#third-gender

[ghostlymongoose]

This is something that's been tugging at my heartstrings for as long as I can remember.

I'd be lying if I said I've never quite felt as the gender that was assigned to me at birth. Because I did. I was born a cisgender male and it felt right. Or, at the very least, it felt partially right. Like it was always just one half of what or who I really am.

I would adamantly try to deny these strange feelings I'd get while coming across terms such as "non-binary" or "intersex".

Because we've always been taught that there only exist two sexes: male and female.

Transgender people are viewed as "strange" or "diseased" by most cishet folk because of their simple inability to comprehend those who are different from them.

However, they are, at the very least, becoming more and more visible in both media coverage and the regular everyday life. And their existence had become much more digestible to the general mainstream culture under the oversimplified explanation how transgender people are just "people who feel like, and desire to be, the opposite gender".

Then what can someone tell me about those of us who've always felt like multiple genders at once.

As previously mentioned...

I was born and raised a male but always felt like the other half of me is missing. Like this gender identity I possess is only half of the entire truth.

Because I've always felt like I was meant to be both a man and a woman at the same time. And this is not just when speaking about my identity, but body and mind as well.

Even my genital always felt incomplete without the lady bits.

And that's when I learned of the old Greek legend of a "Hermaphrodite", or "Hermaphroditus".

Now, for those of you who are not familiar with this term, let me explain...

There are multiple versions of this ancient myth, but they all share one major important aspect in common.

Hermaphroditus was the bastard child of Aphrodite, goddess of love, and the messenger god - Hermes.

"It" was described as a two-sexed being of both male and female likeness and was considered an important symbol in fertility and marriage unions, as it symbolized both "power of a man" and "beauty and compassion of a woman".

But, as it turns out, Ancient Greek people were not the only nation known for such a tale.

Majority of the Hinduistic pantheon are gods and goddesses described as at least partially androgynous.

Come forth, Ardhanarishvara

The one whose name would literally translate "Half-Female Lord" from Sanskrit.

The form taken by the very supreme god Shiva when merging with his consort goddess, Parvati.

Ardhanarishvara represents the synthesis of masculine and feminine energies of the universe (Purusha and Prakriti) and illustrates how Shakti, the female principle of God, is inseparable from (or the same as, according to some interpretations) Shiva, the male principle of God, and vice versa. The union of these principles is exalted as the root and womb of all creation. Another view is that Ardhanarishvara is a symbol of Shiva's all-pervasive nature. And that's not even mentioning traditional Hindu notion of the "third gender" people known as hijras.

Or who can forget the gender nonconforming individuals of ancient Hawaiian and certain Native American tribes. "Two-Spirit" individuals, as they are called today.

These men and women behaved in a manner befitting both sexes and we're often permitted or even downright encouraged to participate in roles attributed to the opposite sex.

Mahū, as they were called in Hawaii, were "third gender" people with traditionally spiritual and religious roles in their society. Historically, it's been used primarily for those born male, but it's meaning had evolved since then and has come to refer to multitude of genders and sexual orientations in modern Hawaii.

Māhū were particularly respected as teachers, usually of hula dance and chant. In pre-contact times māhū performed the roles of goddesses in hula dances that took place in temples which were off-limits to women. Māhū were also valued as the keepers of cultural traditions, such as the passing down of genealogies. Traditionally parents would ask māhū to name their children.

The term itself may be used either pejoratively or respectfully when referring to modern LGBTQI+ people of Hawaii.

But yes

All these traditions and mythologies aside,

Hermaphroditism and Intersexuality had always been so very intriguing and inviting for me. Imagine my surprise to learn that over half of the plant world is hermaphroditic and in possession of both male and female reproductive parts. The same thing applies to creatures such as snails, slugs, leeches,etc. Not to mention a pseudo-hermaphroditism that occurs in female hyenas and cassowaries evolving pseudo-penises.

Or the very people who are born Intersex and thus possess characteristic of both sexes.

Gender dysphoria has been something I've come to consider a lot. Especially as of late. And I cannot deny that I've always felt amused when somebody happens to misgender me online.

Once I had been referred to as "ma'am" by an online friend of mine when rp-ing as a genderless character from an old video game.

I was intrigued not because I found it funny but rather endearing. Something deep inside told me that calling myself ma'am feels just as right as being announced as sir.

I've always felt as intersex in a way. At least in my subconscious.

I've always identified as pan or bi and felt attracted to both men and women (especially to dominant, muscular ones but that is a story for another day). But I was always particularly fond of gay shippings and stories. And it's very fun to see many best fanfics blur the line between "passive/feminine" partner and an "active/dominant" one. Only further emphasizing the duality within human being.

