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{{short description|Gender identity as neither man nor woman}}
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[[File:Third Gender Flag.svg|thumb|upright|Third gender [[pride flag]]]]
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{{Anthropology of kinship |concepts}}
'''Third gender''' or '''third sex''' is an identity recognizing individuals categorized, either by themselves or by society, as neither a man nor a woman. Many [[gender system]]s around the world include three or more genders, deriving the concept either from the traditional, historical recognition of such individuals or from its modern development in the [[LGBTQ community]], which can include third gender people as a [[non-binary]] identity. The term ''third'' is usually understood to mean "other", though some societies use the concept to encompass fourth<ref>Trumbach, Randolph (1994). ''London's Sapphists: From Three Sexes to Four Genders in the Making of Modern Culture.'' In Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History, edited by Gilbert Herdt, 111-36. New York: Zone (MIT). {{ISBN|978-0-942299-82-3}}</ref><!--
 --> and fifth<ref name="Graham">Graham, Sharyn (2001), [http://www.insideindonesia.org/weekly-articles/sulawesis-fifth-gender Sulawesi's fifth gender] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141126200244/http://www.insideindonesia.org/weekly-articles/sulawesis-fifth-gender |date=26 November 2014 }}, [[Inside Indonesia]], April–June 2001.</ref> genders.

The state of personally identifying as, or being identified by society as, a man, a woman, or other is usually also defined by the individual's [[gender identity]] and [[gender role]] in the particular culture in which they live.

Most cultures use a [[gender binary]], having two genders ([[boys]]/men and [[girls]]/women).<ref name="Nadal-re-binary">Kevin L. Nadal, ''The SAGE Encyclopedia of Psychology and Gender'' (2017, {{ISBN|1483384276}}), page 401: "Most cultures currently construct their societies based on the understanding of gender binary—the two gender categorizations (male and female). Such societies divide their population based on biological sex assigned to individuals at birth to begin the process of gender socialization."</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Sigelman |first1=Carol K. |last2=Rider |first2=Elizabeth A. |title=Life-Span Human Development |date=14 March 2017 |publisher=Cengage Learning |isbn=978-1-337-51606-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M2M1DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA385 |access-date=4 August 2021 |language=en |page=385}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Maddux |first1=James E. |last2=Winstead |first2=Barbara A. |title=Psychopathology: Foundations for a Contemporary Understanding |date=11 July 2019 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-429-64787-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q-ChDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT1028 |access-date=4 August 2021 |language=en}}</ref> In cultures with a third or fourth gender, these genders may represent very different things. To [[Native Hawaiians]] and [[Tahitians]], {{lang|haw|[[māhū]]}} is an intermediate state between man and woman known as "gender [[liminality]]",<ref name="Besnier2014">{{cite book |last1=Besnier |first1=Niko |last2=Alexeyeff |first2=Kalissa |title=Gender on the Edge: Transgender, Gay, and Other Pacific Islanders |date=2014 |publisher=University of Hawai'i Press |location=Honolulu |page=241 |jstor=j.ctt6wqhsc |isbn=9780824838829 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wqhsc}}</ref><ref name="Zanghellini2013">{{cite journal |last1=Zanghellini |first1=Aleardo |title=Sodomy Laws and Gender Variance in Tahiti and Hawai'i |journal=Laws |date=2013 |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=51–68 |doi=10.3390/laws2020051 |doi-access=free }}</ref> part of a wider [[List of LGBTQ acronyms#Alternatives to LGBTQ|MVPFAFF]] spectrum. Many [[Indigenous North American]] traditions recognize third or fourth gender people in a variety of ceremonial roles, sometimes categorized in the modern day under the umbrella identity of [[Two-Spirit]] to reflect the spiritual and Indigenous contexts of such practices.<ref name="Estrada">{{Cite journal |last=Estrada |first=Gabriel S |year=2011 |title=Two Spirits, Nádleeh, and LGBTQ2 Navajo Gaze |url=http://nativeout.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Two-Spirits-Nadleeh-and-Navajo-LGBTQ2-Gaze.pdf |journal=American Indian Culture and Research Journal |volume=35 |issue=4 |pages=167–190 |doi=10.17953/aicr.35.4.x500172017344j30 |doi-broken-date=1 July 2025 |access-date=16 October 2016 |archive-date=13 May 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150513044527/http://nativeout.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Two-Spirits-Nadleeh-and-Navajo-LGBTQ2-Gaze.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> The term "third gender" has also been used to describe the [[Hijra (South Asia)|hijras]] of South Asia,<ref name="agrawal1997">{{Cite journal |last=Agrawal |first=A. |year=1997 |title=Gendered Bodies: The Case of the 'Third Gender' in India |journal=Contributions to Indian Sociology |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=273–297 |doi=10.1177/006996697031002005 |s2cid=145502268}}</ref> the [[fa'afafine]] of Polynesia, and the [[Balkan sworn virgins|sworn virgins]] of the Balkans.<ref name="Young">Young, Antonia (2000). ''Women Who Become Men: Albanian Sworn Virgins.'' {{ISBN|1-85973-335-2}}</ref>{{verify inline|date=February 2025}}<ref name="Littlewood">Littlewood, Roland. “Three into Two: The Third Sex in Northern Albania.” ''Anthropology & Medicine'', vol. 9, no. 1, Apr. 2002, pp. 37–50. EBSCOhost</ref> Third gender traditions can arise to fulfill ritual or religious roles to emphasize a positive social status, however a culture recognizing a third gender does not in itself mean that they were valued by that culture, with some practices developing as direct reactions to the devaluation of women in one's culture.<ref name="Holmes2004">{{Cite journal |last=Holmes |first=Morgan |author-link=Morgan Holmes |date=July 2004 |title=Locating Third Sexes |url=http://www.transformationsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Holmes_Transformations08.pdf |url-status=live |journal=Transformations Journal |volume=4 |issue=8 |page=13 |doi=10.33011/tf.v4i1.4073 |issn=1444-3775 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170416132803/http://www.transformationsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Holmes_Transformations08.pdf |archive-date=16 April 2017 |access-date=28 December 2014 |quote=recognition of third sexes and third genders is not equal to valuing the presence of those who were neither male nor female, and often hinges on the explicit devaluation of women, as with the Sambia of New Guinea, or on the valuation of female virginity at the expense of valuing female humanity, as in Polynesia.}}</ref>

While found in a number of non-Western cultures, concepts of "third", "fourth", and "fifth" gender roles are still somewhat new to mainstream Western culture and conceptual thought.<ref>McGee, R. Jon and Richard L. Warms 2011 Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History. New York, McGraw Hill.</ref> While mainstream Western scholars—notably anthropologists who have tried to write about the South Asian ''hijras'' or the Native American "gender variant" and ''[[two-spirit]]'' people—have often sought to understand the term "third gender" solely in the language of the modern LGBT community, other scholars—especially Indigenous scholars—stress that mainstream scholars' lack of cultural understanding and context has led to widespread misrepresentation of the people these scholars place in the third gender category, as well as misrepresentations of the cultures in question, including whether or not this concept actually applies to these cultures at all.{{efn|Attributed to multiple references:<br><ref>{{Cite web |title=Asia and the Pacific – ANU |url=http://rspas.anu.edu.au/papers/pah/theravada.html |access-date=27 December 2014 |archive-date=24 February 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120224134527/http://rspas.anu.edu.au/papers/pah/theravada.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="Pember">{{Cite web |last=Pember |first=Mary Annette |date=13 October 2016 |title='Two Spirit' Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes |url=https://rewire.news/article/2016/10/13/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes/ |access-date=17 October 2016 |publisher=[[Rewire (website)|Rewire]] |quote=Unfortunately, depending on an oral tradition to impart our ways to future generations opened the floodgates for early non-Native explorers, missionaries, and anthropologists to write books describing Native peoples and therefore bolstering their own role as experts. These writings were and still are entrenched in the perspective of the authors who were and are mostly white men. |archive-date=19 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161019000635/https://rewire.news/article/2016/10/13/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="de Vries 2009">{{Cite book |last=de Vries |first=Kylan Mattias |title=Encyclopedia of gender and society |date=2009 |publisher=SAGE |isbn=9781412909167 |editor-last=O'Brien |editor-first=Jodi |location=Los Angeles |page=64 |chapter=Berdache (Two-Spirit) |quote=[''Two-Spirit''] implies that the individual is both male and female and that these aspects are intertwined within them. The term moves away from traditional Native American/First Nations cultural identities and meanings of sexuality and gender variance. It does not take into account the terms and meanings from individual nations and tribes. ... Although ''two-spirit'' implies to some a spiritual nature, that one holds the spirit of two, both male and female, traditional Native Americans/First Nations peoples view this as a Western concept. |access-date=6 March 2015 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_nyHS4WyUKEC}}</ref><ref name="Kehoe">{{Cite web |last=Kehoe |first=Alice B. |author-link=Alice Beck Kehoe |date=2002 |title=Appropriate Terms |url=https://www.saa.org/publications/saabulletin/16-2/saa14.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041105120021/https://www.saa.org/publications/saabulletin/16-2/saa14.html |archive-date=5 November 2004 |access-date=1 May 2019 |website=SAA Bulletin |publisher=Society for American Archaeology 16(2), [[UC-Santa Barbara]] |issn=0741-5672 |quote=At the conferences that produced the book, ''Two-Spirited People'', I heard several First Nations people describe themselves as very much unitary, neither "male" nor "female," much less a pair in one body. Nor did they report an assumption of duality within one body as a common concept within reservation communities; rather, people confided dismay at the Western proclivity for dichotomies. Outside Indo-European-speaking societies, "gender" would not be relevant to the social personae glosses "men" and "women," and "third gender" likely would be meaningless. The unsavory word "berdache" certainly ought to be ditched (Jacobs et al. 1997:3-5), but the urban American neologism "two-spirit" can be misleading.}}</ref>}}

==Sex and gender==
{{main|Legal recognition of non-binary gender}}
[[File:World map nonbinary gender recognition.svg|thumb|right|World map of nonbinary gender recognition
{{legend|#002255|Nonbinary / third gender option available as voluntary opt-in}}
{{legend|#FFCC00|Opt-in for intersex people only}}
{{legend|#FF8C00|Standard for third gender}}
{{legend|#FF0000|Standard for intersex}}
{{legend|#CCCCCC|Nonbinary / third gender option not legally recognized / no data}}]]
Since at least the 1970s, [[Anthropology|anthropologists]] have described [[gender role|gender categories]] in some cultures which they could not adequately explain using a two-gender framework.<ref name="Martin">{{Cite book |last1=Martin |first1=M. Kay |url=https://archive.org/details/femaleofspecies0000mart |title=Female of the Species |last2=Voorhies, Barbara |date=1975 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=9780231038751 |location=New York, N.Y. |chapter=4. Supernumerary Sexes |oclc=1094960 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/femaleofspecies0000mart |url-access=registration}}</ref>{{Pages needed|date=August 2021}} At the same time, [[Feminism|feminists]] began to draw a distinction between [[sex]] and (social/psychological) gender.<ref>{{Citation |last=Mikkola |first=Mari |title=Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender |date=2023 |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2023/entries/feminism-gender/ |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |access-date=2024-01-06 |edition=Fall 2023 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |editor2-last=Nodelman |editor2-first=Uri}}</ref>

