Editing Third gender

'''Third gender''', or '''third sex''', is a concept in which individuals are categorized, either by themselves, by their society, or by outsiders to their society, as not fitting into the Western ideas of [[binary gender]] and heterosexual roles. The phrase "third gender" has been used for a wide variety of meanings: intersex people whose bodies do not fit Western medical concepts of binary sex, hundreds of indigenous societal roles as described (and often misrepresented) by Western anthropologists (including indigenous identities such as south Asian [[hijra]]s, Hawaiian and Tahitian [[māhū]], and Indigenous identities now called [[Two-Spirit]]s),<ref>Julia Serano, ''Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity.'' Unpaged.</ref> transgender people who are [[nonbinary]], homosexual people even in Western societies,<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><ref name="The Social Studies C">{{cite book |last=Ross |first=E. Wayne |title=The Social Studies Curriculum: Purposes, Problems, and Possibilities |publisher=SUNY Press |year=2006|isbn= 978-0-7914-6909-5 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=4qFMqjxte9IC }}</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> and women who were considered to be gender-nonconforming because they fought for women's rights.<ref>{{cite journal | jstor=407320 | pages=582–599 | last1=Wright | first1=B. D. | title="New Man," Eternal Woman: Expressionist Responses to German Feminism | volume=60 | issue=4 | journal=The German Quarterly | year=1987 | doi=10.2307/407320  }}</ref>

A significant number of nonbinary people have adopted "third gender" to describe themselves. In the 2019 Worldwide [[Gender Census]], 2.17% (244) of the 11,242 respondents called themselves third gender.<ref name="2019 Gender Census">{{cite web|title=Gender Census 2019 - the worldwide TL;DR|work=[[Gender Census]].|date=31 March 2019|accessdate=5 July 2020|url= https://gendercensus.com/post/183843963445/gender-census-2019-the-worldwide-tldr| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200118084451/https://gendercensus.com/post/183843963445/gender-census-2019-the-worldwide-tldr|archive-date=18 January 2020}}</ref> In a 2015 survey of non-[[cis]] people in the USA, 4% of respondents (about 1,108 people) called themselves third gender.<ref name="2015USTS-44">{{Cite web |title=2015 U.S. Transgender Survey Complete Report |date= |access-date=23 October 2020 |url= https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-Full-Report-Dec17.pdf|page=44|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230308214644/https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-Full-Report-Dec17.pdf|archive-date=17 July 2023}}</ref>

The term "third gender" has been criticized by some. For example, in a 2014 thesis on Inuit gender complexity, archaeologist Meghan Walley wrote that "We must move away from interpretations that position nonbinary gender as a ''third'' element or an anomaly and instead embrace the critical and challenging work that will be necessary to construct understandings of complex gender systems that [don't] assume binary gender as a precondition for nonbinary gender."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://research.library.mun.ca/13252/1/thesis.pdf|title=Examining Precontact Inuit Gender Complexity and Its Discursive Potential for LGBTQ2S+ and Decolonization Movements|date=2014|last=Walley|first=Meghan|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230508173625/https://research.library.mun.ca/13252/1/thesis.pdf|archive-date=17 July 2023}}</ref>

== Intersex people and third gender ==

''See main article: [[intersex]]''

[[Intersex]] people are born with sex characteristics, such as chromosomes, gonads, or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies".<ref name="unfe-fact">{{Cite web| author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> | publisher = United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights | title = Free & Equal Campaign Fact Sheet: Intersex| date = 2015| url = https://unfe.org/system/unfe-65-Intersex_Factsheet_ENGLISH.pdf | access-date = 28 March 2016 }}</ref> A sex and gender distinction is not universal, and Peletz's description of gender as designating biological variations as well as cultural practices is not unique. In a study of arguments that intersex people fit into a third gender classification, intersex scholar Morgan Holmes argues that much analysis of a third sex or third gender is simplistic:<ref>{{cite journal |last=Holmes |first=Morgan |author-link=Morgan Holmes |date=July 2004 |title=Locating Third Sexes |url=http://www.transformationsjournal.org/issues/08/article_03.shtml |journal=Transformations Journal |volume= |issue=8 |pages= |issn=1444-3775 |accessdate=2014-12-28 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20170110091545/http://www.transformationsjournal.org/issues/08/article_03.shtml |archivedate=2017-01-10 |df= |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230415005118/http://www.transformationsjournal.org/issues/08/article_03.shtml |archive-date=17 July 2023 }}</ref>
{{quote|much of the existing work on cultural systems that incorporate a 'third sex' portray simplistic visions in which societies with more than two sex/gender categories are cast as superior to those that divide the world into just two. I argue that to understand whether a system is more or less oppressive than another we have to understand how it treats its various members, not only its 'thirds'.}}

