The Allegory of the Cave-In: Seven Inconvenient Truths About Gender and Bad Philosophy

How ancient philosophy becomes modern misdirection

In the ongoing debates about sex and gender, it's become somewhat fashionable to invoke ancient philosophy as an ace in the hand - as if Plato or Aristotle might settle modern questions about biology and identity. Recently, a gender critical blogger writing under the pseudonym "Thecla" attempted exactly this, wielding Plato's famous Allegory of the Cave like a philosophical cudgel to argue that gender identity is mere illusion while biological sex represents ultimate truth.

I came across this when Thecla made a thoughtful and nuanced rebuttal to one of my notes that was itself, a rebuttal to a gender critical user making a rather disingenuous remark.

I will spare you the details of the exchange, (you can read for youreself here) but the thoughtfulness and care in which Thecla threaded the needle in their rebuttal gave me pause to look at their substack, which at the moment of writing this, consists of the one creative article that we are responding to here.

It's a seductive rhetorical move: wrap your position in the robes of classical philosophy and suddenly your opponents aren't just wrong, they're metaphysically wrong. They're not just mistaken about biology, they're prisoners staring at shadows on a wall, too deluded to see reality.

But here's the thing about invoking ancient philosophy: it only works if you actually understand it. And as we'll see, Thecla's adaptation doesn't just misuse Plato's allegory - it fundamentally inverts it. It contradicts its philosophical foundations and, as we will see, ultimately undermines their own position.

Before we can appreciate the full scope of this philosophical malpractice, however, we need to understand what Plato was actually trying to say.

Understanding Plato’s Cave

Before we examine Thecla’s recent article (“A shadow called "gender" is hurting my eyes - How an ancient allegory illustrates a feminist critique of gender identity”), we need to understand the philosophical framework they’re employing. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave appears in Book VII of The Republic (circa 380 BCE) and represents one of philosophy’s most enduring metaphors about knowledge and reality.

Picture this: Prisoners are chained in a cave, facing a wall. Behind them is a fire, and between the fire and prisoners, people carry objects that cast shadows on the wall. The prisoners, having never seen anything else, believe these shadows are reality itself.

Plato uses this allegory to illustrate his Theory of Forms - the idea that what we perceive in the physical world are merely imperfect copies of perfect, eternal “Forms” that exist in a higher realm. When a prisoner escapes and sees first the fire, then the real objects, and finally the sun outside, they’re ascending from ignorance to knowledge, from illusion to truth.

Plato’s purpose was epistemological - he was making an argument about the nature of knowledge and reality, suggesting that true understanding comes from philosophical reasoning about abstract Forms, not from empirical observation of the physical world.

Thecla’s Adaptation: A Questionable Mapping

In their article “A shadow called ‘gender’ is hurting my eyes,” Thecla attempts to map this ancient allegory onto contemporary debates about sex and gender. In their retelling:

• Biological sex = The true Forms (the real objects)
• Gender = The shadows on the wall
• Conservatives = Prisoners who think shadows should behave certain ways
• Trans activists = Prisoners who think shadows naturally change
• Gender critical feminists = The freed prisoner who sees the “truth”

This mapping allows Thecla to position their viewpoint as enlightened truth-seeking while dismissing other perspectives as shadow-watching. It’s rhetorically clever, but philosophically and scientifically problematic for several reasons.

Most crucially, Thecla has built their conclusion into their premise. By positioning biological sex as the “true forms” and gender as mere “shadows,” they’ve created a false hierarchy before the argument even begins. This isn’t philosophy - it’s circular reasoning dressed in Platonic robes.

Think about it: Why must gender be the shadow? Why can’t biological sex be the shadow and gender identity be the form? Or why can’t they both be equally real phenomena operating at different levels of human existence? Thecla never argues for this hierarchy - they simply assert it through their choice of metaphor.

This is like starting a debate about whether cats or dogs make better pets by announcing “Let’s call dogs ‘real animals’ and cats ‘shadow animals.’” You’ve predetermined the outcome by rigging the language. By forcing gender into the role of “shadow,” Thecla has already declared it less real, less valid, less worthy of consideration. The entire allegory becomes an exercise in begging the question.