Anthropologist Michael G. Peletz believes our notions of different types of genders (including the attitudes toward the third gender) deeply affect our lives and reflect our values in society. In Peletz' book, "Gender, Sexuality, and Body Politics in Modern Asia", he describes:<ref name="Gender">{{Cite book |last=Peletz |first=Michael G. |title=Gender, Sexuality, and Body Politics in Modern Asia |publisher=Association for Asian Studies |year=2007 |isbn=9780924304507 |location=Michigan |pages=5}}</ref>
{{blockquote|For our purposes, the term "gender" designates the cultural categories, symbols, meanings, practices, and institutionalized arrangements bearing on at least five sets of phenomena: (1) females and femininity; (2) males and masculinity; (3) Androgynes, who are partly male and partly female in appearance or of indeterminate sex/gender, as well as intersex individuals, also known as hermaphrodites, who to one or another degree may have both male and female sexual organs or characteristics; (4) transgender people, who engage in practices that transgress or transcend normative boundaries and are thus by definition "transgressively gendered"; and (5) neutered or unsexed/ungendered individuals such as eunuchs.}}

=== Transgender people and third gender ===
Gender may be recognized and organized differently in different cultures. In some non-Western cultures, gender may not be seen as binary, or people may be seen as being able to cross freely between male and female, or to exist in a state that is in-between, or neither. In some cultures, being third gender may be associated with the gift of being able to mediate between the world of the spirits and the world of humans. For cultures with these spiritual beliefs, it is generally seen as a positive thing, though some third gender people have also been accused of [[witchcraft]] and persecuted. In most western cultures, people who did not conform to [[heteronormative]] ideals were often seen as sick, disordered, or insufficiently formed. However, as of 2013, individuals who live in countries where the [[Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders]] is used, being labeled as disordered for being transgender would no longer occur due to the manual's update. Instead, a new diagnosis was announced called [[gender dysphoria]]. This new diagnosis highlights the distress a transgender person may experience rather than labels individuals who identify with a third gender as sick or disordered.

The Indigenous {{lang|haw|[[māhū]]}} of Hawaii are seen as embodying an intermediate state between man and woman, known as "gender [[liminality]]".<ref name="Besnier2014" /><ref name="Zanghellini2013" /> Some traditional [[Navajo|Dineh]] of the Southwestern US recognize a spectrum of four genders: feminine woman, masculine woman, feminine man, masculine man.<ref name=Estrada/> The term "third gender" has also been used to describe the ''[[Hijra (South Asia)|hijra]]s'' of South Asia<ref name="agrawal1997" /> who have gained legal identity, the ''[[fa'afafine]]'' of Polynesia, and the [[Albanian sworn virgins]].<ref name="Young" />{{Page needed|date=August 2021}}

In some indigenous communities in Africa{{Vague|date=August 2018}}, a woman can be recognized as a "female husband" who enjoys all the privileges of men and is recognized as such, but whose femaleness, while not openly acknowledged, is not forgotten either.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Stern |first1=E Mark |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QtIJBAAAQBAJ |title=Saints and Rogues: Conflicts and Convergence in Psychotherapy |last2=Marchesani |first2=Robert B |publisher=Routledge |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-317-71804-8 |page=135 |chapter=Third gender: A qualitative study of the experience of individuals who identify as being neither man nor woman |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QtIJBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA131}}</ref>

The hijras of South Asia are one of the most recognized groups of third gender people. Some western commentators (Hines and Sanger) have theorized that this could be a result of the Hindu belief in [[reincarnation]], in which gender, sex, and even species can change from lifetime to lifetime, perhaps allowing for a more fluid interpretation. There are other cultures in which the third gender is seen as an intermediate state of being rather than as a movement from one conventional sex to the other.<ref>Hines, Sally, and Tam Sanger. Transgender Identities: Towards a Social Analysis of Gender Diversity. New York: Routledge, 2010. Print. p.244</ref>

In a study of people in the United States who thought themselves to be members of a third gender, Ingrid M. Sell found that they typically felt different from the age of 5.<ref name="SellIngrid_a">Sell, Ingrid M. "Third gender: A qualitative study of the experience of individuals who identify as being neither man nor woman." The Psychotherapy Patient. 13.1/2 (2004): p.139</ref> Because of both peer and parental pressure, those growing up with the most ambiguous appearances had the most troubled childhoods and difficulties later in life. Sell also discovered similarities between the third genders of the East and those of the West. Nearly half of those interviewed were healers or in the medical profession. Many of them, again like their Eastern counterparts, were artistic, and several were able to make a living from their artistic abilities. The capacity to mediate between men and women was a common skill, and third genders were oftentimes thought to possess an unusually wide perspective and the ability to understand both sides.<ref name="SellIngrid_a" /> A notable result of Sell's study is that 93% of the third genders interviewed, again like their Eastern counterparts, reported "paranormal"-type abilities.<ref>Sell, Ingrid M. "Third gender: A qualitative study of the experience of individuals who identify as being neither man nor woman." The Psychotherapy Patient. 13.1/2 (2004): p.141</ref>

[[File:SamBrinton.jpg|thumb|180px|Identifying as gender-fluid, American nuclear engineer [[Sam Brinton]] uses they/them pronouns.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/outfront-lgbtq-activist-fights-end-conversion-therapy-n708816 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220211/https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/outfront-lgbtq-activist-fights-end-conversion-therapy-n708816 |archive-date=February 11, 2022 |url-status=live|title=OutFront: LGBTQ Activist Fights to End Conversion Therapy|date=January 19, 2017|first=Julie|last=Compton|publisher=[[NBC News]]}}{{cbignore}}</ref>]] 
In recent years, some Western societies have begun to recognize [[Non-binary gender|non-binary]] or genderqueer identities. Some years after Alex MacFarlane, Australian [[Norrie May-Welby]] was recognized as having unspecified status.<ref name="Telegraph">[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7446850/Briton-is-recognised-as-worlds-first-officially-genderless-person.html "Briton is recognised as world's first officially genderless person"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190902114259/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7446850/Briton-is-recognised-as-worlds-first-officially-genderless-person.html |date=2 September 2019 }}, The Telegraph. 15 March 2010.</ref> In 2016, an [[Oregon]] circuit court ruled that a resident, [[Elisa Rae Shupe]], could legally change gender to non-binary.<ref>{{Cite web |last=O'Hara |first=Mary Emily |date=10 June 2016 |title='Nonbinary' is now a legal gender, Oregon court rules |url=http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/oregon-court-rules-non-binary-gender-legal/ |access-date=10 June 2016 |website=[[The Daily Dot]] |archive-date=10 June 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160610210014/http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/oregon-court-rules-non-binary-gender-legal/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

The [[Open Society Foundations]] published a report, ''License to Be Yourself'' in May 2014, documenting "some of the world's most progressive and rights-based laws and policies that enable trans people to change their gender identity on official documents".<ref name="License">{{Cite book |last=Byrne |first=Jack |url=http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/license-be-yourself |title=License to Be Yourself |publisher=[[Open Society Foundations]] |year=2014 |isbn=9781940983103 |location=New York |access-date=28 December 2014 |archive-date=9 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230709163549/https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/license-be-yourself |url-status=live }}</ref> The report comments on the recognition of third classifications, stating:
{{blockquote|
From a rights-based perspective, third sex/gender options should be voluntary, providing trans people with a third choice about how to define their gender identity. Those identifying as a third sex/gender should have the same rights as those identifying as male or female.}}

The document also quotes [[Mauro Cabral]] of [[GATE (organization)|GATE]]:
{{blockquote|
People tend to identify a third sex with freedom from the gender binary, but that is not necessarily the case. If only trans and/or intersex people can access that third category, or if they are compulsively assigned to a third sex, then the gender binary gets stronger, not weaker.}}

The report concludes that two or three options are insufficient: "A more inclusive approach would be to increase options for people to self-define their sex and gender identity."<ref name="License" />

=== Third gender and sexual orientation ===
[[Image:Thirdsex bookcover 1959.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Cover of Artemis Smith's 1959 [[lesbian pulp fiction]] novel ''The Third Sex'']]

Before the [[sexual revolution]] of the 1960s, there was no common non-derogatory vocabulary in modern English for [[Non-heterosexuals|non-heterosexuality]]; terms such as "third gender" trace back to the 1860s.<ref name="Hirschfeld 1904" /><ref name="Ellis 1897" /><ref name="fordham.edu" /><ref name="Duc, Aimée 1901" /><ref name="The Social Studies C">{{Cite book |last=Ross |first=E. Wayne |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4qFMqjxte9IC |title=The Social Studies Curriculum: Purposes, Problems, and Possibilities |publisher=SUNY Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-7914-6909-5 |archive-date=19 June 2019 |access-date=22 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190619085357/https://books.google.com/books?id=4qFMqjxte9IC |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>Kennedy, Hubert C. (1980) ''The "third sex" theory of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs'', Journal of Homosexuality. 1980–1981 Fall–Winter; 6(1–2): pp. 103–1</ref>{{Page needed|date=August 2021|reason=None of the sources cited in this sentence cite their page numbers.}}

One such term, [[Uranian (sexology)|Uranian]], was used in the 19th century for a person of a third sex—originally, someone with "a female psyche in a male body" who is sexually attracted to men. Its definition was later extended to cover homosexual [[gender variant]] females and a number of other sexual types. It is believed to be an English adaptation of the German word ''Urning'', which was first published by activist [[Karl Heinrich Ulrichs]] (1825–95) in a series of five booklets (1864–65) that were collected under the title ''Forschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe'' ("Research into the Riddle of Man-Male Love"). Ulrich developed his terminology before the first public use of the term "homosexual", which appeared in 1869 in a pamphlet published anonymously by [[Karl-Maria Kertbeny]] (1824–82). Ulrich is widely regarded as one of the pioneering theorists who advocated for the natural occurrence of same-sex attraction, and he believed that such an orientation does not warrant criminalization.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Tye |first=Marcus |title=Sexuality and Our Diversity: Integrating Culture with the Biopsychosocial |date=2020 |publisher=Flatworld |isbn=978-1453335666 |edition=2.1 |page=273 |language=English}}</ref> The word Uranian (''Urning'') was derived by Ulrichs from the [[Greek mythology|Greek goddess]] [[Aphrodite Urania]], who was created out of [[Uranus (mythology)#Castration and overthrow|the god Uranus' testicles]].<ref name=":2" /> German lesbian activist [[Anna Rüling]] used the term in a 1904 speech, "What Interest Does the Women's Movement Have in Solving the Homosexual Problem?"<sup>[''[[Wikipedia:Citing sources|pages needed]]'']</sup>

According to some scholars, the West is trying to reinterpret and redefine ancient third-gender identities to fit the Western concept of [[sexual orientation]]. In ''Redefining [[Fa'afafine]]: Western Discourses and the Construction of Transgenderism in Samoa'', Johanna Schmidt argues that the Western attempts to reinterpret fa'afafine, the third gender in Samoan culture, make it have more to do with sexual orientation than gender. She also argues that this is actually changing the nature of fa'afafine itself, and making it more "homosexual".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Intersections: Redefining Fa'afafine: Western Discourses and the Construction of Transgenderism in Samoa |url=http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue6/schmidt.html |website=intersections.anu.edu.au |access-date=13 August 2010 |archive-date=7 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230607193353/http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue6/schmidt.html |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Unreliable source?|date=August 2021}}

