Third gender - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The terms third gender and third sex describe individuals who are categorized (by their will or by social consensus) as neither man

Man

The term man is used for an adult human male . However, man is sometimes used to refer to humanity as a whole...

nor woman

Woman

A woman , pl: women is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent...

, as well as the social category present in those societies who recognize three or more gender

Gender

Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...

s. The term "third" is usually understood to mean "other"; some anthropologists

Cultural anthropology

Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans, collecting data about the impact of global economic and political processes on local cultural realities. Anthropologists use a variety of methods, including participant observation,...

and sociologists

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

have described fourth, fifth, and even some genders. The concepts of "third", "fourth" and "some" gender can be somewhat difficult to understand within Western conceptual categories.

Although biology determines genetically whether a human being is male

Male

Male refers to the biological sex of an organism, or part of an organism, which produces small mobile gametes, called spermatozoa. Each spermatozoon can fuse with a larger female gamete or ovum, in the process of fertilization...

or female

Female

Female is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces non-mobile ova .- Defining characteristics :The ova are defined as the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon, is produced by the male...

(on the basis of the XX

XY sex-determination system

The XY sex-determination system is the sex-determination system found in humans, most other mammals, some insects and some plants . In this system, females have two of the same kind of sex chromosome , and are called the homogametic sex. Males have two distinct sex chromosomes , and are called...

or XY

XY sex-determination system

or a variation thereof chromosome

Chromosome

A chromosome is an organized structure of DNA and protein found in cells. It is a single piece of coiled DNA containing many genes, regulatory elements and other nucleotide sequences. Chromosomes also contain DNA-bound proteins, which serve to package the DNA and control its functions.Chromosomes...

s), the state of being neither a man or a woman is sometimes considered in relation to the individual's gender role

Gender role

Gender roles refer to the set of social and behavioral norms that are considered to be socially appropriate for individuals of a specific sex in the context of a specific culture, which differ widely between cultures and over time...

in society, gender identity

Gender identity

A gender identity is the way in which an individual self-identifies with a gender category, for example, as being either a man or a woman, or in some cases being neither, which can be distinct from biological sex. Basic gender identity is usually formed by age three and is extremely difficult to...

, sexual orientation

Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...

or any other characteristic. To different cultures or individuals, a third gender or sex may represent an intermediate state between men and women, a state of being both (such as "the spirit of a man in the body of a woman"), the state of being neither (neuter

Grammatical gender

Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...

), the ability to cross or swap genders, another category altogether independent of men and women. This last definition is favored by those who argue for a strict interpretation of the "third gender" concept. In any case, all of these characterizations are defining gender and not the sex

Sex

In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...

that biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

gives to living beings.

The term has been used to describe hijra

Hijra (South Asia)

In the culture of South Asia, hijras or chakka in Kannada, khusra in Punjabi and kojja in Telugu are physiological males who have feminine gender identity, women's clothing and other feminine gender roles. Hijras have a long recorded history in the Indian subcontinent, from the antiquity, as...

s of India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, Bangladesh

Bangladesh

Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

and Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

who have gained legal identity, Fa'afafine

Fa'afafine

Fa'afafine may be viewed as a third gender specific to Samoan culture.Fa'afafine are biological males who have a strong feminine gender orientation, which the Samoan parents recognize quite early in childhood. Not always are they raised as female children or rather 'third gender' children...

of Polynesia, and Sworn virgin

Sworn virgin

A sworn virgin is a person who decides to live in the manner of the opposite sex while adamantly refusing ever to have sexual relations with another. The term itself can be misleading — "swearing" virginity can be a public or private act, and it does not even have to be a conscious decision...

s of the Balkans

Balkans

The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

, among others, and is also used by many of such groups and individuals to describe themselves.

Like the hijra, the third gender is in many cultures made up of biological males who take on a feminine gender or sexual role. In cultures that have not undergone heteronormativity

Heteronormativity

Heteronormativity is a term invented in 1991 to describe any of a set of lifestyle norms that hold that people fall into distinct and complementary genders with natural roles in life. It also holds that heterosexuality is the normal sexual orientation, and states that sexual and marital relations...

, they are usually seen as acceptable sexual partners for the "masculine" males as long as these latter always maintain the "active" role.

Biology

In animals that are gonochoristic, a number of individuals within a population will not differentiate sexually

Sexual differentiation

Sexual differentiation is the process of development of the differences between males and females from an undifferentiated zygote...

into bodies that are typically male

Male

or female

Female

; this is called intersexuality. The incidence varies from population to population, and also varies depending on how femaleness and maleness are understood. Biologist and gender theorist Anne Fausto-Sterling

Anne Fausto-Sterling

Anne Fausto-Sterling, Ph. D. is Professor of Biology and Gender Studies at Brown University. She participates actively in the field of sexology and has written extensively on the fields of biology of gender, sexual identity, gender identity, and gender roles.-Life and career:Fausto-Sterling...

, in a 1993 article, argued that if people ought to be classified in sexes, at least five sexes, rather than two, would be needed.

Evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

ary biologist Joan Roughgarden

Joan Roughgarden

Joan E. Roughgarden is an American evolutionary biologist.- Biography :...

argues that, in addition to male and female sexes (as defined by the production of small or large gamete

Gamete

A gamete is a cell that fuses with another cell during fertilization in organisms that reproduce sexually...

s), more than two gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...

s exist in hundreds of animal species. Species with one female and two male genders include red deer

Red Deer

The red deer is one of the largest deer species. Depending on taxonomy, the red deer inhabits most of Europe, the Caucasus Mountains region, Asia Minor, parts of western Asia, and central Asia. It also inhabits the Atlas Mountains region between Morocco and Tunisia in northwestern Africa, being...

who have two male morph

Polymorphism (biology)

Polymorphism in biology occurs when two or more clearly different phenotypes exist in the same population of a species — in other words, the occurrence of more than one form or morph...

s, one with antlers and one without, known as hummels or notts, as well as several species of fish such as plainfin midshipman fish

Midshipman fish

The midshipman fishes are the genus Porichthys of toadfishes. They are distinguished by having photophores and four lateral lines...

and coho salmon

Coho salmon

The Coho salmon, Oncorhynchus kisutch, is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family. Coho salmon are also known as silver salmon or "silvers". It is the state animal of Chiba, Japan.-Description:...

. Species with one female and three male genders include bluegill

Bluegill

The Bluegill is a species of freshwater fish sometimes referred to as bream, brim, or copper nose. It is a member of the sunfish family Centrarchidae of the order Perciformes.-Range and distribution:...

sunfish, where four distinct size and color classes exhibit different social and reproductive behaviours, as well as the spotted European wrasse

Wrasse

The wrasses are a family, Labridae, of marine fish, many of which are brightly colored. The family is large and diverse, with over 600 species in 82 genera, which are divided into nine subgroups or tribes....

(Symphodus ocellatus), a cichlid

Cichlid

Cichlids are fishes from the family Cichlidae in the order Perciformes. Cichlids are members of a group known as the Labroidei along with the wrasses , damselfish , and surfperches . This family is both large and diverse. At least 1,300 species have been scientifically described, making it one of...