But, of course, my yearning to explore more themes of gender nonconformity and "Intersexuality" do not stop there.

Intersex People sorely lack in representation and it is never unwelcomed to behold a cool fictional character falling under that category.

Seeing The Titan from The Owl House present themselves as bigender being was beyond awesome.

Not to mention that, while I don't know if they can be counted as such, Raine Whispers perfectly captures an androgynous non-gender specified appearance.

Or the amazing Body Swap mode that Shovel Knight offers to it's players. In which you are not only able to genderswap any important member of the original cast (and thus create semi-canon queer romances 😉), but also put your titular protagonist into a female body while giving then gender neutral or even masculine pronouns.

And how a very similar thing is included in the critically acclaimed masterpiece that is Elden Ring.

In which you are not just able to change your character's gender and body type at will, but also experiment with them. Putting a female head on a male protagonist (and vice versa) is a memorable and progressive feature for sure.

Sadly, however

Such portrayals aren't always in positive light.

One of my all time fav 3D Platformer franchises, Ty The Tasmanian Tiger, does include a villainous eldritch race of hermaphroditic shape-shifting extraterrestrials known as "Quinkans". Who serve as the main antagonists of the 3rd installment.

This also applies to old myths.

Take the old Romani mythology that includes a horrific self-fertilizing Poreskoro

The progenitor of many illnesses that wreak havoc upon humanity to this very day.

But as with everything else. Bad ones should be separated from the good portrayals and not be taken as the root of all beliefs, thus giving rise to prejudices and negative assumptions.

And for the sake of not making this post hours long, I shall just end it by announcing my support for all the other people who feel similarly about themselves. And to say that it feels so very liberating to be true to one's self.

Yes I AM a guy. But I am also equally a woman. Not neither. But both. And I am so very glad to be a part of this wonderful social media where differences between people are highly celebrated and explored.

And I want to thank anyone who took time and energy to read through this little article of mine. Hope it wasn't too long or tedious to read.

And with that, I wish you all a wonderful day 💐💖

[fire-fira]

My gender is a DEEP green foresty tiger-dragon-fey thing with a protective streak the size of the Grand Canyon. (So very much its own thing with zero correspondence to 'woman' or 'man' and like the polar opposite of agender/genderless/etc.)

So I asked nonbinary reddit this a while back:

And they really went all out, here are some of my favorite responses:

And of course, the most confusing of all to cis people:

Link to the original if you wanna see more responses! 

Edit: first off, wow I did not expect this to take off like it did, thank you! 

Second, this somehow made it onto TERF and anti-sjw tumblr and their replies are just proof they have no sense of humor.

[taliabhattwrites]

The Third Sex

After months of research and painstakingly connecting the threads of transmisogyny theory, queer activism, and field-wide epistemic injustice, I would like to present "The Third Sex": my treatise on a third-world transfeminism.

[sexlapis]

✧. ┊  5 TIMES YOU SAT ON NANAMI’S LAP

── .✦ nanami kento x gn!reader

s4w, fluff, cuddling, teasing, petnames, hand feeding, ooc nanami, sitting on nanami’s lap

⤷ nanami’s lap is your favourite seat. luckily for you, he is fine with being your…chair.

based off this post

a/n: #needthat #wantthat #sexyman #hotguy

[_____] = your name

masterlists

*

1 - NAP TIME

The rain droplets pelleting on the living room windows is what wakes you up, along with the deep chuckle of thunder that follows shortly afterwards.

One second it was all sunny with bright skies and now, it is dim and dark, and the only light in the room emanates from the television.

You do not remember putting this show on. You don’t remember falling asleep on the couch, either.

“Oh, look who’s awake.”

You sit up and there Nanami is, sitting opposite you on the couch, in his comfortable loungewear.

“Hey, I was watching that…” You mumble tiredly. A yawn escapes you. You rub your eyes.

“You were asleep when I came back, you know.”

“Yeah but…” you trail off. “When did you even come back?”

“An hour ago. I was excited to get my ‘welcome home’ kiss but instead, here you were; fast asleep and snoring like a bear.”

“I do not snore like a bear!”

Nanami grins and rests his back on the couch. “Don’t I get my kiss now?”

“…You called me a bear.”

“No, I said you sounded-“”

“Yeah, whatever, that’s the same thing.”

“Well, not r-“”

He’s interrupted by your unexpected crawl across the couch and sitting in his lap, covering the both of you with a blanket.

You rest your head on his shoulder.

“Do i still get my kiss-“”

“Oh shut up.”

2 - OFFICE HOURS

A knock on his door shocks Nanami out of his focus. “Come in.”