Like non-intersex people, some intersex individuals may not identify themselves as either exclusively female or exclusively male, but most appear to be men or women.<ref name="Money">{{cite book |last=Money |first=John |author-link = John Money |author2=Ehrhardt, Anke A. |title=Man & Woman Boy & Girl. Differentiation and dimorphism of gender identity from conception to maturity |year=1972 |publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press |location=USA |isbn=978-0-8018-1405-1 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/manwomanboygirl00mone |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220612131547/https://archive.org/details/manwomanboygirl00mone |archive-date=17 July 2023 }}</ref><ref name="Dreger">{{cite book |last=Domurat Dreger |first=Alice |title=Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex |year=2001 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=USA |isbn=978-0-674-00189-3 }}</ref><ref name="maranon">{{cite book |last=Marañón |first=Gregorio |title=Los estados intersexuales en la especie humana |year=1929 |publisher=Morata |location=Madrid }}</ref> A clinical review suggests that between 8.5–20% of people with intersex conditions may experience [[gender dysphoria]],<ref name="furtado">{{cite journal | author = Furtado P. S.| year = 2012 | title = Gender dysphoria associated with disorders of sex development | url = | journal = Nat. Rev. Urol. | volume = 9 | issue = 11| pages = 620–627 | doi = 10.1038/nrurol.2012.182 |display-authors=etal | pmid=23045263| archive-url = False | archive-date = 17 July 2023 }}</ref> while sociological research in Australia, a country which offers a nonbinary legal sex classification ("X"), shows that 19% of people born with atypical sex characteristics selected an "X" or "other" option, while 52% are women, 23% men and 6% unsure.<ref name="jonesbk2016">{{Cite book|publisher=Open Book Publishers |isbn=978-1-78374-208-0 |last1=Jones |first1=Tiffany |last2=Hart |first2=Bonnie |last3=Carpenter |first3=Morgan |last4=Ansara |first4=Gavi |last5=Leonard |first5=William |last6=Lucke |first6=Jayne |title=Intersex: Stories and Statistics from Australia |location=Cambridge, UK |accessdate=2016-02-02 |date=February 2016 |url=http://oii.org.au/wp-content/uploads/key/Intersex-Stories-Statistics-Australia.pdf |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160914152729/http://oii.org.au/wp-content/uploads/key/Intersex-Stories-Statistics-Australia.pdf |archivedate=2016-09-14 |df= |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230530185958/https://oii.org.au/wp-content/uploads/key/Intersex-Stories-Statistics-Australia.pdf |archive-date=17 July 2023 }}</ref><ref name="oiiaudemo">{{Citation| last = Organisation Intersex International Australia| title = Demographics| date = July 28, 2016| url = https://oii.org.au/demographics/| accessdate = 2016-09-30| archive-date = 2016-10-01| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20161001215740/https://oii.org.au/demographics/| url-status = bot: unknown}} on 17 July 2023</ref> [[Alex MacFarlane]] is believed to be the first person in Australia to obtain a birth certificate recording sex as indeterminate, and the first Australian passport with an 'X' sex marker in 2003.<ref name="West Australian">[http://www.bodieslikeours.org/pdf/xmarks.pdf "X marks the spot for intersex Alex"], West Australian, via bodieslikeours.org. 11 January 2003 [https://web.archive.org/web/20220924112046/https://www.bodieslikeours.org/pdf/xmarks.pdf Archived] on 17 July 2023</ref>

