Third gender
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Third genderis a concept in which individuals are categorized, either by themselves or by society, as neither a man or woman. It is also a social category present insocietiesthat recognize three or moregenders.The termthirdis usually understood to mean "other", though someanthropologistsandsociologistshave described fourth[1]and fifth[2]genders.
The state of personally identifying as, or being identified by society as, a man, a woman, or other is usually also defined by the individual'sgender identityandgender rolein the particular culture in which they live.
Most cultures use agender binary,having two genders (boys/men andgirls/women).[3][4][5]In cultures with a third or fourth gender, these genders may represent very different things. ToNative HawaiiansandTahitians,māhūis an intermediate state between man and woman known as "genderliminality".[6][7]Some traditionalDinéNative Americans of the Southwestern United States acknowledge a spectrum of four genders: feminine woman, masculine woman, feminine man, and masculine man.[8]The term "third gender" has also been used to describe thehijrasof South Asia[9]who have gained legal identity,fa'afafineof Polynesia, andBalkan sworn virgins.[10]A culture recognizing a third gender does not in itself mean that they were valued by that culture, and often is the result of explicit devaluation of women in that culture.[11]
While found in a number of non-Western cultures, concepts of "third", "fourth", and "fifth" gender roles are still somewhat new to mainstream Western culture and conceptual thought.[12]While mainstream Western scholars—notably anthropologists who have tried to write about the South Asianhijrasor the Native American "gender variant" andtwo-spiritpeople—have often sought to understand the term "third gender" solely in the language of the modern LGBT community, other scholars—especially Indigenous scholars—stress that mainstream scholars' lack of cultural understanding and context has led to widespread misrepresentation of the people these scholars place in the third gender category, as well as misrepresentations of the cultures in question, including whether or not this concept actually applies to these cultures at all.[13][14][15][16]
Sex and gender
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Since at least the 1970s,anthropologistshave describedgender categoriesin some cultures which they could not adequately explain using a two-gender framework.[17][pages needed]At the same time,feministsbegan to draw a distinction between (biological)sexand (social/psychological) gender.[18]
Anthropologist Michael G. Peletz believes our notions of different types of genders (including the attitudes toward the third gender) deeply affect our lives and reflect our values in society. In Peletz' book, "Gender, Sexuality, and Body Politics in Modern Asia", he describes:[19][pages needed]
For our purposes, the term "gender" designates the cultural categories, symbols, meanings, practices, and institutionalized arrangements bearing on at least five sets of phenomena: (1) females and femininity; (2) males and masculinity; (3) Androgynes, who are partly male and partly female in appearance or of indeterminate sex/gender, as well as intersex individuals, also known as hermaphrodites, who to one or another degree may have both male and female sexual organs or characteristics; (4) transgender people, who engage in practices that transgress or transcend normative boundaries and are thus by definition "transgressively gendered"; and (5) neutered or unsexed/ungendered individuals such as eunuchs.
Transgender people and third gender
[edit]Gender may be recognized and organized differently in different cultures. In some non-Western cultures, gender may not be seen as binary, or people may be seen as being able to cross freely between male and female, or to exist in a state that is in-between, or neither. In some cultures, being third gender may be associated with the gift of being able to mediate between the world of the spirits and the world of humans. For cultures with these spiritual beliefs, it is generally seen as a positive thing, though some third gender people have also been accused ofwitchcraftand persecuted. In most western cultures, people who did not conform toheteronormativeideals were often seen as sick, disordered, or insufficiently formed. However, as of 2013, individuals who live in countries where theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disordersis used, being labeled as disordered for being transgender would no longer occur due to the manual's update. Instead, a new diagnosis was announced calledgender dysphoria.This new diagnosis highlights the distress a transgender person may experience rather than labels individuals who identify with a third gender as sick or disordered.
The Indigenousmāhūof Hawaii are seen as embodying an intermediate state between man and woman, known as "genderliminality".[6][7]Some traditionalDinehof the Southwestern US recognize a spectrum of four genders: feminine woman, masculine woman, feminine man, masculine man.[8]The term "third gender" has also been used to describe thehijrasof South Asia[9]who have gained legal identity, thefa'afafineof Polynesia, and theAlbanian sworn virgins.[10][page needed]
In some indigenous communities in Africa[vague],a woman can be recognized as a "female husband" who enjoys all the privileges of men and is recognized as such, but whose femaleness, while not openly acknowledged, is not forgotten either.[20]
The hijras of South Asia are one of the most recognized groups of third gender people. Some western commentators (Hines and Sanger) have theorized that this could be a result of the Hindu belief inreincarnation,in which gender, sex, and even species can change from lifetime to lifetime, perhaps allowing for a more fluid interpretation. There are other cultures in which the third gender is seen as an intermediate state of being rather than as a movement from one conventional sex to the other.[21]
In a study of people in the United States who thought themselves to be members of a third gender, Ingrid M. Sell found that they typically felt different from the age of 5.[22]Because of both peer and parental pressure, those growing up with the most ambiguous appearances had the most troubled childhoods and difficulties later in life. Sell also discovered similarities between the third genders of the East and those of the West. Nearly half of those interviewed were healers or in the medical profession. Many of them, again like their Eastern counterparts, were artistic, and several were able to make a living from their artistic abilities. The capacity to mediate between men and women was a common skill, and third genders were oftentimes thought to possess an unusually wide perspective and the ability to understand both sides.[22]A notable result of Sell's study is that 93% of the third genders interviewed, again like their Eastern counterparts, reported "paranormal" -type abilities.[23]
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/39/SamBrinton.jpg/180px-SamBrinton.jpg)
In recent years, some Western societies have begun to recognizenon-binaryor genderqueer identities. Some years after Alex MacFarlane, AustralianNorrie May-Welbywas recognized as having unspecified status.[25]In 2016, anOregoncircuit court ruled that a resident,Elisa Rae Shupe,could legally change gender to non-binary.[26]
TheOpen Society Foundationspublished a report,License to Be Yourselfin May 2014, documenting "some of the world's most progressive and rights-based laws and policies that enable trans people to change their gender identity on official documents".[27]The report comments on the recognition of third classifications, stating:
From a rights-based perspective, third sex/gender options should be voluntary, providing trans people with a third choice about how to define their gender identity. Those identifying as a third sex/gender should have the same rights as those identifying as male or female.
The document also quotesMauro CabralofGATE:
People tend to identify a third sex with freedom from the gender binary, but that is not necessarily the case. If only trans and/or intersex people can access that third category, or if they are compulsively assigned to a third sex, then the gender binary gets stronger, not weaker.
The report concludes that two or three options are insufficient: "A more inclusive approach would be to increase options for people to self-define their sex and gender identity."[27]
Third gender and sexual orientation
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Before thesexual revolutionof the 1960s, there was no common non-derogatory vocabulary in modern English fornon-heterosexuality;terms such as "third gender" trace back to the 1860s.[28][29][30][31][32][33][page needed]
One such term,Uranian,was used in the 19th century for a person of a third sex—originally, someone with "a female psyche in a male body" who is sexually attracted to men. Its definition was later extended to cover homosexualgender variantfemales and a number of other sexual types. It is believed to be an English adaptation of the German wordUrning,which was first published by activistKarl Heinrich Ulrichs(1825–95) in a series of five booklets (1864–65) that were collected under the titleForschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe( "Research into the Riddle of Man-Male Love" ). Ulrich developed his terminology before the first public use of the term "homosexual", which appeared in 1869 in a pamphlet published anonymously byKarl-Maria Kertbeny(1824–82). Ulrich is widely regarded as one of the pioneering theorists who advocated for the natural occurrence of same-sex attraction, and he believed that such an orientation does not warrant criminalization.[34]The word Uranian (Urning) was derived by Ulrichs from theGreek goddessAphrodite Urania,who was created out ofthe god Uranus' testicles.[34]German lesbian activistAnna Rülingused the term in a 1904 speech, "What Interest Does the Women's Movement Have in Solving the Homosexual Problem?"[pages needed]
According to some scholars, the West is trying to reinterpret and redefine ancient third-gender identities to fit the Western concept ofsexual orientation.InRedefiningFa'afafine:Western Discourses and the Construction of Transgenderism in Samoa,Johanna Schmidt argues that the Western attempts to reinterpret fa'afafine, the third gender in Samoan culture, make it have more to do with sexual orientation than gender. She also argues that this is actually changing the nature of fa'afafine itself, and making it more "homosexual".[35][unreliable source?]