A Samoan fa'afafine said, "But I would like to pursue a master's degree with a paper on homosexuality from a Samoan perspective that would be written for educational purposes because I believe some of the stuff that has been written about us is quite wrong."<ref>[http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue6/schmidt.html Redefining Fa'afafine: Western Discourses and the Construction of Transgenderism in Samoa Johanna Schmidt] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230607193353/http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue6/schmidt.html |date=7 June 2023 }}; Intersections: Gender, History, and Culture in the Asian Context; Issue 6, August 2001</ref>{{Unreliable source?|date=August 2021}}

In ''How to become a Berdache: Toward a unified analysis of gender diversity'', Will Roscoe, using an anthropological term Indigenous people have always found offensive,<ref name="de Vries 2009" /><ref name=BMedicine/> writes that "this pattern can be traced from the earliest accounts of the Spaniards to present-day ethnographies. What has been written about [[berdache]]s reflects more the influence of existing Western discourses on gender, sexuality and the Other than what observers actually witnessed."<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20000819012631/http://www.phenomenologycenter.org/course/berdache.htm How to become a Berdache: Toward a unified analysis of gender diversity]}} Will Roscoe</ref>

According to Towle and Morgan:

{{blockquote|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).<ref>[http://feed.belowthebelt.org/2009/10/great-third-gender-debate.html The Great Third Gender Debate; BELOW THE BELT, theory-q] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110503222350/http://feed.belowthebelt.org/2009/10/great-third-gender-debate.html |date=May 3, 2011 }}</ref>}}

Western scholars often do not make a distinction between people of the third gender and males; they are often lumped together. The scholars usually use gender roles as a way to explain sexual relations between the third gender and males. For example, when analyzing the non-normative sex gender categories in [[Theravada]] Buddhism, Peter A. Jackson says it appears that within early Buddhist communities, men who engaged in receptive anal sex were seen as feminized and were thought to be [[hermaphrodite]]s. 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.<ref>[http://rspas.anu.edu.au/papers/pah/theravada.html Non-normative Sex/Gender Categories in the Theravada Buddhist Scriptures]
Compiled by Peter A. Jackson {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120224134527/http://rspas.anu.edu.au/papers/pah/theravada.html |date=24 February 2012 }}</ref>

Some writers suggest that a third gender emerged around 1700 in England: the male [[sodomy|sodomite]].<ref name="Trumbach">Trumbach, Randolph. (1998) ''Sex and the Gender Revolution. Volume 1: Heterosexuality and the Third Gender in Enlightenment London''. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1998. (Chicago Series on Sexuality, History & Society)</ref> According to these writers, this was marked by the emergence of a [[subculture]] of [[effeminate]] males and their meeting places ([[molly house]]s), as well as a marked increase in hostility towards effeminate or homosexual males. People described themselves as members of a third sex in Europe from at least the 1860s with the writings of [[Karl Heinrich Ulrichs]]<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kennedy |first=Hubert |year=1981 |title=The "Third Sex" Theory of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs |journal=Journal of Homosexuality |volume=6 |issue=1–2 |pages=103–111 |doi=10.1300/J082v06n01_10 |pmid=7042820}}</ref> and continuing in the late nineteenth century with [[Magnus Hirschfeld]],<ref name="Hirschfeld 1904">[[Magnus Hirschfeld|Hirschfeld, Magnus]], 1904. ''Berlins Drittes Geschlecht'' ("Berlin's Third Sex")</ref> [[John Addington Symonds]],<ref name="Ellis 1897">[[Havelock Ellis|Ellis, Havelock]] and [[John Addington Symonds|Symonds, J. A.]], 1897. ''Sexual Inversion''.</ref> [[Edward Carpenter]],<ref name="fordham.edu">[[Edward Carpenter|Carpenter, Edward]], 1908. ''[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/carpenter-is.html The Intermediate Sex: A Study of Some Transitional Types of Men and Women] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230530190549/https://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/carpenter-is.html |date=30 May 2023 }}''.</ref> [[Minna Wettstein-Adelt|Aimée Duc]]<ref name="Duc, Aimée 1901">Duc, Aimée, 1901. ''Sind es Frauen? Roman über das dritte Geschlecht'' ("Are These Women? Novel about the Third Sex")</ref> 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]].<ref>Jones, James W. (1990). ''"We of the third sex": homo Representations of Homosexuality in Wilhelmine Germany.'' (German Life and Civilization v. 7) New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1990. {{ISBN|0-8204-1209-0}}</ref>{{Pages needed|date=August 2021}} Many cited precedents from classical Greek and Sanskrit literature (see below).

Throughout much of the twentieth century, the term "third sex" was a common descriptor for homosexuals and gender nonconformists, but after the [[gay liberation]] movements of the 1970s and a growing separation of the concepts of [[sexual orientation]] and [[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]] movement, and [[queer theory]] has fostered, some in the contemporary West have begun to describe themselves as a third sex again.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sell |first=Ingrid |year=2001 |title=Not man, not woman: Psychospiritual characteristics of a Western third gender |journal=[[Journal of Transpersonal Psychology]] |volume=33 |issue=1 |pages=16–36}} (Complete doctoral dissertation: Sell, Ingrid. (2001). ''Third gender: A qualitative study of the experience of individuals who identify as being neither man nor woman.'' (Doctoral Dissertation, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology). UMI No. 3011299.)</ref> Other modern identities that cover similar ground include [[pangender]], [[bigender]], [[genderqueer]], [[androgyne]], [[intergender]], "other gender" and "differently gendered".{{Original research inline|date=August 2021}}

=== Third gender and feminism ===
In [[German Empire#Wilhelmine era|Wilhelmine Germany]], the terms ''drittes Geschlecht'' ("third sex") and ''Mannweib'' ("man-woman") were also used to describe [[feminist]]s – both by their opponents<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wright |first=B. D. |year=1987 |title="New Man," Eternal Woman: Expressionist Responses to German Feminism |journal=[[The German Quarterly]] |volume=60 |issue=4 |pages=582–599 |doi=10.2307/407320 |jstor=407320}}</ref> and sometimes by feminists themselves. In the 1899 novel ''Das dritte Geschlecht'' (''The Third Sex'') by [[Ernst von Wolzogen]], feminists are portrayed as "neuters" with external female characteristics accompanied by a crippled male [[Psyche (psychology)|psyche]].

==Legal recognition==
{{main|Legal recognition of non-binary gender}}
[[File:Third-gender-recognition-equaldex-2024-map.svg|thumb|Third gender recognition world map]]
Several countries have adopted laws to accommodate non-binary gender identities.{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}} As of 2019, the state of California the United States non-binary has become an option for individuals to select the sex category on their driver's license, birth certificates, and identity cards; this all became possible with the passing of California's Gender Recognition Act (SB 179).<ref>{{Cite web |title=California's Gender Recognition Act (SB 179) {{!}} Office of Diversity and Outreach UCSF |url=https://diversity.ucsf.edu/initiatives/GRLN/grln-background#:~:text=In%20brief,%20SB%20179%20streamlines,the%20letter%20%22x%22). |access-date=2024-03-11 |website=diversity.ucsf.edu}}</ref>

==Modern societies without legal recognition==
The following gender categories have also been described as a third gender:

===Africa===
* [[Angola]]: ''[[Chibados]],'' third-gendered shamans in the [[Ndongo]] kingdom.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bleys |first=Rudi C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9-Q8DAAAQBAJ&q=chibados&pg=PA33 |title=The Geography of Perversion: Male-to-Male Sexual Behavior Outside the West and the Ethnographic Imagination, 1750-1918 |publisher=New York University Press |year=1995 |isbn=9780814712658 |pages=33, 57}}</ref>
* [[Democratic Republic of the Congo]]: ''Mangaiko'' among the Mbo people.<ref>Towles, Joseph A. (1993). ''Nkumbi initiation: Ritual and structure among the Mbo of Zaire'', Musée royal de l'Afrique Centrale (Tervuren, Belgique)</ref>{{Pages needed|date=August 2021}}
* [[Kenya]]: ''Mashoga'' of [[Swahili language|Swahili]]-speaking areas of the Kenyan coast, particularly [[Mombasa]].<ref name="Sinnott2004">{{Cite book |last=Sinnott |first=Megan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gs5I2h5afeoC&pg=PA39 |title=Toms and Dees: Transgender Identity and Female Same-Sex Relationships in Thailand |date=January 2004 |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |isbn=978-0-8248-2852-3 |page=39}}</ref>
* Southern [[Ethiopia]]: ''Ashtime'' of [[Maale people|Maale]] culture.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Donham |first=Donald L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZgVtqtUtThwC&q=ashtime |title=History, Power, Ideology: Central Issues in Marxism and Anthropology |date=2023-09-01 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-92079-8 |pages=106, 112–113 |language=en}}</ref>

===Asia-Pacific===
* In the [[Philippines]], 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|baklâ]]'' and ''binabae'' ([[Tagalog language|Tagalog]]), ''[[Bakla|bayot]]'' ([[Cebuano language|Cebuano]]), ''agi'' ([[Hiligaynon language|Ilonggo]]), ''bantut'' ([[Tausug language|Tausug]]), ''badíng'' – all of which refer to 'gay' men or trans women. [[Gender variance|Gender variant]] females may be called ''lakin-on'' or [[tomboy]].<ref>[[Serena Nanda|Nanda, Serena]] (1999). ''Gender Diversity: Crosscultural Variations''. Waveland Pr Inc, 7 October 1999. {{ISBN|1-57766-074-9}}</ref>
*Japan: {{nihongo|[[X-gender]]|Xジェンダー}} is a transgender identity that is not female or male, similar to "genderqueer" or "nonbinary".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Kusakabe |first=Motomi |date=5 May 2016 |title=男でも女でもない「Ｘジェンダー」に理解を |work=[[Mainichi Shimbun]] |url=http://mainichi.jp/articles/20160505/k00/00e/040/113000c |access-date=6 June 2016 |archive-date=3 January 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170103013610/http://mainichi.jp/articles/20160505/k00/00e/040/113000c |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=28 March 2013 |title=Selected Links on Non-Binary Gender in Japan: Xジェンダー |work=Tumblr |url=https://genderqueerid.com/post/46526429887/selected-links-on-non-binary-gender-in-japan |access-date=21 December 2020 |archive-date=6 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230606093151/https://genderqueerid.com/post/46526429887/selected-links-on-non-binary-gender-in-japan |url-status=dead }}</ref> The term X-gender came into use during the latter 1990s, popularized by queer organizations in Kansai, in Osaka and Kyoto.<ref>{{Cite web |title=【ＸラウンジからNEWS！】参議院議員の尾辻かな子さんへのレインボー・アクションの陳情で、Ｘラウンジから要望書を提出しました。 |trans-title=[NEWS from X Lounge!] We submitted a request form from the X Lounge in response to a petition of Kanae Otsuji, a member of the House of Councilors, about the rainbow action. |url=http://rainbowaction.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-122.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200221122651/http://rainbowaction.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-122.html |archive-date=21 February 2020 |access-date=21 December 2020 |website=Rainbow Action |language=ja}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=An Introduction to X-Jendā: Examining a New Gender Identity in Japan |url=http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue31/dale.htm |access-date=21 December 2020 |archive-date=7 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230507214727/http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue31/dale.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> In 2019, Japan LGBT Research Institute Inc. conducted an online survey, collecting 348,000 valid responses from people aged 20 to 69, not all of whom were LGBT. 2.5% of the respondents called themselves X-gender.<ref>{{Cite web |date=11 December 2019 |title=Most people in Japan know LGBT but understanding limited |url=https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2019/12/bf50b5f548d5-most-people-in-japan-know-lgbt-but-understanding-limited.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200606152406/https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2019/12/bf50b5f548d5-most-people-in-japan-know-lgbt-but-understanding-limited.html |archive-date=6 June 2020 |access-date=21 December 2020 |publisher=[[Kyodo News]]}}</ref>
* [[Micronesia]]: Palao'ana in Chamorro language, Northern Marianas Islands including Guam.<ref name="Ka">{{Cite journal |last1=Ka'opua |first1=L. S. I. |last2=Cassel |first2=K. |last3=Shiramizu |first3=B. |last4=Stotzer |first4=R. L. |last5=Robles |first5=A. |last6=Kapua |first6=C. |last7=Orton |first7=M. |last8=Milne |first8=C. |last9=Sesepasara |first9=M. |year=2015 |title=Addressing Risk and Reluctance at the Nexus of HIV and Anal Cancer Screening |journal=Health Promotion Practice |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=21–30 |doi=10.1177/1524839915615611 |issn=1524-8399 |pmc=4684716 |pmid=26630979}}</ref>
* [[Polynesia]]: ''[[Fa'afafine]]'' ([[Samoan language|Samoan]]),<ref>Sua'aIi'i, Tamasailau, "Samoans and [[Gender]]: Some Reflections on Male, Female and Fa'afafine Gender Identities", in: ''Tangata O Te Moana Nui: The Evolving Identities of Pacific Peoples in [[Aotearoa]]/New Zealand'', Palmerston North (NZ): Dunmore Press, 2001, {{ISBN|0-86469-369-9}}</ref> ''[[fakaleiti]]'' ([[Tongan language|Tongan]]), ''[[mahu wahine|mahu]]'' ([[Hawaiian language|Hawaiian]]), ''mahu vahine'' ([[Tahitian language|Tahitian]]), [[Rae-rae|''Rae-Rae'']] ([[Tahitians|Tahitian]]), ''whakawahine'' ([[Māori language|New Zealand Māori]]), [[sistergirl]]s and [[brotherboy]]s ([[Indigenous Australians|Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders]]) and ''[[akava'ine]]'' ([[Cook Islands Māori]]).<ref>''National fono for Pacific "third sex" communities'', media release from New Zealand Aids Foundation, 5 August 2005. [https://web.archive.org/web/20051216171214/http://nzaf.org.nz/articles.php?id=472 Article online].</ref>
* [[Indonesia]]: ''[[Bissu]]'' ([[Bugis]]), ''[[:wikt:waria|waria]]'' (pan-Indonesian term from 1978)