The third International Intersex Forum, held in November/December 2013, made statements for the first time on sex and gender registration:<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.ilga-europe.org/home/news/latest/intersex_forum_2013|title= 3rd International Intersex Forum concluded|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131204073813/http://www.ilga-europe.org/home/news/latest/intersex_forum_2013 |archive-date=2013-12-04 }}, ILGA-Europe (Creative Commons statement), 2 December 2013</ref><ref>[http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/global-intersex-community-affirms-shared-goals/113806 Global intersex community affirms shared goals], Star Observer, December 4, 2013 [https://web.archive.org/web/20230608080746/http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/global-intersex-community-affirms-shared-goals/113806 Archived] on 17 July 2023</ref><ref>[http://aiclegal.org/public-statement-by-the-third-international-intersex-forum/ Public Statement by the Third International Intersex Forum], Advocates for Informed Choice, 12 December 2013 [https://web.archive.org/web/20220505210044/http://aiclegal.org/public-statement-by-the-third-international-intersex-forum/ Archived] on 17 July 2023</ref><ref>[http://oii.org.au/24241/public-statement-by-the-third-international-intersex-forum/ Public statement by the third international intersex forum], Organisation Intersex International Australia, 2 December 2013 [https://web.archive.org/web/20230302153133/https://oii.org.au/24241/public-statement-by-the-third-international-intersex-forum/ Archived] on 17 July 2023</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=471190186323466&id=144553798987108 |title=Öffentliche Erklärung des Dritten Internationalen Intersex Forum|language=de|author= Intersex Austria|date= 8 December 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230414222233/https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=471190186323466&id=144553798987108|archive-date=17 July 2023}}</ref><ref>[https://twitter.com/intersexuk/status/407790650084823040 IntersexUK consensus paper.3rd International IntersexForum concluded...], Intersex UK on Twitter, 3 December 2013 [https://web.archive.org/web/20230419190451/https://twitter.com/intersexuk/status/407790650084823040 Archived] on 17 July 2023</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=http://nnid.nl/2013/12/03/derde-internationale-intersekse-forum/ |language=nl |title=Derde Internationale Intersekse Forum| author= Nederlandse Netwerk Intersekse/DSD (NNID)|date= 3 December 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.intersexualite.de/index.php/public-statement-third-international-intersex-forum/ |title=Public Statement by the Third International Intersex Forum |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131226074847/http://www.intersexualite.de/index.php/public-statement-third-international-intersex-forum/ |archive-date=26 December 2013|publisher= IVIM/OII-Germany|date= 1 December 2013|language=de}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.oii.tw/Home/3rd-is-forum-statement |language=zh|title= 2013 第三屆世界陰陽人論壇宣言 |author= Oii-Chinese |date=December 2013}}</ref>
{{quote|
* To register intersex children as females or males, with the awareness that, like all people, they may grow up to identify with a different sex or gender.
* To ensure that sex or gender classifications are amendable through a simple administrative procedure at the request of the individuals concerned. All adults and capable minors should be able to choose between female (F), male (M), non-binary or multiple options. In the future, as with race or religion, sex or gender should not be a category on birth certificates or identification documents for anybody.}}

The Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions states that the legal recognition of intersex people is firstly about access to the same rights as other men and women, when assigned male or female; secondly it is about access to administrative corrections to legal documents when an original sex assignment is not appropriate; and thirdly it is not about the creation of a third sex or gender classification for intersex people as a population but it is, instead, about self-determination.<ref name="afp2016">{{Cite book| publisher = Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions| isbn = 978-0-9942513-7-4| last = Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions| title = Promoting and Protecting Human Rights in relation to Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Sex Characteristics| date = June 2016| url = http://www.asiapacificforum.net/resources/manual-sogi-and-sex-charactersitics/}}</ref>