The First Inconvenient Truth: Plato Would Not Approve

Ironically, Thecla’s use of Plato undermines their own argument. Plato’s Forms were perfect, unchanging ideals that transcended physical reality. The philosopher was famously skeptical of empirical observation, believing true knowledge came from reasoning about abstract concepts.

Yet Thecla wants us to accept biological sex - an empirically observable, physically manifested phenomenon - as the “true Form.” This is the opposite of Platonic philosophy. Plato would likely argue that both biological sex AND gender are shadows, with the true Form of “human” existing beyond either category.

By grounding their argument in physical biology while using Platonic metaphysics, Thecla commits a fundamental category error that undermines their entire philosophical framework.

The Second Inconvenient Truth: The “Simple” Forms Are Anything But

Thecla describes discovering “simple” forms of male and female that are “stable and unchanging.” This reveals a profound misunderstanding of biological sex as understood by modern science.

Consider the multiple biological components of sex:

Chromosomal Sex

Beyond XX and XY, humans can be born with [1]:

• XXY (Klinefelter syndrome) - XYY (Jacob’s syndrome)
• XXX (Triple X syndrome)
• XXXX, XXXXX (Tetrasomy/Pentasomy X)
• X0 (Turner syndrome)
• Mosaicism (different chromosomes in different cells)

Hormonal Sex

• Testosterone and estrogen exist in all bodies, just in different ratios
• These ratios overlap significantly between males and females [2]
• Hormone levels fluctuate throughout life and can be influenced by numerous factors
• Some people have androgen insensitivity syndrome, making their bodies unable to respond to testosterone

Anatomical Sex

• External genitalia develop between weeks 7-12 of pregnancy [3]
• Internal reproductive structures develop on a separate timeline
• Various intersex conditions result in anatomy that doesn’t fit typical binary categories
• Even “typical” anatomy shows significant variation

Neurological Sex

Here’s where Thecla’s argument completely falls apart. Brain sexual differentiation occurs on a different timeline than genital development [4]. While genitals differentiate in the first trimester, brain organization continues throughout pregnancy and is influenced by different hormonal milieus [5].

This temporal separation creates a biological mechanism for gender identity to develop differently from anatomical sex. It’s not philosophy or ideology - it’s developmental biology.

The "Simple" Forms Aren't So Simple

The existence of intersex people - estimated at 1.7% of the population, roughly as common as red hair - fundamentally demolishes any claim to "simple" binary forms. These aren't rare exceptions or "disorders" to be dismissed; they're natural variations that occur when any of the above biological processes develop along different pathways. An XY individual with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome develops typically female anatomy. Someone with congenital adrenal hyperplasia may have XX chromosomes but masculinized genitalia. Klinefelter syndrome (XXY) affects 1 in 500-1,000 people assigned male at birth.

When Thecla claims to have discovered "simple" and "stable" forms of male and female, they're not just misunderstanding biology - they're erasing the lived experiences of millions of intersex people worldwide. This erasure is particularly cruel given that many intersex people have been subjected to non-consensual surgeries as infants to force their bodies into binary categories, often with devastating physical and psychological consequences. The "simple forms" Thecla sees aren't natural truths - they're the result of medical violence that literally cuts away any evidence of nature's complexity.

To use the analogy, if we were to cast them as shadows on the wall, how would we classify them? If biological sex equals the true forms, then intersex people are forms that... don't fit into Thecla's "simple" male/female categories. This immediately destroys their claim of discovering "simple" and "stable" forms.

The Third Inconvenient Truth: Gender Identity Has Biological Reality

Thecla dismisses gender identity as merely a “shadow,” but mounting scientific evidence demonstrates it has its own biological basis:

Genetic Evidence

Recent studies have identified genetic variants associated with transgender identity, particularly in genes related to sex hormone signaling [6]. These aren’t “gender genes” but rather variants that affect how the body and brain respond to sex hormones during development.

Neuroanatomical Evidence

Neuroimaging studies consistently find that transgender individuals show brain structures and connectivity patterns that are distinct from both typical males and females [7]. This isn’t about “male brains” or “female brains” - it’s about unique neurodevelopmental patterns that correlate with gender identity.

Prenatal Hormone Evidence

Research on prenatal hormone exposure, including studies of children exposed to unusual hormone levels in utero, demonstrates that these hormones influence both physical development and later gender identity [8].