===Europe===
* 18th century England: [[Molly house|Mollies]]<ref name="Trumbach" />
* 19th century England: [[Uranian (sexology)|Uranian]]
* [[Albania]]: [[Albanian sworn virgins|Sworn virgins]],<ref name="Young" /> females who work and dress as men and inhabit some men-only spaces, but do not marry.
*''[[Femminiello]]'', in [[Naples|Neapolitan]] culture<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Femminiello in Neapolitan Culture |url=http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~jmatthew/naples/femm.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110515005531/http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~jmatthew/naples/femm.html |archive-date=15 May 2011 |access-date=21 December 2020 |website=Around Naples Encyclopedia}}</ref>

===Latin America and the Caribbean===
[[File:AMT 1989 crop.jpg|thumb|upright|A group of Argentine [[Travesti (gender identity)|travestis]] working as [[street prostitutes]] at a slum in [[Buenos Aires Province]], 1989.]]
*''Biza'ah'': In Teotitlán, 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.<ref name="stephen" /> Like the ''muxe'' they were well-liked and accepted in the community.<ref name="stephen" /> Their way of walking, talking and the work that they perform are markers of recognizing biza'ah.<ref name="stephen" />
* Southern Mexico: ''[[Muxe]]'', In many Zapotec communities, third gender roles are often apparent.<ref name="stephen">Lynn Stephen. ''Sexualities and Genders in Zapotec Oaxaca''. Latin American Perspectives. 29(2)41–59</ref> The ''muxe'' are described as a third gender; biologically male but with feminine characteristics.<ref name="stephen" /> They are not considered to be homosexuals, but rather just another gender.<ref name="stephen" /> Some will marry women and have families, others will form relationships with men.<ref name="stephen" /> Although it is recognized that these individuals have the bodies of men, they perform gender differently than men, it is not a masculine persona, but neither is it a feminine persona that they perform but, in general, a combination of the two.<ref name="stephen" /> Lynn Stephen quotes Jeffrey Rubin, "Prominent men who [were] 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.<ref name="stephen" />
* The [[Travesti (gender identity)|travesti]]s of Latin America have been considered an expression of a third gender by a wide range of anthropological studies, although this view has been contested by later authors.<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Cabral |first=Julieta |title=Geografía travesti: Cuerpos, sexualidad y migraciones de travestis brasileñas (Rio de Janeiro-Barcelona) |degree=doctoral thesis |publisher=[[Universitat de Barcelona]] |url=https://www.tdx.cat/handle/10803/95889 |language=es |year=2012 |access-date=7 May 2020 |archive-date=5 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211005014300/https://www.tdx.cat/handle/10803/95889 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Fernández |first=Josefina |title=Cuerpos desobedientes: travestismo e identidad de género |publisher=Edhasa |year=2004 |isbn=950-9009-16-4 |location=Buenos Aires |page=41 |language=Spanish}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Kulick |first=Don |title=Travesti: Sex, Gender and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |year=1998 |isbn=978-022-646-099-4 |series=Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture |page=230 |author-link=Don Kulick}}</ref>
*''Tida wena'': Among the Indigenous [[Warao people]] of Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname, people considered to be neither man nor woman. Historically respected, and sometimes serving as [[shamans]] or in other honored positions in their tribes.<ref name="TidaWena">{{Cite web |last=Laiz |first=Alvaro |date=2012 |title=Wonderland, the strange inhabitants of Delta Amacuro |url=https://phmuseum.com/alvarolaizgmailcom/story/wonderland-the-strange-inhabitants-of-delta-amacuro-189e1bf37c |access-date=7 August 2021 |website=Port Huron Museum |language=en-US |quote=The Warao, as it happens in other ethnic groups, considers certain people are not man neither woman. They call them Tida Wena.}}</ref>

===Middle East===
* [[Oman]]: ''[[Khanith|Xanith]]'' or ''khanith''.<ref>Wikan, Unni (1991). ''The Xanith: a third gender role? in Behind the veil in Arabia: women in Oman.'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press</ref>

=== North American indigenous cultures ===
{{Main|Two Spirit}}
''Two-Spirit'' is a modern [[umbrella term]] created at an Indigenous lesbian and gay conference in 1990 with the primary intent of replacing the offensive term "''[[berdache]]''", which had been, and in some quarters still is, the term used for gay and gender-variant Indigenous people by non-Native anthropologists.<ref name="BMedicine">{{Cite journal |last=Medicine |first=Beatrice |date=August 2002 |title=Directions in Gender Research in American Indian Societies: Two Spirits and Other Categories |url=http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=orpc |journal=Online Readings in Psychology and Culture |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=7 |doi=10.9707/2307-0919.1024 |issn=2307-0919 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121208071034/http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=orpc |archive-date=8 December 2012 |access-date=25 June 2016 |quote=At the Wenner Gren conference on gender held in Chicago, May, 1994... the gay American Indian and Alaska Native males agreed to use the term "Two-Spirit" to replace the controversial "berdache" term. The stated objective was to purge the older term from anthropological literature as it was seen as demeaning and not reflective of Native categories. Unfortunately, the term "berdache" has also been incorporated in the psychology and women studies domains, so the task for the affected group to purge the term looms large and may be formidable. |doi-access=free}}</ref> "''Berdache''" has also been used to describe slave boys, sold into sexual servitude.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Steingass |first=Francis Joseph |url=http://dsalsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.0:1:8571.steingass |title=A Comprehensive Persian-English dictionary, including the Arabic words and phrases to be met within Persian literature |date=1892 |publisher=Routledge & K. Paul |location=London |page=173 |access-date=24 September 2019 |archive-date=1 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220401065352/http://dsalsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.0:1:8571.steingass |url-status=dead }}</ref> Kyle De Vries writes, "Berdache is a derogatory term created by Europeans and perpetuated by anthropologists and others to define Native American/First Nations people who varied from Western norms that perceive gender, sex, and sexuality as binaries and inseparable."<ref name="de Vries 2009" /> Mary Annette Pember adds, "Unfortunately, depending on an oral tradition to impart our ways to future generations opened the floodgates for early non-Native explorers, missionaries, and anthropologists to write books describing Native peoples and therefore bolstering their own role as experts. These writings were and still are entrenched in the perspective of the authors who were and are mostly white men."<ref name="Pember"/> This has resulted in widely diverse traditions of [[gender-variant]] and [[third-gender]] traditions among the over 500 living Native American communities being homogenized and misrepresented under English-language names, and widely misinterpreted by both non-Native and disconnected descendants alike.<ref name=Pember/> "[''Two-Spirit''] implies that the individual is both male and female and that these aspects are intertwined within them. The term moves away from traditional Native American/First Nations cultural identities and meanings of sexuality and gender variance. It does not take into account the terms and meanings from individual nations and tribes. ... Although ''two-spirit'' implies to some a spiritual nature, that one holds the spirit of two, both male and female, traditional Native Americans/First Nations peoples view this as a Western concept."<ref name="de Vries 2009" /><ref name=Kehoe/>

{{blockquote|At the conferences that produced the book, ''Two-Spirited People'', I heard several First Nations people describe themselves as very much unitary, neither "male" nor "female," much less a pair in one body. Nor did they report an assumption of duality within one body as a common concept within reservation communities; rather, people confided dismay at the Western proclivity for dichotomies. Outside Indo-European-speaking societies, "gender" would not be relevant to the social personae glosses "men" and "women," and "third gender" likely would be meaningless. The unsavory word "berdache" certainly ought to be ditched (Jacobs et al. 1997:3-5), but the urban American neologism "two-spirit" can be misleading.<ref name=Kehoe/>}}
While some have found the new term two-spirit a useful tool for intertribal organizing, it is not based in the traditional terms, and has not met with acceptance by more traditional communities;<ref name=Kehoe/><ref name="de Vries 2009" /> the tribes who have traditional ceremonial roles for gender-variant people use names in their own languages, and have generally rejected this "binary" [[neologism]] as "Western".<ref name="de Vries 2009" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Two Spirit Terms in Tribal Languages |url=http://nativeout.com/twospirit-rc/two-spirit-101/two-spirit-terms-in-tribal-languages/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150102172337/http://nativeout.com/twospirit-rc/two-spirit-101/two-spirit-terms-in-tribal-languages/ |archive-date=2 January 2015 |access-date=21 December 2020 |website=Native Out}}</ref>

==History==

=== Old World ===

==== Egypt ====
Inscribed pottery shards from the [[Middle Kingdom of Egypt]] (2000–1800 BCE) found near ancient [[Thebes, Egypt|Thebes]] (now [[Luxor]], [[Egypt]]), list three human genders: ''tai'' (male), ''sḫt'' ("sekhet") and ''hmt'' (female).<ref>Sethe, Kurt, (1926), ''Die Aechtung feindlicher Fürsten, Völker und Dinge auf altägyptischen Tongefäßscherben des mittleren Reiches,'' in: Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, 1926, p. 61.</ref>{{Better source needed|date=August 2021|reason=Source is nearly 100 years old and my be outdated.}} ''Sḫt'' is often translated as "eunuch", although there is little evidence that such individuals were castrated.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Third Gender in Ancient Egypt |url=http://www.well.com/user/aquarius/egypt.htm |access-date=21 December 2020 |archive-date=21 January 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170121070528/http://www.well.com/user/aquarius/egypt.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Unreliable source?|date=August 2021}}

