type of research and lived experience
and things like that but like so kind of at the
end of my thesis kind of our decision was like
well one we need more anthropologists because
obviously context is affecting our sex assessments
and they're affecting you know how we're making
these overall interpretations but in trying to
like for application purposes, for going to law
enforcement of giving, you know, a biological
profile or giving some type of context into who
the person likely was, because what they're trying
to figure out is who is it? And so if I use the
context too much and sway it too far into, well,
now I'm saying female sex and I'm not. Like,
because, you know, I saw a dress or heels or
whatever, and I'm ignoring some of the skeletal
traits that are conflicting that. While that
actually gives me a bigger picture of, okay,
someone has skeletal traits that might be considered
more masculine or might be considered more male
biologically, but they're wearing feminine clothing.
And that gives you a bigger picture of who the
person is. I guess, what would y 'all's... guidance
be maybe and obviously like I'm not saying like
you have to have a full answer of this is what
we should all do now but like the how do we go
about understanding context and having that context
because it is important for the overall picture
but for that context to not bias our first assessment
if that makes sense because like if the contextual
information is biasing that first context to
a different answer then we're not getting the
bigger picture. And so like, I know for like
my advisor and I were like, well, maybe we have
more than one anthropologist, one person that
knows none of the context and one person that
knows all the context. And then you mash all
the information together to give that assessment
to law enforcement or whatever. But there's not
very many of us. We don't get paid very well
enough. So then like, is that practical? How
do we go about doing that? I didn't know if y
'all had any. Any ideas, I guess? We do! And
you're not far off. So I want to introduce this
idea, because I haven't said it yet, but abbreviated
as COSAGE, C -O -S -A -G -E, which is contextual
observations in support of all gender expressions,
is this idea that we have, which is a form. to
be used as a tool. Okay. Um, and so the first
thing like to answer your question is that we,
we agree that this will, you will have some bias
going on if you know everything, um, because
it's happened and you just confirmed that there's,
there's cases of it and you've confirmed it yourself.
Um, and so that this should start off as a skeletal
analysis. hopefully in the blind as much as possible.
That's not always possible. If you're recovering
remains, you might see clothing and things like
that. So it's not always possible. But certainly
as part of the working standard for sex estimation,
it should be as much about separating that skeletal
analysis from context initially. But as we move
through this form, which starts out as skeletal
sex estimation in many forms, just but starting
out that without any contextual information,
this is kind of a collaborative idea. So that
you should be collaborating with your medical
legal team, coroners, MEs, archaeologists. I
don't think that you can unsee things that you've
seen. You can just do the best you can. And so
I think maybe you note, hey, I was there. Just
like in cultural anthropology, you note your
biases. That is a bias. You can't really undo
those things. But you can say I was there. You
could admit that this might. be biasing, but
you should still be, and that's why it should
be as systematic as you can methodologically
with the skeletal part of that, because that
is the forensic anthropology part. And we want
to keep that as separate as possible from the
rest of it. Context should be there, which is
the point of the form. uh that we should think
about context it's like a tool to work through
it's a thinking process so you should not ignore
context and you should go about getting information
about the context from various sources including
not just like law enforcement and medical legal,
but an archaeologist, but community members who
have also knowledge that should be seen as the
same level as knowledge as any other forensic
scientist there, because they will a lot of times
be teaching you a lot. But so, yeah, I don't,
Ashley, was there some other, did you have another?
Component to answering that question. No, that's
basically the same way. And ideally, you'd have
as many people as you could working on it. But
if it has to, you know, you work on the skeleton.
For me now, the way I do it, if you are limited
in individuals, limited in the number of people
you could work on is you have the skeletal assessment.
And then you start getting that contextual information
and start going this back and forth to build
that more fuller picture of who that individual
was. I mean, I'm not an expert in like clothing.
So if I have a historical skeleton and they have
clothing, you know. I'm still I'm gonna and sometimes
it comes to you sometimes it doesn't like it
it depends on frankly where you are in the country
the infrastructure for like of forensics and
archaeology it really varies because I've gotten
plenty of I've gotten a I got a a gun once in
a box of bones so I sometimes it happens sometimes
it doesn't um but like so from a one example
from an historic archaeological site is that
you know we got some clothing like buttons and
things i know that there are people that specifically
study buttons i am not that person i can say
it's a button and i'm going to ask somebody and
i'm going to put it over there and maybe email
somebody and then i'm going to do the thing that
i know how to do and it and and you should be
doing that as a forensic forensic anthropologist
like you should not be uh saying I'm an expert
in this or pretending in any way whatsoever that
you know anything about clothing because you
don't. You know as a person in the world, but
that's it. And so that contextual information
might be there when you don't want it at first,
but you're not that expert and you need to set
it. aside and then get those people that are.