In March 2017, an Australian and Aotearoa/New Zealand community statement called for an end to legal classification of sex, stating that legal third classifications, like binary classifications, were based on structural violence and failed to respect diversity and a "right to self-determination". It also called for the criminalization of deferrable intersex medical interventions.<ref name="darlington2017">{{Citation| last1 = Androgen Insensitivity Support Syndrome Support Group Australia| last2 = Intersex Trust Aotearoa New Zealand| last3 = Organisation Intersex International Australia| last4 = Black| first4 = Eve| last5 = Bond| first5 = Kylie| last6 = Briffa| first6 = Tony| author6-link = Tony Briffa| last7 = Carpenter| first7 = Morgan| author7-link = Morgan Carpenter| last8 = Cody| first8 = Candice| last9 = David| first9 = Alex| last10 = Driver| first10 = Betsy| last11 = Hannaford| first11 = Carolyn| last12 = Harlow| first12 = Eileen| last13 = Hart| first13 = Bonnie| author13-link = Bonnie Hart| last14 = Hart| first14 = Phoebe| author14-link = Phoebe Hart| last15 = Leckey| first15 = Delia| last16 = Lum| first16 = Steph| last17 = Mitchell| first17 = Mani Bruce| author17-link = Mani Bruce Mitchell| last18 = Nyhuis| first18 = Elise| last19 = O'Callaghan| first19 = Bronwyn| last20 = Perrin| first20 = Sandra| last21 = Smith| first21 = Cody| last22 = Williams| first22 = Trace| last23 = Yang| first23 = Imogen| last24 = Yovanovic| first24 = Georgie| title = Darlington Statement| date = March 2017| url = https://oii.org.au/darlington-statement/| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170322204013/https://oii.org.au/darlington-statement/| archive-date = 2017-03-22| accessdate = March 21, 2017| url-status = bot: unknown}}</ref><ref name="copland2017ds">{{Cite web| last = Copland| first = Simon| title = Intersex people have called for action. It's time to listen.| work = Special Broadcasting Service| accessdate = 2017-03-21| date = March 20, 2017| url = http://www.sbs.com.au/topics/sexuality/agenda/article/2017/03/20/intersex-people-have-called-action-its-time-listen}}</ref>

== Indigenous peoples and third gender ==
''See main article: [[gender-variant identities worldwide]]''

Some anthropologists and sociologists describe what they call third, fourth,<ref>{{cite book|last=Trumbach|first= Randolph|year= 1994|chapter=London’s Sapphists: From Three Sexes to Four Genders in the Making of Modern Culture|title= Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History|editor=Herdt, Gilbert|page=111-136|isbn=978-0-942299-82-3}}</ref> fifth,<ref name="Graham">Graham, Sharyn (2001), [http://www.insideindonesia.org/weekly-articles/sulawesis-fifth-gender Sulawesi's fifth gender], Inside Indonesia, April–June 2001. [https://web.archive.org/web/20230307031511/http://www.insideindonesia.org/weekly-articles/sulawesis-fifth-gender Archived] on 17 July 2023</ref> and "some"<ref name="Martin">{{cite book |author1=Martin, M. Kay |author2=Voorhies, Barbara |date=1975 |chapter=4. Supernumerary Sexes |title=Female of the Species |location=New York, N.Y. |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=9780231038751 |oclc=1094960 |page= |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/femaleofspecies0000mart |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/femaleofspecies0000mart |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220610092717/https://archive.org/details/femaleofspecies0000mart |archive-date=17 July 2023 }}</ref> genders. Not all cultures have strictly defined gender roles.<ref name=LeBow>LeBow, Diana, ''Rethinking Matriliny Among the Hopi'', p.8.</ref><ref name=Schlegel>Schlegel, Alice, ''Hopi Gender Ideology of Female Superiority'', in ''Quarterly Journal of Ideology: "A Critique of the Conventional Wisdom"'', vol. VIII, no. 4, 1984, pp.44–52</ref><ref name=Juettner>100 Native Americans Who Shaped American History, Juettner, 2007.</ref><ref>McGee, R. Jon and Richard L. Warms 2011 Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History. New York, McGraw Hill.</ref>

