Third gender: Difference between revisions

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}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20230302154357/https://oii.org.au/demographics Archived] 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>

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* 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.

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" />

== Transgender people and third gender ==

[[Image:Thirdsex bookcover 1959.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Cover of Artemis Smith's 1959 [[lesbian]] pulp fiction novel ''The Third Sex'']]

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>