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Third gender orthird sex is an identity recognizing individuals categorized, either by themselves or by society, as neither a man nor a woman. Manygender systems around the world include three or more genders, deriving the concept either from the traditional, historical recognition of such individuals or from its modern development in theLGBTQ community, which can include third gender people as anon-binary identity. The termthird is usually understood to mean "other", though some societies use the concept to encompass 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 identity andgender role in 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 Hawaiians andTahitians,māhū is an intermediate state between man and woman known as "genderliminality",[6][7] part of a widerMVPFAFF spectrum. ManyIndigenous North American traditions recognize third or fourth gender people in a variety of ceremonial roles, sometimes categorized in the modern day under the umbrella identity ofTwo-Spirit to reflect the spiritual and Indigenous contexts of such practices.[8] The term "third gender" has also been used to describe thehijras of South Asia,[9] thefa'afafine of Polynesia, and thesworn virgins of the Balkans.[10][verification needed][11] Third gender traditions can arise to fulfill ritual or religious roles to emphasize a positive social status, however a culture recognizing a third gender does not in itself mean that they were valued by that culture, with some practices developing as direct reactions to the devaluation of women in one's culture.[12]
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.[13] While mainstream Western scholars—notably anthropologists who have tried to write about the South Asianhijras or the Native American "gender variant" andtwo-spirit people—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.[a]
Since at least the 1970s,anthropologists have describedgender categories in some cultures which they could not adequately explain using a two-gender framework.[18][pages needed] At the same time,feminists began to draw a distinction betweensex and (social/psychological) gender.[19]
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:[20]
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.
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 ofwitchcraft and persecuted. In most western cultures, people who did not conform toheteronormative ideals 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 Disorders is 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 Indigenousmāhū of Hawaii are seen as embodying an intermediate state between man and woman, known as "genderliminality".[6][7] Some traditionalDineh of 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 thehijras of South Asia[9] who have gained legal identity, thefa'afafine of 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.[21]
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.[22]
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.[23] 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.[23] A notable result of Sell's study is that 93% of the third genders interviewed, again like their Eastern counterparts, reported "paranormal"-type abilities.[24]
In recent years, some Western societies have begun to recognizenon-binary or genderqueer identities. Some years after Alex MacFarlane, AustralianNorrie May-Welby was recognized as having unspecified status.[26] In 2016, anOregon circuit court ruled that a resident,Elisa Rae Shupe, could legally change gender to non-binary.[27]
TheOpen Society Foundations published a report,License to Be Yourself in 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".[28] 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 Cabral ofGATE:
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."[28]
Before thesexual revolution of the 1960s, there was no common non-derogatory vocabulary in modern English fornon-heterosexuality; terms such as "third gender" trace back to the 1860s.[29][30][31][32][33][34][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 variant females 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.[35] The word Uranian (Urning) was derived by Ulrichs from theGreek goddessAphrodite Urania, who was created out ofthe god Uranus' testicles.[35] German lesbian activistAnna Rüling used 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".[36][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."[37][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,[16][38] writes that "this pattern can be traced from the earliest accounts of the Spaniards to present-day ethnographies. What has been written aboutberdaches reflects more the influence of existing Western discourses on gender, sexuality and the Other than what observers actually witnessed."[39]
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).[40]
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 inTheravada Buddhism, 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.[41]
Some writers suggest that a third gender emerged around 1700 in England: the malesodomite.[42] According to these writers, this was marked by the emergence of asubculture ofeffeminate males 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[43] and continuing in the late nineteenth century withMagnus Hirschfeld,[29]John Addington Symonds,[30]Edward Carpenter,[31]Aimée Duc[32] 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.[44][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 liberation movements of the 1970s and a growing separation of the concepts ofsexual orientation andgender identity, the term fell out of favor amongLGBT communities and the wider public. With the renewed exploration of gender that feminism, the moderntransgender movement, andqueer theory has fostered, some in the contemporary West have begun to describe themselves as a third sex again.[45] Other modern identities that cover similar ground includepangender,bigender,genderqueer,androgyne,intergender, "other gender" and "differently gendered".[original research?]
InWilhelmine Germany, the termsdrittes Geschlecht ("third sex") andMannweib ("man-woman") were also used to describefeminists – both by their opponents[46] 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.
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).[47]
The following gender categories have also been described as a third gender:
Two-Spirit is a modernumbrella term created 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.[38] "Berdache" has also been used to describe slave boys, sold into sexual servitude.[68] 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."[16] 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."[15] This has resulted in widely diverse traditions ofgender-variant andthird-gender traditions 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.[15] "[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-spirit implies 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."[16][17]
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.[17]
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;[17][16] the tribes who have traditional ceremonial roles for gender-variant people use names in their own languages, and have generally rejected this "binary"neologism as "Western".[16][69]
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).[70][better source needed]Sḫt is often translated as "eunuch", although there is little evidence that such individuals were castrated.[71][unreliable source?]