This is not a “shadow” - it’s a measurable, biological phenomenon arising from the same developmental processes that create other aspects of sexual differentiation.

The Fourth Inconvenient Truth: The Cave Has Multiple Chambers

Perhaps the biggest flaw in Thecla’s adaptation is forcing a multi-dimensional phenomenon into a single-axis metaphor. Human sex/gender isn’t one cave with one fire creating one set of shadows. It’s more like a complex of interconnected chambers, each with its own light sources:

• The Chamber of Chromosomes: Where genetic information provides one type of light
• The Chamber of Hormones: Where chemical messengers create different patterns
• The Chamber of Anatomy: Where physical structures cast their own shadows
• The Chamber of Neurology: Where brain organization creates its own reality
• The Chamber of Psychology: Where identity and self-perception form
• The Chamber of Society: Where cultural meanings are constructed

No single chamber contains the “whole truth.” Each provides partial illumination of a complex phenomenon.

The Fifth Inconvenient Truth: This Isn’t About Feminism

Thecla positions gender critical feminism as the freed prisoner who alone sees truth. But examining their conclusions reveals something troubling:

1. They assert sex is “simple” and “binary” (contradicting biological evidence)
2. They claim gender identity is mere illusion (contradicting neuroscientific evidence)
3. They position themselves as uniquely enlightened (a classic rhetorical move)
4. They ally with conservative positions while claiming to transcend them

This isn’t feminist liberation - it’s biological essentialism wrapped in philosophical language.

To be clear, gender critical feminists are right about one thing: gender roles and stereotypes are oppressive chains that constrain people based on their perceived sex. The pink/blue binary, the assumption that women are naturally nurturing or men naturally aggressive, the limitation of opportunities based on anatomy (assumed or otherwise) - these are some of the real problems that feminism must continue to fight. These are the same chains that bind trans women who face misogyny and trans men who face toxic masculinity expectations.

But here’s where their analysis goes astray: denying the biological reality of gender identity doesn’t free us from these chains - it just creates new ones. When you tell a trans woman she must identify as male because of her anatomy, you’re not liberating her from gender stereotypes - you’re enforcing a different kind of biological determinism. When you insist that neurobiology cannot diverge from anatomy, you’re not fighting oppression - you’re creating it.

Feminism has always been about expanding possibilities, not constraining them. The suffragettes didn’t argue women deserved votes because of their biology - they argued for equal rights regardless of biology. Second-wave feminists fought against the idea that anatomy is destiny.

Gender critical feminism reverses this progress by insisting that anatomy must determine identity, spaces, and social recognition.

The Sixth Inconvenient Truth: The Real Shadows Are Ideological

If we must use the cave allegory, let’s identify the actual shadows distorting our vision. These are not just logical fallacies, though some are, but the ideological distortions that shape how we see and interpret reality:

The Shadow of Binary Thinking

The insistence that humans must fit into exactly two categories despite extensive evidence of biological variation and overlap.

Thecla describes discovering "simple" forms of male and female that are "stable and unchanging." This is perhaps the most telling shadow of all - the projection of simplicity onto biological complexity. They write that the forms are "obviously different, yet not as much as the conservatives would assert. Nor are they as fluid as the trans activist would assert."

But this middle-ground positioning is itself an illusion. As we've already seen, biological sex involves chromosomes that come in at least seven viable combinations, hormone levels that exist on overlapping continua, anatomical structures that develop on different timelines, and neurological patterns that form independently of genital development. The "simple" forms Thecla claims to have discovered are themselves shadows - simplified projections of a complex biological reality that resists binary categorization. When Thecla insists on seeing only two "stable and unchanging" forms, they're not escaping the cave - they're just choosing which shadows to believe are real.

The Shadow of Selective Science

Cherry-picking studies that support predetermined conclusions while ignoring the vast body of research on gender identity’s biological basis.

Notice how Thecla's freed prisoner discovers that the forms "do not speak. The only noise that can be found is the voices of the prisoners still arguing in the cave." This silence is convenient - it allows Thecla to project whatever meaning they want onto these forms without having to engage with actual evidence.