And then it's not always easy to do that either.
And so a lot of things that some of the reasons
behind some of this form was that were the basis
of like cold cases. One of the best examples,
which was now she was identified was Julie Doe,
Pamela Walton by the DNA Doe Project. I can't
remember if it was earlier. I think it was earlier
this year. Um, but Julie Doe is a very well known,
um, case, um, from Florida from the eighties,
the late eighties. And, um, And I've used it
like as an example for years before she was actually
identified. I was I consult with the DNA Doe
Project. And so it was a very long waiting. We
knew she was identified. We had to wait quite
a while until we could say that she was here.
So but it was years and many it was many years.
One of the longest, most complicated transgender
female cases, which there aren't that many. But
this is a great example of one that's really
well known. And there's a lot of, there was this,
in this case, initially there was, when the body
was discovered, there was clothing, there was
like a skirt, long hair, nails, silicon breasts,
implants, things like that were associated. The
forensic anthropologist was, I don't believe
at a recovery, but was aware of these things.
And so initially. when the report was written,
it probably was a biasing factor. You don't know
for sure. Nobody wrote that down, but it probably
was. And they even suggested that this individual
had given birth from parturition pits, which
we would not use anymore for this purpose, but
there was even that for this case. And so this
case sat there and was re -looked at in 2011.
And the person that looked at it was like, oh,
wait, I don't think that this is a female skeleton.
I think that this is a male skeleton and that
these other things are. were biasing factors
and we shouldn't have considered them. And so
this is when this case became more prominently
known. And only again, this year, earlier this
year, was this individual identified from, they
did do DNA. And so there was a karyotype, an
XY karyotype, but also a very complicated story.
This individual lived as a transgender female
in Florida. um and left i think kentucky or tennessee
one of those states but they had a lot of family
there um and it was a very complicated i don't
know family tree for whatever reason but this
if anybody looks it up uh the it's an interesting
case to look at for transgender cases because
of the artwork that was created um which is pretty
terrible uh initially anybody can google it uh
julie doe you can google julie doe and it'll
come up um but the dna doe project redid the
art when after this 2011 2011 analysis came out
to portray this as a human and not just like
a man with a wig on because that's essentially
what it looked like as art. And so this is something
that we're starting to do too. It's not just
a reanalysis, but how can we make this, put this
into the public light where people have a different
judgment of it because we believe that The public
also has cognitive bias when they're looking
at casework for those cases that they care about.
We've seen this in numerous cases where people
just have comments. I can read Reddit about all
these cases, and sometimes the comments are pretty
terrible, or they're just out of left field.
And that can have to do with what we put out
there, what the artist puts out there, or what
a forensic anthropologist did or did not say.
And so some of the practices for this co -stage
form also have to do with, you know, use of like
more neutral verbs than saying she or he and
things like that, which might not be useful because
we know that of something like 35 % of the I'm
trying to remember, 35 % of the cases that were
gender diverse cases through the human rights
campaign were individuals that were dead named
or misgendered. And so think about the fact that
that's a really large, that's a high percentage
of individuals then that you know, if these were
cold cases, that they're just, we're not looking
beyond whatever sex they were listed on a database
on. We're not looking beyond that because law
enforcement isn't doing that. An anthropologist
might think there's things beyond that, contextual
things beyond that, but a police officer probably
isn't. Now they're getting more training, depending
on where we are in the country, but... um there's
some limitations and i mean i can talk about
some of the issues of namus for for like a while
i think we all probably could yeah yeah yeah
i we've written about it several times like a
lot of people have written about some of the
issues now i'm not saying like in general we
need namus okay like let's not get rid of namus
we need namus um but anthropologists don't have
that much as much input as we could on something
like NamUs. We may or may not have any real input.