His office door opens and you appear, wearing your baggy pyjamas and dragging a blanket across the floor.

“_____…I’ve told you that you don’t need to knock. You’re the only other person who lives here.”

“Yeah, but it seems rude to just barge in so…” you waddle towards his desk where he sits, papers scattered all over his desk, “What are you doing?”

“Just some paperwork. Nothing interesting.”

“Yes, I know that part.” You respond to his last two words. “There’s a calculator…”

He lets out an amused huff. “What brings you here then?”

You shrug. “‘M bored…wanted to see what you were doing.”

“Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t think my paperwork will entertain you very much, baby.”

“Well…” You start. “I’m not exactly here for the paperwork…”

You’re now stood right beside Nanami and you peek at his empty lap.

Nanami notices. Nanami sighs.

He tucks out of his desk, just enough for his lap to be shown, and he only has to pat his thighs twice before your hopping right into it.

“Comfortable?” You shuffle in his lap, looking for the right position. It’s found, and you lean back to rest your back against his wide chest, blanket covering you legs.

“Yeah, I’m comfy.”

Nanami kisses your temple, and goes back to completing his work, which lulls you to sleep due to how absolutely boring it is.

3 - OVERTIME

Nanami heard keys fiddling with the door while he is on his laptop in the kitchen. He hears a loud, annoyed groan.

Must have been a long day for you.

Shoes are thrown onto the floor, along with your bag and your coat is flung onto the rack.

You trod to the doorway of the living room and Nanami’s sees how tired and disheveled you look.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

You only respond with a grumble.

“Hard day?”

Another grumble from you.

“Do you want to tell me all about it?”

A jumpy grumble clambers out of your mouth as you dash over to him and plop down on his inviting lap.

“Ugh, Kenny…these people…”

He rubs circles on you back, gently coaxing the complaints out of you.

“They’re so…they’re just so stupid.”

Nanami can’t help but chuckle at your bluntness and your genuine sadness at your coworkers’s stupidity.

“Seriously, they are! And don’t even get me started on that damn boss.”

So Nanami listens to you rant about your dumb coworkers while he just relishes in having you sit in his lap.

4 - GATHERINGS

On the rare occasion that you and Nanami organise a friend and family gathering, this time in the form of a barbecue, it is a success.

More people than you were both expecting showed up and your backyard was filled with music, friends, family members, chatter, kids running around and the smell of mouth-watering, flavourful meat.

The gathering lasts from noon until late evening, at which most people have left and the only ones who still lingered were close friends.

“Kento.” You walked up to where he sat on the outdoor couch, speaking to one of his work colleagues whose name you have forgotten. Something beginning with a ‘H’, you think?

“Hey, sweetheart.” He pauses his conversation to talk to you. “Are you tired?”

You were tired. You had been preparing the food, offering the food, playing with the kids, speaking to guests and now you feel the weight of all your hard work.

“I did not expect that many people to show up…”

“No, me neither. You did a great job, baby.” He huffs with a shake of his head. He then spreads his legs, more than they already are. “Do you want to rest?”

You are in in lap before he even finishes his sentence. Seriously, he does not finish his sentence.

He smiles at your urgency, admiring how cute you look curled up in his lap, your cheek squished up against his chest.

He takes a knitted blanket and throws it over your body, protecting you from the slight chill in the night air.

Nanami continues to speak to his friend, quieter now that you’re here, and caresses the back of your neck.

5 - MORNING BREAKFAST

“Kento, I’m- what’s all this?”

After spending a short time searching for Nanami, you find him outside in your colourful, shared garden. He sits on the garden chair, and on the medium-sized round table is a well prepared, delectable breakfast.

“Hm? Oh. This is breakfast.”

“Breakfast? But Kenny, I-“” You look down at your phone, checking the time, “I have to get to work-“”

“Call in late.”

You frown. “But-“”

“It’s such a nice morning, isn’t it?” He looks to the sky, taking a sip of his tea before looking at you. “Spend it with me.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong.

It was warm outside with beams of sunlight peaking through the gaps of the blooming blossom tree Nanami is stationed under. A gentle breeze curled through the air, the harmonic birdsong twinkled in your ears and the aroma of sweet-scented pastries wafted under your nose.

It did not take much to convince you.

“Okay. I’ll stay, but remind me to leave in thirty minutes.”

Nanami exhales and smiles, all soft and tender. “I’m glad. Come here, take a seat.”

Your stomach rumbles as you walk to sit in the garden chair opposite Nanami. He stops you.

“Where are you going?”

“Uhm…to sit down?”

“Oh, no, no…come sit on Kento’s lap, sweetheart. I want you to try this danish pastry,” he breaks off a piece so you can have some, “it’s my mother’s recipe.”

