Translations:Gender-variant identities worldwide/8/en

Writings from ancient Egypt (Middle Kingdom, 2000-1800 BCE) said there were three genders of humans: male (tie), sekhet (sht), and female (hemet), in that order. Sekhet is usually translated as "eunuch," but that's probably an oversimplification of what this gender category means. Since it was given that level of importance, it could potentially be an entire category of gender/sex variance that doesn't fit into male or female. The hieroglyphs for sekhet include a sitting figure that usually mean a man, but the word doesn't include hieroglyphs that refer to genitals in any way. The word for male did include a hieroglyph explicitly showing a penis. At the very least, sekhet is likely to mean cisgender gay men, in the sense of not having children, and not necessarily someone who was castrated. Archaeologists question whether ancient Egyptians castrated humans, because the evidence for it is lacking.[1][2][3][4]

  1. 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.
  2. Stewart, Sandra. "Egyptian third gender". Archived from the original on 6 February 2020.
  3. Mark Brustman. "The Third Gender in Ancient Egypt." "Born Eunuchs" Home Page and Library. 1999. https://people.well.com/user/aquarius/egypt.htm Archived on 17 July 2023
  4. Frans Jonckheere. Mark Brustman, translator. "Eunuchs in Pharaonic Egypt." Translation of "L'Eunuque dans l'Égypte pharaonique," originally in Revue d'Histoire des Sciences, vol. 7, No. 2 (April-June 1954), pp. 139-155. https://people.well.com/user/aquarius/pharaonique.htm Archived on 17 July 2023