(Oreochromis mossambicus) and a kind of tree lizard, Urosaurus ornatus
Urosaurus ornatus
The Tree lizard or Ornate Tree Lizard is a species of lizard that is native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The species has been used to research the physiological changes in the body during the fight-or-flight response as related to stress and aggressive competition...

. Species with two male and two female genders include the white-throated sparrow

White-throated Sparrow

The White-throated Sparrow is a passerine bird of the American sparrow family Emberizidae.-Description:The White-throated Sparrow is a passerine bird of the American sparrow family Emberizidae...

, in which male and female morphs are either white-striped or tan-striped. White-striped individuals are more aggressive and defend territory

Territory (animal)

In ethology the term territory refers to any sociographical area that an animal of a particular species consistently defends against conspecifics...

, while tan-striped individuals provide more parental care. Ninety percent of breeding pairs are between a tan striped and a white striped sparrow. Finally, the highest number of distinct male and female morphs or "genders" within a species is found in the side-blotched lizard

Side-blotched lizard

Side-blotched lizards are lizards of the genus Uta. They are some of the most abundant and commonly observed lizards in the deserts of western North America. They commonly grow to six inches including the tail, with the males normally being the larger sex. Males often have bright throat colors....

, which has five altogether: orange-throated males, who are "ultra-dominant, high testosterone

Testosterone

Testosterone is a steroid hormone from the androgen group and is found in mammals, reptiles, birds, and other vertebrates. In mammals, testosterone is primarily secreted in the testes of males and the ovaries of females, although small amounts are also secreted by the adrenal glands...

" controllers of multiple females; blue-throated males, who are less aggressive and guard only one female; yellow-throated males, who do not defend territories at all but cluster around the territories of orange males; orange-throated females, who lay many small eggs and are very territorial; and yellow-throated females, who lay fewer, larger eggs and are more tolerant of each other.

Contemporary societies

Since at least the 1970s, anthropologists

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

have described gender categories

Gender role

in some cultures which they could not adequately explain using a two-gender framework. At the same time, feminists

Feminism

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...

began to draw a distinction between (biological) sex

Sex

and (social/psychological) gender

Gender

. Contemporary gender theorists

Gender studies

Gender studies is a field of interdisciplinary study which analyses race, ethnicity, sexuality and location.Gender study has many different forms. One view exposed by the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one"...

usually argue that a two-gender system is neither innate nor universal. A sex/gender system which recognizes only the following two social norms

Norm (sociology)

Social norms are the accepted behaviors within a society or group. This sociological and social psychological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit...

has been labeled "heteronormative":

Indian subcontinent

The Hijra

Hijra (South Asia)

of India are probably the most well known and populous third sex type in the modern world – Mumbai

Mumbai

Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...

-based community health organisation The Humsafar Trust estimates there are between 5 and 6 million hijras in India. In different areas they are known as Aravani/Aruvani or Jogappa. Often (somewhat misleadingly) called eunuch

Eunuch

A eunuch is a person born male most commonly castrated, typically early enough in his life for this change to have major hormonal consequences...

s in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, they may be born intersex

Intersex

Intersex, in humans and other animals, is the presence of intermediate or atypical combinations of physical features that usually distinguish female from male...

or apparently male

Male

, dress in feminine clothes and generally see themselves as neither men nor women. Only eight percent of hijras visiting Humsafar clinics are nirwaan (castrated

Castration

Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries.-Humans:...

). India

India

n photographer Dayanita Singh

Dayanita Singh

Dayanita Singh is an Indian photographer, lives and works in New Delhi and now also is partly based in Goa, who is known for her portraits of India's urban middle and upper class families...

writes about her friendship with a Hijra, Mona Ahmed, and their two different societies' beliefs about gender: "When I once asked her if she would like to go to Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

for a sex change operation, she told me, 'You really do not understand. I am the third sex, not a man trying to be a woman. It is your society's problem that you only recognise two sexes.'" Hijra social movement

Social movement

Social movements are a type of group action. They are large informal groupings of individuals or organizations focused on specific political or social issues, in other words, on carrying out, resisting or undoing a social change....

s have campaigned for recognition as a third sex, and in 2005, Indian passport application forms were updated with three gender options: M, F, and E (for male, female, and eunuch, respectively). Some Indian languages such as Sanskrit have three gender options. In November 2009, India agreed to list eunuchs and transgender people as "others", distinct from males and females, in voting rolls and voter identity cards.

In addition to the feminine role of hijras

Hijra (South Asia)

, which is widespread across the subcontinent

Subcontinent

A subcontinent is a large, relatively self-contained landmass forming a subdivision of a continent. By dictionary entries, the term subcontinent signifies "having a certain geographical or political independence" from the rest of the continent, or "a vast and more or less self-contained subdivision...

, a few occurrences of institutionalised "female masculinity" have been noted in modern India. Among the Gaddhi in the foothills of the Himalayas

Himalayas

The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...

, some girls adopt a role as a sadhin, renouncing marriage, and dressing and working as men, but retaining female names and pronouns. A late-nineteenth century anthropologist noted the existence of a similar role in Madras, that of the basivi. However, historian Walter Penrose concludes that in both cases "their status is perhaps more 'transgendered' than 'third-gendered.'"

Pakistan

In June 2009, the Supreme Court

Supreme Court of Pakistan

The Supreme Court is the apex court in Pakistan's judicial hierarchy, the final arbiter of legal and constitutional disputes. The Supreme Court has a permanent seat in Islamabad. It has number of Branch Registries where cases are heard. It has a number of de jure powers which are outlined in the...

of Pakistan

Pakistan

ordered a census of hijras, who number between 80,000 and 300,000 in Pakistan. In December 2009, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry

Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry

Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry is the current Chief Justice of Pakistan.He became chief justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court in 2005 and soon became not only a central figure in the nation's political struggles but an icon to the country's legal profession and others campaigning for the rule of law...

, the Chief Justice of Pakistan, ordered that the National Database and Registration Authority issue national identity cards to members of the community showing their "distinct" gender. "It's the first time in the 62-year history of Pakistan that such steps are being taken for our welfare, Almas Bobby, a hijra association's president, said to Reuters. "It's a major step towards giving us respect and identity in society. We are slowly getting respect in society. Now people recognise that we are also human beings.". In Pakistan the hijras live in groups (generally 4-12 members) headed by a Guru, normally the oldest. The group earns livlihood by performing/dancing/singing in family functions e.g. birthdays, marriages or child births. It is obligatory for hosts to pay Hijra in money, grain or other things. In central punjab (Pakistan), hijra groups divide areas among themselves and one group may not interfere with another's territory as it is considered unethical.

Thailand

Also commonly referred to as a third sex are the kathoey

Kathoey

Kathoey or katoey is a male-to-female transgender person or an effeminate gay male in Thailand. Related phrases include sao praphet song , or phet thi sam . The word kathoey is thought to be of Khmer origin...

s (or "ladyboys") of Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

. However, while a significant number of Thais perceive kathoeys as belonging to a third gender, including many kathoeys themselves, others see them as either a kind of man or a kind of woman. Researcher Sam Winter writes:
In 2004, the Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai sometimes written as "Chiengmai" or "Chiangmai", is the largest and most culturally significant city in northern Thailand. It is the capital of Chiang Mai Province , a former capital of the Kingdom of Lanna and was the tributary Kingdom of Chiang Mai from 1774 until 1939. It is...

