“an identity used in south asian cultures such as india, pakistan, and bangladesh. it’s used as a way to describe femininity in men and used to be used to describe intersex people or people with indeterminate genitalia. it is also seen as a homage to hindu mythology. they are people who are born male but take on feminine roles, act femininely, and dress as such. it used to be that castration was required to be a hijra, but this is not the case anymore. they take on this role in order to represent shiva, who was an ageless and sexless supreme being. many live in communities that are solely filled with hijras which are led by a guru, whilst others are forced into sex work or begging to make it by.”
this identity is reserved solely for biological males or intersex individuals. biological females cannot be hijra. it was created to forcibly other feminine men and intersex people. to say, “you are not real men because you are feminine or because you have an intersex disorder.” they’re also often forced into poverty and prostitution and are murdered at high rates. many of them are gay men. my friend taught german to a gay man who fled from pakistan to avoid becoming hijra or being murdered. contrary to popular belief, pakistan doesn’t support genuine trans people ( you know, the people with sex dysphoria who want to transition from one sex to another ).
“But those who identify as transgender, like Choudary, don’t subscribe to the guru-chelah system. As a result, Rana and her chelahs view the transgender identity as alien and even immoral.”
““If you don’t have a guru, we don’t recognize you. These people who say they are transgender; that concept is just wrong,“ says one of Rana’s chelahs. “They can never be women. They cannot give birth. Even if they change their bodies they can’t change who they are. We are not women. We are what Allah has made.””
“But what if you identify not as a Khawaja Sira, or even as a transgender woman, but as a transgender man? In Pakistan’s fiercely patriarchal society, the idea of a person whose birth sex is assigned as female growing up to identify as male is almost unheard of.”
while hijras are simultaneously celebrated and ridiculed for being gender non-conforming, trans people who want to physically transition and who do not identify as khawaja sira are rejected. it’s especially difficult for trans men because they’re biologically female and pakistan is a patriarchal society.
“The Lakota two spirit people are never born women. Almost all of them, historically, have been men.”
“You see this in large numbers of patriarchal American Indian cultures: societies where there’s a firmly established “third” gender that men can elect to participate in (sometimes as older people, sometimes from an early age), while women’s gender roles are firmly entrenched and allow for little variance.”
“What’s instead true is that American Indian nations that had more rigid gender roles and assigned women less power historically felt the need to strip male/female identities from non-conformers, while more egalitarian societies with less gender socialization lack two-spirit people because of, rather than in spite of, their lack of emphasis on sex-assigned gender roles.” [ x ]
two spirit was almost exclusively reserved for men. it was a third gender they could elect to participate in ( granted, it stripped them of their male title
“Makkunrai and oroané are comparable to cisgender women and men, respectively.”
“Bissu are androgynous shamans.”
“For one to be considered bissu, all aspects of gender must be combined to form a whole. That can include those who are born intersex. However, some of them have fully functioning male or female sexual organs.”
“According to the Bugis gender system, calabai are false women and so are generally assigned male at birth but take on the role of heterosexual females. Their fashions and gender expression are distinctly feminine but do not match that of “typical” cis-gendered women.”
“The calalai are assigned female at birth but take on the roles of heterosexual males. They dress and present themselves as men, hold masculine jobs and typically live with female partners to adopt children.”
makkunrai and oroané are straight, gender-conforming, cisgender women and men. bissu are gender non-conforming ( androgynous ) individuals or intersex individuals. calabai are gay, feminine men or trans women. calalai are gay, masculine women or trans men.
do you see the problem here? this is a society that forcibly assigns gender non-conforming, gay, intersex, and trans people another label. imagine being a trans woman and being referred to as a “false woman.” imagine being a gay man and being referred to as a “false woman.” imagine being a trans man and being referred to as a “false man.” imagine being a lesbian and being referred to as a “false man.” lmao isn’t it just so cool that lesbians and trans men have to share the same label? that gay men and trans women have to share the same label? isn’t it cool that if you’re intersex, you’re considered bissu and are automatically viewed as androgynous and can’t just be a man or a woman? isn’t it cool that if you’re a straight gnc calalai, you’re likely forced to take a female partner? or that if you’re a straight gnc calabai, you’re likely forced to take a male partner? because you can’t be gay freely in bugis society. if you like the same sex, you’re automatically no longer considered to be your own sex.
“Māhū is the expression of the third self,” Kaumakaiwa Kanaka‘ole, a Native Hawaiian activist and performer told Mana magazine. “It is not a gender, it’s not an orientation, it’s not a sect, it’s not a particular demographic and it’s definitely not a race. It is simply an expression of the third person as it involves the individual. When you find that place in yourself to acknowledge both male and female aspects within and accept the capacity to embrace both … that is where the māhū exists and true liberation happens.”
“In pre-contact Hawaii ( before white explorers and missionaries brought their homophobia with them ), māhūs were considered special and assumed respected and traditional roles within the communities.
“After colonization, it became common for “māhū” to be used pejoratively to refer mostly to gay men and drag queens, but sometimes also butch women, and transgendered people of all kinds.”
māhū refers to gender non-conforming individuals, trans people, and gay people. once again, another social role used to other anyone who doesn’t satisfactorily conform.
“fa'afafine are assigned male at birth, and explicitly embody both masculine and feminine gender traits, fashioned in a way unique to this part of the world. Their behavior typically ranges from extravagantly feminine to conventionally masculine.”
oh, joy. another social role reserved solely for males in which they can express their gender non-conformity ( at the cost of stripping their male title ) while females have no such option.
anyway, it’s been sociologically demonstrated that “third genders” almost exclusively manifest in cultures where sex-role segregation is most prevalent and harshly policed. i hope you feel like an ass for supporting social roles that forcibly other and ostracize gay people, intersex people, trans people, gnc people, and in some cases disabled people, infertile people, and eunuchs.