Ignoring your heart skipping a beat at how he referred to himself, you sit on his thigh, and he wraps an arm around your hip. He holds the piece of pastry to your mouth.

“Try a piece.”

You open your mouth and allow him to place it on you tongue, you lips briefly touching his fingertips. You laugh a little, flustered as you chew on the sweet treat. He licks his fingertip, the same one your lips touched.

“Do you like it?”

“Hmm! It’s very sweet!” You are glad you said yes to this. Work could handle you being a little late.

“Good.” Nanami shuffles forward in his chair, bringing you closer to the table of food. He kisses your shoulder and runs his hands up and down your waist. “Come on, eat up. You have a long day ahead of you.”

Nanami did not remind you to leave in those thirty minutes.

*

૮꒰ྀི∩´ ᵕ `∩꒱ྀིა

[crimsonender]

So since Lily doesn't know this and is being. Weird about intersex people, let me, an intersex trans person, illuminate.

Intersex people have similar rates of being trans or nonbinary as perisex people do.

Intersex is not a gender or a sexuality.

Intersex people that identify with the gender they were assigned at birth are cisgender, just like their perisex counterparts.

Intersex people that identify with a gender other than what they assigned at birth are transgender.

Please educate yourself on intersexuality. Stop learning about intersexuality from smut. :)

[radiomogai]

[PT: Third-gender Pride Flag. end PT]

Third-gender Pride Flag

Third-gender (sometimes third sex) is a subjective, empiricist and polysemic identity, because it encompasses many experiences, only third-gender people are able to describe themselves what third-genderness means. Sometimes these terms are more used in anthropology and sociology to classify the non-Western identity concepts, nonbinary categorizations and the terminology colonialists used to pathologize traditional genders, and gender roles, that can be reclaimed by some people today. Third-gender sometimes can be outside the binary logic, adherently binary and/or neither (as in anonbinary).

Identities like Bissu, Fa'afafine, Fakaleiti, Hijra, Māhū, Muxe, Takatāpui, Travestigender, Two-spirit and X-gender have all been referred to as third genders and people with cultural identities such as these can choose to reclaim the term for their own personal use, but don’t call someone with a cultural identity third gender without asking. It has also a symbol. ~ ap

[katrafiy]

I think about this image a lot. This is an image from the Aurat March (Women's March) in Karachi, Pakistan, on International Women's Day 2018. The women in the picture are Pakistani trans women, aka khwaja siras or hijras; one is a friend of a close friend of mine.

In the eyes of the Pakistani government and anthropologists, they're a "third gender." They're denied access to many resources that are available to cis women. Trans women in Pakistan didn't decide to be third-gendered; cis people force it on them whether they like it or not.

Western anthropologists are keen on seeing non-Western trans women as culturally constructed third genders, "neither male nor female," and often contrast them (a "legitimate" third gender accepted in its culture) with Western trans women (horrific parodies of female stereotypes).

There's a lot of smoke and mirrors and jargon used to obscure the fact that while each culture's trans women are treated as a single culturally constructed identity separate from all other trans women, cis women are treated as a universal category that can just be called "women."

Even though Pakistani aurat and German Frauen and Guatemalan mujer will generally lead extraordinarily different lives due to the differences in culture, they are universally recognized as women.

The transmisogynist will say, "Yes, but we can't ignore the way gender is culturally constructed, and hijras aren't trans women, they're a third gender. Now let's worry less about trans people and more about the rights of women in Burkina Faso."

In other words, to the transmisogynist, all cis women are women, and all trans women are something else.

"But Kat, you're not Indian or Pakistani. You're not a hijra or khwaja sira, why is this so important to you?"

Have you ever heard of the Neapolitan third gender "femminiello"? It's the term my moniker "The Femme in Yellow" is derived from, and yes, I'm Neapolitan. Shut up.

I'm going to tell you a little bit about the femminielli, and I want you to see if any of this sounds familiar. Femminielli are a third gender in Neapolitan culture of people assigned male at birth who have a feminine gender expression.

They are lauded and respected in the local culture, considered to be good omens and bringers of good luck. At festivals you'd bring a femminiello with you to go gambling, and often they would be brought in to give blessings to newborns. Noticing anything familiar yet?

Oh and also they were largely relegated to begging and sex work and were not allowed to be educated and many were homeless and lived in the back alleys of Naples, but you know we don't really like to mention that part because it sounds a lot less romantic and mystical.

And if you're sitting there, asking yourself why a an accurate description of femminiello sounds almost note for note like the same way hijras get described and talked about, then you can start to understand why that picture at the start of this post has so much meaning for me.