A Samoan fa'afafine said, "But I would like to pursue a master's degree with a paper on homosexuality from a Samoan perspective that would be written for educational purposes because I believe some of the stuff that has been written about us is quite wrong."[36][unreliable source?]
InHow to become a Berdache: Toward a unified analysis of gender diversity,Will Roscoe, using an anthropological term Indigenous people have always found offensive,[15][37]writes that "this pattern can be traced from the earliest accounts of the Spaniards to present-day ethnographies. What has been written aboutberdachesreflects more the influence of existing Western discourses on gender, sexuality and the Other than what observers actually witnessed. "[38]
According to Towle and Morgan:
Ethnographic examples [of ‘third genders’] can come from distinct societies located in Thailand, Polynesia, Melanesia, Native America, western Africa, and elsewhere and from any point in history, from Ancient Greece to sixteenth-century England to contemporary North America. Popular authors routinely simplify their descriptions, ignoring...or conflating dimensions that seem to them extraneous, incomprehensible, or ill-suited to the images they want to convey (484).[39]
Western scholars often do not make a distinction between people of the third gender and males; they are often lumped together. The scholars usually use gender roles as a way to explain sexual relations between the third gender and males. For example, when analyzing the non-normative sex gender categories inTheravadaBuddhism, Peter A. Jackson says it appears that within early Buddhist communities, men who engaged in receptive anal sex were seen as feminized and were thought to behermaphrodites.In contrast, men who engaged in oral sex were not seen as crossing sex/gender boundaries, but rather as engaging in abnormal sexual practices without threatening their masculine gendered existence.[40]
Some writers suggest that a third gender emerged around 1700 in England: the malesodomite.[41]According to these writers, this was marked by the emergence of asubcultureofeffeminatemales and their meeting places (molly houses), as well as a marked increase in hostility towards effeminate or homosexual males. People described themselves as members of a third sex in Europe from at least the 1860s with the writings ofKarl Heinrich Ulrichs[42]and continuing in the late nineteenth century withMagnus Hirschfeld,[28]John Addington Symonds,[29]Edward Carpenter,[30]Aimée Duc[31]and others. These writers described themselves and those like them as being of an "inverted" or "intermediate" sex and experiencing homosexual desire, and their writing argued for social acceptance of suchsexual intermediates.[43][pages needed]Many cited precedents from classical Greek and Sanskrit literature (see below).
Throughout much of the twentieth century, the term "third sex" was a common descriptor for homosexuals and gender nonconformists, but after thegay liberationmovements of the 1970s and a growing separation of the concepts ofsexual orientationandgender identity,the term fell out of favor amongLGBT communitiesand the wider public. With the renewed exploration of gender that feminism, the moderntransgendermovement, andqueer theoryhas fostered, some in the contemporary West have begun to describe themselves as a third sex again.[44]Other modern identities that cover similar ground includepangender,bigender,genderqueer,androgyne,intergender,"other gender" and "differently gendered".[original research?]
Third gender and feminism
[edit]InWilhelmine Germany,the termsdrittes Geschlecht( "third sex" ) andMannweib( "man-woman" ) were also used to describefeminists– both by their opponents[45]and sometimes by feminists themselves. In the 1899 novelDas dritte Geschlecht(The Third Sex) byErnst von Wolzogen,feminists are portrayed as "neuters" with external female characteristics accompanied by a crippled malepsyche.
Legal recognition
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Several countries have adopted laws to accommodate non-binary gender identities.[citation needed]As of 2019, the state of California the United States non-binary has become an option for individuals to select the sex category on their driver's license, birth certificates, and identity cards; this all became possible with the passing of California's Gender Recognition Act (SB 179).[46]
Modern societies without legal recognition
[edit]The following gender categories have also been described as a third gender:
Africa
[edit]- Angola:Chibados,third-gendered shamans in theNdongokingdom.[47][pages needed]
- Democratic Republic of the Congo:Mangaikoamong the Mbo people.[48][pages needed]
- Kenya:MashogaofSwahili-speaking areas of the Kenyan coast, particularlyMombasa.[49]
- SouthernEthiopia:AshtimeofMaaleculture[50][pages needed]
Asia-Pacific
[edit]- In thePhilippines,a number of local sex/gender identities are commonly referred to as a 'third sex' in popular discourse, as well as by some academic studies. Local terms for these identities (which are considered derogatory by some) includebaklâandbinabae(Tagalog),bayot(Cebuano),agi(Ilonggo),bantut(Tausug),badíng– all of which refer to 'gay' men or trans women.Gender variantfemales may be calledlakin-onortomboy.[51]
- Indonesia:Wariais a traditional third gender role found in modern Indonesia.[52][53]Additionally, theBugisculture ofSulawesihas been described as having three sexes (male, female andintersex) as well asfive genderswith distinct social roles.[2]
- Japan:X-gender(Xジェンダー)is a transgender identity that is not female or male, similar to "genderqueer" or "nonbinary".[54][55]The term X-gender came into use during the latter 1990s, popularized by queer organizations in Kansai, in Osaka and Kyoto.[56][57]In 2019, Japan LGBT Research Institute Inc. conducted an online survey, collecting 348,000 valid responses from people aged 20 to 69, not all of whom were LGBT. 2.5% of the respondents called themselves X-gender.[58]
- Micronesia:Palao'ana in Chamorro language, Northern Marianas Islands including Guam.[59]
- Polynesia:Fa'afafine(Samoan),[60]fakaleiti(Tongan),mahu(Hawaiian),mahu vahine(Tahitian),whakawahine(New Zealand Māori),sistergirlsandbrotherboys(Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders) andakava'ine(Cook Islands Māori).[61]
Europe
[edit]- 18th century England:Mollies[41]
- 19th century England:Uranian
- Albania:Sworn virgins,[10]females who work and dress as men and inhabit some men-only spaces, but do not marry.
- Femminiello,inNeapolitanculture[62]
Latin America and the Caribbean
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- Biza'ah:In Teotitlán, they have their own version of themuxethat they call biza'ah. According to Stephen, there were only 7 individuals in that community considered to be biza'ah in comparison to the muxe, of which there were many.[63]Like themuxethey were well-liked and accepted in the community.[63]Their way of walking, talking and the work that they perform are markers of recognizing biza'ah.[63]
- Southern Mexico:Muxe,In many Zapotec communities, third gender roles are often apparent.[63]Themuxeare described as a third gender; biologically male but with feminine characteristics.[63]They are not considered to be homosexuals, but rather just another gender.[63]Some will marry women and have families, others will form relationships with men.[63]Although it is recognized that these individuals have the bodies of men, they perform gender differently than men, it is not a masculine persona, but neither is it a feminine persona that they perform but, in general, a combination of the two.[63]Lynn Stephen quotes Jeffrey Rubin, "Prominent men who [were] rumoured to be homosexual and did not adopt themuxeidentity were spoken of pejoratively ", suggesting thatmuxegender role was more acceptable in the community.[63]
- Thetravestisof Latin America have been considered an expression of a third gender by a wide range of anthropological studies, although this view has been contested by later authors.[64][65][66]
- Tida wena:Among the IndigenousWarao peopleof Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname, people considered to be neither man nor woman. Historically respected, and sometimes serving asshamansor in other honored positions in their tribes, colonization has brought harsher times.[67]
Middle East
[edit]North American indigenous cultures
[edit]Two-Spiritis a modernumbrella termcreated at an Indigenous lesbian and gay conference in 1990 with the primary intent of replacing the offensive term, "berdache",which had been, and in some quarters still is, the term used for gay and gender-variant Indigenous people by non-Native anthropologists.[37]"Berdache"has also been used to describe slave boys, sold into sexual servitude.[69]Kyle De Vries writes, "Berdache is a derogatory term created by Europeans and perpetuated by anthropologists and others to define Native American/First Nations people who varied from Western norms that perceive gender, sex, and sexuality as binaries and inseparable."[15]Mary Annette Pember adds, "Unfortunately, depending on an oral tradition to impart our ways to future generations opened the floodgates for early non-Native explorers, missionaries, and anthropologists to write books describing Native peoples and therefore bolstering their own role as experts. These writings were and still are entrenched in the perspective of the authors who were and are mostly white men."[14]This has resulted in widely diverse traditions ofgender-variantandthird-gendertraditions among the over 500 living Native American communities being homogenized and misrepresented under English-language names, and widely misinterpreted by both non-Native and disconnected descendants alike.[14]"[Two-Spirit] implies that the individual is both male and female and that these aspects are intertwined within them. The term moves away from traditional Native American/First Nations cultural identities and meanings of sexuality and gender variance. It does not take into account the terms and meanings from individual nations and tribes.... Althoughtwo-spiritimplies to some a spiritual nature, that one holds the spirit of two, both male and female, traditional Native Americans/First Nations peoples view this as a Western concept. "[15][16]
At the conferences that produced the book,Two-Spirited People,I heard several First Nations people describe themselves as very much unitary, neither "male" nor "female," much less a pair in one body. Nor did they report an assumption of duality within one body as a common concept within reservation communities; rather, people confided dismay at the Western proclivity for dichotomies. Outside Indo-European-speaking societies, "gender" would not be relevant to the social personae glosses "men" and "women," and "third gender" likely would be meaningless. The unsavory word "berdache" certainly ought to be ditched (Jacobs et al. 1997:3-5), but the urban American neologism "two-spirit" can be misleading.[16]
While some have found the new term two-spirit a useful tool for intertribal organizing, it is not based in the traditional terms, and has not met with acceptance by more traditional communities;[16][15]the tribes who have traditional ceremonial roles for gender-variant people use names in their own languages, and have generally rejected this "binary"neologismas "Western".[15][70]
History
[edit]Old World
[edit]Egypt
[edit]Inscribed pottery shards from theMiddle Kingdom of Egypt(2000–1800 BCE) found near ancientThebes(nowLuxor,Egypt), list three human genders:tai(male),sḫt( "sekhet" ) andhmt(female).[71][better source needed]Sḫtis often translated as "eunuch", although there is little evidence that such individuals were castrated.[72][unreliable source?]