==== Mesopotamia ====
[[Image:Sumerian creation myth.jpg|thumb|upright|Stone tablet from 2nd millennium BC Sumer containing a myth about the creation of a type of human who is neither man nor woman.]]
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]]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]] finds a position in society: "to stand before the king". In the [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]] myth of [[Atra-Hasis]] (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.<ref>Murray, Stephen O., and Roscoe, Will (1997). ''Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature.'' New York: New York University Press.</ref>{{Pages needed|date=August 2021}} In [[Babylonia]], [[Sumer]] and [[Assyria]], [[Gala (priests)|certain types of individuals]] who performed religious duties in the service of [[Inanna]]/[[Ishtar]] have been described as a third gender.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Roscoe |first=W. |year=1996 |title=Priests of the Goddess: Gender Transgression in Ancient Religion |url=http://www.willsworld.org/priests.html |journal=[[History of Religions (journal)|History of Religions]] |volume=35 |issue=3 |pages=195–230 |doi=10.1086/463425 |jstor=1062813 |s2cid=162368477 |access-date=2 April 2011 |url-access=subscription |archive-date=29 October 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101029022022/http://www.willsworld.org/priests.html |url-status=live }} Roscoe identifies these temple staff by the names ''kalû'', ''kurgarrû'', and ''assinnu''.</ref> They worked as [[sacred prostitute]]s or [[Hierodule]]s, performed ecstatic dance, music and plays, wore masks and had gender characteristics of both women and men.<ref>Nissinen, Martti (1998). ''Homoeroticism in the Biblical World'', Translated by Kirsi Stjedna. Fortress Press (November 1998) p. 30. {{ISBN|0-8006-2985-X}}<br />See also: Maul, S. M. (1992). ''Kurgarrû und assinnu und ihr Stand in der babylonischen Gesellschaft.'' Pp. 159–71 in Aussenseiter und Randgruppen. Konstanze Althistorische Vorträge und Forschungern 32. Edited by V. Haas. Konstanz: Universitätsverlag.</ref> In Sumer, they were given the [[Cuneiform script|cuneiform]] names of ur.sal ("dog/man-woman") and kur.gar.ra (also described as a man-woman).<ref>Nissinen (1998) p. 28, 32.</ref> 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.<ref>Leick, Gwendolyn (1994). ''Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature''. Routledge. New York.<br />*Leick's account: [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]]: ''sag-ur-sag'', ''pilpili'' and ''kurgarra''; and [[Akkadian language|Assyrian]]: ''assinnu''. Leick describes them as "hermaphrodites, homosexual transvestites, and other, castrated individuals".<br />{{Cite journal |last=Burns |first=John Barclay |year=2000 |title=Devotee or Deviate: The "Dog" (keleb) in Ancient Israel as a Symbol of Male Passivity and Perversion |url=http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2000/2000-6.html |url-status=dead |journal=Journal of Religion & Society |volume=2 |issn=1522-5658 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110527122903/http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2000/2000-6.html |archive-date=27 May 2011 |access-date=2 April 2011}}<br />*Burns defines the ''assinnu'' as "a member of Ishtar's cultic staff with whom, it seems, a man might have intercourse, whose masculinity had become femininity" and who "lacked libido, either from a natural defect or castration". He described the ''kulu'u'' as effeminate and the ''kurgarru'' as [[Transvestism|transvestite]]. In addition, he defines another kind of gender-variant prostitute, ''sinnisānu'', as (literally) "woman-like".</ref>

==== Indic culture ====
[[Image:Ardhanari.jpg|thumb|upright|The Hindu god [[Shiva]] is often represented as [[Ardhanarisvara]], with a dual male and female nature. Typically, Ardhanarisvara's right side is male and left side female. This sculpture is from the [[Elephanta Caves]] near [[Mumbai]].]]
References to a third sex can be found throughout the texts of India's religious traditions like [[Jainism]]<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Zwilling |first1=L |last2=Sweet |first2=MJ |year=1996 |title="Like a city ablaze": The third sex and the creation of sexuality in Jain religious literature |journal=Journal of the History of Sexuality |volume=6 |issue=3 |pages=359–84 |jstor=4629615 |pmid=11609126}}</ref> and [[Buddhism]]<ref name="Jackson10996">{{Cite journal |last=Jackson |first=Peter A. |date=April 1996 |title=Non-normative Sex/Gender Categories in the Theravada Buddhist Scriptures |journal=Australian Humanities Review |hdl=1885/41884}}</ref> – and it can be inferred that [[Vedic culture]] recognised three genders. The [[Vedas]] (c. 1500 BC–500 BC) describe individuals as belonging to one of three categories, according to one's nature or [[prakrti]]. These are also spelled out in the [[Kama Sutra]] (c. 4th century AD) and elsewhere as ''pums-prakrti'' (male-nature), ''stri-prakrti'' (female-nature), and ''tritiya-prakrti'' (third-nature).<ref>Alternate transliteration: ''trhytîyâ prakrhyti''</ref> Texts suggest that third sex individuals were well known in premodern India and included male-bodied or female-bodied<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Penrose |first=Walter |year=2001 |title=Hidden in History: Female Homoeroticism and Women of a "Third Nature" in the South Asian Past |journal=Journal of the History of Sexuality |volume=10 |pages=3–39 [4] |doi=10.1353/sex.2001.0018 |s2cid=142955490 |quote=distinct social and economic roles once existed for women thought to belong to a third gender. Hidden in history, these women dressed in men's clothing, served as porters and personal bodyguards to kings and queens, and even took an active role in sex with women.}}</ref> people as well as [[intersex]] people, and that they can often be recognised from childhood.

A third sex is discussed in ancient [[Hindu law]], medicine, [[linguistics]] and [[astrology]]. The foundational work of Hindu law, the [[Manu Smriti]] (c. 200 BC–200 AD) explains the biological origins of the three sexes:

<blockquote>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.<ref>[[Manu Smriti]], [http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/manu/manu03.htm 3.49] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180806205711/http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/manu/manu03.htm |date=6 August 2018 }}.</ref></blockquote>

Indian linguist [[Patañjali]]'s<ref>Not to be confused with the [[Patañjali]] who was the author of the ''[[Yoga Sutras of Patanjali|Yoga Sutras]]''.</ref> work on [[Sanskrit]] grammar, the [[Mahābhāṣya]] (c. 200 BC), states that Sanskrit's three [[grammatical genders]] are derived from three natural genders. The earliest [[Tamil language|Tamil]] grammar, the [[Tolkappiyam]] (3rd century BC) 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 (planet)|Mercury]], [[Saturn]] and (in particular) [[Ketu (mythology)|Ketu]]. In the [[Puranas]], there are references to three kinds of [[deva (Hinduism)|deva]]s of music and dance: [[apsaras]] (female), [[gandharva]]s (male) and [[kinnar]]s (neuter).

The two great [[Sanskrit]] [[epic poem]]s, the [[Ramayana]] and the [[Mahabharata]],<ref>Lord [[Arjuna]] takes a "vow of eunuchism" to live as the third sex for a year: "O lord of the Earth, I will declare myself as one of the neuter sex. O monarch, it is, indeed difficult to hide the marks of the bowstring on my arms. I will, however, cover both my [[Scarification|cicatrized]] arms with bangles. Wearing brilliant rings on my ears and [[conch]]-bangles on my wrists and causing a braid to hang down from my head, I shall, O king, appear as one of the third sex, Vrihannala by name. And living as a female I shall (always) entertain the king and the inmates of the inner apartments by reciting stories. And, O king, I shall also instruct the women of Virata's palace in singing and delightful modes of dancing and in musical instruments of diverse kinds. And I shall also recite the various excellent acts of men..." [[gutenberg:15475|Mahabharata (Virata-parva)]], Translated by Ganguli, Kisari Mohan. [[Project Gutenberg]].</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Pattanaik |first=Devdutt |title=Ramayana versus Mahabharata : my playful comparison |date=2018 |isbn=978-93-5333-230-3 |location=New Delhi |publisher=Rupa Publications |oclc=1085374530}}</ref> indicates the existence of a third gender in ancient Indic society. Some versions of [[Ramayana]] tell that in one part of the story, the hero [[Rama]] heads into exile in the forest. Halfway there, he discovers that most of the people of his hometown [[Ayodhya (Ramayana)|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 from exile years later, he discovered them still there and blessed them, saying that there will be a day when they, too, will have a share in ruling the world.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kakar |first=Sudhir |title=The colors of violence : cultural identities, religion, and conflict |date=1996 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=0-226-42284-4 |location=Chicago |pages=163 |oclc=33043083}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Nanda |first=Serena |title=Neither man nor woman : the Hijras of India |date=1990 |publisher=Wadsworth Pub. Co |isbn=0-534-12204-3 |location=Belmont, Calif. |pages=13 |oclc=20091288}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Lorber |first=Judith |title=Paradoxes of gender |date=1994 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=0-585-35777-3 |location=New Haven |pages=93 |oclc=47008359}}</ref><ref name=":1" />

In the Buddhist [[Vinaya]], codified in its present form around the 2nd century BC and said to be handed down by oral tradition from [[Gautama Buddha|Buddha]] himself, there are four main sex/gender categories: males, females, ''ubhatobyañjanaka'' (people of a dual sexual nature) and ''[[Pandaka|paṇḍaka]]'' (people of non-normative sexual natures, perhaps originally denoting a deficiency in male sexual capacity).<ref name="Jackson10996" /> As the Vinaya tradition developed, the term ''paṇḍaka'' came to refer to a broad third sex category which encompassed intersex, male and female-bodied people with physical or behavioural attributes that were considered inconsistent with the natural characteristics of man and woman.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gyatso |first=J. |year=2003 |title=One Plus One Makes Three: Buddhist Gender, Monasticism, and the Law of the Non-Excluded Middle |journal=[[History of Religions (journal)|History of Religions]] |volume=43 |issue=2 |pages=89–115 |doi=10.1086/423006 |jstor=3176712 |s2cid=162098679}}</ref>

==== Greco-Roman Classical Antiquity ====
[[Image:Hermaphroditus Louvre face.jpg|thumb|right|2nd-century Roman copy of a Greek sculpture. The figure is [[Hermaphroditus]], from which the word [[hermaphrodite]] is derived.]]