But science is not silent. Neuroscience speaks volumes about brain sexual differentiation. Genetics reveals variations in hormone receptor genes. Endocrinology documents the complex interplay of hormones throughout development. Psychology demonstrates the harm of forcing people to identify against their experienced gender. Yet in Thecla's cave, these voices are dismissed as mere "arguing" while they alone commune with silent, simple truths. This isn't enlightenment - it's selective deafness, choosing to hear only the echoes of their own assumptions.

The Shadow of False Concern

"A gender critical feminist believes that sex assigns us no role, no obligation, no emotion," Thecla writes, positioning their stance as liberating women from gendered expectations. But watch how quickly this liberation becomes exclusion.

This shadow manifests in claiming to protect women while actively working to exclude some women from women's spaces and rights. It's the rhetorical sleight of hand where "protecting women" somehow requires bathroom checks, genital inspections, and the policing of women's appearances. Where "women's rights" means denying healthcare to trans youth who will grow up to be women. Where "feminist spaces" must exclude women who don't meet arbitrary biological criteria.

But examine the logic: How does forcing a bearded trans man into women's bathrooms protect anyone? How does turning women's spaces into chromosome-verification zones advance feminism? The concern evaporates under scrutiny. Real threats to women - domestic violence, sexual assault, economic inequality - come overwhelmingly from cisgender men, not from trans women seeking safety. Yet gender critical feminists ally with conservative movements that oppose reproductive rights, workplace protections, and violence prevention - all in the name of "protecting" women from other women.

The real tell? When butch women, tall women, women with PCOS, or any woman who doesn't perform femininity "correctly" gets harassed in bathrooms by people "protecting women's spaces," where is the gender critical concern? It's nowhere to be found, because the concern was never about protecting women - it was about policing who counts as a woman.

The Shadow of Martyrdom

The most elaborate shadow Thecla casts is their self-portrayal as the suffering truth-seeker. "She takes off her chains, and it is no small task. It scrapes her arms, her legs, and blood drips onto the cave floors below." This dramatic imagery - blood, scraping, pain - transforms intellectual disagreement into physical persecution.

But who exactly is putting gender critical feminists in chains? Who is making them bleed? Trans people asking for healthcare? Researchers publishing neuroimaging studies? The rhetorical violence of this imagery obscures the actual violence faced by trans people - from employment discrimination to physical assault to suicide. By casting themselves as the bleeding prisoner while trans people are literally dying, Thecla creates a shadow play where the persecuted become the persecutors and actual suffering becomes invisible.

The Shadow of False Clarity

Perhaps most tellingly, Thecla's prisoner finds comfort in silence: "Here, it is silent. The forms do not speak." This is portrayed as peaceful truth, but it's actually intellectual stagnation. Real understanding comes from engaging with complexity, not retreating to silent simplicities.

When Thecla writes that "to accept the shadows of gender over the realities of sex is to keep herself trapped in the confines of patriarchal thought," they've got it exactly backwards. Patriarchy has always insisted that anatomy is destiny, that biology determines social roles, that physical form dictates identity. The gender critical position doesn't escape patriarchal thinking - it reinforces it by insisting that people must identify according to their anatomy, must organize socially by their genitals, must accept biological categories as social destinies.

The Shadow of Philosophical Pretension

Using complex metaphors to obscure simple prejudices.

Finally, we have the shadow Thecla casts most dramatically - using Plato's allegory to make their position seem philosophically profound rather than ideologically driven. But as we've seen, they've inverted Plato's entire philosophical framework. They've placed physical, observable biology in the role of Plato's transcendent Forms - a fundamental category error that would have Plato spinning in his grave.

The real irony? Thecla's article perfectly demonstrates the very shadow-watching they claim to transcend. They've created their own shadow play where:

• Complex biology becomes "simple" forms
• Scientific evidence becomes mere "arguing"
• Their ideology becomes enlightened truth
• Their metaphor becomes reality

These aren't the actions of someone who has escaped the cave. They're the projections of someone who has simply turned to face a different wall, declaring their preferred shadows to be the real ones while dismissing everything else as illusion. The chains they claim to have broken were never put there by gender theory - they're the self-imposed shackles of rigid thinking, and in their dramatic escape narrative, they've only managed to wrap themselves more tightly in ideological certainty.