Mesopotamia
[edit]![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/81/Sumerian_creation_myth.jpg/170px-Sumerian_creation_myth.jpg)
InMesopotamian mythology,among the earliest written records of humanity, there are references to types of people who are not men and not women. In aSumeriancreation mythfound on a stone tablet from thesecond millennium BC,the goddessNinmahfashions a being "with no male organ and no female organ", for whomEnkifinds a position in society: "to stand before the king". In theAkkadianmyth ofAtra-Hasis(ca. 1700 BC), Enki instructsNintu,the goddess of birth, to establish a "third category among the people" in addition to men and women, that includes demons who steal infants, women who are unable to give birth, and priestesses who are prohibited from bearing children.[73][pages needed]InBabylonia,SumerandAssyria,certain types of individualswho performed religious duties in the service ofInanna/Ishtarhave been described as a third gender.[74]They worked assacred prostitutesorHierodules,performed ecstatic dance, music and plays, wore masks and had gender characteristics of both women and men.[75]In Sumer, they were given thecuneiformnames of ur.sal ( "dog/man-woman" ) and kur.gar.ra (also described as a man-woman).[76]Modern scholars, struggling to describe them using contemporary sex/gender categories, have variously described them as "living as women", or used descriptors such as hermaphrodites, eunuchs, homosexuals, transvestites, effeminate males and a range of other terms and phrases.[77]
Indic culture
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References to a third sex can be found throughout the texts of India's religious traditions likeJainism[78]andBuddhism[79]– and it can be inferred thatVedic culturerecognised three genders. TheVedas(c. 1500 BC–500 BC) describe individuals as belonging to one of three categories, according to one's nature orprakrti.These are also spelled out in theKama Sutra(c. 4th century AD) and elsewhere aspums-prakrti(male-nature),stri-prakrti(female-nature), andtritiya-prakrti(third-nature).[80]Texts suggest that third sex individuals were well known in premodern India and included male-bodied or female-bodied[81]people as well asintersexpeople, and that they can often be recognised from childhood.
A third sex is discussed in ancientHindu law,medicine,linguisticsandastrology.The foundational work of Hindu law, theManu Smriti(c. 200 BC–200 AD) explains the biological origins of the three sexes:
A male child is produced by a greater quantity of male seed, a female child by the prevalence of the female; if both are equal, a third-sex child or boy and girl twins are produced; if either are weak or deficient in quantity, a failure of conception results.[82]
Indian linguistPatañjali's[83]work onSanskritgrammar, theMahābhāṣya(c. 200 BC), states that Sanskrit's threegrammatical gendersare derived from three natural genders. The earliestTamilgrammar, theTolkappiyam(3rd century BC) refers to hermaphrodites as a third "neuter" gender (in addition to a feminine category of unmasculine males). InVedic astrology,the nine planets are each assigned to one of the three genders; the third gender,tritiya-prakrti,is associated withMercury,Saturnand (in particular)Ketu.In thePuranas,there are references to three kinds ofdevasof music and dance:apsaras(female),gandharvas(male) andkinnars(neuter).
The two greatSanskritepic poems,theRamayanaand theMahabharata,[84][85]indicates the existence of a third gender in ancient Indic society. Some versions ofRamayanatell that in one part of the story, the heroRamaheads into exile in the forest. Halfway there, he discovers that most of the people of his hometownAyodhyawere following him. He told them, "Men and women, turn back", and with that, those who were "neither men nor women" did not know what to do, so they stayed there. When Rama returned from exile years later, he discovered them still there and blessed them, saying that there will be a day when they, too, will have a share in ruling the world.[86][87][88][85]
In the BuddhistVinaya,codified in its present form around the 2nd century BC and said to be handed down by oral tradition fromBuddhahimself, there are four main sex/gender categories: males, females,ubhatobyañjanaka(people of a dual sexual nature) andpaṇḍaka(people of non-normative sexual natures, perhaps originally denoting a deficiency in male sexual capacity).[79]As the Vinaya tradition developed, the termpaṇḍakacame to refer to a broad third sex category which encompassed intersex, male and female-bodied people with physical or behavioural attributes that were considered inconsistent with the natural characteristics of man and woman.[89]
Greco-Roman Classical Antiquity
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In Plato'sSymposium,written around the 4th century BC, Aristophanes relates a creation myth involving three original sexes: female, male and androgynous. They are split in half by Zeus, producing four different contemporary sex/gender types which seek to be reunited with their lost other half; in this account, the modern heterosexual man and woman descend from the original androgynous sex. The myth ofHermaphroditusinvolves heterosexual lovers merging into their primordial androgynous sex.[90][non-primary source needed]
Othercreation mythsaround the world share a belief in three original sexes, such as those from northern Thailand.[91]
Many have interpreted the "eunuchs"of the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean world as a third gender that inhabited aliminalspace between women and men, understood in their societies as somehow neither or both.[92]In theHistoria Augusta,the eunuch body is described as atertium genus hominum(a third human gender). In 77 BC, a eunuch named Genucius was prevented from claiming goods left to him in awill,on the grounds that he had voluntarily mutilated himself (amputatis sui ipsius) and was neither a woman or a man (neque virorum neque mulierum numero) according toValerius Maximus.Several scholars have argued that the eunuchs in theHebrew Bibleand theNew Testamentwere understood in their time to belong to a third gender, rather than the more recent interpretations of a kind of emasculated man, or a metaphor forchastity.[93]The early Christian theologian,Tertullian,wrote that Jesus himself was a eunuch (c. 200 AD).[94]Tertullian also noted the existence of a third sex (tertium sexus) among heathens: "a third race in sex... made of male and female in one." He may have been referring to theGalli,"eunuch" devotees of thePhrygiangoddessCybele,who were described as belonging to a third sex by severalRomanwriters.[95]
Jewish Diaspora
[edit]InRabbinical Jewishtraditions there were 5 terms used to describe gender identity:
- Androgynos:both male and female genitalia (eternal doubt of legal gender)
- Ay'lonit:Barren female. Female genitalia, barren.