Other scholars—especially Indigenous scholars—stress that mainstream scholars' lack of cultural understanding and context has led to widespread misrepresentation of third gender people, as well as misrepresentations of the cultures in question, including whether or not this concept actually applies to these cultures at all.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://rspas.anu.edu.au/papers/pah/theravada.html |title=Asia and the Pacific – ANU |accessdate=27 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221123201809/https://rspas.anu.edu.au/papers/pah/theravada.html |archive-date=17 July 2023 }}</ref><ref name=Pember>{{cite web|url=https://rewire.news/article/2016/10/13/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes/|title='Two Spirit' Tradition Far From Ubiquitous Among Tribes|publisher=Rewire (website)|first=Mary Annette |last=Pember |date=Oct 13, 2016|accessdate=Oct 17, 2016 |quote= Unfortunately, depending on an oral tradition to impart our ways to future generations opened the floodgates for early non-Native explorers, missionaries, and anthropologists to write books describing Native peoples and therefore bolstering their own role as experts. These writings were and still are entrenched in the perspective of the authors who were and are mostly white men.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230604044112/https://rewire.news/article/2016/10/13/two-spirit-tradition-far-ubiquitous-among-tribes/|archive-date=17 July 2023}}</ref><ref name="de Vries 2009">{{cite book|last1=de Vries|first1=Kylan Mattias|editor1-last=O'Brien|editor1-first=Jodi|title=Encyclopedia of gender and society|date=2009|publisher=SAGE|location=Los Angeles |isbn=9781412909167 |page=64 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_nyHS4WyUKEC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0|accessdate=6 March 2015|chapter=Berdache (Two-Spirit)}}</ref><ref name=Kehoe>{{cite web|last=Kehoe |first=Alice B.| authorlink=Alice Beck Kehoe |title=Appropriate Terms|work=SAA Bulletin|publisher=Society for American Archaeology 16(2), UC-Santa Barbara|date=2002 |issn= 0741-5672|url=https://www.saa.org/publications/saabulletin/16-2/saa14.html | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20041105120021/https://www.saa.org/publications/saabulletin/16-2/saa14.html |archivedate= 2004-11-05 |doi = |accessdate= 2019-05-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230305220818/https://www.saa.org/publications/saabulletin/16-2/saa14.html|archive-date=17 July 2023}}</ref>

Gender can 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 world of humans.<ref name="SellIngrid">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.132</ref> 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.<ref name=Stewart>{{cite book |editor1-last=Stewart |editor1-first=Chuck |title=Proud heritage : people, issues, and documents of the LGBT experience |date=2014 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-61069-398-1 |page=345}}</ref> In most western cultures, people who do not conform to heteronormative ideals are often seen as sick, disordered, or insufficiently formed.<ref name="SellIngrid" />

The Indigenous ''[[māhū]]'' of Hawaii are seen as embodying an intermediate state between man and woman, or as people "of indeterminate gender",<ref name="vargas2015">{{cite web|last1=Llosa |first1=Mario Vargas |authorlink1=Mario Vargas Llosa |title=The men-women of the Pacific |url=http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/men-women-pacific |website=tate.org.uk |publisher=Tate Britain |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402100743/http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/men-women-pacific |archivedate=2 April 2015 |url-status=live |df= |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230323202357/http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/men-women-pacific |archive-date=17 July 2023 }}</ref> while some traditional Diné of the Southwestern US recognize a spectrum of four genders: feminine woman, masculine woman, feminine man, masculine man.<ref name=Estrada>{{cite journal | last1 = Estrada | first1 = Gabriel S | year = 2011 | title = Two Spirits, Nádleeh, and LGBTQ2 Navajo Gaze | url = http://nativeout.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Two-Spirits-Nadleeh-and-Navajo-LGBTQ2-Gaze.pdf | journal = American Indian Culture and Research Journal | volume = 35 | issue = 4| pages = 167–190 | doi=10.17953/aicr.35.4.x500172017344j30}}</ref> The term "third gender" has also been used to describe the ''hijras'' of South Asia<ref name="agrawal1997">{{cite journal |doi=10.1177/006996697031002005 |title=Gendered Bodies: The Case of the 'Third Gender' in India |year=1997 |last1=Agrawal |first1=A. |journal=Contributions to Indian Sociology |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=273–297}}</ref>, the ''[[fa'afafine]]'' of Polynesia, and the Albanian sworn virgins.<ref name="Young">{{cite book|last=Young|first= Antonia |year=2000|title=Women Who Become Men: Albanian Sworn Virgins|isbn=1-85973-335-2}}</ref>