Technology School allocated a separate restroom for kathoeys, with an intertwined male and female symbol on the door. The 15 kathoey students are required to wear male clothing at school but are allowed to sport feminine hairdos. The restroom features four stalls, but no urinals.

Third gender and the concept of homosexuality

Some writers suggest that a third gender emerged around 1700 AD in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

: the male sodomite

Sodomy

Sodomy is an anal or other copulation-like act, especially between male persons or between a man and animal, and one who practices sodomy is a "sodomite"...

. According to these writers, this was marked by the emergence of a subculture

Subculture

In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...

of effeminate males and their meeting places (molly house

Molly house

A Molly house is an archaic 18th century English term for a tavern or private room where homosexual and cross-dressing men could meet each other and possible sexual partners. Molly houses were one precursor to some types of gay bars....

s), as well as a marked increase in hostility towards effeminate and/or homosexual males. People described themselves as members of a third sex in Europe from at least the 1860s with the writings of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs

for the periodical directory, see Ulrich's Periodicals DirectoryKarl-Heinrich Ulrichs , is seen today as the pioneer of the modern gay rights movement.-Early life:...

and continuing in the late nineteenth century with Magnus Hirschfeld

Magnus Hirschfeld

Magnus Hirschfeld was a German physician and sexologist. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which Dustin Goltz called "the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights."-Early life:Hirschfeld was born in Kolberg in a...

, John Addington Symonds

John Addington Symonds

John Addington Symonds was an English poet and literary critic. Although he married and had a family, he was an early advocate of male love , which he believed could include pederastic as well as egalitarian relationships. He referred to it as l'amour de l'impossible...

, Edward Carpenter

Edward Carpenter

Edward Carpenter was an English socialist poet, socialist philosopher, anthologist, and early gay activist....

, Aimée Duc 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 such sexual intermediates. Many cited precedents from classical Greek and Sanskrit literature (see below).

In Wilhelmine Germany, the terms drittes Geschlecht ("third sex") and Mannweib ("man-woman") were also used to describe feminists – both by their opponents and sometimes by feminists themselves. In the 1899 novel Das dritte Geschlecht (The Third Sex) by Ernst Ludwig von Wolzogen, feminists are portrayed as "neuters" with external female characteristics accompanied by a crippled male psyche

Psyche (psychology)

The word psyche has a long history of use in psychology and philosophy, dating back to ancient times, and has been one of the fundamental concepts for understanding human nature from a scientific point of view. The English word soul is sometimes used synonymously, especially in older...

.

Throughout much of the twentieth century, the term "third sex" was a popular descriptor for homosexuals and gender nonconformists, but after Gay Liberation

Gay Liberation

Gay liberation is the name used to describe the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement of the late 1960s and early to mid 1970s in North America, Western Europe, and Australia and New Zealand...

of the 1970s and a growing separation of the concepts of sexual orientation

Sexual orientation

and gender identity

Gender identity

, the term fell out of favor among LGBT communities and the wider public. With the renewed exploration of gender that feminism, the modern transgender

Transgender

Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....

movement and queer theory

Queer theory

Queer theory is a field of critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of the fields of LGBT studies and feminist studies. Queer theory includes both queer readings of texts and the theorisation of 'queerness' itself...

has fostered, some in the contemporary West have begun to describe themselves as a third sex again. One well known social movement that includes male-bodied people that identify as neither men nor women are the Radical Faeries

Radical Faeries

The Radical Faeries are a loosely-affiliated, worldwide network and counter-cultural movement seeking to reject hetero-imitation and redefine queer identity through spirituality. The Radical Faerie movement started in the United States among gay men during the 1970s sexual and counterculture...

. Other modern identities that cover similar ground include pangender

Pangender

Pangender is a term used to describe people who feel that they cannot be labeled as male or female in gender. As such it has a great deal of overlap with genderqueer. Pangender people feel that they do not fit into binary genders, instead identifying as mixed gender or as a third gendered...

, bigender

Bigender

Bigender, bi-gender or bi+gender describes a tendency to move between feminine and masculine gender-typed behaviour depending on context. Some bigendered individuals express a distinctly "en femme" persona and a distinctly "en homme" persona, feminine and masculine respectively; others have shades...

, genderqueer

Genderqueer

Genderqueer is a catch-all term for gender identities other than man and woman, thus outside of the gender binary and heteronormativity...

, androgyne, intergender, "other gender" and "differently gendered".

The term transgender

Transgender

Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....

, which often refers to those who change their gender, is increasingly being used to signify a gendered subjectivity that is neither male nor female – one recent example is on a form for the Harvard Business School

Harvard Business School

Harvard Business School is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and is widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. The school offers the world's largest full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, and many executive...

, which has three gender options – male, female, and transgender.

Indigenous cultures of North America

Also very much associated with multiple genders are the indigenous cultures of North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, who often contain social gender categories that are collectively known as Two-Spirit

Two-Spirit

Two-Spirit People , is an English term that emerged in 1990 out of the third annual inter-tribal Native American/First Nations gay/lesbian American conference in Winnipeg. It describes Indigenous North Americans who fulfill one of many mixed gender roles found traditionally among many Native...

. Individual examples include the Winkte of Lakota culture, the ninauposkitzipxpe ("manly-hearted woman") of the North Peigan (Blackfoot

Blackfeet

The Piegan Blackfeet are a tribe of Native Americans of the Algonquian language family based in Montana, having lived in this area since around 6,500 BC. Many members of the tribe live as part of the Blackfeet Nation in northwestern Montana, with population centered in Browning...

) community, and the Zapotec Muxe

Muxe

In Zapotec cultures of Oaxaca , a muxe is a physically male individual who dresses and behaves in a feminine manner; they may be seen as a third gender. Some marry women and have children while others choose men as sexual or romantic partners...

of Mexico. Various scholars have debated the nature of such categories, as well as the definition of the term "third gender". Different researchers may characterise a Two-Spirit person as a gender-crosser, a mixed gender, an intermediate gender, or distinct third and fourth genders that are not dependent on male and female as primary categories. Those (such as Will Roscoe) who have argued for the latter interpretation also argue that mixed-, intermediate-, cross- or non-gendered social roles should not be understood as truly representing a third gender. Anthropologist Jean-Guy Goulet (1996) reviews the literature:
The term "berdache" is seen as very offensive by many Two-Spirit and Native people because of its historical roots; It was first applied by European settlers as a derogatory term, meaning a submissive, effeminate man. The term "Two-Spirit" was created in 1990 as an English

English language

word to convey an identity already recognized by many Nations, and is usually the preferred and most respectful term.

Other

The following gender categories have also been described as a third gender:

Middle East:

Oman
Oman
Oman , officially called the Sultanate of Oman , is an Arab state in southwest Asia on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by the United Arab Emirates to the northwest, Saudi Arabia to the west, and Yemen to the southwest. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the...

: Xanith or khanith.

Asia-Pacific:

Polynesia
Polynesia
Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including language, culture and beliefs...