- Nekeva:female
- Saris:castrated or naturally infertile male (often translated as "eunuch" )[96][97]
- Tumtum:genitalia concealed by skin (unknown gender, unless skin removed)
- Zachar:male
Early Islamic world
[edit]Mukhannathun(مخنثون"effeminate ones", "ones who resemble women", singularmukhannath) was a term used in Classical Arabic to refer toeffeminatemen or people of ambiguous sex characteristics who appeared feminine or functioned socially in roles typically carried out by women.[98]According to the Iranian scholar Mehrdad Alipour, "in thepremodern period,Muslim societies were aware of five manifestations of gender ambiguity: This can be seen through figures such as thekhasi(eunuch), thehijra,themukhannath,themamsuhand thekhuntha(hermaphrodite/intersex). "[99]Western scholars Aisya Aymanee M. Zaharin and Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli give the following explanation of the meaning of the termmukhannathand its derivate Arabic forms in the hadith literature:[100]Mukhannathun,especially those in the city ofMedina,are mentioned throughout thehadithand in the works of manyearly ArabicandIslamic writers.During theRashidun eraand first half of theUmayyad era,they were strongly associated with music and entertainment.[98]During theAbbasid caliphate,the word itself was used as a descriptor for men employed as dancers, musicians, or comedians.[101]
Mukhannathun existed inpre-Islamic Arabia,during the time of theIslamic prophetMuhammad,andearly Islamic eras.[101][102]A number ofhadithindicate thatmukhannathunwere used as male servants for wealthy women in the early days of Islam, due to the belief that they were not sexually interested in the female body. These sources do not state that themukhannathunwere homosexual, only that they "lack desire".[98]In later eras, the termmukhannathwas associated with thereceptive partneringay sexual practices,an association that has persisted into the modern day.[102]Khanithis a vernacular Arabic term used in some parts of theArabian Peninsulato denote the gender role ascribed to males and occasionallyintersexpeople who function sexually, and in some ways socially, as women. The term is closely related to the wordmukhannath.
EarlyIslamicliterature rarely comments upon the habits of themukhannathun.It seems there may have been some variance in how "effeminate" they were, though there are indications that some adopted aspects of feminine dress or at least ornamentation. Some thirteenth and fourteenth-century scholars likeal-Nawawiandal-Kirmaniclassifiedmukhannathuninto two groups: those whose feminine traits seem unchangeable, despite the person's best efforts to stop them, and those whose traits are changeable but refuse to stop. Islamic scholars likeIbn Hajar al-Asqalanistated that allmukhannathunmust make an effort to cease their feminine behavior, but if this proved impossible, they were not worthy of punishment. Those who made no effort to become less "effeminate", or seemed to "take pleasure in (his effeminacy)", were worthy of blame. By this era,mukhannathhad developed its association with homosexuality, andBadr al-Din al-Aynisaw homosexuality as "a more heinous extension oftakhannuth",or effeminate behavior.[98][103]
One particularly prominentmukhannathwith thelaqabṬuways( "little peacock" ) was born in Medina on the day Muhammad died. There are few sources that describe why Tuways was labeled amukhannath,or what behavior of his was considered effeminate. No sources describe his sexuality as immoral or imply that he was attracted to men, and he is reported to have married a woman and fathered several children in his later life.[98]While he is described as non-religious or even frivolous towards religion in many sources, others contradict this and portray him as a believingMusliminstead. His main association with the label seems to come from his profession, as music was mainly performed by women in Arab societies.[104][105]
Pre-Columbian Americas
[edit]Mesoamerica
[edit]The ancientMaya civilizationmay have recognised a third gender, according to historian Matthew Looper. Looper notes the androgynous Maize Deity and masculineMoon goddessofMaya mythology,and iconography and inscriptions where rulers embody or impersonate these deities. He suggests that a Mayan third gender might also have included individuals with special roles such as healers ordiviners.[106]
Anthropologist and archaeologist Miranda Stockett notes that several writers have felt the need to move beyond a two-gender framework when discussing prehispanic cultures acrossmesoamerica,[107]and concludes that theOlmec,AztecandMaya peoplesunderstood "more than two kinds of bodies and more than two kinds of gender." Anthropologist Rosemary Joyce agrees, writing that "gender was a fluid potential, not a fixed category before the Spaniards came to Mesoamerica. Childhood training and ritual shaped, but did not set, adult gender, which could encompass third genders and alternative sexualities as well as" male "and" female. "At the height of the Classic period, Maya rulers presented themselves as embodying the entire range of gender possibilities, from the male through the female, by wearing blended costumes and playing male and female roles in state ceremonies." Joyce notes that many figures of Mesoamerican art are depicted with male genitalia and female breasts, while she suggests that other figures in which chests and waists are exposed but no sexual characteristics (primary or secondary) are marked may represent a third sex, ambiguous gender, or androgyny.[108]
Inca
[edit]Andean Studies scholar Michael Horswell writes that third-gendered ritual attendants tochuqui chinchay,ajaguardeity inIncan mythology,were "vital actors in Andean ceremonies" prior toSpanish colonisation.Horswell elaborates: "Thesequariwarmi(men-women)shamansmediated between the symmetrically dualistic spheres of Andean cosmology and daily life by performing rituals that at times required same-sex erotic practices. Their transvested attire served as a visible sign of a third space that negotiated between the masculine and the feminine, the present and the past, the living and the dead. Their shamanic presence invoked the androgynous creative force often represented in Andean mythology. "[109]Richard Trexlergives an early Spanish account of religious 'third gender' figures from theInca empirein his 1995 book "Sex and Conquest":
And in each important temple or house of worship, they have a man or two, or more, depending on the idol, who go dressed in women's attire from the time they are children, and speak like them, and in manner, dress, and everything else they imitate women. With them especially the chiefs and headmen have carnal, foul intercourse on feast days and holidays, almost like a religious rite and ceremony.[110]
Indigenous North Americans
[edit]With over 500 survivingIndigenous North Americancultures, attitudes about sex and gender are diverse. Historically, some communities have had social or spiritual roles forpeoplewho in some way may manifest a third-gender, or another gender-variant way of being, at least some of the time, by their particular culture's standards. Some of these ways continue today, while others have died out due to colonialism. Some communities and individuals have adopted the pan-Indian neologismTwo-spiritas a way of honoring contemporary figures and organizing intertribally.[15][14][16]
Inuit
[edit]Inuit religionstates that one of the firstangakkuqwas a third gender being known as Itijjuaq who discovered the firstamulet.[111]
Historically,Inuitin areas of theCanadian Arctic,such asIgloolikandNunavik,had a third gender concept calledsipiniq(Inuktitut:ᓯᐱᓂᖅ).[112]Asipiniqinfant was believed to have changed their physical sex from male to female at the moment of birth.[113]Sipiniqchildren were regarded as socially male, and would be named after a male relative, perform a male's tasks, and would weartraditional clothingtailored for men's tasks. This generally lasted until puberty, but in some cases continued into adulthood and even after thesipiniqperson married a man.[114]TheNetsilik Inuitused the wordkipijuituqfor a similar concept.[115]
Art, literature, and media
[edit]![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c4/Nuremberg_chronicles_-_Strange_People_-_Androgyn_%28XIIr%29.jpg/220px-Nuremberg_chronicles_-_Strange_People_-_Androgyn_%28XIIr%29.jpg)
InDavid Lindsay's 1920 novelA Voyage to Arcturusthere is a type of being calledphaen,a third gender which is attracted neither to men nor women but to "Faceny" (their name for Shaping or Crystalman, theDemiurge). The appropriate pronouns areaeandaer.[116]
Mikaël,a 1924 film directed byCarl Theodor Dreyer,was also released asChained: The Story of the Third Sexin the USA.[117]
Literary critic Michael Maiwald identifies a "third-sex ideal" in one of the first African-American bestsellers,Claude McKay'sHome to Harlem(1928).[118]
Djuna Barnes' 1936 novelNightwoodtouches on the "third sex" in the chapter Go Down, Matthew (148).[119]
Kurt Vonnegut's 1969 novelSlaughterhouse-Fiveidentifies seven human sexes (not genders) in thefourth dimensionrequired for reproduction including gay men, women over 65, and infants who died before their first birthday. TheTralfamadorianrace has five sexes.[120][non-primary source needed]
Inbro'Town(2004–2009), Brother Ken is the principal of the school and isfa'afafine,a Samoan concept for a third gender, a person who is born biologically male but is raised and sees themself as female. Because the concept does not readily translate, when the series was broadcast onAdult SwimLatin America, a decision was made not to translate Samoan words and just present them as part of the "cultural journey".[121]
InKnights of Sidonia(2014–2015), Izana Shinatose belongs to a new, nonbinary third gender that originated during the hundreds of years of human emigration into space, as first shown in the episode "Commencement."[122]Izana later turns into a girl after falling in love with Nagate Tanasake.