== Transgender people and third gender ==

[[File:Aktion_Standesamt_2018_Abschlusskundgebung_vor_dem_Kanzleramt_in_Berlin_46_(cropped).png|thumb|Aktion Standesamt 2018, a protest in support of a third gender, in front of the chancellery in Berlin. Marchers hold signs about intersex rights, transgender and nonbinary identity, and a legal third gender option.]]

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. A majority of them, again like their Eastern counterparts, were artistic enough to make a living from their 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>

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 |author-link= |title= License to Be Yourself |year=2014|publisher=Open Society Foundations |location=New York |isbn=9781940983103 |url=http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/license-be-yourself | accessdate=2014-12-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230709163549/https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/license-be-yourself |archive-date=17 July 2023 }}</ref> The report comments on the recognition of third classifications, stating:
{{quote|
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:
{{quote|
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" />

In the 2019 Worldwide Gender Census, 2.17% (244) of the responses called themselves third gender.<ref name="2019 Gender Census" />

== 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 for 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 |title=The Social Studies Curriculum: Purposes, Problems, and Possibilities |publisher=SUNY Press |year=2006|isbn= 978-0-7914-6909-5 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=4qFMqjxte9IC }}</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>

One such term, [[Uranian]], was used in the 19th century to 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). The word Uranian (''Urning'') was derived by Ulrichs from the Greek goddess Aphrodite Urania, who was created out of the god Uranus' testicles; it stood for homosexuality, while Aphrodite Dionea (''Dioning'') represented heterosexuality.<ref>[http://www.mmkaylor.com Michael Matthew Kaylor, ''Secreted Desires: The Major Uranians: Hopkins, Pater and Wilde'' (Brno, CZ: Masaryk University Press, 2006)] [https://web.archive.org/web/20230604143426/http://mmkaylor.com/ Archived] on 17 July 2023</ref> Lesbian activist Anna Rueling used the term in a 1904 speech, "What Interest Does the Women's Movement Have in Solving the Homosexual Problem?"<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pAny0qfa6qsC&pg=PA79|title=Finding Out: An Introduction to LGBT Studies|first1=Deborah T.|last1=Meem|first2=Michelle|last2=Gibson|first3=Michelle A.|last3=Gibson|first4=Jonathan|last4=Alexander|date=28 May 2018|publisher=SAGE|via=Google Books|isbn=9781412938655|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230524034337/https://books.google.com/books?id=pAny0qfa6qsC&pg=PA79|archive-date=17 July 2023}}</ref>

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 name="Schmidt2001">{{cite journal|url=http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue6/schmidt.html|title=Intersections: Redefining Fa'afafine: Western Discourses and the Construction of Transgenderism in Samoa|issue=6|journal=Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context|date=August 2001|last=Schmidt|first=Johanna|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230607193353/http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue6/schmidt.html|archive-date=17 July 2023}}</ref>

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 name="Schmidt2001" />

In ''How to become a Berdache: Toward a unified analysis of gender diversity'', Will Roscoe writes that "this pattern can be traced from the earliest accounts of the Spaniards to present-day ethnographies. What has been written about berdaches reflects more the influence of existing Western discourses on gender, sexuality and the Other than what observers actually witnessed."<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.phenomenologycenter.org/course/berdache.htm| title=How to become a Berdache: Toward a unified analysis of gender diversity|last=Roscoe| first=Will |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090226235121/http://www.phenomenologycenter.org/course/berdache.htm|archive-date=26 February 2009}}</ref>

According to Towle and Morgan:

{{quote|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>{{cite web|url=http://feed.belowthebelt.org/2009/10/great-third-gender-debate.html |title=The Great Third Gender Debate; BELOW THE BELT, theory-q |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110503222350/http://feed.belowthebelt.org/2009/10/great-third-gender-debate.html |archive-date=3 May 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 hermaphrodites. 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>{{cite web| url=http://rspas.anu.edu.au/papers/pah/theravada.html |title=Non-normative Sex/Gender Categories in the Theravada Buddhist Scriptures|author=Compiled by Peter A. Jackson |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120224134527/http://rspas.anu.edu.au/papers/pah/theravada.html |archive-date=February 24, 2012 }}</ref>

Some writers suggest that a third gender emerged around 1700 AD in England: the male 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 houses), 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 | doi=10.1300/J082v06n01_10 | title=The "Third Sex" Theory of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs | year=1981 | last1=Kennedy | first1=Hubert | journal=Journal of Homosexuality | volume=6 | pages=103–111 | pmid=7042820 | issue=1–2  }}</ref> and continuing in the late nineteenth century with Magnus Hirschfeld,<ref name="Hirschfeld 1904">Magnus Hirschfeld, 1904. ''Berlins Drittes Geschlecht'' ("Berlin's Third Sex")</ref> John Addington Symonds,<ref name="Ellis 1897">Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds, 1897. ''Sexual Inversion''.</ref> Edward Carpenter,<ref name="fordham.edu">Edward Carpenter, 1908. ''[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/carpenter-is.html The Intermediate Sex: A Study of Some Transitional Types of Men and Women]''. [https://web.archive.org/web/20230530190549/https://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/carpenter-is.html Archived] on 17 July 2023</ref> 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>{{cite book|last=Jones |first=James W.|year=1990|title="We of the third sex” : Literary Representations of Homosexuality in Wilhelmine Germany.'' (German Life and Civilization v. 7) |location=New York|publisher=Peter Lang Publishing|isbn=0-8204-1209-0}}</ref> 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 | last1=Sell |first1= 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".

== Third gender and feminism ==

In Wilhelmine Germany, the terms ''drittes Geschlecht'' ("third sex") and ''Mannweib'' ("man-woman") were also used to describe feminists – both by their opponents<ref>{{cite journal | jstor=407320 | pages=582–599 | last1=Wright | first1=B. D. | title="New Man," Eternal Woman: Expressionist Responses to German Feminism | volume=60 | issue=4 | journal=The German Quarterly | year=1987 | doi=10.2307/407320  }}</ref> and sometimes by feminists themselves. In the 1899 novel ''Das dritte Geschlecht'' (''The Third Sex'') by Ernst Ludwig von Wolzogen, feminists are portrayed as "neuters" with external female characteristics accompanied by a "crippled male psyche."


== See also ==
* [[Gender-variant identities worldwide]]
* [[List of nonbinary identities]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book |first=Susan |last=Aldous |first2=Pornchai |last2=Sereemongkonpol |title=Ladyboys: The Secret World of Thailand's Third Gender |publisher=Maverick House |location= |year=2008 |pages= |isbn=978-1-905379-48-4 |oclc= |doi= }}
* {{cite book |last=Herdt |first=Gilbert H. |title=Third sex, third gender: beyond sexual dimorphism in culture and history |publisher=Zone Books |location=New York |year=1996 |pages= |isbn=978-0-942299-82-3 |oclc= |doi= }}
*{{cite news |last=Mahapatra |first=Dhananjay |title=Supreme Court recognizes transgenders as 'third gender' |url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Supreme-Court-recognizes-transgenders-as-third-gender/articleshow/33767900.cms |date=April 15, 2014 |work=The Times of India|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230323202321/http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Supreme-Court-recognizes-transgenders-as-third-gender/articleshow/33767900.cms |archive-date=17 July 2023 }}
* {{cite journal | last=Morris |first= Rosalind |year= 1994 |title=Three Sexes and Four Sexualities: Redressing the Discourses on Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Thailand | journal =  Positions | volume=2|issue=1 |pages=15–43 | doi=10.1215/10679847-2-1-15 |url= https://semanticscholar.org/paper/6680e3cd3e72d54dc3a5822968faa40821a6d6a8 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210227091228/https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6680e3cd3e72d54dc3a5822968faa40821a6d6a8 |archive-date=17 July 2023 }}

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[[Category:Identities]]