In Plato's ''[[Symposium (Plato)|Symposium]]'', written around the 4th century BC, Aristophanes relates a creation myth involving three original sexes: female, male and androgynous. They are split in half by Zeus, producing four different contemporary sex/gender types which seek to be reunited with their lost other half; in this account, the modern heterosexual man and woman descend from the original androgynous sex. The myth of [[Hermaphroditus]] involves heterosexual lovers merging into their primordial androgynous sex.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Internet Classics Archive – Symposium by Plato |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html |website=classics.mit.edu |access-date=7 June 2016 |archive-date=10 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110410132334/http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html |url-status=live }}</ref>{{primary source inline|date=June 2016}}

Other [[creation myth]]s around the world share a belief in three original sexes, such as those from northern Thailand.<ref>Jackson, Peter A. (1995) ''Kathoey: The third sex.'' In Jackson, P., "Dear Uncle Go: Male homosexuality in Thailand." Bangkok, Thailand: Bua Luang Books<br />See also: Peltier, Anatole-Roger (1991). ''Pathamamulamuli: The Origin of the World in the Lan Na Tradition''. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books. The Yuan creation myth in the book is from Pathamamulamuli, an antique Buddhist palm leaf manuscript. Its translator, Anatole-Roger Peltier, believes that this story is based on an oral tradition that is over five hundred years old. [https://web.archive.org/web/20050205031728/http://home.att.net/~leela2/creation_myth.htm Text online].</ref>

Many have interpreted the "[[eunuch]]s" of the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean world as a third gender that inhabited a [[liminality|liminal]] space between women and men, understood in their societies as somehow neither or both.<ref>S. Tougher, ed., (2001) ''Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond'' (London: Duckworth Publishing, 2001).<br />Ringrose, Kathryn M. (2003). ''The Perfect Servant: Eunuchs and the Social Construction of Gender in Byzantium.'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2003.</ref> In the [[Historia Augusta]], the eunuch body is described as a ''tertium genus hominum'' (a third human gender). In 77 BC, a eunuch named Genucius was prevented from claiming goods left to him in a [[will (law)|will]], on the grounds that he had voluntarily mutilated himself (''amputatis sui ipsius'') and was neither a woman or a man (''neque virorum neque mulierum numero'') according to [[Valerius Maximus]]. Several scholars have argued that the eunuchs in the [[Hebrew Bible]] and the [[New 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]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hester |first=J. David |year=2005 |title=Eunuchs and the Postgender Jesus: Matthew 19:12 and Transgressive Sexualities |url=http://www.spirituality.org.za/files/Eunuch.pdf |journal=Journal for the Study of the New Testament |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=13–40 |doi=10.1177/0142064X05057772 |s2cid=145724743 |access-date=2 April 2011 |archive-date=22 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110722060311/http://www.spirituality.org.za/files/Eunuch.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> The early Christian theologian, [[Tertullian]], wrote that Jesus himself was a eunuch (c. 200 AD).<ref>Note: There is some controversy in this statement as in context, ''spado'', which in most cases means eunuch, is generally translated as virgin as in [[wikisource:Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Tertullian: Part Fourth/On Monogamy/Chapter 3|here]] and a fuller explanation can be found [https://books.google.com/books?id=zV0jVQK0K14C&dq=jesus+eunuch+tertullian&pg=PA85 here]. Tertullian, On Monogamy, 3: "...He stands before you if you are willing to copy him, as a voluntary ''spado'' (eunuch) in the flesh." And elsewhere: "The Lord Himself opened the kingdom of heaven to eunuchs and He Himself lived as a eunuch. The apostle [Paul] also, following His example, made himself a eunuch..."</ref> 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]], "eunuch" devotees of the [[Phrygia]]n goddess [[Cybele]], who were described as belonging to a third sex by several [[ancient Rome|Roman]] writers.<ref>e.g. "Both sexes are displeasing to her holiness, so [the gallus] keeps a middle gender (''medium genus'') between the others." [[Prudentius]], Peristephanon, 10.1071-3</ref>

==== Early modern Europe ====
The so-called "Balkan Sworn Virgins", which have been documented as early as the 19th century, are sometimes considered a separate gender category.<ref name="Littlewood" /> Sworn virgins take an irreversible vow of chastity, and in so doing relinquish their sexual, reproductive, and social duties as women. They often dress as men, act as head of their households, and take on male duties.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2022-12-10 |title=The last of Albania's 'sworn virgins' |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63904744 |access-date=2025-07-04 |language=en-GB}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Albania: family, society and culture in the 20th century |date=2012 |publisher=Lit |isbn=978-3-643-50144-8 |editor-last=Hemming |editor-first=Andreas |series=Studies on South East Europe |location=Zürich |editor-last2=Kera |editor-first2=Gentiana |editor-last3=Pandelejmoni |editor-first3=Enriketa}}</ref> Breaking the vow was once punishable by death; though this is no longer the case today, breaking one's vow can result in social ostracization.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Zumbrun |first=Joshua |date=2007-08-11 |title=The Sacrifices of Albania's 'Sworn Virgins' |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/10/AR2007081002158.html |access-date=2025-07-04 |language=en-US |issn=0190-8286}}</ref>

==== Jewish Diaspora ====
In [[Rabbinic Judaism|Rabbinical Jewish]] traditions there were 6 terms used to describe gender identity:
*''[[Androgynos]]'': both male and female genitalia (eternal doubt of legal gender)
*''[[Ay'lonit]]'': Barren female. Female genitalia, barren.
*''Nekeva'': female
*''Saris'': castrated or naturally infertile male (often translated as "eunuch")<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.transtorah.org/PDFs/Classical_Jewish_Terms_for_Gender_Diversity.pdf|title=Classic Jewish terms for Gender Diversity|access-date=30 October 2011|archive-date=6 January 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200106020328/http://transtorah.org/PDFs/Classical_Jewish_Terms_for_Gender_Diversity.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://transtorah.org/PDFs/Gender_Diversity_In_Halacha.pdf|title=Gender Diversity in Halakha|access-date=30 October 2011|archive-date=21 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170821215224/http://www.transtorah.org/PDFs/Gender_Diversity_In_Halacha.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>
*''[[Tumtum (Judaism)|Tumtum]]'': genitalia concealed by skin (unknown gender, unless skin removed)
*''Zachar'': male

==== Early Islamic world ====
[[Mukhannath]]un ({{lang|ar|مخنثون}} "effeminate ones", "ones who resemble women", singular ''mukhannath'') was a term used in Classical Arabic to refer to [[Effeminacy|effeminate]] men or people of ambiguous sex characteristics who appeared feminine or functioned socially in roles typically carried out by women.<ref name="TEOEM">{{Cite journal |last=Rowson |first=Everett K. |author-link=Everett K. Rowson |date=October 1991 |title=The Effeminates of Early Medina |url=http://www.williamapercy.com/wiki/images/The_effeminates_of_early_medina.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=[[Journal of the American Oriental Society]] |publisher=[[American Oriental Society]] |volume=111 |issue=4 |pages=671–693 |citeseerx=10.1.1.693.1504 |doi=10.2307/603399 |issn=0003-0279 |jstor=603399 |lccn=12032032 |oclc=47785421 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081001195534/http://www.williamapercy.com/wiki/images/The_effeminates_of_early_medina.pdf |archive-date=1 October 2008 |s2cid=163738149}}</ref> According to the Iranian scholar Mehrdad Alipour, "in the [[Pre-modern Islamic societies|premodern period]], Muslim societies were aware of five manifestations of gender ambiguity: This can be seen through figures such as the ''khasi'' (eunuch), the ''[[Hijra (South Asia)|hijra]]'', the ''mukhannath'', the ''mamsuh'' and the ''khuntha'' (hermaphrodite/intersex)."<ref name="Islamic shari">{{Cite journal |last=Alipour |first=Mehrdad |date=2017 |title=Islamic shari'a law, neotraditionalist Muslim scholars and transgender sex-reassignment surgery: A case study of Ayatollah Khomeini's and Sheikh al-Tantawi's fatwas |journal=[[International Journal of Transgender Health|International Journal of Transgenderism]] |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=91–103 |doi=10.1080/15532739.2016.1250239 |issn=1553-2739 |lccn=2004213389 |oclc=56795128 |doi-access=free |s2cid=152120329}}</ref> Western scholars Aisya Aymanee M. Zaharin and Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli give the following explanation of the meaning of the term ''mukhannath'' and its derivate Arabic forms in the hadith literature:<ref name="TransgenderHealth 2020">{{Cite journal |last1=Zaharin |first1=Aisya Aymanee M. |last2=Pallotta-Chiarolli |first2=Maria |date=June 2020 |title=Countering Islamic conservatism on being transgender: Clarifying Tantawi's and Khomeini's fatwas from the progressive Muslim standpoint |journal=[[International Journal of Transgender Health]] |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |volume=21 |issue=3 |pages=235–241 |doi=10.1080/26895269.2020.1778238 |issn=1553-2739 |lccn=2004213389 |oclc=56795128 |pmc=8726683 |pmid=34993508 |doi-access=free |s2cid=225679841}}</ref> ''Mukhannathun'', especially those in the city of [[Medina]], are mentioned throughout the [[hadith]] and in the works of many [[Arabic literature|early Arabic]] and [[Islamic literature|Islamic writers]]. During the [[Rashidun caliphate|Rashidun era]] and first half of the [[Umayyad caliphate|Umayyad era]], they were strongly associated with music and entertainment.<ref name="TEOEM" /> During the [[Abbasid caliphate]], the word itself was used as a descriptor for men employed as dancers, musicians, or comedians.<ref name="EoAL">{{Cite book |last=Moreh |first=S. |title=Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, Volume 2 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=1998 |isbn=9780415185721 |editor-last=Meisami |editor-first=Julie Scott |page=548 |chapter=mukhannathun |author-link=Shmuel Moreh |editor-last2=Starkey |editor-first2=Paul}}</ref>

Mukhannathun existed in [[pre-Islamic Arabia]], during the time of the [[Islamic prophet]] [[Muhammad]], and [[History of Islam|early Islamic eras]].<ref name="EoAL" /><ref name="Islamic Homosexualities">{{Cite book |last1=Murray |first1=Stephen O. |title=[[Islamic Homosexualities]]: Culture, History, and Literature |last2=Roscoe |first2=Will |last3=Allyn |first3=Eric |last4=Crompton |first4=Louis |last5=Dickemann |first5=Mildred |last6=Khan |first6=Badruddin |last7=Mujtaba |first7=Hasan |last8=Naqvi |first8=Nauman |last9=Wafer |first9=Jim |publisher=[[NYU Press]] |year=1997 |isbn=9780814774687 |editor-last=Murray |editor-first=Stephen O. |editor-link=Stephen O. Murray |location=New York City and London |pages=305–310 |chapter=Conclusion |doi=10.18574/nyu/9780814761083.003.0004 |jstor=j.ctt9qfmm4 |oclc=35526232 |editor-last2=Roscoe |editor-first2=Will |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6Zw-AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA305 |s2cid=141668547 |last10=Westphal-Hellbusch |first10=Sigrid}}</ref> A number of [[hadith]] indicate that ''mukhannathun'' were used as male servants for wealthy women in the early days of Islam, due to the belief that they were not sexually interested in the female body. These sources do not state that the ''mukhannathun'' were homosexual, only that they "lack desire".<ref name="TEOEM" /> In later eras, the term ''mukhannath'' was associated with the [[receptive partner]] in [[gay sexual practices]], an association that has persisted into the modern day.<ref name="Islamic Homosexualities" /> ''[[Khanith]]'' is a vernacular Arabic term used in some parts of the [[Arabian Peninsula]] to denote the gender role ascribed to males and occasionally [[intersex]] people who function sexually, and in some ways socially, as women. The term is closely related to the word ''mukhannath''.