: Fa'afafine
Fa'afafine
Fa'afafine may be viewed as a third gender specific to Samoan culture.Fa'afafine are biological males who have a strong feminine gender orientation, which the Samoan parents recognize quite early in childhood. Not always are they raised as female children or rather 'third gender' children...

(Samoan
Samoan language
Samoan Samoan Samoan (Gagana Sāmoa, is the language of the Samoan Islands, comprising the independent country of Samoa and the United States territory of American Samoa. It is an official language—alongside English—in both jurisdictions. Samoan, a Polynesian language, is the first language for most...

), fakaleiti
Fakaleiti
A fakaleiti is a Tongan male who behaves in effeminate ways, in contrast to mainstream Tongan men, who tend to be very masculine....

(Tongan
Tongan language
Tongan is an Austronesian language spoken in Tonga. It has around 200,000 speakers and is a national language of Tonga. It is a VSO language.-Related languages:...

), mahu wahine (Hawaiian
Hawaiian language
The Hawaiian language is a Polynesian language that takes its name from Hawaii, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language of the state of Hawaii...

), mahu vahine (Tahitian
Tahitian language
Tahitian is an indigenous language spoken mainly in the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is an Eastern Polynesian language closely related to the other indigenous languages spoken in French Polynesia: Marquesan, Tuamotuan, Mangarevan, and Austral Islands languages...

), whakawahine (New Zealand Māori
Maori language
Māori or te reo Māori , commonly te reo , is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Māori. It has the status of an official language in New Zealand...

) and akava'ine
Akava'ine
An akava'ine or 'akava'ine is a Cook Islands Māori word used to describe transgender or transsexual women in the Cook Islands.It can also refer to women who have an inflated opinion of themselves, draw attention to themselves in ways that disrupt groupness, don't heed others advice, or who act in...

(Cook Islands Māori
Cook Islands Maori
The Cook Islands Māori language, also called Māori Kūki 'Āirani or Rarotongan, is the official language of the Cook Islands. Most Cook Islanders also call it Te reo Ipukarea, literally "the language of the Ancestral Homeland"....

).

Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

: Waria is a traditional third general role found in modern Indonesia. Additionally, the Bugis
Bugis
The Bugis are the most numerous of the three major linguistic and ethnic groups of South Sulawesi, the southwestern province of Sulawesi, Indonesia's third largest island. Although many Bugis live in the large port cities of Makassar and Parepare, the majority are farmers who grow wet rice on the...

culture of Sulawesi
Sulawesi
Sulawesi is one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia and is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands. In Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger Indonesian populations.- Etymology :The Portuguese were the first to...

has been described as having three sexes (male, female and intersex
Intersex
Intersex, in humans and other animals, is the presence of intermediate or atypical combinations of physical features that usually distinguish female from male...

) as well as five genders with distinct social roles.
In the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, 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) include bakla (Tagalog
Tagalog language
Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...

), bayot (Cebuano
Cebuano language
Cebuano, referred to by most of its speakers as Bisaya , is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20 million people mostly in the Central Visayas. It is the most widely spoken of the languages within the so-named Bisayan subgroup and is closely related to other Filipino...

), agi (Ilonggo), bantut (Tausug
Tausug language
Tausūg is a language spoken in the province of Sulu in the Philippines, in Malaysia, and in Indonesia by the Tausūg people....

), binabae, bading – all of which refer to effeminate 'gay' men/transwomen. Gender variant
Gender variance
Gender variance, or gender nonconformity, is behaviour or gender expression that does not conform to dominant gender norms of male and female...

females may be called lakin-on or tomboy
Tomboy
A tomboy is a girl who exhibits characteristics or behaviors considered typical of the gender role of a boy, including the wearing of typically masculine-oriented clothes and engaging in games and activities that are often physical in nature, and which are considered in many cultures to be the...

.

Europe:

The Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

: Sworn virgin
Sworn virgin
A sworn virgin is a person who decides to live in the manner of the opposite sex while adamantly refusing ever to have sexual relations with another. The term itself can be misleading — "swearing" virginity can be a public or private act, and it does not even have to be a conscious decision...

s, females who work and dress as men and inhabit some men-only spaces, but do not marry.
18th century England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

: Mollies
Molly house
A Molly house is an archaic 18th century English term for a tavern or private room where homosexual and cross-dressing men could meet each other and possible sexual partners. Molly houses were one precursor to some types of gay bars....
19th century England: Uranian
Uranian
frame|right|From [[John Addington Symonds]]' 1891 book A Problem in Modern Ethics.Uranian is a 19th century term that referred to a person of a third sex — originally, someone with "a female psyche in a male body" who is sexually attracted to men, and later extended to cover homosexual gender...
Femminiello
Femminiello
The femminiello or femmeniello in Neapolitan culture is a male transvestite, not simply a male homosexual; it refers in Naples to men who, in addition to their natural inclinations, have been, as they now say, "gendered" to dress and behave as women and who often engage in prostitution.But they...

, in Neapolitan
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

culture

Africa:

Southern Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

: Ashtime of Maale culture
Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

: Mashoga of Swahili
Swahili language
Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...

-speaking areas of the Kenyan coast, particularly Mombasa
Mombasa
Mombasa is the second-largest city in Kenya. Lying next to the Indian Ocean, it has a major port and an international airport. The city also serves as the centre of the coastal tourism industry....
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...

: Mangaiko among the Mbo people.

Latin America and the Caribbean:

Southern Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

: Muxe
Muxe
In Zapotec cultures of Oaxaca , a muxe is a physically male individual who dresses and behaves in a feminine manner; they may be seen as a third gender. Some marry women and have children while others choose men as sexual or romantic partners...

, In many Zapotec communities, third gender roles are often apparent The muxe are described as a third gender; biologically male but with feminine characteristics. They are not considered be homosexuals, rather they are just another gender Some will marry women and have families, others will form relationships with men Although it is recognized that these individuals have the bodies of men, they perform gender in a different manner 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 Lynn Stephen quotes Jeffrey Rubin, "Prominent men who where rumoured to be homosexual and did not adopt the muxe identity were spoken of pejoratively", suggesting that muxe gender role was more acceptable in the community.
Biza'ah, In Teotilán, they have their own version of the muxe that 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. Like the muxe they were well liked and accepted in the community. Their way of walking, talking and the work that they perform are markers of recognizing biza'ah.
Travesti
Travesti
In cultures of South America, a is a person who was born male, has a feminine gender identity and is primarily sexually attracted to non-feminine men . In South America the distinction between gender identity and sexual orientation isn't usually made.In french countries, Travesti means anyone who...

s of Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

have been described as a third gender, although not all see themselves this way. Don Kulick
Don Kulick
Don Kulick is professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. Kulick received his B.A. in Anthropology and Linguistics from Lund University in Sweden in 1983 and his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Stockholm University in 1990. Previous academic positions include both Stockholm and Linköping...

described the gendered world of travestis in urban Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

as having has two categories: "men" and "not men", with women, homosexuals and travestis belonging to the latter category.
Dominican republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...

: Guevedoche, intersex girls who become boys at puberty, due to 5-alpha-reductase deficiency
5-alpha-reductase deficiency
5-Alpha-reductase deficiency is an autosomal recessive intersex condition caused by a mutation of the 5-alpha reductase type 2 gene.-Normal function:...

