Editing Third gender (section)

==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}}</ref>{{Pages needed|date=August 2021}}
{{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"], 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]]}}</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}}</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}}</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}}</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]; 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]].