We might just give our reports to law enforcement
and the law enforcement may or may not use them
to input information on NamUs, which is restricted
on, first of all, it's not mandated, right? Like
we all know that it's not a federal mandate that
people use NamUs to list their unidentified or
missing individuals. But it also is restricted
for the section that talks about sex. And it's
changed. We talked a little bit about that in
this paper, how through time, some of the terms
and categories that might be listed have changed
in NamUs for sex in particular, but that there
is no, there's nothing like a A pull down tab
where you can say this is the definition of the
tab that I'm pulling down and I want to use uncertain
versus unknown versus what male and female. I
just said, I don't know. I don't have a great
definition of these things. But yet, if those
are the only categories and you have people that
aren't thinking about the definitions, you're
going to be quite limited. You're going to miss
large proportions of. of groups of matching people
that you could be looking for for an unidentified
person if you have those limitations. And so
this form takes what we have in NamUs and says,
so if this is what we have, you know, an anthropologist
has these answers with the skeletal and the contextual
information. mesh with each other or don't mesh
with each other or you're missing data and don't
have cannot do sex estimation at all what should
we put into namus and so we try to define that
a bit better um and really like a large portion
of this paper is kind of instructions on what
we think based on on um the stakeholders in of
of authors that we have but also other individuals
from the community of what what would work best
for not excluding matches because once you start
excluding matches like once once you're looking
for just males and never females uh that is 50
50 where we're really like in the system that
is you're excluding 50 of what you're looking
for and almost nobody ever has the cake the categories
uncertain or other almost nobody ever uses them
um an occasion in in namus and if they do we
don't know why we don't know if it's because
you're saying this person is intersex or because
you just have no idea or you just didn't know
the answer or just put nothing we we don't know
why and so this form we try to have at least
the anthropologists initially walk through the
process of why you're saying what you're saying
and be as specific as possible. Hey, I can't
determine sex because I'm missing all these parts
of the skeleton. That should be written somewhere.
It should be written really clearly somewhere
so that people can decide on going back and looking
at cold case files again and what needs to be
done. And it's not always written very clearly.
It certainly isn't in NamUs. even in an anthropological
report, it might not be written. So it's kind
of a process of like, let's go through and think
about what we're doing, how that can affect the
case in the future. And eventually that gets
down to gender and context, but it starts with
skeletal sex estimation and how we got there
as precisely as we can. Because even, you know,
methods change, right? So I want to know what
methods you used and why maybe you use those
methods. Because somebody can look at this case
in the future and make better decisions about
what they want to do with it if they know that.
We don't all have access to, you know, it would
be great, but we don't have access to everybody's
case files and they might get lost. And so if
we have like, you know, this is an appendix or
something where. This is more specific than the
report that's written to law enforcement, which
it probably will be because they're not terribly
specific. Some are super, super short. If you
ever read an FBI one, it's super, super short.
It leaves a lot of lackluster for the forensic
anthropologist to be like, oh, that's all you
put in a report? Yeah, because we're conforming
it to... the end product, the need, but not the
long term of what a case could be. And so that's
a problem with a case like Julie Doe where we
have to, you need to know long term. And this
is one of the longest reports I have arrived
was from Julie Doe because it had a lot of, you
know, the same type of law enforcement notes
on it, but none of them were helpful for understanding
what I would want to do in the future. um as
an anthropologist and this is of course if you
use dna or not use dna with skeletal analysis
is is is still important if anybody's wondering
and i do a lot of dna but it's still important
to do but yeah so i wanted to bring up julie
doe just because i was very excited and she was
finally identified along with a couple others,
but people like the DNA Doe Project, if any students
are interested, and we were talking about genealogy
really quickly before we started here, and so
Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy, FIG,
I hope I got that one correct, for any of the
students. That's the big thing these days. They
change it all the time, but it's FIG, but so
students can get involved in that too. I think
Namus is starting to use. big more regularly
as well. So, yeah. No, I appreciate you saying
that. Cause I just, I think that's one of the
things that I know for myself with report writing,
I struggle with a lot because doing the job I
do, there's obviously a lot of standardization
that occurs and a lot of restrictions on how
like. analyses are presented what analyses i
can even do like are the methods in our standard
operating procedures can i even use the methods
that maybe i want to and those different types
of things because they all follow under certain
accreditations that while are really helpful
for making sure that we're doing good science
can also sometimes be kind of limiting in some