. The same phenomenon is known as kwolu-aatmwol in the "Sambia" community in the eastern highlands of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

.

Mesopotamia

In Mesopotamian mythology, among the earliest written records of humanity, there are references to types of people who are not men and not women. In a Sumer

Sumer

Sumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age....

ian creation myth found on a stone tablet from the second millennium BC, the goddess Ninmah fashions a being "with no male organ and no female organ", for whom Enki

Enki

Enki is a god in Sumerian mythology, later known as Ea in Akkadian and Babylonian mythology. He was originally patron god of the city of Eridu, but later the influence of his cult spread throughout Mesopotamia and to the Canaanites, Hittites and Hurrians...

finds a position in society: "to stand before the king". In the Akkad

Akkad

The Akkadian Empire was an empire centered in the city of Akkad and its surrounding region in Mesopotamia....

ian myth of Atra-Hasis

Atra-Hasis

The 18th century BCE Akkadian epic of Atra-Hasis is named after its protagonist. An "Atra-Hasis" appears on one of the Sumerian king lists as king of Shuruppak in the times before the flood. The Atra-Hasis tablets include both a creation myth and a flood account, which is one of three surviving...

(ca. 1700 BC), Enki instructs Nintu, 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. In Babylonia

Babylonia

Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...

, Sumer

Sumer

Sumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age....

and Assyria

Assyria

Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...

, certain types of individuals who performed religious duties in the service of Inanna

Inanna

Inanna, also spelled Inana is the Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare....

/Ishtar

Ishtar

Ishtar is the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, war, and sex. She is the counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to the cognate north-west Semitic goddess Astarte.-Characteristics:...

have been described as a third gender. They worked as sacred prostitutes or Hierodule

Hierodule

In ancient Greece and Anatolia a hierodule, from the Greek ' , was a temple slave in the service of a specific deity, often with the connotation of religious prostitution. Her prostitution would technically be excused because of the service she provided to the deity...

s, performed ecstatic dance, music and plays, wore masks and had gender characteristics of both women and men. In Sumer, they were given the cuneiform

Cuneiform script

Cuneiform script )) is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. Emerging in Sumer around the 30th century BC, with predecessors reaching into the late 4th millennium , cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs...

names of ur.sal ("dog/man-woman") and kur.gar.ra (also described as a man-woman). 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.

Egypt

Inscribed pottery shards from the Middle Kingdom of Egypt

Middle Kingdom of Egypt

The Middle Kingdom of Egypt is the period in the history of ancient Egypt stretching from the establishment of the Eleventh Dynasty to the end of the Fourteenth Dynasty, between 2055 BC and 1650 BC, although some writers include the Thirteenth and Fourteenth dynasties in the Second Intermediate...

(2000–1800 BCE), found near ancient Thebes

Thebes, Egypt

Thebes is the Greek name for a city in Ancient Egypt located about 800 km south of the Mediterranean, on the east bank of the river Nile within the modern city of Luxor. The Theban Necropolis is situated nearby on the west bank of the Nile.-History:...

(now Luxor

Luxor

Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt and the capital of Luxor Governorate. The population numbers 487,896 , with an area of approximately . As the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open air museum", as the ruins of the temple...

, Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

), list three human genders: tai (male), sḫt ("sekhet") and hmt (female). Sḫt is often translated as "eunuch", although there is little evidence that such individuals were castrated.

Indic culture

References to a third sex can be found throughout the various texts of India's three ancient spiritual traditions – Hinduism

Hinduism

Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...

, Jainism

Jainism

Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state...

and Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

– and it can be inferred that Vedic culture recognised three genders. The Vedas

Vedas

The Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism....

(c. 1500 BC – 500 BC) describe individuals as belonging to one of three separate categories, according to one's nature or prakrti

Prakrti

Prakrti or Prakriti or Prakruti means "nature". It is, according to Hindus, the basic nature of intelligence by which the Universe exists and functions. It is described in Bhagavad Gita as the "primal motive force". It is the essential constituent of the universe and is at the basis of all the...

. These are also spelled out in the Kama Sutra

Kama Sutra

The Kama Sutra is an ancient Indian Hindu text widely considered to be the standard work on human sexual behavior in Sanskrit literature written by Vātsyāyana. A portion of the work consists of practical advice on sexual intercourse. It is largely in prose, with many inserted anustubh poetry verses...

(c. 4th century AD) and elsewhere as pums-prakrti (male-nature), stri-prakrti (female-nature), and tritiya-prakrti (third-nature). Various texts suggest that third sex individuals were well known in premodern India, and included male-bodied or female-bodied people as well as intersex

Intersex

Intersex, in humans and other animals, is the presence of intermediate or atypical combinations of physical features that usually distinguish female from male...

uals, and that they can often be recognised from childhood.

A third sex is also discussed in ancient Hindu law

Hindu law

Hindu law in its current usage refers to the system of personal laws applied to Hindus, especially in India...

, medicine, linguistics

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

and astrology

Astrology

Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...

. The foundational work of Hindu law, the Manu Smriti

Manu Smriti

' , also known as Mānava-Dharmaśāstra , is the most important and earliest metrical work of the Dharmaśāstra textual tradition of Hinduism...

(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." Indian linguist Patañjali

Patañjali

Patañjali is the compiler of the Yoga Sūtras, an important collection of aphorisms on Yoga practice. According to tradition, the same Patañjali was also the author of the Mahābhāṣya, a commentary on Kātyāyana's vārttikas on Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī as well as an unspecified work of medicine .In...

's work on Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

grammar, the Mahābhāṣya (c. 200 BC), states that Sanskrit's three grammatical genders are derived from three natural genders. The earliest Tamil

Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...

grammar, the Tolkappiyam

Tolkappiyam

The Tolkāppiyam is a work on the grammar of the Tamil language and the earliest extant work of Tamil literature. It is written in the form of noorpaa or short formulaic compositions and comprises three books - the Ezhuttadikaram, the Solladikaram and the Poruladikaram. Each of these books is...

(3rd century BC) also refers to hermaphrodites as a third "neuter" gender (in addition to a feminine category of unmasculine males). In Vedic astrology, the nine planets are each assigned to one of the three genders; the third gender, tritiya-prakrti, is associated with Mercury

Mercury (planet)

Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 Earth days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about its axis for every two orbits...

, Saturn

Saturn

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus , the Babylonian Ninurta and the Hindu Shani. Saturn's astronomical symbol represents the Roman god's sickle.Saturn,...

and (in particular) Ketu

Ketu (mythology)

Ketu is the descending lunar node. 'Ketu' is said to be the body of Rahu, after the head of the asura was cut off by God Vishnu. In Hindu mythology, Ketu is generally referred to as a "shadow" planet. It is believed to have a tremendous impact on human lives and also the whole creation...

. In the Puranas

Puranas

The Puranas are a genre of important Hindu, Jain and Buddhist religious texts, notably consisting of narratives of the history of the universe from creation to destruction, genealogies of kings, heroes, sages, and demigods, and descriptions of Hindu cosmology, philosophy, and geography.Puranas...