And you can also start to understand why I get so frustrated when I see other queer people buy into this fool notion that for some reason the transes from different cultures must never mix.

That friend I mentioned earlier is a white American trans woman. She spent years living in India, and as I recal the story the family she was staying with saw her as a white, foreign hijra and she was asked to use her magic hijra powers to bless the house she was staying in.

So when it comes to various cultural trans identities there are two ways we can look at this. We can look at things from a standpoint of expressed identity, in which case we have to preferentially choose to translate one word for the local word, or to leave it untranslated.

If we translate it, people will say we're artificially imposing an outside category (so long as it's not cis people, that's fine). If we don't, what we're implying, is that this concept doesn't exist in the target language, which suggests that it's fundamentally a different thing

A concrete example is that Serena Nanda in her 1990 and 2000 books, bent over backwards to say that Hijras are categorically NOT trans women. Lots of them are!

And Don Kulick bent over backwards in his 1998 book to say that travesti are categorically NOT trans women, even though some of the ones he cited were then and are now trans women.

The other option, is to look at practice, and talk about a community of practice of people who are AMAB, who wear women's clothing, take women's names, fulfill women's social roles, use women's language and mannerisms, etc WITHIN THEIR OWN CULTURAL CONTEXT.

This community of practice, whatever we want to call it - trans woman, hijra, transfeminine, femminiello, fairy, queen, to name just a few - can then be seen to CLEARLY be trans-national and trans-cultural in a way that is not clearly evident in the other way of looking at things.

And this is important, in my mind, because it is this axis of similarity that is serving as the basis for a growing transnational transgender rights movement, particularly in South Asia. It's why you see pictures like this one taken at the 2018 Aurat March in Karachi, Pakistan.

And it also groups rather than splits, pointing out not only points of continuity in the practices of western trans women and fa'afafines, but also between trans women in South Asia outside the hijra community, and members of the hijra community both trans women and not.

To be blunt, I'm not all that interested in the word trans woman, or the word hijra. I'm not interested in the word femminiello or the word fa'afafine.

I'm interested in the fact that when I visit India, and I meet hijras (or trans women, self-expressed) and I say I'm a trans woman, we suddenly sit together, talk about life, they ask to see American hormones and compare them to Indian hormones.

There is a shared community of practice that creates a bond between us that cis people don't have. That's not to say that we all have the exact same internal sense of self, but for the most part, we belong to the same community of practice based on life histories and behavior.

I think that's something cis people have absolutely missed - largely in an effort to artificially isolate trans women. This practice of arguing about whether a particular "third gender" label = trans women or not, also tends to artificially homogenize trans women as a group.

You see this in Kulick and Nanda, where if you read them, you could be forgiven for thinking all American trans women are white, middle class, middle-aged, and college-educated, who all follow rigid codes of behavior and surgical schedules prescribed by male physicians.

There are trans women who think of themselves as separate from cis women, as literally another kind of thing, there are trans women who think of themselves as coterminous with cis women, there are trans women who think of themselves as anything under the sun you want to imagine.

The problem is that historically, cis people have gone to tremendous lengths to destroy points of continuity in the transgender community (see everything I've cited and more), and particularly this has been an exercise in transmisogyny of grotesque levels.

The question is do you want to talk about culturally different ways of being trans, or do you want to try to create as many neatly-boxed third genders as you can to prop up transphobic theoretical frameworks? To date, people have done the latter. I'm interested in the former.

I guess what I'm really trying to say with all of this is that we're all family y'all.

[abrandnewshadow]

2007 la ink kat von d - frank iero episode

[donutdrawsthings]

When I went into Classic Who, I didn't expect to meet the silliest Billy there ever was.

[cmorris-art]

Julia and her vibe 💖

[alltimefail]

I love his face actually, if you even care. Pookie to the highest degree. Season 2 now @netflix @warnerbrostv

[rrcraft-and-lore]

In addition to my Monkey Man post from earlier, the always kind & sweet Aparna Verma (author of The Phoenix King, check it out) asked that I do a thread on Hijras, & more of the history around them, South Asia, mythology (because that's my thing), & the positive inclusion of them in Monkey Man which I brought up in my gushing review.

Hijra: They are the transgender, eunuch, or intersex people in India who are officially recognized as the third sex throughout most countries in the Indian subcontinent. The trans community and history in India goes back a long way as being documented and officially recognized - far back as 12th century under the Delhi Sultanate in government records, and further back in our stories in Hinduism. The word itself is a Hindi word that's been roughly translated into English as "eunuch" commonly but it's not exactly accurate.

Hijras have been considered the third sex back in our ancient stories, and by 2014 got official recognition to identify as the third gender (neither male or female) legally. Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and India have accepted: eunuch, trans, intersex people & granted them the proper identification options on passports and other government official documents.