Spirituality
[edit]In Hinduism,Shivais still worshipped as anArdhnarishwara,i.e. half-male and half-female form.[123]Shiva's symbol, which is today known as Shivalinga, actually comprises a combination of a 'Yoni' (vagina) and a 'Lingam' (phallus).[124]
At the turn of thecommon era,male cults devoted to a goddess that flourished throughout the broad region extending from theMediterraneanto South Asia. Whilegalliwere missionizing the Roman Empire,kalū,kurgarrū, and assinnu continued to carry out ancient rites in the temples of Mesopotamia, and the third-gender predecessors of the hijra were clearly evident. It should also be mentioned of the eunuch priests of Artemis at Ephesus; the western Semitic qedeshim, the male "temple prostitutes" known from the Hebrew Bible and Ugaritic texts of the late second millennium; and the keleb, priests of Astarte at Kition and elsewhere. Beyond India, modern ethnographic literature documents gender-variant shaman-priests throughout Southeast Asia,Borneo,andSulawesi.All these roles share the traits of devotion to a goddess, gender transgression and receptive anal sex, ecstatic ritual techniques (for healing, in the case of kalū and Mesopotamian priests, and fertility in the case of hijra), and actual (or symbolic) castration. Most, at some point in their history, were based in temples and, therefore, part of the religious-economic administration of their respective city-states.[125]
The Islamic conception of the "perfect human being" (al-Insān al-Kāmil) is, as evident from the writings ofibn Arabi,genderless, and both women and men could equally attain this stage of spiritual development,[126]which is further reflected in genderless form of the termkamāl.[127]
Criticism
[edit]Scholars have made several criticisms of the third gender concept. These critiques regard primarily Western scholars' use of the concept to understand gender in other cultures in an ethnocentric way. Third gender has also been criticized as a reductionist "junk drawer" used for all identities beyond the Western gender binary, ignoring the nuance of various identities, histories, and practices in other cultures to situate them in a Western understanding.[citation needed]As Towle and Morgan write, "The term third gender does not disrupt gender binarism; it simply adds another category (albeit a segregated, ghettoized category) to the existing two." Towle and Morgan additionally note that Western scholars may incorrectly treat non-Western third gender examples as though they existed prior to and serve as the foundation for modern Western understandings of gender variability.[128]This implication makes it difficult for Western scholars to understand how non-Western cultures view and value sex and gender in their own societies in both the present day and historically.[129]
See also
[edit]- Ardhanarishvara
- Gender variance
- Intersex
- List of transgender-related topics
- Non-binary gender
- Sexual norm
- Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures
- Transphobia
References
[edit]- ^Trumbach, Randolph (1994).London's Sapphists: From Three Sexes to Four Genders in the Making of Modern Culture.In Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History, edited by Gilbert Herdt, 111-36. New York: Zone (MIT).ISBN978-0-942299-82-3
- ^abGraham, Sharyn (2001),Sulawesi's fifth genderArchived26 November 2014 at theWayback Machine,Inside Indonesia,April–June 2001.
- ^Kevin L. Nadal,The SAGE Encyclopedia of Psychology and Gender(2017,ISBN1483384276), page 401: "Most cultures currently construct their societies based on the understanding of gender binary—the two gender categorizations (male and female). Such societies divide their population based on biological sex assigned to individuals at birth to begin the process of gender socialization."
- ^Sigelman, Carol K.; Rider, Elizabeth A. (14 March 2017).Life-Span Human Development.Cengage Learning. p. 385.ISBN978-1-337-51606-8.Retrieved4 August2021.
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- ^abZanghellini, Aleardo (2013)."Sodomy Laws and Gender Variance in Tahiti and Hawai'i".Laws.2(2): 51–68.doi:10.3390/laws2020051.
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- ^abAgrawal, A. (1997). "Gendered Bodies: The Case of the 'Third Gender' in India".Contributions to Indian Sociology.31(2): 273–297.doi:10.1177/006996697031002005.S2CID145502268.
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recognition of third sexes and third genders is not equal to valuing the presence of those who were neither male nor female, and often hinges on the explicit devaluation of women, as with the Sambia of New Guinea, or on the valuation of female virginity at the expense of valuing female humanity, as in Polynesia.
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Unfortunately, depending on an oral tradition to impart our ways to future generations opened the floodgates for early non-Native explorers, missionaries, and anthropologists to write books describing Native peoples and therefore bolstering their own role as experts. These writings were and still are entrenched in the perspective of the authors who were and are mostly white men.
- ^abcdefgde Vries, Kylan Mattias (2009)."Berdache (Two-Spirit)".In O'Brien, Jodi (ed.).Encyclopedia of gender and society.Los Angeles: SAGE. p. 64.ISBN9781412909167.Retrieved6 March2015.
[Two-Spirit] implies that the individual is both male and female and that these aspects are intertwined within them. The term moves away from traditional Native American/First Nations cultural identities and meanings of sexuality and gender variance. It does not take into account the terms and meanings from individual nations and tribes.... Althoughtwo-spiritimplies to some a spiritual nature, that one holds the spirit of two, both male and female, traditional Native Americans/First Nations peoples view this as a Western concept.
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At the conferences that produced the book,Two-Spirited People,I heard several First Nations people describe themselves as very much unitary, neither "male" nor "female," much less a pair in one body. Nor did they report an assumption of duality within one body as a common concept within reservation communities; rather, people confided dismay at the Western proclivity for dichotomies. Outside Indo-European-speaking societies, "gender" would not be relevant to the social personae glosses "men" and "women," and "third gender" likely would be meaningless. The unsavory word "berdache" certainly ought to be ditched (Jacobs et al. 1997:3-5), but the urban American neologism "two-spirit" can be misleading.
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- ^Peletz, Michael G. (2007).Gender, Sexuality, and Body Politics in Modern Asia.Michigan: Association for Asian Studies.ISBN9780924304507.
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- ^Hines, Sally, and Tam Sanger. Transgender Identities: Towards a Social Analysis of Gender Diversity. New York: Routledge, 2010. Print. p.244
- ^abSell, Ingrid M. "Third gender: A qualitative study of the experience of individuals who identify as being neither man nor woman." The Psychotherapy Patient. 13.1/2 (2004): p.139
- ^Sell, Ingrid M. "Third gender: A qualitative study of the experience of individuals who identify as being neither man nor woman." The Psychotherapy Patient. 13.1/2 (2004): p.141
- ^Compton, Julie (19 January 2017)."OutFront: LGBTQ Activist Fights to End Conversion Therapy".NBC News.Archivedfrom the original on 11 February 2022.
- ^"Briton is recognised as world's first officially genderless person",The Telegraph. 15 March 2010.
- ^O'Hara, Mary Emily (10 June 2016)."'Nonbinary' is now a legal gender, Oregon court rules ".The Daily Dot.Retrieved10 June2016.
- ^abByrne, Jack (2014).License to Be Yourself.New York:Open Society Foundations.ISBN9781940983103.Retrieved28 December2014.
- ^abHirschfeld, Magnus,1904.Berlins Drittes Geschlecht( "Berlin's Third Sex" )
- ^abEllis, HavelockandSymonds, J. A.,1897.Sexual Inversion.
- ^abCarpenter, Edward,1908.The Intermediate Sex: A Study of Some Transitional Types of Men and WomenArchived30 May 2023 at theWayback Machine.
- ^abDuc, Aimée, 1901.Sind es Frauen? Roman über das dritte Geschlecht( "Are These Women? Novel about the Third Sex" )
- ^Ross, E. Wayne (2006).The Social Studies Curriculum: Purposes, Problems, and Possibilities.SUNY Press.ISBN978-0-7914-6909-5.
- ^Kennedy, Hubert C. (1980)The "third sex" theory of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs,Journal of Homosexuality. 1980–1981 Fall–Winter; 6(1–2): pp. 103–1
- ^abTye, Marcus (2020).Sexuality and Our Diversity: Integrating Culture with the Biopsychosocial(2.1 ed.). Flatworld. p. 273.ISBN978-1453335666.
- ^"Intersections: Redefining Fa'afafine: Western Discourses and the Construction of Transgenderism in Samoa".intersections.anu.edu.au.