of that contextual information and it's I know
I often in peer reviews and other things, I tend
to not write in my report because maybe, you
know, that would make it too long or not conform
to whatever. But in my notes, I tend to have
a lot of detail of like, unless so for sex assessment,
because we don't tend to get clothing or anything
for our cases sometimes, but not always. Mostly
not. But just the fact that like, I'm like, okay,
well I have. a case that is military we you know
someone dug it up because they said it was this
person and they just couldn't id them in the
70s or whatever as that person all of that information
i know and so like pretending i don't know that
this is most likely a white man in his 20s is
to me not transparent and i think as anthropologists
that's one thing i try to that's one of those
hills I'll always die on of like, maybe we can't
control all of our biases. Maybe we can't mitigate
and be objective to the extent that maybe some
people want us to be, but we can at least be
transparent about what we're doing, why we're
doing it and how we got to the conclusion that
we're, we're making because otherwise. people
are left thinking that this is the only option
of like oh well you did this method this has
to be the answer when that's not necessarily
true you're like i did these methods and they
gave me these results but i used all of this
other stuff to make my answer and if you're not
explicit and transparent about those things then
you know maybe a future anthropologist will look
at it and be like oh Well, they had a score of
two for a greater sciatic notch. So they're male
and we're going to move forward, you know, like,
and that's not really how that works. That's
the best word is the transparency. That's definitely
the key here is like, try to be as transparent
as you, as you can as a human, however possible
it is to do that as a human. If you have it written
down, like somebody can look at it and. you're
everybody is going to make mistakes and that's
what we do but if somebody can see that mistake
in the future and that helps solve a case and
identify somebody then good I'm glad that you
saw my mistake right exactly and I think that's
that being not necessarily okay with being wrong
but being willing to say I can be wrong is so
important because yeah I would want someone to
be like hey you messed up and then for me to
be like oh i did let me fix that problem so one
this case can move forward but also so that maybe
i don't make that mistake moving forward you
know and even um what you're saying um where
if you say like probable male or probable female
and you write that you write that in a report
you know how is that seen is that They're just
going to run with male and female. That's what
they're going to run with. And that's not what
we mean. And that is not what we mean at all.
And so like in part of what we talk about for
using this form is saying like, no, if you have,
if your stats come out and they say, and it's
telling us probable, then you need to not say
male or female. And you need to not put it in
that category because that is you're excluding
matches. And you can say why you're not putting
it there, but that needs to be very clear. The
language we, it should be put in as like unsure
is what we suggest on NamUs. And why, and that's
in the form, but unsure because you're not excluding
one side, you know, the two halves that we have
to look at in NamUs by doing that. And so, and.
most people don't want to look at they're not
going to really look at the stats like they might
ask us to say what does that mean but um if you
put probable probable male they're putting male
right that's what's happening and that's what's
going on we're doing the science and moving forward
with it yeah yeah and it's the same thing with
ancestry like it's the same same issue yeah and
so that's why even though like it's nice to have
it's easier don't stress the problem I said they
don't stress the probable. Yeah. Yeah. Which
is the the the actually like that's the objective
part of what we're trying to get. That's the
important part, actually. And but it just doesn't
sound that way. And so it doesn't it doesn't
come off correctly. And we have a responsibility
for them to understand for people who are reading
that to understand what that actually means.
uh if we have to put an extra line of what that
means and we have to do that because it's otherwise
it's not being used you know in a way that it's
intended in the way that the stats are telling
us that's it's being interpreted incorrectly
um right yeah and so this is kind of hopefully
like a tool to work out some of those issues
i don't we don't have necessarily like a uh Oh,
you know, a paragraph of how to describe these
things. But suggestions of if you're working
with law enforcement and you have probable and
you should suggest, well, what if we put unsure
on nameless and then describe why that'll be
more useful. So we can do things like that as
an anthropologist where, you know, you're able
to suggest things. It depends, of course, on
who you're working with and whether they. think
that's, you know, they take you seriously or
not. But you can try. And I think you have a
responsibility to do that. Right. I actually,
on my reports, when I go through everything,
I'll always list, sort of interpret what each
individual method is saying. And anytime it says
probable or something like that, I italicize
probable. So I'm stressing. All the italics underline
bigger font. What can we do, right? This is the
important part. I did want to ask, you know,
when I give guest lectures and lectures to my
classes on this topic, one of the things I bring
up is if you look at the sort of a history almost
of the, and it's all relatively recent history
of the writings on trans issues in forensic anthropology.
