Editing Third gender (section)

==== 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}}</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}}</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>