- ^Redefining Fa'afafine: Western Discourses and the Construction of Transgenderism in Samoa Johanna Schmidt;Intersections: Gender, History, and Culture in the Asian Context; Issue 6, August 2001
- ^abMedicine, Beatrice (August 2002)."Directions in Gender Research in American Indian Societies: Two Spirits and Other Categories".Online Readings in Psychology and Culture.3(1): 7.doi:10.9707/2307-0919.1024.ISSN2307-0919.Archived fromthe originalon 8 December 2012.Retrieved25 June2016.
At the Wenner Gren conference on gender held in Chicago, May, 1994... the gay American Indian and Alaska Native males agreed to use the term "Two-Spirit" to replace the controversial "berdache" term. The stated objective was to purge the older term from anthropological literature as it was seen as demeaning and not reflective of Native categories. Unfortunately, the term "berdache" has also been incorporated in the psychology and women studies domains, so the task for the affected group to purge the term looms large and may be formidable.
- ^How to become a Berdache: Toward a unified analysis of gender diversityWill RoscoeArchived26 February 2009 at theWayback Machine
- ^The Great Third Gender Debate; BELOW THE BELT, theory-qArchivedMay 3, 2011, at theWayback Machine
- ^Non-normative Sex/Gender Categories in the Theravada Buddhist Scriptures Compiled by Peter A. JacksonArchived24 February 2012 at theWayback Machine
- ^abTrumbach, Randolph. (1998)Sex and the Gender Revolution. Volume 1: Heterosexuality and the Third Gender in Enlightenment London.Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1998. (Chicago Series on Sexuality, History & Society)
- ^Kennedy, Hubert (1981). "The" Third Sex "Theory of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs".Journal of Homosexuality.6(1–2): 103–111.doi:10.1300/J082v06n01_10.PMID7042820.
- ^Jones, James W. (1990)."We of the third sex": homo Representations of Homosexuality in Wilhelmine Germany.(German Life and Civilization v. 7) New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1990.ISBN0-8204-1209-0
- ^Sell, Ingrid (2001). "Not man, not woman: Psychospiritual characteristics of a Western third gender".Journal of Transpersonal Psychology.33(1): 16–36.(Complete doctoral dissertation: Sell, Ingrid. (2001).Third gender: A qualitative study of the experience of individuals who identify as being neither man nor woman.(Doctoral Dissertation, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology). UMI No. 3011299.)
- ^Wright, B. D. (1987). ""New Man," Eternal Woman: Expressionist Responses to German Feminism ".The German Quarterly.60(4): 582–599.doi:10.2307/407320.JSTOR407320.
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- ^Bleys, Rudi C. (1995).The Geography of Perversion: Male-to-Male Sexual Behavior Outside the West and the Ethnographic Imagination, 1750-1918.New York University Press.ISBN9780814712658.
- ^Towles, Joseph A. (1993).Nkumbi initiation: Ritual and structure among the Mbo of Zaire,Musée royal de l'Afrique Centrale (Tervuren, Belgique)
- ^Sinnott, Megan (January 2004).Toms and Dees: Transgender Identity and Female Same-Sex Relationships in Thailand.University of Hawaii Press. p. 39.ISBN978-0-8248-2852-3.
- ^Donham, Donald (1990).History, Power, Ideology. Central Issues in Marxism and Anthropology,Cambridge
- ^Nanda, Serena(1999).Gender Diversity: Crosscultural Variations.Waveland Pr Inc, 7 October 1999.ISBN1-57766-074-9
- ^Oostvogels, Robert (1995).The Waria of Indonesia: A Traditional Third Gender Role,in Herdt (ed.), op cit.
- ^Nanda, Serena (2000).Gender Diversity: Crosscultural Variations(2nd ed.). Long Grove, Illinois:Waveland Press(published 2014). pp. 94–99.ISBN978-1-4786-1126-4.
- ^Kusakabe, Motomi (5 May 2016)."Nam でも nữ でもない “Xジェンダー” に lý giải を ".Mainichi Shimbun.Retrieved6 June2016.
- ^"Selected Links on Non-Binary Gender in Japan: Xジェンダー".28 March 2013.Retrieved21 December2020.
- ^"【XラウンジからNEWS! 】 Tham Nghị Viện nghị viên の đuôi thập かな tử さんへ の レインボー・アクション の trần tình で, Xラウンジから muốn vọng thư を đưa ra しました."[[NEWS from X Lounge!] We submitted a request form from the X Lounge in response to a petition of Kanae Otsuji, a member of the House of Councilors, about the rainbow action.].Rainbow Action(in Japanese).Archivedfrom the original on 21 February 2020.Retrieved21 December2020.
- ^"An Introduction to X-Jendā: Examining a New Gender Identity in Japan".Retrieved21 December2020.
- ^"Most people in Japan know LGBT but understanding limited".Kyodo News.11 December 2019.Archivedfrom the original on 6 June 2020.Retrieved21 December2020.
- ^Ka'opua, L. S. I.; Cassel, K.; Shiramizu, B.; Stotzer, R. L.; Robles, A.; Kapua, C.; Orton, M.; Milne, C.; Sesepasara, M. (2015)."Addressing Risk and Reluctance at the Nexus of HIV and Anal Cancer Screening".Health Promotion Practice.17(1): 21–30.doi:10.1177/1524839915615611.ISSN1524-8399.PMC4684716.PMID26630979.
- ^Sua'aIi'i, Tamasailau, "Samoans andGender:Some Reflections on Male, Female and Fa'afafine Gender Identities ", in:Tangata O Te Moana Nui: The Evolving Identities of Pacific Peoples inAotearoa/New Zealand,Palmerston North (NZ): Dunmore Press, 2001,ISBN0-86469-369-9
- ^National fono for Pacific "third sex" communities,media release from New Zealand Aids Foundation, 5 August 2005.Article online.
- ^"The Femminiello in Neapolitan Culture".Around Naples Encyclopedia.Archived fromthe originalon 15 May 2011.Retrieved21 December2020.
- ^abcdefghiLynn Stephen.Sexualities and Genders in Zapotec Oaxaca.Latin American Perspectives. 29(2)41–59
- ^Cabral, Julieta (2012).Geografía travesti: Cuerpos, sexualidad y migraciones de travestis brasileñas (Rio de Janeiro-Barcelona)(doctoral thesis thesis) (in Spanish).Universitat de Barcelona.Retrieved7 May2020.
- ^Fernández, Josefina (2004).Cuerpos desobedientes: travestismo e identidad de género(in Spanish). Buenos Aires: Edhasa. p. 41.ISBN950-9009-16-4.
- ^Kulick, Don(1998).Travesti: Sex, Gender and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes.Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture.University of Chicago Press.p. 230.ISBN978-022-646-099-4.
- ^Laiz, Alvaro (2012)."Wonderland, the strange inhabitants of Delta Amacuro".Port Huron Museum.Retrieved7 August2021.
The Warao, as it happens in other ethnic groups, considers certain people are not man neither woman. They call them Tida Wena.
- ^Wikan, Unni (1991).The Xanith: a third gender role? in Behind the veil in Arabia: women in Oman.Chicago: University of Chicago Press
- ^Steingass, Francis Joseph (1892).A Comprehensive Persian-English dictionary, including the Arabic words and phrases to be met within Persian literature.London: Routledge & K. Paul. p. 173. Archived fromthe originalon 1 April 2022.Retrieved24 September2019.
- ^"Two Spirit Terms in Tribal Languages".Native Out.Archived fromthe originalon 2 January 2015.Retrieved21 December2020.
- ^Sethe, Kurt, (1926),Die Aechtung feindlicher Fürsten, Völker und Dinge auf altägyptischen Tongefäßscherben des mittleren Reiches,in: Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, 1926, p. 61.
- ^"The Third Gender in Ancient Egypt".Retrieved21 December2020.
- ^Murray, Stephen O., and Roscoe, Will (1997).Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature.New York: New York University Press.
- ^Roscoe, W. (1996)."Priests of the Goddess: Gender Transgression in Ancient Religion".History of Religions.35(3): 195–230.doi:10.1086/463425.JSTOR1062813.S2CID162368477.Retrieved2 April2011.Roscoe identifies these temple staff by the nameskalû,kurgarrû,andassinnu.