The Seventh Inconvenient Truth: The Irony of Saint Thecla

There’s a delicious irony in Thecla’s choice of pseudonym that deserves examination. Saint Thecla was a 1st-century Christian convert who, according to the apocryphal “Acts of Paul and Thecla,” defied gender norms of her time by:

• Cutting her hair short
• Wearing men’s clothing to travel more safely
• Refusing marriage to pursue religious teaching
• Baptizing herself when Paul hesitated to baptize a woman
• Teaching and preaching despite prohibitions against women in ministry

The blog title “Thecla in The Lion’s Den” likely references both her legendary survival when thrown to wild beasts and the biblical Daniel’s survival in the lion’s den. Both figures represent standing for truth against hostile forces.

Here’s our take: The historical Thecla, as portrayed in these texts, was someone who fundamentally rejected the gender expectations of her era. They were literally transcending (‘transing’) gender norms. She refused to let her society’s ideas about what women should do constrain her spiritual calling. In that way, she rejected the biological determinism of her era that said women must marry and bear children. She presented as male when it served her mission. She claimed spiritual authority that transcended her assigned sex.

Not to beat this horse too much, but I feel it bears repeating - Thecla literally embodied the rejection of biological determinism that gender critical feminists claim to oppose. She refused to let her female biology dictate her life choices, dressed as a man, claimed religious authority typically reserved for men, and inspired other women to challenge societal expectations.

A gender critical feminist adopting this name is like a temperance advocate naming themselves after Dionysus.[13] The historical Thecla would likely be appalled at arguments that biology determines destiny or that people must present according to their assigned sex. This is particularly evident when you consider that Thecla’s story is about transcending societal expectations based on sex, not reinforcing them.

This naming choice reveals something deeper: as I have pointed out in other various writings, there seems to be a martyrdom complex that pervades gender critical feminism. By casting themselves as Thecla among lions, they position themselves as righteous truth-tellers persecuted for their beliefs. But who exactly are the lions here? Trans people seeking healthcare? Adolescents exploring their identities? Trans people visibly existing and participating in society?

The real Thecla faced actual lions (“wild beasts”). Modern gender critical feminists face… Twitter criticism and academic disagreement. This self-dramatization obscures who holds actual power and who faces real violence.

N.B. Dear reader, for citations regarding Thecla, please see citation [14]

Leaving the Cave: A Different Path Forward

Unlike Thecla’s solitary philosopher who alone possesses truth, real understanding comes from integrating multiple perspectives and evidence sources:

• From Biology - We learn that sex is bimodal rather than binary, with most people clustering around two peaks but significant variation and overlap [9].
• From Neuroscience - We learn that gender identity has biological underpinnings in brain development and organization [10].
• From Psychology - We learn that forcing people to identify with their assigned sex causes measurable psychological harm [11].
• From Sociology - We learn that gender roles and expressions vary dramatically across cultures and time periods [12].
• From Ethics - We learn that respecting people’s self-determination causes no harm while denying it causes significant suffering.

But knowledge alone isn't enough. To truly leave the cave we must shed the shackles. And here's where Thecla's metaphor reveals its deepest contradiction. Thecla thinks they're breaking free from the shackles by rejecting gender as a "shadow" and embracing biological sex as "truth." But they're actually still wearing the same chains - they've just convinced themselves the chains are natural and good.

When Thecla writes:

"She's beginning to wonder who put them all in these chains in the first place. Why is no one talking about the shackles?"

The answer is: Patriarchy put us in these chains. And everyone IS talking about them - trans people, feminists, queer theorists. But Thecla can't hear them because they've mistaken the chains for freedom.

The deepest irony: By insisting on binary sex categories as the "simple truth," Thecla is actually donning and tightening the very shackles they claim to escape. They're not breaking free from patriarchal thinking - they're enforcing its most fundamental premise: that anatomy determines identity and social position.

The trans activists and gender-fluid perspectives Thecla dismisses as "shadow-watchers" are actually the ones trying to break the real chains - the cisheteronormative binary that patriarchy uses to organize and control society. But Thecla, convinced of their own liberation, stands guard at the prison door, insisting everyone must stay in their assigned cells.

The Light They Are Not Willing To Face

Here’s what Thecla and other gender critical feminists don’t want to acknowledge: Their position requires ignoring or dismissing vast amounts of scientific evidence from multiple fields. They’re not the freed prisoner who’s seen reality - they’re the one insisting everyone else return to staring at their preferred shadows.