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 myth found on a stone tablet from thesecond millennium BC, the goddessNinmah fashions a being "with no male organ and no female organ", for whomEnki finds a position in society: "to stand before the king". In theAkkadian myth 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.[72][pages needed] InBabylonia,Sumer andAssyria,certain types of individuals who performed religious duties in the service ofInanna/Ishtar have been described as a third gender.[73] They worked assacred prostitutes orHierodules, performed ecstatic dance, music and plays, wore masks and had gender characteristics of both women and men.[74] In Sumer, they were given thecuneiform names of ur.sal ("dog/man-woman") and kur.gar.ra (also described as a man-woman).[75] 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.[76]
References to a third sex can be found throughout the texts of India's religious traditions likeJainism[77] andBuddhism[78] – and it can be inferred thatVedic culture recognised 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).[79] Texts suggest that third sex individuals were well known in premodern India and included male-bodied or female-bodied[80] people as well asintersex people, and that they can often be recognised from childhood.
A third sex is discussed in ancientHindu law, medicine,linguistics andastrology. 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.[81]
Indian linguistPatañjali's[82] work onSanskrit grammar, theMahābhāṣya (c. 200 BC), states that Sanskrit's threegrammatical genders are derived from three natural genders. The earliestTamil grammar, 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,Saturn and (in particular)Ketu. In thePuranas, there are references to three kinds ofdevas of music and dance:apsaras (female),gandharvas (male) andkinnars (neuter).
The two greatSanskritepic poems, theRamayana and theMahabharata,[83][84] indicates the existence of a third gender in ancient Indic society. Some versions ofRamayana tell that in one part of the story, the heroRama heads into exile in the forest. Halfway there, he discovers that most of the people of his hometownAyodhya were 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.[85][86][87][84]
In the BuddhistVinaya, codified in its present form around the 2nd century BC and said to be handed down by oral tradition fromBuddha himself, 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).[78] As the Vinaya tradition developed, the termpaṇḍaka came 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.[88]
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 ofHermaphroditus involves heterosexual lovers merging into their primordial androgynous sex.[89][non-primary source needed]
Othercreation myths around the world share a belief in three original sexes, such as those from northern Thailand.[90]
Many have interpreted the "eunuchs" of the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean world as a third gender that inhabited aliminal space between women and men, understood in their societies as somehow neither or both.[91] 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 Bible and theNew Testament were 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.[92] The early Christian theologian,Tertullian, wrote that Jesus himself was a eunuch (c. 200 AD).[93] 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 thePhrygian goddessCybele, who were described as belonging to a third sex by severalRoman writers.[94]
The so-called "Balkan Sworn Virgins", which have been documented as early as the 19th century, are sometimes considered a separate gender category.[11] Sworn virgins take an irreversible vow of chastity, and in so doing relinquish their sexual, reproductive, and social duties as women. They often dress as men, act as head of their households, and take on male duties.[95][96] Breaking the vow was once punishable by death; though this is no longer the case today, breaking one's vow can result in social ostracization.[97]
InRabbinical Jewish traditions there were 6 terms used to describe gender identity:
Mukhannathun (مخنثون "effeminate ones", "ones who resemble women", singularmukhannath) was a term used in Classical Arabic to refer toeffeminate men or people of ambiguous sex characteristics who appeared feminine or functioned socially in roles typically carried out by women.[100] 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, themamsuh and thekhuntha (hermaphrodite/intersex)."[101] Western scholars Aisya Aymanee M. Zaharin and Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli give the following explanation of the meaning of the termmukhannath and its derivate Arabic forms in the hadith literature:[102]Mukhannathun, especially those in the city ofMedina, are mentioned throughout thehadith and in the works of manyearly Arabic andIslamic writers. During theRashidun era and first half of theUmayyad era, they were strongly associated with music and entertainment.[100] During theAbbasid caliphate, the word itself was used as a descriptor for men employed as dancers, musicians, or comedians.[103]
Mukhannathun existed inpre-Islamic Arabia, during the time of theIslamic prophetMuhammad, andearly Islamic eras.[103][104] A number ofhadith indicate thatmukhannathun were 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 themukhannathun were homosexual, only that they "lack desire".[100] In later eras, the termmukhannath was associated with thereceptive partner ingay sexual practices, an association that has persisted into the modern day.[104]Khanith is a vernacular Arabic term used in some parts of theArabian Peninsula to denote the gender role ascribed to males and occasionallyintersex people who function sexually, and in some ways socially, as women. The term is closely related to the wordmukhannath.