, there are also references to three kinds of deva

Deva (Hinduism)

' is the Sanskrit word for god or deity, its related feminine term is devi. In modern Hinduism, it can be loosely interpreted as any benevolent supernatural beings. The devs in Hinduism, also called Suras, are often juxtaposed to the Asuras, their half brothers. Devs are also the maintainers of...

s of music and dance: apsaras (female), gandharva

Gandharva

Gandharva is a name used for distinct mythological beings in Hinduism and Buddhism; it is also a term for skilled singers in Indian classical music.-In Hinduism:...

s (male) and kinnars (neuter).

The two great Sanskrit

Sanskrit

epic poems, the Ramayana

Ramayana

The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon , considered to be itihāsa. The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India and Nepal, the other being the Mahabharata...

and the Mahabharata

Mahabharata

The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....

, also indicate the existence of a third gender in ancient Indic society. Some versions of Ramayana

Ramayana

tell that in one part of the story, the hero Rama

Rama

Rama or full name Ramachandra is considered to be the seventh avatar of Vishnu in Hinduism, and a king of Ayodhya in ancient Indian...

heads into exile in the forest. Halfway there, he discovers that most of the people of his home town Ayodhya 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 to from exile years later, he discovered them still there and blessed them, saying that there will be a day when they will rule the world.

In the Buddhist Vinaya

Vinaya

The Vinaya is the regulatory framework for the Buddhist monastic community, or sangha, based in the canonical texts called Vinaya Pitaka. The teachings of the Buddha, or Buddhadharma can be divided into two broad categories: 'Dharma' or doctrine, and 'Vinaya', or discipline...

, codified in its present form around the 2nd century BC and said to be handed down by oral tradition from Buddha

Gautama Buddha

Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...

himself, there are four main sex/gender categories: males, females, ubhatobyanjanaka (people of a dual sexual nature) and pandaka (people of various non-normative sexual natures, perhaps originally denoting a deficiency in male sexual capacity). As the Vinaya tradition developed, the term pandaka came to refer to a broad third sex category which encompassed intersex, male and female bodied people with physical and/or behavioural attributes that were considered inconsistent with the natural characteristics of man and woman.

Contrary to what is often portrayed in the West, sex with male (specifically receptive oral and anal sex) was the gender role of the third gender, not their defining feature. Thus, in ancient India, as in present day India, the society made a distinction between a third genders having sex with a man, and a man having sex with a man. The latter may have been viewed negatively, but he would be seen very much as a man (in modern western context, as 'straight'), not a third gender (in modern western context 'gay').

Mediterranean culture

In Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

's Symposium
Symposium (Plato)
The Symposium is a philosophical text by Plato dated c. 385–380 BCE. It concerns itself at one level with the genesis, purpose and nature of love....

, written around the 4th century BC, Aristophanes

Aristophanes

Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...

relates a creation myth involving three original sexes: female, male and androgynous. They are split in half by Zeus

Zeus

In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...

, 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 of Hermaphroditus

Hermaphroditus

In Greek mythology, Hermaphroditus or Hermaphroditos was the child of Aphrodite and Hermes. He was a minor deity of bisexuality and effeminacy. According to Ovid, born a remarkably handsome boy, he was transformed into an androgynous being by union with the water nymph Salmacis...

involves heterosexual lovers merging into their primordial androdgynous sex.

Other creation myths around the world share a belief in three original sexes, such as those from northern Thailand.

Many have interpreted the "eunuch

Eunuch

A eunuch is a person born male most commonly castrated, typically early enough in his life for this change to have major hormonal consequences...

s" of the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean world as a third gender that inhabited a liminal

Liminality

Liminality is a psychological, neurological, or metaphysical subjective state, conscious or unconscious, of being on the "threshold" of or between two different existential planes, as defined in neurological psychology and in the anthropological theories of ritual by such writers as Arnold van...

space between women and men, understood in their societies as somehow neither or both. In the Historia Augusta, the eunuch body is described as a tertium genus hominum (a third human gender), and in 77 BC, a eunuch named Genucius was prevented from claiming goods left to him in a will

Will (law)

A will or testament is a legal declaration by which a person, the testator, names one or more persons to manage his/her estate and provides for the transfer of his/her property at death...

, 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). Several scholars have argued that the eunuchs in the Hebrew Bible

Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...

and the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old 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 for chastity

Chastity

Chastity refers to the sexual behavior of a man or woman acceptable to the moral standards and guidelines of a culture, civilization, or religion....

. The early Christian theologian, Tertullian

Tertullian

Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicised as Tertullian , was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He is the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He also was a notable early Christian apologist and...

, wrote that Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

himself was a eunuch (c. 200 AD). 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 the Galli

Galli

A Gallus was a eunuch priest of the Phrygian goddess Cybele, whose worship was incorporated into the state religious practices of ancient Rome.-About the Galli:...

, "eunuch" devotees of the Phrygia

Phrygia

In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now modern-day Turkey. The Phrygians initially lived in the southern Balkans; according to Herodotus, under the name of Bryges , changing it to Phruges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the...

n goddess Cybele

Cybele

Cybele , was a Phrygian form of the Earth Mother or Great Mother. As with Greek Gaia , her Minoan equivalent Rhea and some aspects of Demeter, Cybele embodies the fertile Earth...

, who were described as belonging to a third sex by several Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

writers.

Siberia

Among the 19th century Chuckhi, the “soft men” (yirka-lául) were a category of biologically male shamans who adopted first female hairstyle, then female dress, and finally married males. They were hated and scorned but also feared by the rest of the Chuckhi, as they were considered to be much more powerful than other shamans (Price 2002, 302).

The masculine gendered males who married the yirka-lául were not seen as 'third genders' but as 'men.'

Israel

In old Israel there were six genders.

Zachar-male

Nekeveh-female

Androgynos-intersex as well as bigender, pangender, genderfluid or other forms of genderqueer in which one was both male and female.

Tumtum-a person without a definite sex or who is agender or physically asexual.

Aylonit-female to male people

Saris-male to female people often translated as eunuch

The Americas

The ancient Maya civilization

Maya civilization

The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...

may have recognised a third gender, according to historian Matthew Looper. Looper notes the androgynous Maize

Maize

Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

Deity and masculine Moon goddess

Lunar deity

In mythology, a lunar deity is a god or goddess associated with or symbolizing the moon. These deities can have a variety of functions and traditions depending upon the culture, but they are often related to or an enemy of the solar deity. Even though they may be related, they are distinct from the...

of Maya mythology

Maya mythology

Mayan mythology is part of Mesoamerican mythology and comprises all of the Mayan tales in which personified forces of nature, deities, and the heroes interacting with these play the main roles...

, and iconography and inscriptions where rulers embody or impersonate these deities. He suggests that the third gender could also include two-spirit

Two-Spirit

individuals with special roles such as healers or diviners

Divination

Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic standardized process or ritual...

.

Anthropologist and archaeologist Miranda Stockett notes that several writers have felt the need to move beyond a two-gender framework when discussing prehispanic cultures across mesoamerica

Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...

, and concludes that the Olmec

Olmec

The Olmec were the first major Pre-Columbian civilization in Mexico. They lived in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco....