But let's get into some of the history surrounding the Hijra community (which for the longest time has been nomadic, and a part of India's long, rich, and sometimes, sadly, troubled history of nomadic tribes/people who have suffered a lot over the ages. Hijras and intersex people are mentioned as far back as in the Kama Sutra, as well as in the early writings of Manu Smriti in the 1st century CE (Common Era), specifically said that a third sex can exist if possessing equal male and female seed.

This concept of balancing male/female energies, seed, and halves is seen in two places in South Asian mythos/culture and connected to the Hijra history.

First, we have Aravan/Iravan (romanized) - who is also the patron deity of the transgender community. He is most commonly seen as a minor/village deity and is depicted in the Indian epic Mahabharata. Aravan is portrayed as having a heroic in the story and his self-sacrifice to the goddess Kali earns him a boon.

He requests to be married before his death. But because he is doomed to die so shortly after marriage, no one wants to marry him.

No one except Krishna, who adopts his female form Mohini (one of the legendary temptresses in mythology I've written about before) and marries him. It is through this union of male, and male presenting as female in the female form of Mohini that the seed of the Hijras is said to begun, and why the transgender community often worships Aravan and, another name for the community is Aravani - of/from Aravan.

But that's not the only place where a gender non conforming divine representation can be seen. Ardhanarishvara is the half female form of lord Shiva, the destroyer god.

Shiva combines with his consort Parvarti and creates a form that represents the balancing/union between male/female energies and physically as a perfectly split down the middle half-male half-female being. This duality in nature has long been part of South Asian culture, spiritual and philosophical beliefs, and it must be noted the sexuality/gender has often been displayed as fluid in South Asian epics and the stories. It's nothing new.

Many celestial or cosmic level beings have expressed this, and defied modern western limiting beliefs on the ideas of these themes/possibilities/forms of existence.

Ardhanarishvara signifies "totality that lies beyond duality", "bi-unity of male and female in God" and "the bisexuality and therefore the non-duality" of the Supreme Being.

Back to the Hijra community.

They have a complex and long history. Throughout time, and as commented on in the movie, Monkey Man, the Hijra community has faced ostracization, but also been incorporated into mainstream society there. During the time of the Dehli Sultanate and then later the Mughal Empire, Hijras actually served in the military and as military commanders in some records, they were also servants for wealthy households, manual laborers, political guardians, and it was seen as wise to put women under the protection of Hijras -- they often specifically served as the bodyguards and overseers of harems. A princess might be appointed a Hijra warrior to guard her.

But by the time of British colonialism, anti-Hijra laws began to come in place folded into laws against the many nomadic tribes of India (also shown in part in Monkey Man with Kid (portrayed by Dev Patel) and his family, who are possibly

one of those nomadic tribes that participated in early theater - sadly by caste often treated horribly and relegated to only the performing arts to make money (this is a guess based on the village play they were performing as no other details were given about his family).

Hijras were criminalized in 1861 by the Indian Penal Code enforced by the British and were labeled specifically as "The Hijra Problem" -- leading to an anti-Hijra campaign across the subcontinent with following laws being enacted: punishing the practices of the Hijra community, and outlawing castration (something many Hijra did to themselves). Though, it should be noted many of the laws were rarely enforced by local Indian officials/officers. But, the British made a point to further the laws against them by later adding the Criminal Tribes Act in 1871, which targeted the Hijra community along with the other nomadic Indian tribes - it subjected them to registration, tracking/monitoring, stripping them of children, and their ability to sequester themselves in their nomadic lifestyle away from the British Colonial Rule.

Today, things have changed and Hijras are being seen once again in a more positive light (though not always and this is something Monkey Man balances by what's happened to the community in a few scenes, and the heroic return/scene with Dev and his warriors). All-hijra communities exist and sort of mirror the western concept of "found families" where they are safe haven/welcoming place trans folks and those identifying as intersex.

These communities also have their own secret language known as Hijra Farsi, which is loosely based on Hindi, but consists of a unique vocabulary of at least 1,000 words.

As noted above, in 2014, the trans community received more legal rights.

Specifically: In April 2014, Justice K. S. Radhakrishnan declared transgender to be the third gender in Indian law in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India.

Hijras, Eunuchs, apart from binary gender, be treated as "third gender" for the purpose of safeguarding their rights under Part III of our Constitution and the laws made by the Parliament and the State Legislature. Transgender persons' right to decide their self-identified gender is also upheld and the Centre and State Governments are directed to grant legal recognition of their gender identity such as male, female or as third gender.