You start right around 2019, 2018, 2019, and
it's a sort of methodology and identification,
surgical modifications. I'm thinking very clearly
Shawl and some of the others. And then it quickly
jumps into why we need to do this. why we need
to incorporate trans people into forensic anthropological
research and knowledge and casework and just
the gestalt of our field. And now we're starting
to see with, say, Kosage and others that coming
out. Where do you see, as we're wrapping up,
where do you see the future of this topic being
discussed? Particularly given how it's persona
non grata in academia these days. Yeah. Gosh.
And I think that's true for some of my co -authors.
we're putting out the hey we should pay attention
to this and think about this um but not so much
like the methodology component that probably
everybody wants uh and but it also is attracting
the interest of of students And I think that
that's been, and so education is probably one
of the other biggest components here is educating
people about the issue, the gap of knowledge
in the forensic sciences and in forensic anthropology
and the limits of our methods as well. And so
I hope in the nearest future that that is part
of the conversation in the classroom. Because
that is really where it has to start. Our practicing
forensic anthropologists are in the classroom
right now. And so it needs to start with the
thinking about this. Why should we think about
this? And when we're talking about methods, it
should not be biblical. It should not be the
Bible of this is always correct. It should not
be that. That is not a correct way of teaching
for many reasons. That's just not how stats work.
And that's not how diversity works. And so that
needs to be, that should stop. But to bring in
diversity and that there's outliers in forensic
anthropology are not outliers. Those are people
that we are responsible for. And that needs to
be said in the classroom. And this thought process,
the reason why I think COSAGE is a good start
here is because it is a tool to think through
something. It reminds me of the bioarchaeology,
in bioarchaeology we have the index of care,
where you're not giving an answer, but you're
taking information from the environment, from
culture, from any contextual information you
can get, and putting it with the skeleton and
trying to... have a broader interpretation of
things uh and so it's it's like that it's a think
through process so that you at least we can get
our brain moving and in a direction to include
something broader than just look that our responsibility
is broader than just looking at um you know morphology
of the the pelvis and the skull that it's beyond
that and as an anthropologist like you didn't
start anthropology to just look at morphology
of the pelvis and the skull you were you're doing
forensic anthropology because you have another
purpose in mind that's broader than that and
so you should try to remember that and apply
it further and you come from a biocultural field
and it's beautiful and use it um it is significant
I say, do you have any, I guess, like for the
students that are listening to kind of like echo
a little bit what you've just said, but like
any advice for students who maybe want to get
into this specific topic of work of pros, cons,
places that, you know, maybe a publication said
you can't do this because of X, Y, Z, or, you
know, like, do you have any, I guess, just like.
advice in any direction for students who want
to do like research wise there is the the um
the queering bioanth like library resource that
we created that's online through unld and it's
not just there for like oh there's research that's
done on on variation and sex and gender and in
all of anthropology and outside of it but also
for your own like personal edification uh as
a human that it might be interested in this for
your own personal reasons whatever they are then
that you you belong here doing this and I've
told I've told many a student that's come up
to me after like I gave a talk about Julie Doe
and has like been ecstatic and and also hugged
me at the same time after this my my The biggest
thing I say is that you have a question about
it. Like I can try to help you point you in the
right direction to the right people. But you
you belong here doing this. And this is important.
And and and not everybody is from the the older
school of thinking where that doesn't belong
in the field. That's that's. the fact that your
brain's even thinking about this like i think
is genius like literally i never thought about
this when i was in college it didn't come up
into my it's not come into my brain and so when
i have students bringing up talking about uh
gender in forensic anthropology um i'm ecstatic
that they are already abridging that that biocultural
need It's just innate in anthropology. That's
what we're doing in anthropology. Just continue
that, contain it there. And there are people
that want to do this and are doing this and will
continue to do it through the ups and downs of
any politics involved because it's needed more
than ever. The stats are there for why it's needed.
And forensic anthropologists are not just there
for like one major group of people. They're supposed
to be there for everybody. And so not having
this information is a detriment. And there's
tons of research to be done. There's so much.