The real philosophical courage lies not in declaring biological sex the only truth, but in acknowledging the beautiful complexity of human existence. We can recognize that:

• Sex-based oppression is real AND gender identity is real
• Biology matters AND it’s more complex than a binary
• Women’s rights matter AND trans women are women
• Feminist analysis is crucial AND it must evolve with new knowledge

Conclusion: Stepping Into the Light

Thecla ends their piece alone, convinced they’ve found truth while others remain trapped in illusion. But knowledge isn’t found in solitary certainty - it emerges from collective inquiry, empirical evidence, and the humility to revise our views when presented with new information.

The cave we need to escape isn’t one where shadows of gender dance on the walls. It’s the cave of rigid thinking that reduces human complexity to simple binaries, that mistakes philosophical metaphors for biological reality, and that excludes vulnerable people in the name of protecting them.

That’s the ultimate inconvenient truth: The gender critical position isn’t a brave stance against ideology - it’s an ideological stance against evidence, masquerading as philosophy while undermining both feminist progress and scientific understanding.

The real light outside the cave illuminates a world where human diversity is celebrated rather than denied, where evidence trumps ideology, and where feminism means liberation for all rather than gatekeeping based on biology.

That’s a truth worth walking toward, together.

References:

[1] Blackless, M., Charuvastra, A., Derryck, A., Fausto-Sterling, A., Lauzanne, K., & Lee, E. (2000). How sexually dimorphic are we? Review and synthesis. American Journal of Human Biology, 12(2), 151-166.

[2] Luine, V. N. (2014). Estradiol and cognitive function: past, present and future. Hormones and Behavior, 66(4), 602-618.

[3] Sajjad, Y. (2010). Development of the genital ducts and external genitalia in the early human embryo. Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Research, 36(5), 929-937.

[4] McCarthy, M. M., & Arnold, A. P. (2011). Reframing sexual differentiation of the brain. Nature Neuroscience, 14(6), 677-683.

[5] Swaab, D. F., & Garcia-Falgueras, A. (2009). Sexual differentiation of the human brain in relation to gender identity and sexual orientation. Functional Neurology, 24(1), 17-28.

[6] Foreman, M., Hare, L., York, K., Balakrishnan, K., Sánchez, F. J., Harte, F., … & Harley, V. (2019). Genetic link between gender dysphoria and sex hormone signaling. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 104(2), 390-396.

[7] Mueller, S. C., De Cuypere, G., & T’Sjoen, G. (2017). Transgender research in the 21st century: a selective critical review from a neurocognitive perspective. American Journal of Psychiatry, 174(12), 1155-1162.

[8] Hines, M. (2011). Prenatal endocrine influences on sexual orientation and on sexually differentiated childhood behavior. Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, 32(2), 170-182.

[9] see 1 above

[10] see 6 above

[11] Turban, J. L., King, D., Carswell, J. M., & Keuroghlian, A. S. (2020). Pubertal suppression for transgender youth and risk of suicidal ideation. Pediatrics, 145(2), e20191725.

[12] Mead, M. (1935). Sex and temperament in three primitive societies. William Morrow & Company.

[13] For readers who are not aware: Dionysus = Greek god of wine, intoxication, ecstasy, and wild revelry. Temperance advocate = Someone who campaigns AGAINST alcohol consumption. Hence the contradiction: Naming yourself after the literal god of getting drunk while preaching sobriety. [14] Thecla citations/references:

Wikipedia article: Wikipedia contributors. (2025, May 4). Thecla. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 11:52, June 8, 2025, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thecla&oldid=1288791487

Ancient World Magazine article: Iosif, Despina. (11 March 2021).Shut up, woman! The apocryphal acts of Paul and Thecla and their impact. In Ancient World Magazine. Retrieved June 8, 2025, from https://www.ancientworldmagazine.com/articles/apocryphal-acts-paul-thecla/

Cambridge book chapter: Pelt, Julie Van. Thecla, the first cross-dresser? ( 06 May 2022 ). In Thecla and medieval sainthood. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved June 8, 2025, from https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/thecla-and-medieval-sainthood/thecla-the-first-crossdresser/F1424BFFA3BD7724F227DF037534D5CF