I've included some screenshots of (some, not all, and certainly not the only/definitive reads) books people can check out about SOME of the history. Not all again. This goes back ages and even our celestial beings/creatures have/do display gender non conforming ways.

There are also films that touch on Hijra history and life. But in regards to Monkey Man, which is what started this thread particularly and being asked to comment - it is a film that positively portrayed India's third sex and normalized it in its depiction. Kid the protagonist encounters a found family of Hijras at one point in the story (no spoilers for plot) and his interactions/acceptance, living with them is just normal. There's no explaining, justifying, anything to/for the audience. It simply is. And, it's a beautiful arc of the story of Kid finding himself in their care/company.

[missmastectomy]

Speaking of men taking on female roles, can we talk about the supposed third genders the western trans community loves to trot around??

Almost ALL of the “third genders” throughout various cultures describe two phenomena: eunuchs or feminine/homosexual men who participated in traditionally feminine roles, and who sometimes had their own unique roles that they played out in society.

I hate when people bring it up as a gotcha because if anything it cements that “gender” as a concept is intertwined with sex, and that people who defy gender roles can literally be ousted from their birth sex. It’s also extremely telling that almost all these categories are male exclusive. The only exception I can think of are the sworn virgins of the Balkans. Like it’s so obvious that these third genders are designed to keep men and women into boxes, and if someone steps outside that box people will sometimes literally create a new box for them.

It also seems obvious to me that women are basically never allowed to be anything but women because most cultures are fundamentally patriarchal. Many cultures don’t even acknowledge lesbianism in the mainstream like they do male homosexuality, even if to condemn it. The idea that a woman could exist outside of men and could desire another woman the way she supposedly must desire a man is alien. For women, there is no escape from the female gender role. It says a lot about what gender actually is.

[taliabhattwrites]

The most widespread form of transmisogyny within the queer community is denying trans women epistemic authority.

Which means: people do not believe us on our own experiences. They frequently assume any and all oppression we face must be mild or must simply be anti-effeminacy instead of "real misogyny". We are considered to be exaggerating the material consequences of bigotry on us and assumed to not experience various harms that we in fact do, including medical misogyny, sexual violence, CSA, being infantilized and dismissed, being inadequately represented (since most popular depictions of us are cissexist caricatures and do not authentically portray our lived realities!), and more besides.

Perhaps the most hysteria inducing aspect of this is being told that our testimony is not frequently dismissed, BY PEOPLE WHO ARE ACTIVELY DISMISSING OUR TESTIMONY ON HOW MUCH MISOGYNY AND DEGENDERING AND VIOLENCE WE EXPERIENCE.

We are not "new to oppression". We do not have to be taught what it is like to be feminized and dehumanized under patriarchy. We are painfully familiar with how misogyny operates and experience it regularly, in addition to having to justify even to "our" communities that we do in fact experience it!

That, my friends, is the core of transmisogyny: being dehumanized while being denied the right to even name one's oppression or have it be acknowledged as such!

[nonasbirthday]

of course you can read necros and cavs as a parallel to the gender binary bc A) you can do whatever you want forever and B) yeah there's plenty of textual evidence comparing the necro-cav bond to a marriage. however one thing i think many of these discussions keep missing is the fact that most people in the nine houses are not necros or cavs and do in fact exist outside of this binary. which would make it. not really much of a binary

[anghraine]

It's always been intriguing to me that, even when Elizabeth hates Darcy and thinks he's genuinely a monstrous, predatory human being, she does not ever perceive him as sexually predatory. In fact, literally no one in the novel suggests or believes he is sexually dangerous at any point. There's not the slightest hint of that as a factor in the rumors surrounding him, even though eighteenth-century fiction writers very often linked masculine villainy to a possibility of sexual predation in the subtext or just text*. Austen herself does this over and over when it comes to the true villains of her novels.

Even as a supposed villain, though, Darcy is broadly understood to be predatory and callous towards men who are weaker than him in status, power, and personality—with no real hint of sexual threat about it at all (certainly none towards women). Darcy's "villainy" is overwhelmingly about abusing his socioeconomic power over other men, like Wickham and Bingley. This can have secondhand effects on women's lives, but as collateral damage. Nobody thinks he's targeting women.

In addition, Elizabeth's interpretations of Darcy in the first half of the book tend to involve associating him with relatively prestigious women by contrast to the men in his life (he's seen as extremely dissimilar from his male friends and, as a villain, from his father). So Elizabeth understands Darcy-as-villain not in terms of the popular, often very sexualized images of masculine villainy at the time, but in terms of rich women she personally despises like Caroline Bingley and Lady Catherine de Bourgh (and even Georgiana Darcy; Elizabeth assumes a lot about Georgiana in service of her hatred of Darcy before ever meeting her).