, Aztec

Aztec

The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...

and Maya peoples

Maya peoples

The Maya people constitute a diverse range of the Native American people of southern Mexico and northern Central America. The overarching term "Maya" is a collective designation to include the peoples of the region who share some degree of cultural and linguistic heritage; however, the term...

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 male through 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.

Inca

Andean Studies scholar Michael Horswell writes that third-gendered ritual attendants to chuqui chinchay, a jaguar

Jaguar

The jaguar is a big cat, a feline in the Panthera genus, and is the only Panthera species found in the Americas. The jaguar is the third-largest feline after the tiger and the lion, and the largest in the Western Hemisphere. The jaguar's present range extends from Southern United States and Mexico...

deity in Incan mythology, were "vital actors in Andean ceremonies" prior to Spanish colonisation

Spanish Empire

The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....

. Horswell elaborates: "These quariwarmi (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." Richard Trexler

Richard Trexler

Richard Trexler was a professor of History at the Binghamton University, State University of New York. A specialist of the Renaissance, Reformation, Italy and Behaviorist History, Trexler had over fifty published works. He was best known for revolutionizing the field of public life as...

gives an early Spanish account of religious 'third gender' figures from the Inca empire

Inca Empire

The Inca Empire, or Inka Empire , was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was located in Cusco in modern-day Peru. The Inca civilization arose from the highlands of Peru sometime in the early 13th century...

in his 1995 book "Sex and Conquest":

Illiniwek

The natives of modern Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

decided the gender of their members based on their childhood behavior. If a genetic male child used female tools like a spade or ax instead of a bow, they considered them Berdaches, which is a derogatory term, the better term being Two Spirits, as they were considered to encompass the masculine and feminine.

Art and literature

In the 1980s science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

book trilogy Xenogenesis
Xenogenesis
Lilith's Brood is a collection of three works by Octavia Butler. The three volumes of this science fiction series were previously collected in the now out of print volume, Xenogenesis...

, by Octavia Butler, the extraterrestrial race has three sexes: male, female, and Ooloi. They also have sexual relationships with humans and interbreed with them.
In the world of Carolyn Ives Gilman's 1998 novel Halfway Human
Halfway Human
Halfway Human is a science fiction novel written by Carolyn Ives Gilman.The novel follows the life of Tedla, an asexual being from an evolutionary offshoot of humanity. It is neither male nor female and refers to itself as a “bland.” On its home planet blands are kept at a near-slave class,...

, all children are born with indeterminate sex, and develop into male, female, or "bland" in adolescence. Blands are a neuter category lacking sexual characteristics, who are disparaged and treated as servants – the "halfway humans" of the book's title.
Literary critic Michael Maiwald identifies a "third-sex ideal" in one of the first African-American bestsellers, Claude McKay
Claude McKay
Claude McKay was a Jamaican-American writer and poet. He was a seminal figure in the Harlem Renaissance and wrote three novels: Home to Harlem , a best-seller which won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature, Banjo , and Banana Bottom...

's Home to Harlem (1928).
The Third Sex, a 1959 lesbian pulp fiction
Lesbian pulp fiction
Lesbian pulp fiction refers to any mid-20th century paperback novel with overtly lesbian themes and content. Lesbian pulp fiction was published in the 1950s and 60s by many of the same paperback publishing houses that other genres of fiction including Westerns, Romances, and Detective Fiction...

novel by Artemis Smith.
The Third Sex, a 1934 film directed by Richard C. Kahn, based on a novel by Radcliffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness
The Well of Loneliness
The Well of Loneliness is a 1928 lesbian novel by the British author Radclyffe Hall. It follows the life of Stephen Gordon, an Englishwoman from an upper-class family whose "sexual inversion" is apparent from an early age...

.
Anders als du und ich ("Different From You and I"), a 1957 film directed by Veit Harlan
Veit Harlan
Veit Harlan was a German film director and actor.-Life and career:Harlan was born in Berlin. After studying under Max Reinhardt, he first appeared on the stage in 1915 and, after World War I, worked in the Berlin stage. In 1922 he married Jewish actress and cabaret singer Dora Gerson; the couple...

, was also known under the titles Bewildered Youth (USA) and The Third Sex.
Mikaël, a 1924 film directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer
Carl Theodor Dreyer
Carl Theodor Dreyer, Jr. was a Danish film director. He is regarded by many critics and filmmakers as one of the greatest directors in cinema.-Life:Dreyer was born illegitimate in Copenhagen, Denmark...

was also released as Chained: The Story of the Third Sex in the USA.
In David Lindsay
David Lindsay (novelist)
David Lindsay was a Scottish author now most famous for the philosophical science fiction novel A Voyage to Arcturus .-Biography:...

's A Voyage to Arcturus
A Voyage to Arcturus
A Voyage to Arcturus is a novel by Scottish writer David Lindsay, first published in 1920. It combines fantasy, philosophy, and science fiction in an exploration of the nature of good and evil and their relationship with existence. It has been described by critic and philosopher Colin Wilson as the...

there is a type of being called phaen, a third gender which is attracted neither to men nor women but to "Faceny" (their name for Shaping or Crystalman, the Demiurge
Demiurge
The demiurge is a concept from the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy for an artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe. The term was subsequently adopted by the Gnostics...

). The appropriate pronouns are ae and aer.
In Clive Barker
Clive Barker
Clive Barker is an English author, film director and visual artist best known for his work in both fantasy and horror fiction. Barker came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories which established him as a leading young horror writer...

's Imajica
Imajica
Imajica is a fantasy novel by British author Clive Barker. Barker names it as his favorite of all his writings. The work, 825 pages at its first printing in 1991, chronicles the events surrounding the reconciliation of Earth, called the Fifth Dominion, with the other four Dominions, parallel...

, one of the characters, Pie 'oh' Pah, is called a mystif, and has the characteristics of a third sex that is neither male nor female but whose body can change according to the desires of a sexual partner, thus enabling them to either fertilize or bear children. Pie marries the male character Gentle, but says ze prefers not to be called his wife.
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...

's Slaughterhouse-Five
Slaughterhouse-Five
Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death is a satirical novel by Kurt Vonnegut about World War II experiences and journeys through time of a soldier called Billy Pilgrim...

identifies seven human sexes (not genders) in the fourth dimension
Fourth dimension
In mathematics, four-dimensional space is an abstract concept derived by generalizing the rules of three-dimensional space. It has been studied by mathematicians and philosophers for almost three hundred years, both for its own interest and for the insights it offered into mathematics and related...

required for reproduction including gay men, women over 65, and infants who died before their first birthday. The Tralfamadorian
Tralfamadore
The Tralfamadorians are a fictional alien race mentioned in several novels by Kurt Vonnegut. Tralfamadore is their home planet. Details on the inhabitants of the planet vary from novel to novel:...

race has five sexes.
In C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...

' Space Trilogy
Space Trilogy
The Space Trilogy, Cosmic Trilogy or Ransom Trilogy is a trilogy of science fiction novels by C. S. Lewis, famous for his later series The Chronicles of Narnia. A philologist named Elwin Ransom is the hero of the first two novels and an important character in the third.The books in the trilogy...

, the solar system
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...

has seven genders (not sexes) altogether.
In Matt Groening
Matt Groening
Matthew Abram "Matt" Groening is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, and producer. He is the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell as well as two successful television series, The Simpsons and Futurama....