- ^Nissinen, Martti (1998).Homoeroticism in the Biblical World,Translated by Kirsi Stjedna. Fortress Press (November 1998) p. 30.ISBN0-8006-2985-X
See also: Maul, S. M. (1992).Kurgarrû und assinnu und ihr Stand in der babylonischen Gesellschaft.Pp. 159–71 in Aussenseiter und Randgruppen. Konstanze Althistorische Vorträge und Forschungern 32. Edited by V. Haas. Konstanz: Universitätsverlag. - ^Nissinen (1998) p. 28, 32.
- ^Leick, Gwendolyn (1994).Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature.Routledge. New York.
*Leick's account:Sumerian:sag-ur-sag,pilpiliandkurgarra;andAssyrian:assinnu.Leick describes them as "hermaphrodites, homosexual transvestites, and other, castrated individuals".
Burns, John Barclay (2000)."Devotee or Deviate: The" Dog "(keleb) in Ancient Israel as a Symbol of Male Passivity and Perversion".Journal of Religion & Society.2.ISSN1522-5658.Archived fromthe originalon 27 May 2011.Retrieved2 April2011.
*Burns defines theassinnuas "a member of Ishtar's cultic staff with whom, it seems, a man might have intercourse, whose masculinity had become femininity" and who "lacked libido, either from a natural defect or castration". He described thekulu'uas effeminate and thekurgarruastransvestite.In addition, he defines another kind of gender-variant prostitute,sinnisānu,as (literally) "woman-like". - ^Zwilling, L; Sweet, MJ (1996). ""Like a city ablaze": The third sex and the creation of sexuality in Jain religious literature ".Journal of the History of Sexuality.6(3): 359–84.JSTOR4629615.PMID11609126.
- ^abJackson, Peter A. (April 1996). "Non-normative Sex/Gender Categories in the Theravada Buddhist Scriptures".Australian Humanities Review.hdl:1885/41884.
- ^Alternate transliteration:trhytîyâ prakrhyti
- ^Penrose, Walter (2001). "Hidden in History: Female Homoeroticism and Women of a" Third Nature "in the South Asian Past".Journal of the History of Sexuality.10:3–39 [4].doi:10.1353/sex.2001.0018.S2CID142955490.
distinct social and economic roles once existed for women thought to belong to a third gender. Hidden in history, these women dressed in men's clothing, served as porters and personal bodyguards to kings and queens, and even took an active role in sex with women.
- ^Manu Smriti,3.49.Text online.
- ^Not to be confused with thePatañjaliwho was the author of theYoga sutras.
- ^LordArjunatakes a "vow of eunuchism" to live as the third sex for a year: "O lord of the Earth, I will declare myself as one of the neuter sex. O monarch, it is, indeed difficult to hide the marks of the bowstring on my arms. I will, however, cover both mycicatrizedarms with bangles. Wearing brilliant rings on my ears andconch-bangles on my wrists and causing a braid to hang down from my head, I shall, O king, appear as one of the third sex, Vrihannala by name. And living as a female I shall (always) entertain the king and the inmates of the inner apartments by reciting stories. And, O king, I shall also instruct the women of Virata's palace in singing and delightful modes of dancing and in musical instruments of diverse kinds. And I shall also recite the various excellent acts of men... "Mahabharata (Virata-parva),Translated by Ganguli, Kisari Mohan.Project Gutenberg.
- ^abPattanaik, Devdutt (2018).Ramayana versus Mahabharata: my playful comparison.New Delhi.ISBN978-93-5333-230-3.OCLC1085374530.
{{cite book}}
:CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^Kakar, Sudhir (1996).The colors of violence: cultural identities, religion, and conflict.Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 163.ISBN0-226-42284-4.OCLC33043083.
- ^Nanda, Serena (1990).Neither man nor woman: the Hijras of India.Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Pub. Co. p. 13.ISBN0-534-12204-3.OCLC20091288.
- ^Lorber, Judith (1994).Paradoxes of gender.New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 93.ISBN0-585-35777-3.OCLC47008359.
- ^Gyatso, J. (2003). "One Plus One Makes Three: Buddhist Gender, Monasticism, and the Law of the Non-Excluded Middle".History of Religions.43(2): 89–115.doi:10.1086/423006.JSTOR3176712.S2CID162098679.
- ^"The Internet Classics Archive – Symposium by Plato".classics.mit.edu.
- ^Jackson, Peter A. (1995)Kathoey: The third sex.In Jackson, P., "Dear Uncle Go: Male homosexuality in Thailand." Bangkok, Thailand: Bua Luang Books
See also: Peltier, Anatole-Roger (1991).Pathamamulamuli: The Origin of the World in the Lan Na Tradition.Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books. The Yuan creation myth in the book is from Pathamamulamuli, an antique Buddhist palm leaf manuscript. Its translator, Anatole-Roger Peltier, believes that this story is based on an oral tradition that is over five hundred years old.Text online. - ^S. Tougher, ed., (2001)Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond(London: Duckworth Publishing, 2001).
Ringrose, Kathryn M. (2003).The Perfect Servant: Eunuchs and the Social Construction of Gender in Byzantium.Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2003. - ^Hester, J. David (2005)."Eunuchs and the Postgender Jesus: Matthew 19:12 and Transgressive Sexualities"(PDF).Journal for the Study of the New Testament.28(1): 13–40.doi:10.1177/0142064X05057772.S2CID145724743.Retrieved2 April2011.
- ^Note: There is some controversy in this statement as in context,spado,which in most cases means eunuch, is generally translated as virgin as inhereand a fuller explanation can be found here[1].Tertullian, On Monogamy, 3: "...He stands before you if you are willing to copy him, as a voluntaryspado(eunuch) in the flesh. "And elsewhere:" The Lord Himself opened the kingdom of heaven to eunuchs and He Himself lived as a eunuch. The apostle [Paul] also, following His example, made himself a eunuch... "
- ^e.g. "Both sexes are displeasing to her holiness, so [the gallus] keeps a middle gender (medium genus) between the others. "Prudentius,Peristephanon, 10.1071-3
- ^[2]Classic Jewish terms for Gender Diversity
- ^[3]Gender Diversity in Halakha
- ^abcdeRowson, Everett K.(October 1991)."The Effeminates of Early Medina"(PDF).Journal of the American Oriental Society.111(4).American Oriental Society:671–693.CiteSeerX10.1.1.693.1504.doi:10.2307/603399.ISSN0003-0279.JSTOR603399.LCCN12032032.OCLC47785421.S2CID163738149.Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 1 October 2008.
- ^Alipour, Mehrdad (2017)."Islamic shari'a law, neotraditionalist Muslim scholars and transgender sex-reassignment surgery: A case study of Ayatollah Khomeini's and Sheikh al-Tantawi's fatwas".International Journal of Transgenderism.18(1).Taylor & Francis:91–103.doi:10.1080/15532739.2016.1250239.ISSN1553-2739.LCCN2004213389.OCLC56795128.S2CID152120329.
- ^Zaharin, Aisya Aymanee M.; Pallotta-Chiarolli, Maria (June 2020)."Countering Islamic conservatism on being transgender: Clarifying Tantawi's and Khomeini's fatwas from the progressive Muslim standpoint".International Journal of Transgender Health.21(3).Taylor & Francis:235–241.doi:10.1080/26895269.2020.1778238.ISSN1553-2739.LCCN2004213389.OCLC56795128.PMC8726683.PMID34993508.S2CID225679841.
- ^abMoreh, S.(1998). "mukhannathun". In Meisami, Julie Scott; Starkey, Paul (eds.).Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, Volume 2.Taylor & Francis. p. 548.ISBN9780415185721.
- ^abMurray, Stephen O.; Roscoe, Will; Allyn, Eric; Crompton, Louis; Dickemann, Mildred; Khan, Badruddin; Mujtaba, Hasan; Naqvi, Nauman; Wafer, Jim; Westphal-Hellbusch, Sigrid (1997)."Conclusion".InMurray, Stephen O.;Roscoe, Will (eds.).Islamic Homosexualities:Culture, History, and Literature.New York City and London:NYU Press.pp. 305–310.doi:10.18574/nyu/9780814761083.003.0004.ISBN9780814774687.JSTORj.ctt9qfmm4.OCLC35526232.S2CID141668547.
- ^an-Nawawi."Al-Minhaj bi Sharh Sahih Muslim".Shamela. Archived fromthe originalon 17 August 2018.Retrieved14 October2018.