But find that community. There are communities
at every conference that will. support you in
research and personally um and it's changing
and it is it's you know depending on where you
go and there are there are people that can mentor
you towards you know the positivity of this type
of research just don't be afraid of it it's there
it's it's a reality that it exists in in other
parts of anthropology it's just newer it's newer
in forensics and so Being new is a little bit
painful at first. You do have to defend yourself
a little bit more, but we're trying to do that
for you. So we're trying to put out those defenses
to be more stable for the future research of
it. And there are so many people that I can point
students to who would love to work with them
on this sort of topic. No, I definitely appreciate
it because I know when I first started grad school,
and so maybe this is... I don't know advice slash
we've all been through it situation for the students
that are listening of like I went in and one
of the topics that I was thinking about doing
research was this and I got nervous to a certain
extent to be like well who am I to be talking
about this as a cisgendered woman who at that
point in her life had never been outside of Louisiana
and Let's be real. We all know how Louisiana
is. So I was just like, who am I, am I supposed
to be doing this research, even though I have
the questions? And I think the answer to that
kind of is yes, because if you were interested
in it and it comes from a empathetic, genuine
place, not an otherizing place, I think it to
like dive into it. I don't know. This is where
being an anthropologist comes in too, because
a cultural anthropologist has that problem every
day. For everything they do. And the answer is
you bring in the stakeholders. The community
has to be part of what you're doing. And they
should always be part of what you're doing. And
that's true in biological anthropology. We know
that very strongly now. Like in bioarchaeology.
The community needs to be aware and part of decisions
that are making. Same thing in forensic anthropology.
The community that this impacts should be part
of the decisions and the voice. Oh, that's blaspheme.
That is blaspheme. I got into it. Well, not got
into it, but had a rather lively debate with
an individual. I won't say who they were for
just that very reason, because, well, we don't
ask men, we don't ask women, we don't ask...
african -americans or anybody else when we do
research on on any of those topics i just we
should it's like yeah how well did that go in
the past doesn't mean you shouldn't do now yeah
yeah yeah but it was it was someone who's been
in the field a long time there again you have
that dividing line between been in the field
a while and Hasn't been in the field since, you
know, archaic times. I mean, I wasn't taught
that in college. Nobody was telling me, like,
you should involve the community. Nobody was
doing that. Nope. And when I started, that was
the same way. As a matter of fact, no, you don't.
That would bias your research. That would bias
what you're studying. or shut it down now know
differently or at least we argue differently
well i think to a certain extent and i this is
one of my arguments for bias because that was
my research is bias isn't inherently negative
like it's just all biases is saying that it is
affecting what you're doing that could be a good
thing that could be a bad thing but it's not
i think people assume automatically that you're
like oh bias just means that you're a racist
homophobe and that's not that's not what it means
you're like you have to look at the bigger picture
of like yes everything's affecting everything
else and not all of that's bad if you're a racist
homophobe you wouldn't be reflecting on it so
the bias is like it allows you to reflect facts
yes so anyways Sam, I want to thank you so much
for joining us this lovely evening. It's been
a fascinating conversation. And I want to thank
our audience for joining us. We will get to,
we're still working out who our next guest will
be, but we will let you all know via the wonders
of the evil that is social media. And if you
have any ideas, so like if you're listening and
you're like, I want to hear more about skeletal
sex assessment or I want to hear more about chromosomes
or I want to hear more about trauma or, you know,
like it doesn't necessarily have to be this topic
in particular. But if you have a specific topic
in mind that you want to hear about or you have
someone from the field that you're like, I have
looked up to this person for so long and I want
to hear their voice on a podcast just because
I want to hear their voice, whatever. You can
always let us know those types of things, too.
Email us at boneclubpodcast at gmail .com. We'll
try to get a hold of everybody except for James
Pekinus and Jane Bytstra. They scare me. I'll
email them. It's fine. Well. Yeah, it's okay.
Well, we do thank you all for being here and
until next time. Thanks for having us on The
Bone Club. Thank you, guys. And have a wonderful
Canadian Thanksgiving to our Canadian friends.
Happy Thanksgiving. Hello, friends. We here at
The Bone Club understand how difficult it is
for students to break into the field of forensic
anthropology. To help with that cause, we have
decided to monetize in a way by setting up an
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to the anthropology section of the American Academy
of Forensic Sciences to help alleviate the cost
of attending an annual scientific conference
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membership tiers with patreon .com slash the
bone club that range from $3 a month to our patrons
of the bones at $15 a month. We hope some of
you can join us in this worthy endeavor of breaking
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away from these important conferences. So if
you can, please join us at patreon .com slash
the bone club. Thank you, and may your skeletons
always be complete.