Early [[Islam]]ic literature rarely comments upon the habits of the ''mukhannathun''. It seems there may have been some variance in how "effeminate" they were, though there are indications that some adopted aspects of feminine dress or at least ornamentation. Some thirteenth and fourteenth-century scholars like [[al-Nawawi]] and [[Shams al-Din al-Kirmani|al-Kirmani]] classified ''mukhannathun'' into two groups: those whose feminine traits seem unchangeable, despite the person's best efforts to stop them, and those whose traits are changeable but refuse to stop. Islamic scholars like [[Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani]] stated that all ''mukhannathun'' must make an effort to cease their feminine behavior, but if this proved impossible, they were not worthy of punishment. Those who made no effort to become less "effeminate", or seemed to "take pleasure in (his effeminacy)", were worthy of blame. By this era, ''mukhannath'' had developed its association with homosexuality, and [[Badr al-Din al-Ayni]] saw homosexuality as "a more heinous extension of ''takhannuth''", or effeminate behavior.<ref name="TEOEM" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=an-Nawawi |title=Al-Minhaj bi Sharh Sahih Muslim |url=http://shamela.ws/browse.php/book-1711#page-3195 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180817090821/http://shamela.ws/browse.php/book-1711#page-3195 |archive-date=17 August 2018 |access-date=14 October 2018 |publisher=Shamela}}</ref>

One particularly prominent ''mukhannath'' with the [[Arabic name|''laqab'']] [[Ṭuways]] ("little peacock") was born in Medina on the day Muhammad died. There are few sources that describe why Tuways was labeled a ''mukhannath'', or what behavior of his was considered effeminate. No sources describe his sexuality as immoral or imply that he was attracted to men, and he is reported to have married a woman and fathered several children in his later life.<ref name="TEOEM" /> While he is described as non-religious or even frivolous towards religion in many sources, others contradict this and portray him as a believing [[Muslim]] instead. His main association with the label seems to come from his profession, as music was mainly performed by women in Arab societies.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pacholczyk |first=Jozef |url=https://archive.org/details/musicsofmanycult00hood_0 |title=Musics of Many Cultures: An Introduction |publisher=UC Press |year=1983 |isbn=9780520047785 |editor-last=May |editor-first=Elizabeth |page=[https://archive.org/details/musicsofmanycult00hood_0/page/253 253] |chapter=Secular Classical Music in the Arabic Near East |editor-last2=Hood |editor-first2=Mantle |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Tierney |first=Helen |url=https://archive.org/details/womensstudiesenc0001unse/page/210 |title=Women's Studies Encyclopedia: Literature, arts, and learning |publisher=Greenwood |year=1989 |isbn=9780313310737 |page=[https://archive.org/details/womensstudiesenc0001unse/page/210 210] |quote=In pre-Islamic Arabia, music was practiced mainly by women, especially by singing girls (qainat)}}</ref>

===Pre-Colonial Americas and Oceania===
====Mesoamerica====
The ancient [[Maya civilization]] may have recognised a third gender, according to historian Matthew Looper. Looper notes the androgynous Maize Deity and masculine [[Lunar deity|Moon goddess]] of [[Maya mythology]], and iconography and inscriptions where rulers embody or impersonate these deities. He suggests that a Mayan third gender might also have included individuals with special roles such as healers or [[divination|diviners]].<ref>Looper, Matthew G. (2001). ''Ancient Maya Women-Men (and Men-Women): Classic Rulers and the Third Gender'', In: "Ancient Maya Women", ed. Traci Ardren. Walnut Creek, California: Alta Mira, 2001.</ref>

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]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Stockett |first=M. K. |year=2005 |title=On the Importance of Difference: Re-Envisioning Sex and Gender in Ancient Mesoamerica |journal=World Archaeology |volume=37 |issue=4 |pages=566–578 |doi=10.1080/00438240500404375 |jstor=40025092 |s2cid=144168812}}<br />In addition to Looper (above) and Joyce (below), Stockett cites:<br />Geller, P. (2004). ''Skeletal analysis and theoretical complications.'' Paper presented at Que(e)rying Archaeology: The Fifteenth Anniversary Gender Conference, Chacmool Archaeology Conference, University of Calgary, Calgary.<br />{{Cite journal |last=Joyce |first=R. A. |year=1998 |title=Performing the Body in Pre-Hispanic Central America |journal=RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics |volume=33 |issue=33 |pages=147–165 |doi=10.1086/RESv33n1ms20167006 |jstor=20167006 |s2cid=165021067}}
<br />Lopez-Austin, A. (1988). ''The Human Body and Ideology: Concepts of Ancient Nahuas'' (trans T.O. de Montellano and B.O. de Montellano). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.</ref> and concludes that the [[Olmec]], [[Aztec]] and [[Maya peoples]] understood "more than two kinds of bodies and more than two kinds of gender." Anthropologist Rosemary Joyce agrees, writing that "gender was a fluid potential, not a fixed category before the Spaniards came to Mesoamerica. Childhood training and ritual shaped, but did not set, adult gender, which could encompass third genders and alternative sexualities as well as "male" and "female." At the height of the Classic period, Maya rulers presented themselves as embodying the entire range of gender possibilities, from the male through the female, by wearing blended costumes and playing male and female roles in state ceremonies." Joyce notes that many figures of Mesoamerican art are depicted with male genitalia and female breasts, while she suggests that other figures in which chests and waists are exposed but no sexual characteristics (primary or secondary) are marked may represent a third sex, ambiguous gender, or androgyny.<ref>Joyce, Rosemary A. (2000). ''Gender and Power in Prehispanic Mesoamerica.'' Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. {{ISBN|978-0-292-74065-5}}</ref>

====Inca====
Andean Studies scholar Michael Horswell writes that third-gendered ritual attendants to ''chuqui chinchay'', a [[jaguar]] deity in [[Incan mythology]], were "vital actors in Andean ceremonies" prior to [[Spanish Empire|Spanish colonisation]]. Horswell elaborates: "These ''quariwarmi'' (men-women) [[shaman]]s 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."<ref>Horswell, Michael J. (2006). ''Transculturating Tropes of Sexuality, ''Tinkuy'', and Third Gender in the Andes'', introduction to "Decolonizing the Sodomite: Queer Tropes of Sexuality in Colonial Andean Culture". {{ISBN|0-292-71267-7}}. [http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exhordec.html Article online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220922212007/https://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exhordec.html |date=22 September 2022 }}.</ref> [[Richard Trexler]] gives an early Spanish account of religious 'third gender' figures from the [[Inca empire]] in his 1995 book "Sex and Conquest":

{{blockquote|And in each important temple or house of worship, they have a man or two, or more, depending on the idol, who go dressed in women's attire from the time they are children, and speak like them, and in manner, dress, and everything else they imitate women. With them especially the chiefs and headmen have carnal, foul intercourse on feast days and holidays, almost like a religious rite and ceremony.<ref>Trexler, Richard C. (1995). ''Sex and Conquest.'' Cornell University Press: Ithaca. p. 107</ref>}}

====Indigenous North Americans====
With over 500 surviving [[Indigenous North American]] cultures, attitudes about sex and gender are diverse. Historically, some communities have had social or spiritual roles for [[Two-spirit#Traditional Indigenous terms|people]] who in some way may manifest a third-gender, or another gender-variant way of being, at least some of the time, by their particular culture's standards. Some of these ways continue today, while others have died out due to colonialism. Some communities and individuals have adopted the pan-Indian neologism [[Two-spirit]] as a way of honoring contemporary figures and organizing intertribally.<ref name="de Vries 2009" /><ref name=Pember/><ref name=Kehoe/>

[[Inuit religion]] states that one of the first [[angakkuq]] was a third gender being known as Itijjuaq who discovered the first [[amulet]].<ref name="inuit-third-gender">{{Cite journal |last=D'Anglure |first=Bernard |date=November 2005 |title=The 'Third Gender' of the Inuit |journal=Diogenes |volume=52 |issue=4 |page=138 <!-- |pages=134-144 --> |doi=10.1177/0392192105059478 |s2cid=145220849}}</ref> Historically, [[Inuit]] in areas of the [[Northern Canada|Canadian Arctic]], such as [[Igloolik]] and [[Nunavik]], had a third gender concept called ''[[sipiniq]]'' ({{Langx|iu|ᓯᐱᓂᖅ}}).<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Issenman |first=Betty Kobayashi |title=Sinews of Survival: the Living Legacy of Inuit Clothing |publisher=UBC Press |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-7748-5641-6 |location=Vancouver |pages=214 |oclc=923445644}}</ref> A ''sipiniq'' infant was believed to have changed their physical sex from male to female at the moment of birth.<ref name=":10">{{Cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=Eric Alden |last2=Smith |first2=S. Abigail |last3=Anderson |first3=Judith |last4=Mulder |first4=Monique Borgerhoff |last5=Burch |first5=Ernest S. |last6=Damas |first6=David |last7=Graburn |first7=Nelson H. H. |last8=Remie |first8=Cornelius H. W. |last9=Roth |first9=Eric Abella |last10=Wenzel |first10=George W. |display-authors=2 |date=1994 |title=Inuit Sex-Ratio Variation: Population Control, Ethnographic Error, or Parental Manipulation? [and Comments and Reply] |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2744084 |journal=Current Anthropology |volume=35 |issue=5 |pages=617 |doi=10.1086/204319 |issn=0011-3204 |jstor=2744084 |s2cid=143679341 |url-access=subscription |archive-date=7 March 2021 |access-date=3 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210307101227/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2744084 |url-status=live }}</ref> ''Sipiniq'' children were regarded as socially male, and would be named after a male relative, perform a male's tasks, and would wear [[Inuit clothing|traditional clothing]] tailored for men's tasks. This generally lasted until puberty, but in some cases continued into adulthood and even after the ''sipiniq'' person married a man.<ref name=":112">{{Cite book |last=Stern |first=Pamela R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cngl1Ho6uFwC&q=sipiniit&pg=PA12 |title=Daily Life of the Inuit |date=16 June 2010 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-0-313-36312-2 |pages=11–12 |language=en}}</ref> The [[Netsilik Inuit]] used the word ''kipijuituq'' for a similar concept.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Walley |first=Meghan |date=2018 |title=Exploring Potential Archaeological Expressions of Nonbinary Gender in Pre-Contact Inuit Contexts |journal=Études/Inuit/Studies |volume=42 |issue=1 |pages=269–289 |doi=10.7202/1064504ar |issn=0701-1008 |jstor=26775769|s2cid=204473441 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

====Melanesia====

The [[Simbari people]], indigenous to what is now Papua New Guinea, traditionally recognized a third sex, which included people born with [[5α-Reductase 2 deficiency|a genetic condition]] common in the island's native population. The condition causes atypical genitalia at birth, which midwives could typically recognize, and classify them as ''kwolu-aatmwol'' (meaning "turning into a man"). Members of this third sex are typically socialized similarly to males, but are not seen as men. They take on masculine gender roles, and may be war leaders and shamans -- but they do not complete male initiation rites. Kwolu-aatmwol who were not properly identified at birth were socialized as women, and later were "discovered", often upon marriage. Many would move to distant towns where they could "pass" in society as men.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Herdt |first=Gilbert H. |title=Same Sex, Different Cultures: Exploring Gay And Lesbian Lives |date=1998 |publisher=Westview Press |isbn=978-0-8133-3164-5 |location=Boulder}}</ref>

==Art, literature, and media==
[[Image:Nuremberg chronicles - Strange People - Androgyn (XIIr).jpg|thumb|right|Illustration from the ''[[Nuremberg Chronicle]]'', by [[Hartmann Schedel]] (1440–1514)]]