- ^Pacholczyk, Jozef (1983). "Secular Classical Music in the Arabic Near East". In May, Elizabeth; Hood, Mantle (eds.).Musics of Many Cultures: An Introduction.UC Press. p.253.ISBN9780520047785.
- ^Tierney, Helen (1989).Women's Studies Encyclopedia: Literature, arts, and learning.Greenwood. p.210.ISBN9780313310737.
In pre-Islamic Arabia, music was practiced mainly by women, especially by singing girls (qainat)
- ^Looper, Matthew G. (2001).Ancient Maya Women-Men (and Men-Women): Classic Rulers and the Third Gender,In: "Ancient Maya Women", ed. Traci Ardren. Walnut Creek, California: Alta Mira, 2001.
- ^Stockett, M. K. (2005). "On the Importance of Difference: Re-Envisioning Sex and Gender in Ancient Mesoamerica".World Archaeology.37(4): 566–578.doi:10.1080/00438240500404375.JSTOR40025092.S2CID144168812.
In addition to Looper (above) and Joyce (below), Stockett cites:
Geller, P. (2004).Skeletal analysis and theoretical complications.Paper presented at Que(e)rying Archaeology: The Fifteenth Anniversary Gender Conference, Chacmool Archaeology Conference, University of Calgary, Calgary.
Joyce, R. A. (1998). "Performing the Body in Pre-Hispanic Central America".RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics.33(33): 147–165.doi:10.1086/RESv33n1ms20167006.JSTOR20167006.S2CID165021067.
Lopez-Austin, A. (1988).The Human Body and Ideology: Concepts of Ancient Nahuas(trans T.O. de Montellano and B.O. de Montellano). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. - ^Joyce, Rosemary A. (2000).Gender and Power in Prehispanic Mesoamerica.Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.ISBN978-0-292-74065-5
- ^Horswell, Michael J. (2006).Transculturating Tropes of Sexuality,Tinkuy,and Third Gender in the Andes,introduction to "Decolonizing the Sodomite: Queer Tropes of Sexuality in Colonial Andean Culture".ISBN0-292-71267-7.Article online.
- ^Trexler, Richard C. (1995).Sex and Conquest.Cornell University Press: Ithaca. p. 107
- ^D'Anglure, Bernard (November 2005). "The 'Third Gender' of the Inuit".Diogenes.52(4): 138.doi:10.1177/0392192105059478.S2CID145220849.
- ^Issenman, Betty Kobayashi (1997).Sinews of Survival: the Living Legacy of Inuit Clothing.Vancouver: UBC Press. p. 214.ISBN978-0-7748-5641-6.OCLC923445644.
- ^Smith, Eric Alden; Smith, S. Abigail; et al. (1994)."Inuit Sex-Ratio Variation: Population Control, Ethnographic Error, or Parental Manipulation? [and Comments and Reply]".Current Anthropology.35(5): 617.doi:10.1086/204319.ISSN0011-3204.JSTOR2744084.S2CID143679341.
- ^Stern, Pamela R. (16 June 2010).Daily Life of the Inuit.ABC-CLIO. pp. 11–12.ISBN978-0-313-36312-2.
- ^Walley, Meghan (2018)."Exploring Potential Archaeological Expressions of Nonbinary Gender in Pre-Contact Inuit Contexts".Études/Inuit/Studies.42(1): 269–289.doi:10.7202/1064504ar.ISSN0701-1008.JSTOR26775769.S2CID204473441.
- ^McCracken-Flesher, Caroline (26 October 2011).Scotland as Science Fiction.Bucknell University Press. p. 52.ISBN978-1-61148-375-8.
There he encounters Leehallfae the phaen, a being "neither man nor woman nor anything between the two, but... unmistakably of a third positive sex" — necessitating the grammatical coinage of a new pronoun "ae" (Arcturus, 205).
- ^Horak, Linda."Mikael – Silent Film Festival".Archived fromthe originalon 14 April 2016.Retrieved7 June2016.
- ^Maiwald, Michael (2002). "Race, Capitalism, and the Third-Sex Ideal: Claude McKay's Home to Harlem and the Legacy of Edward Carpenter".Modern Fiction Studies.48(4): 825–857.doi:10.1353/mfs.2002.0077.S2CID162306828.
- ^Barnes, Djuna. 1936.Nightwood.1961. New York: New Directions.
- ^Vonnegut, Kurt. (1999).Slaughterhouse-five.New York: The Dial Press, p145–146.
- ^Johnson, Derek; Kompare, Derek; Santo, Avi (1 August 2014).Making Media Work: Cultures of Management in the Entertainment Industries.NYU Press. pp. 57–59.ISBN9780814764558.Archivedfrom the original on 17 February 2017.Retrieved1 January2015.
- ^Søraa, Roger Andre (2019)."Post-Gendered Bodies and Relational Gender in Knights of Sidonia".Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research.6(1): 56–59.Archivedfrom the original on 12 July 2020.Retrieved12 July2020.
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- ^Paths to The Divine: Ancient and IndianBy George McLean, Vensus A. George, Quote: Siva: The Hermaphrodite The LordShivais the underlying neutral and changeless reality, the undifferentiated absolute Consciousness, who is the foundation of every change and becoming. The hermaphrodite reality is one that is independent of all distinctions of male and female, the phenomenal and the non-phenomenal, and yet forms the basis of all such distinctions. The Puranas speak of Lord Shiva as the Hermaphrodite reality, though distinctionless within Himself, letting the distinctions of the manifold world spring up from Him. The Puranic thinkers interpreted and represented this hermaphrodite aspect of the Lord Siva in various ways. One such symbol expression is the figure of His Sakti. Another such symbol is the Phallus *(the male reproductive part) and the Yoni (the female reproductive part). A third, a more anthropomorphic metaphor, is that of the union between Siva and His many consorts, such as Parvati, Uma, and others. All these symbolisms express the truth that the variety of this universe stems from the lord Siva through his Sakti. To explain this point very picturesquely, the Puranas apply the mythological story of creation by way of the sexual union between Prajaapati and his daughter to Siva who, by His eternal union with His Sakti creates the world. The Puraanas also use another more sacrificial symbollism to expound the hermaphrodite characteristic of Shiva, according to which the male principle is represented as Fire, the devourer of the offering, and the female principle is the Soma, the devoured offering. In this symbolism, the hermaphrodite is the embodiment of the cosmic sacrifice, through which the universe emerges from the Lord Siva.
- ^Priests of the Goddess: Gender Transgression in Ancient Religionby Will Roscoe
- ^The Shari'a: History, Ethics and Law. (2018). Vereinigtes Königreich: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 95
- ^Shaikh, Sa’diyya. "Ibn ʿArabī and Mystical Disruptions of Gender: Theoretical Explorations in Islamic Feminism." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 47.2 (2022): 475-497.
- ^Towle, Evan B; Morgan, Lynn Marie (2002)."Romancing the Transgender Native: Rethinking the Use of the" Third Gender "Concept".GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies.8(4): 469–497.doi:10.1215/10642684-8-4-469.ISSN1527-9375.S2CID143201735.
- ^Moral, Enrique (2016)."Qu(e)erying Sex and Gender in Archaeology: a Critique of the" Third "and Other Sexual Categories".Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory.23(3): 788–809.doi:10.1007/s10816-016-9294-y.ISSN1072-5369.JSTOR43967041.S2CID151426339.
Further reading
[edit]- Aldous, Susan; Sereemongkonpol, Pornchai (2008).Ladyboys: The Secret World of Thailand's Third Gender.Maverick House.ISBN978-1-905379-48-4.
- Herdt, Gilbert H. (1996).Third sex, third gender: beyond sexual dimorphism in culture and history.New York: Zone Books.ISBN978-0-942299-82-3.
- Lieber*, Angela (2018)."Western Scholarship on Third Genders: What does the Gender" Trinary "Do?".American Association of Geographers.AAG Annual Meeting 2018.
- Mahapatra, Dhananjay (15 April 2014)."Supreme Court recognizes transgenders as 'third gender'".The Times of India.
- Morris, Rosalind (1994). "Three Sexes and Four Sexualities: Redressing the Discourses on Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Thailand".Positions.2(1): 15–43.doi:10.1215/10679847-2-1-15.S2CID144110028.