The only people in Elizabeth's own community who side with Darcy at this time are, interestingly, both women, and likely the highest-status unmarried women in her community: Charlotte Lucas and Jane Bennet. Both have some temperamental affinities with Darcy, and while it's not clear if he recognizes this, he quietly approves of them without even knowing they've been sticking up for him behind the scenes.

This concept of Darcy-as-villain is not just Elizabeth's, either. Darcy is never seen by anyone as a sexual threat no matter how "bad" he's supposed to be. No one is concerned about any danger he might pose to their daughters or sisters. Kitty is afraid of him, but because she's easily intimidated rather than any sense of actual peril. Even another man, Mr Bennet, seems genuinely surprised to discover late in the novel that Darcy experiences attraction to anything other than his own ego.

I was thinking about this because of how often the concept of Darcy as an anti-hero before Elizabeth "fixes him" seems caught up in a hypermasculine, sexually dangerous, bad boy image of him that even people who actively hate him in the novel never subscribe to or remotely imply. Wickham doesn't suggest anything of the kind, Elizabeth doesn't, the various gossips of Meryton don't, Mr Bennet and the Gardiners don't, nobody does. If anything, he's perceived as cold and sexless.

Wickham in particular defines Darcy's villainy in opposition to the patriarchal ideal his father represented. Wickham's version of their history works to link Darcy to Lady Anne, Lady Catherine (primarily), and Georgiana rather than any kind of masculine sexuality. This version of Darcy is a villain who colludes with unsympathetic high-status women to harm men of less power than themselves, but villain!Darcy poses no direct threat to women of any kind.

It's always seemed to me that there's a very strong tendency among fans and academics to frame Darcy as this ultra-gendered figure with some kind of sexual menace going on, textually or subtextually. He's so often understood entirely in terms of masculinity and sexual desire, with his flaws closely tied to both (whether those flaws are his real ones, exaggerated, or entirely manufactured). Yet that doesn't seem to be his vibe to other characters in the story. There's a level at which he does not register to other characters as highly masculine in his affiliations, highly sexual, or in general as at all unsafe** to be around, even when they think he's a monster. And I kind of feel like this makes the revelations of his actual decency all along and his full-on heroism later easier to accept in the end.

------------

*The incompetently awful villain(?) in Sanditon, for instance, imagines himself another Lovelace (a reference to the famous rapist-villain of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa). Evelina's sheltered education and lack of protectors makes her vulnerable to sexual exploitation in Frances Burney's Evelina, though she ultimately manages to avoid it. There's frequently an element of sexual predation in Gothic novels even of very different kinds (e.g. Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Matthew Lewis's The Monk both lean into this, in their wildly dissimilar styles). William Godwin's novel Caleb Williams, a book mostly about the destructive evils of class hierarchies and landowning classes specifically, depicts the mutual obsession of the genteel villain Falkland and working class hero Caleb in notoriously homoerotic terms (Godwin himself added a preface in 1832 saying, "Falkland was my Bluebeard, who had perpetrated atrocious crimes ... Caleb Williams was the wife"). This list could go on for a very long time.

**Darcy is also not usually perceived by other characters as a particularly sexual, highly masculine person in a safe way, either, even once his true character is known. Elizabeth emphasizes the resilience of Darcy's love for her more than the passionate intensity they both evidently feel; in the later book, she does sometimes makes assumptions about his true feelings or intentions based on his gender, but these assumptions are pretty much invariably shown to be wrong. In general the cast is completely oblivious to the attraction he does feel; even Charlotte, who wonders about something in that quarter, ends up doubting her own suspicions and wonders if he's just very absent-minded.

The novel emphasizes that he is physically attractive, but it goes to pains to distinguish this from Wickham's sex appeal or the charisma of a Bingley or Fitzwilliam. Mr Bennet (as mentioned above) seems to have assumed Darcy is functionally asexual, insofar as he has a concept of that. Most of the fandom-beloved moments in which Darcy is framed as highly sexual, or where he himself is sexualized for the audience, are very significantly changed in adaptation or just invented altogether for the adaptations they appear in. Darcy watching Elizabeth after his bath in the 1995 is invented for that version, him snapping at Elizabeth in their debates out of UST is a persistent change from his smiling banter with her in the book, the fencing to purge his feelings is invented, the pond swim/wet shirt is invented. In the 2005 P&P, the instant reaction to Elizabeth is invented, the hand flex of repressed passion is invented, the Netherfield Ball dance as anything but an exercise in mutual frustration is invented, the near-kiss after the proposal in invented, etc. And in those as well, he's never presented as sexually predatory, not even as a "villain."