In [[David Lindsay (novelist)|David Lindsay]]'s 1920 novel ''[[A Voyage to Arcturus]]'' there is a type of being called ''phaen'', a third gender that is attracted neither to men nor women but to "Faceny" (their name for Shaping or Crystalman, the [[Demiurge]]). The appropriate pronouns are ''ae'' and ''aer''.<ref name="McCracken-Flesher2011">{{Cite book |last=McCracken-Flesher |first=Caroline |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=quMrIJP0KRAC&pg=PP5 |title=Scotland as Science Fiction |date=26 October 2011 |publisher=Bucknell University Press |isbn=978-1-61148-375-8 |page=52 |quote="There he encounters Leehallfae the phaen, a being "neither man nor woman nor anything between the two, but ... unmistakably of a third positive sex"— necessitating the grammatical coinage of a new pronoun "ae" (Arcturus, 205)."}}</ref>

''[[Michael (1924 film)|Mikaël]]'', a 1924 film directed by [[Carl Theodor Dreyer]], was also released as ''Chained: The Story of the Third Sex'' in the USA.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Horak |first=Linda |title=Mikael – Silent Film Festival |url=http://www.silentfilm.org/archive/mikael-1924 |access-date=7 June 2016 |archive-date=14 April 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160414064657/http://www.silentfilm.org/archive/mikael-1924 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Literary critic Michael Maiwald identifies a "third-sex ideal" in one of the first African-American bestsellers, [[Claude McKay]]'s ''Home to Harlem'' (1928).<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Maiwald |first=Michael |year=2002 |title=Race, Capitalism, and the Third-Sex Ideal: Claude McKay's Home to Harlem and the Legacy of Edward Carpenter |journal=[[Modern Fiction Studies]] |volume=48 |issue=4 |pages=825–857 |doi=10.1353/mfs.2002.0077 |s2cid=162306828}}</ref>

[[Djuna Barnes]]' 1936 novel ''[[Nightwood]]'' touches on the "third sex" in the chapter Go Down, Matthew (148).<ref>Barnes, Djuna. 1936. ''Nightwood''. 1961. New York: New Directions.</ref>

[[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s 1969 novel ''[[Slaughterhouse-Five]]'' identifies seven human sexes (not genders) in the [[four-dimensional space|fourth dimension]] required for reproduction including gay men, women over 65, and infants who died before their first birthday. The [[Tralfamadore|Tralfamadorian]] race has five sexes.<ref>Vonnegut, Kurt. (1999). ''Slaughterhouse-five.'' New York: The Dial Press, p145–146.</ref>{{primary source inline|date=June 2016}}

In ''[[bro'Town]]'' (2004–2009), Brother Ken is the principal of the school and is ''[[fa'afafine]]'', a Samoan concept for a third gender, a person who is born biologically male but is raised and sees themself as female. Because the concept does not readily translate, when the series was broadcast on [[Adult Swim]] Latin America, a decision was made not to translate Samoan words and just present them as part of the "cultural journey".<ref name="JohnsonKompare2014">{{Cite book |last1=Johnson |first1=Derek |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fhToAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT57 |title=Making Media Work: Cultures of Management in the Entertainment Industries |last2=Kompare |first2=Derek |last3=Santo |first3=Avi |date=1 August 2014 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=9780814764558 |pages=57–59 |access-date=1 January 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170217011538/https://books.google.com/books?id=fhToAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT57 |archive-date=17 February 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> 

In ''[[Knights of Sidonia]]'' (2014–2015), Izana Shinatose belongs to a new, nonbinary third gender that originated during the hundreds of years of human emigration into space, as first shown in the episode "Commencement."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Søraa |first=Roger Andre |date=2019 |title=Post-Gendered Bodies and Relational Gender in Knights of Sidonia |url=http://journal.finfar.org/articles/post-gendered-bodies-and-relational-gender-in-knights-of-sidonia/ |url-status=live |journal=Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=56–59 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200712220509/http://journal.finfar.org/articles/post-gendered-bodies-and-relational-gender-in-knights-of-sidonia/ |archive-date=12 July 2020 |access-date=12 July 2020}}</ref> Izana later turns into a girl after falling in love with Nagate Tanasake.

==Spirituality==
In Hinduism, [[Shiva]] is still worshipped as an [[Ardhnarishwara]], i.e. half-male and half-female form.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Monier Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary (2008 revision) |url=http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/cgi-bin/monier/serveimg.pl?file=/scans/MWScan/MWScanjpg/mw0092-ardhakarNa.jpg |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090225160304/http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/cgi-bin/monier/serveimg.pl?file=/scans/MWScan/MWScanjpg/mw0092-ardhakarNa.jpg |archive-date=25 February 2009}}</ref> Shiva's symbol, which is today known as Shivalinga, actually comprises a combination of a '[[Yoni]]' (vagina) and a '[[Lingam]]' (phallus).<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=VYaRePV92YwC&dq=Shiva+symbol+hermaphrodite&pg=PA271 Paths to The Divine: Ancient and Indian] By George McLean, Vensus A. George, Quote: Siva: The Hermaphrodite

The Lord [[Shiva]] is the underlying neutral and changeless reality, the undifferentiated absolute Consciousness, who is the foundation of every change and becoming. The hermaphrodite reality is one that is independent of all distinctions of male and female, the phenomenal and the non-phenomenal, and yet forms the basis of all such distinctions. The Puranas speak of Lord Shiva as the Hermaphrodite reality, though distinctionless within Himself, letting the distinctions of the manifold world spring up from Him. The Puranic thinkers interpreted and represented this hermaphrodite aspect of the Lord Siva in various ways. One such symbol expression is the figure of His Sakti. Another such symbol is the Phallus *(the male reproductive part) and the Yoni (the female reproductive part). A third, a more anthropomorphic metaphor, is that of the union between Siva and His many consorts, such as Parvati, Uma, and others. All these symbolisms express the truth that the variety of this universe stems from the lord Siva through his Sakti. To explain this point very picturesquely, the Puranas apply the mythological story of creation by way of the sexual union between Prajaapati and his daughter to Siva who, by His eternal union with His Sakti creates the world. The Puraanas also use another more sacrificial symbolism to expound the hermaphrodite characteristic of Shiva, according to which the male principle is represented as Fire, the devourer of the offering, and the female principle is the Soma, the devoured offering. In this symbolism, the hermaphrodite is the embodiment of the cosmic sacrifice, through which the universe emerges from the Lord Siva.</ref>

At the turn of the [[common era]], male cults devoted to a goddess that flourished throughout the broad region extending from the [[Mediterranean Sea|Mediterranean]] to South Asia. While [[galli]] were missionizing the Roman Empire, [[Gala (priests)|kalū]], kurgarrū, and assinnu continued to carry out ancient rites in the temples of Mesopotamia, and the third-gender predecessors of the hijra were clearly evident. It should also be mentioned of the eunuch priests of Artemis at Ephesus; the western Semitic qedeshim, the male "temple prostitutes" known from the Hebrew Bible and Ugaritic texts of the late second millennium; and the keleb, priests of Astarte at Kition and elsewhere. Beyond India, modern ethnographic literature documents gender-variant shaman-priests throughout Southeast Asia, [[Borneo]], 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 kalū and Mesopotamian priests, and fertility in the case of hijra), and actual (or symbolic) castration. Most, at some point in their history, were based in temples and, therefore, part of the religious-economic administration of their respective city-states.<ref>[http://www.willsworld.org/priests.html Priests of the Goddess: Gender Transgression in Ancient Religion] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101029022022/http://www.willsworld.org/priests.html |date=29 October 2010 }} by Will Roscoe</ref>

The Islamic conception of the "perfect human being" (''al-Insān al-Kāmil'') is, as evident from the writings of [[ibn Arabi]], genderless, and both women and men could equally attain this stage of spiritual development,<ref>The Shari'a: History, Ethics and Law.&nbsp;(2018).&nbsp;Vereinigtes Königreich:&nbsp;Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 95</ref> which is further reflected in genderless form of the term ''kamāl''.<ref>Shaikh, Sa’diyya. "Ibn ʿArabī and Mystical Disruptions of Gender: Theoretical Explorations in Islamic Feminism." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 47.2 (2022): 475-497.</ref>

== Criticism ==
Scholars have made several criticisms of the third gender concept. These critiques regard primarily Western scholars' use of the concept to understand gender in other cultures in an ethnocentric way. Third gender has also been criticized as a reductionist "junk drawer" used for all identities beyond the Western gender binary, ignoring the nuance of various identities, histories, and practices in other cultures to situate them in a Western understanding.{{citation needed|date=August 2023}} As Towle and Morgan write, "The term third gender does not disrupt gender binarism; it simply adds another category (albeit a segregated, ghettoized category) to the existing two." Towle and Morgan additionally note that Western scholars may incorrectly treat non-Western third gender examples as though they existed prior to and serve as the foundation for modern Western understandings of gender variability.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Towle |first1=Evan B |last2=Morgan |first2=Lynn Marie |date=2002 |title=Romancing the Transgender Native: Rethinking the Use of the "Third Gender" Concept |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/4/article/12222 |journal=GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies |volume=8 |issue=4 |pages=469–497 |doi=10.1215/10642684-8-4-469 |s2cid=143201735 |issn=1527-9375|url-access=subscription }}</ref> This implication makes it difficult for Western scholars to understand how non-Western cultures view and value sex and gender in their own societies in both the present day and historically.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Moral |first=Enrique |date=2016 |title=Qu(e)erying Sex and Gender in Archaeology: a Critique of the "Third" and Other Sexual Categories |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43967041 |journal=Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory |volume=23 |issue=3 |pages=788–809 |doi=10.1007/s10816-016-9294-y |jstor=43967041 |s2cid=151426339 |issn=1072-5369|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

=== South Asia ===
Many transfeminine activists in Indian communities reject being considered as a third gender. In some communities, it's a term that is assigned to trans women even if they do not consider themselves a third gender.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-12-22 |title=Here's What to Know About the Term "Third Gender" |url=https://www.cosmopolitan.com/sexopedia/a38584885/third-gender/ |access-date=2025-04-02 |website=Cosmopolitan |language=en-US}}</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Ardhanarishvara]]
* [[Gender variance]]
* [[Intersex]]
* [[List of transgender-related topics]]
* [[Non-binary gender]]
* [[Sexual norm]]
* [[Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures]]
* [[Transphobia]]
{{clear right}}

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Further reading==
* {{Cite book |last1=Aldous |first1=Susan |title=Ladyboys: The Secret World of Thailand's Third Gender |last2=Sereemongkonpol |first2=Pornchai |publisher=Maverick House |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-905379-48-4}}
* {{Cite book |last=Herdt |first=Gilbert H. |title=Third sex, third gender: beyond sexual dimorphism in culture and history |publisher=Zone Books |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-942299-82-3 |location=New York}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Lieber* |first=Angela |date=2018 |title=Western Scholarship on Third Genders: What does the Gender "Trinary" Do? |url=https://aag.secure-abstracts.com/AAG%20Annual%20Meeting%202018/abstracts-gallery/14343 |journal=[[American Association of Geographers]] |publisher=AAG Annual Meeting 2018}}
* {{Cite news |last=Mahapatra |first=Dhananjay |date=15 April 2014 |title=Supreme Court recognizes transgenders as 'third gender' |work=The Times of India |url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Supreme-Court-recognizes-transgenders-as-third-gender/articleshow/33767900.cms}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Morris |first=Rosalind |year=1994 |title=Three Sexes and Four Sexualities: Redressing the Discourses on Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Thailand |journal=Positions |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=15–43 |doi=10.1215/10679847-2-1-15 |s2cid=144110028}}

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