's cartoon series Futurama
Futurama
Futurama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J...

, "smizmar" is used as a term for a third sex, the name for the individuals whom inspire the feeling of love (and thus conception, for that species), regardless of genetic relationship, to Kif Kroker
Kif Kroker
Lieutenant Kif Kroker is a character from the animated television series Futurama. He is the long suffering assistant to Captain Zapp Brannigan and Fourth Lieutenant on the Democratic Order of Planets starship Nimbus...

's species, the Amphibiosians. This is explained in the episode "Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch
Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch
"Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch" is the first episode in season four of Futurama. It first aired on January 12, 2003.-Plot:Amy is unhappy with her long-distance relationship with Kif and wants to see him in person again. When the crew is sent to deliver a giant pill to a planet near where Kif is...

".
Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...

's novel Rendezvous with Rama
Rendezvous with Rama
Rendezvous with Rama is a novel by Arthur C. Clarke first published in 1972. Set in the 22nd century, the story involves a cylindrical alien starship that enters Earth's solar system...

depicts an alien civilization with three genders.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...

's 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness
The Left Hand of Darkness
The Left Hand of Darkness is a 1969 science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. It is part of the Hainish Cycle, a series of books by Le Guin all set in the fictional Hainish universe....

posits a world called Gethen, on which humans are androgynes, effectively neuter 12/13 of the time, and for up to two days per month are said to be "in Kemmer," that is, openly available to enter either male or female state as per pheromonal contact with a potential mate.
Distress
Distress (novel)
Distress is a 1995 science fiction novel by Australian writer Greg Egan.-Plot summary:It describes the political intrigue surrounding a mid-twenty-first century physics conference, at which is to be presented a unified Theory of Everything. In the background of the story is an epidemic mental...

(1995) by Greg Egan
Greg Egan
Greg Egan is an Australian science fiction author.Egan published his first work in 1983. He specialises in hard science fiction stories with mathematical and quantum ontology themes, including the nature of consciousness...

is a widely known for its postulation of not just one but five distinct new genders.
Middlesex
Middlesex (novel)
Middlesex is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Jeffrey Eugenides published in 2002. The book is a bestseller, with more than three million copies sold as of May 2011. Its characters and events are loosely based on aspects of Eugenides' life and observations of his Greek heritage. It is...

(2002), the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

-winning book by Jeffrey Eugenides
Jeffrey Eugenides
Jeffrey Kent Eugenides is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and short story writer. Eugenides is most known for his first two novels, The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex . His novel The Marriage Plot was published in October, 2011.-Life and career:Eugenides was born in Detroit, Michigan,...
The musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (musical)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a rock musical about a fictional rock and roll band fronted by an East German transgender singer. The text is by John Cameron Mitchell, and the music and lyrics are by Stephen Trask. The musical premiered in 1998 and has been performed throughout the world in hundreds...

includes a song called The Origin of Love
The Origin of Love
"The Origin of Love" is a song from the stage show Hedwig and the Angry Inch and subsequent film written by John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask. Stephen Trask wrote the song, which is based on a story from Plato's Symposium.-Origins:...

which appears to be a lyrical adaptation of Aristophanes
Aristophanes
Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...

' creation myth.
Iain M. Banks' novel The Player of Games
The Player of Games
The Player of Games is a science fiction novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, first published in 1988. It was the second published Culture novel...

features a third sex known as Apex. They are the dominant sex of the civilization portrayed in the novel.

Third gender and spirituality

In Hinduism, the most ancient surviving religion, Shiva, the most original god in one of his popular forms is still worshipped as an Ardhnarishwara, i.e. half-male and half-female form. Shiva's symbol, which is today known as Shivalinga, actually comprises a combination of a 'Yoni' (vagina) and a 'Ling' (phallus).
The third genders have been ascribed spiritual powers by most indigenous societies. In the Indian subcontinent, e.g., the Hijras are supposed to have supernatural powers, through which they can bless people or curse them. This gives Hijras a unique space in the society, and traditional Indians still invite Hijras to seek their blessings on important occasions such as marriage.

At the time of the birth of Christ, cults of men devoted to a goddess flourished throughout the broad region extending from the Mediterranean to south Asia. While galli were missionizing the Roman Empire, kalû, kurgarrû, and assinnu continued to carry out ancient rites in the temples of Mesopotamia, and the third-gender predecessors of the hijra were clearly evident. To complete the picture we should also mention 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, and Sulawesi. 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 galli 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.

As Holly Boswell notes, "it is very interesting to note that the majority of older world religions perceived their deities as hermaphroditic and whole-gendered. Ardhanarisvara in Hinduism, Avalokitesvara and Kuan Yin in Buddhism, and Dionysus in the Greek pantheon are examples of this. Divine androgyny is reflected in subsequent representations of avatars such as Sri Krsna in Vedanta, Lan Ts'ai Ho in Taoist China, and even Jesus Christ. In the Qabbalah, Adam mirrored an androgynous God before the split into Eve and subsequent fall from grace. As with many nobles, the Pharaohs of Egypt emulated their gods, which were mostly androgynous throughout Africa. Angels and Faeries too, are usually perceived as androgynous beings. The reflections of Transgender Spirit are ancient and deep."

Western attempts to reinterpret and redefine third gender by sexual orientation

According to some scholars, the West is trying to reinterpret and redefine the ancient third gender identities to fit into the Western concept of "sexual orientation". In her research paper titled "Redefining Fa'afafine: Western Discourses and the Construction of Transgenderism in Samoa," Johanna Schmidt has argued that the Western attempts to reinterpret the Samoan third gender identity of Fa 'afafine in terms of homosexuality is influencing the fa'afafine identity itself which is being reorganised in western ways, i.e. from being a feminine gender space to being a homosexual space. She also argues that this is actually changing the nature of Fa'afafines itself, and making it more 'homosexual.'

As a Samoan Fa'afafine says, "But I would like to pursue a masters 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."

In his paper, 'How to become a Berdache: Toward a unified analysis of gender diversity', Will Roscoe writes that "This pattern can be traced from the earliest accounts of the Spaniards to present-day ethnographies. What has been written about berdaches reflects more the influence of existing Western discourses on gender, sexuality and the Other than what observers actually witnessed."

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).

Western scholars often get confused when analysing the history of sex between males, because they fail to make the distinction between third genders and men, and count the third genders as men. By doing this, they fail to notice the difference between the third genders as primarily being of feminine gender, and tend to put this difference down to the gender role of the third genders, of being anally or orally penetrated. E.g., when analysing the non-normative sex gender categories in Theraveda Buddhism, Peter A Jackson, says that it appears that among the early Buddhist communities men who engaged in receptive anal sex were seen as feminized and thought to be hermaphrodites. 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.

Biology

Contemporary societies

Indian subcontinent

Pakistan

Thailand

Third gender and the concept of homosexuality

Indigenous cultures of North America

Other

Mesopotamia

Egypt

Indic culture

Mediterranean culture

Siberia

Israel

The Americas

Inca

Illiniwek

Art and literature

Third gender and spirituality

Western attempts to reinterpret and redefine third gender by sexual orientation

See also