Editing Third gender (section)

=== 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}}