EarlyIslamic literature 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-Nawawi andal-Kirmani classifiedmukhannathun into 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-Asqalani stated that allmukhannathun must 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,mukhannath had developed its association with homosexuality, andBadr al-Din al-Ayni saw homosexuality as "a more heinous extension oftakhannuth", or effeminate behavior.[100][105]
One particularly prominentmukhannath with 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.[100] While he is described as non-religious or even frivolous towards religion in many sources, others contradict this and portray him as a believingMuslim instead. His main association with the label seems to come from his profession, as music was mainly performed by women in Arab societies.[106][107]
The ancientMaya civilization may have recognised a third gender, according to historian Matthew Looper. Looper notes the androgynous Maize Deity and masculineMoon goddess ofMaya 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.[108]
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,[109] and concludes that theOlmec,Aztec andMaya peoples understood "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.[110]
Andean Studies scholar Michael Horswell writes that third-gendered ritual attendants tochuqui chinchay, ajaguar deity inIncan mythology, were "vital actors in Andean ceremonies" prior toSpanish colonisation. Horswell elaborates: "Thesequariwarmi (men-women)shamans mediated 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."[111]Richard Trexler gives an early Spanish account of religious 'third gender' figures from theInca empire in 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.[112]
With over 500 survivingIndigenous North American cultures, attitudes about sex and gender are diverse. Historically, some communities have had social or spiritual roles forpeople who 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-spirit as a way of honoring contemporary figures and organizing intertribally.[16][15][17]
Inuit religion states that one of the firstangakkuq was a third gender being known as Itijjuaq who discovered the firstamulet.[113] Historically,Inuit in areas of theCanadian Arctic, such asIgloolik andNunavik, had a third gender concept calledsipiniq (Inuktitut:ᓯᐱᓂᖅ).[114] Asipiniq infant was believed to have changed their physical sex from male to female at the moment of birth.[115]Sipiniq children were regarded as socially male, and would be named after a male relative, perform a male's tasks, and would weartraditional clothing tailored for men's tasks. This generally lasted until puberty, but in some cases continued into adulthood and even after thesipiniq person married a man.[116] TheNetsilik Inuit used the wordkipijuituq for a similar concept.[117]
TheSimbari people, indigenous to what is now Papua New Guinea, traditionally recognized a third sex, which included people born witha genetic condition common in the island's native population. The condition causes atypical genitalia at birth, which midwives could typically recognize, and classify them askwolu-aatmwol (meaning "turning into a man"). Members of this third sex are typically socialized similarly to males, but are not seen as men. They take on masculine gender roles, and may be war leaders and shamans -- but they do not complete male initiation rites. Kwolu-aatmwol who were not properly identified at birth were socialized as women, and later were "discovered", often upon marriage. Many would move to distant towns where they could "pass" in society as men.[118]
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InDavid Lindsay's 1920 novelA Voyage to Arcturus there is a type of being calledphaen, a third gender that is attracted neither to men nor women but to "Faceny" (their name for Shaping or Crystalman, theDemiurge). The appropriate pronouns areae andaer.[119]
Mikaël, a 1924 film directed byCarl Theodor Dreyer, was also released asChained: The Story of the Third Sex in the USA.[120]
Literary critic Michael Maiwald identifies a "third-sex ideal" in one of the first African-American bestsellers,Claude McKay'sHome to Harlem (1928).[121]
Djuna Barnes' 1936 novelNightwood touches on the "third sex" in the chapter Go Down, Matthew (148).[122]
Kurt Vonnegut's 1969 novelSlaughterhouse-Five identifies seven human sexes (not genders) in thefourth dimension required for reproduction including gay men, women over 65, and infants who died before their first birthday. TheTralfamadorian race has five sexes.[123][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 Swim Latin America, a decision was made not to translate Samoan words and just present them as part of the "cultural journey".[124]
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."[125] Izana later turns into a girl after falling in love with Nagate Tanasake.
In Hinduism,Shiva is still worshipped as anArdhnarishwara, i.e. half-male and half-female form.[126] Shiva's symbol, which is today known as Shivalinga, actually comprises a combination of a 'Yoni' (vagina) and a 'Lingam' (phallus).[127]
At the turn of thecommon era, male cults devoted to a goddess that flourished throughout the broad region extending from theMediterranean to South Asia. Whilegalli were 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.[128]
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,[129] which is further reflected in genderless form of the termkamāl.[130]
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.[131] 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.[132]
Many transfeminine activists in Indian communities reject being considered as a third gender. In some communities, it's a term that is assigned to trans women even if they do not consider themselves a third gender.[133]
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)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.
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.
[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-spirit implies 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.
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.
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.
The Warao, as it happens in other ethnic groups, considers certain people are not man neither woman. They call them Tida Wena.
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.
In pre-Islamic Arabia, music was practiced mainly by women, especially by singing girls (qainat)
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).
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