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Gender in other cultures

Q: Is there a universal definition of gender?

No. How gender is defined, organized and experienced differs widely across cultures and eras.

Q: Are third gender categories in other cultures the same as transgender in the Western sense?

Not necessarily. Cultural gender categories such as hijra, fa'afafine and muxe have their own meanings and traditions that cannot simply be equated with Western concepts.

Q: In how many countries is a third gender legally recognised?

A growing number of countries have legally introduced a third gender category, including India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Germany and Australia.

Non-Western cultures sometimes recognise social categories that fall outside the man-woman binary: two-spirit, hijra, fa'afafine, muxe, kathoey. These categories are regularly invoked in the contemporary Western gender debate as evidence that 'third genders' are universal and that our binary model is artificial. That picture is problematic for several reasons. The categories named are culturally very specific, often marginalised, and generally do not map well onto the Western terms 'transgender' or 'non-binary'.

Two-spirit in indigenous North American cultures

'Two-spirit' is not a traditional term but an umbrella concept proposed at a conference in Winnipeg in 1990. The original indigenous categories – differing per nation, language and period – usually referred to specific ceremonial or task-bound roles, not to an inner gender identity in the sense of modern Western discourse. Some indigenous voices oppose the incorporation of their traditions into the Western LGBTI+ vocabulary and see it as a form of cultural appropriation.

Hijra in South Asia

Hijra in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have long been a stigmatised group, often tied to poverty, begging and sex work. Many are born male and undergo ritual castration. Legal recognition as a 'third sex' (2014) has partly improved their position but was received critically by Indian feminists, who pointed to the risk of legalising coercion and bodily harm. Romanticising hijra as a cosmopolitan example of 'gender diversity' ignores the harsh reality of their lives.

Fa'afafine in Samoa

Fa'afafine in Samoa are biologically male persons who function in female roles within the family – often because a family lacks daughters and care tasks need to be filled. The category is therefore partly economically and socially explicable, not primarily an 'identity'. Research by Vasey and VanderLaan suggests an evolutionary background tied to kin selection. The fa'afafine role is not straightforwardly applicable to a Western, individualised transgender identity.

Muxe in Mexico

Muxe among the Zapotec are again a distinct social category with their own functions in the community. Their acceptance has been partly inflated in Western media; in reality they too face stigma, and the category is strongly tied to specific economic and familial roles. Ethnographic research (Lynn Stephen) describes the muxe role in far more nuanced terms than the prevailing Western portrayal.

Kathoey in Thailand

Kathoey in Thailand are visible but largely marginalised in the entertainment and sex industries. Thai society is superficially tolerant, but legal rights (for instance changing sex in official documents) are largely absent. The Western image of Thailand as a 'trans paradise' is a tourist cliché, not an accurate description.

Western interpretation and caution

Using non-Western gender phenomena globally as an argument in favour of modern Western gender-identity theory is problematic on several levels. First, very different, culturally embedded phenomena are artificially lumped together. Second, the fact that all these categories generally come with stigma, poverty and violence is ignored. Third, the rhetoric often serves a specifically Western purpose: the claim of universal validation for a conceptual apparatus that originated here.

Anthropologists such as Sahar Amer and David Valentine have pointed to these problems. Ironically, many non-Western gender phenomena invoke precisely the opposite of what they are supposed to demonstrate: namely, that societies have always recognised biological sex and that deviating roles were usually not seen as a 'third sex', but as special positions within a binary sex structure.

Is there a universal definition of gender?

Are third gender categories in other cultures the same as transgender in the Western sense?

In how many countries is a third gender legally recognised?