FromFrenchbardache, fromItalianbardassa, perhaps fromArabicبَرْدَج(bardaj,“slave”).Doublet ofbardash.
berdache (pluralberdachesorberdache)
- (anthropology, dated, now offensive, ethnicslur) AmongNative Americans, a person who identifies with any of a variety ofgender identities which are not exclusively those of their biological sex; atransgender person.[from 19th c.]
1980, Kenneth E. Read, “Observations on the Current State of Anthropological Research on Homosexual Behavior”, inOther Voices: The Style of a Male Homosexual Tavern[1], Novato, Cali.: Chandler & Sharp Publishers, Inc.,→ISBN,→LCCN,→OCLC,page187:These culturally bound assumptions have bedevilled the entire anthropological literature on theberdache in Native American cultures, and it is because of this that I have followed the lead of Angelino and Shedd when referring to the phenomenon of theberdache-transgenderal, for as Fitzgerald (1977) points out: "Aberdache . . . may be a transvestite, but a transvestite need not be aberdache; and neither need be homosexual."
1989, Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Christine Roberts, “Sex, Sexuality, Gender, and Gender Variance”, inSandra Morgen, editor,Gender and Anthropology: Critical Reviews for Research and Teaching[2], Washington, D.C.:American Anthropological Association,→ISBN,→LCCN,→OCLC,page439:Gender is the sociocultural designation of biobehavioral and psychosocial qualities of the sexes; for example, woman (female), man (male), other(s) (e.g.,berdaches²). Notions of gender are culturally specific and depend on the ways in which cultures define and differentiate human (and other) potentials and possibilities. While many people in Western society may think first of heterosexual women and men when the word "gender" is mentioned, there are more gender possibilities than just those two.
2005, Michael J Horswell,Decolonizing the Sodomite, University of Texas, published2006, page20:Maleberdache have been documented in nearly 150 North American societies, while female berdache (females who take on the lifeways of males) appear in half as many groups.
- For more quotations using this term, seeCitations:berdache.
Considered offensive by many Native American communities because of its pejorative and non-American etymology,berdache began to fall out of use in the 1990s;two-spirit and various tribe-specific terms (wergern, etc) are now used instead.
Native American who identifies with a gender identity not exclusively corresponding to their biological sex
—see alsotwo-spiritberdache m (pluralberdaches)
- Alternative form ofbardache
FromFrenchbardache, fromItalianbardassa, perhaps fromArabicبَرْدَج(bardaj,“slave”).
berdache m orfby sense (pluralberdaches)
- two-spirit(native American who is transgender or belongs to a third gender)
