Historical and Cultural

 

Matt 19:11-12

11Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” NIV

According to Taylor in The Prehistory o/Sex, early societies, dating as far back as the Iron Age, used biological means to manipulate gender (1996). Ovid, the first-century B.C. poet, refers in verse to the extract or ‘stuff from a mare in heat (Taylor, 1996). (Premarin a commonly used drug by transsex­uals today is extracted from the urine of pregnant mares.)

Hippocrates described a group of Scythians, called Enarees, gender-fluid members of their societies.

A general list transgendered peoples.

acault  cross-gendered males: sacred beings with special powers and ceremonial roles; intercessor with spirit gods         Myanmar (Burma)MtF

bayot   cross-dressing homosexual Philippines MtF

berdache         gender-transformed; special ceremonial roles. European malapropism,       encompassing many roles in many Amerindian tribes.         MtF

enaree     dressed as women; prophetic, shamans5th cent BCE, Scythia MtF        

gink        male prostitutes - younger men and boys 19th-cent Egypt MtF

hijra        “eunuch”  “transvestite”castrated; “other”; performers, spiritual community ancient & modern India                    MtF

khal        “dancers” 19th-century Egypt                 MtF

mahu      special role in each district Polynesian MtF

mohabbazin performers         present-day Egypt                  MtF

mukhannathun      “men who wish to resemble women”9th-cent Islam MtF

mutarajjulat          “women who wish to resemble men”9th-cent Islam FtM

nadle       “other”     Navajo                                                  O

ninauposkitzipspe   “manly hearted women” North Piegan FtM

sekrata   boys raised as girls Hovas, Madagascar                MtF

sererr      “other”     Pokot, Kenya                                        Other

walyeh    “female saint”: in some sects of dervishes a protégé who realized perfection became a walyeh Muslim MtF

xanith     “effeminate”not castrated; “other”, regarded as neither/both male&female Islamic Oman                                    MtF, Other                

 

In 1429, a seventeen-year-old natal female, dressed in men’s clothing, employed brilliant military strategies to rout the English from France. Hailed as a saint by the peasants, she was burned alive at the stake on May 30, 1431, at the age of nine­teen. The Grand Inquisitors executed Joan of Arc in part for her cross-gendered expression (Feinberg, 1996):

you have continually worn man’s dress, wearing the short robe.., with nothing left that could show you to be a woman: and on many occasions you received the Body of our Lord dressed in this fashion, although you have been frequently admonished to leave it off, which you have refused to do, saying that you would rather die than leave it off.., you blaspheme God in his sacraments . . . and you condemn yourself in being unwilling to wear the customary clothing of your sex. (p. 35)

After she was presumed dead, and her clothing burned to ash, according to one observer; . . . “then the fire was raked back and her naked body shown to all the people and all the secrets that could or should belong to a woman, to take away my doubts from people’s minds” (p. 36).

 BERDACHE

 The Berdache, as they are known among American Indian cultures, are considered sacred people by most tribes and are elevated to a special eco­nomic and social status. Among the Plains tribes, the Berdache performed the most sacred religious and ceremonial rites. They were thought to be “twin-spirits’ and to possess such wisdom that even the shaman would ask their advice.

In the sixteenth century, when the Spanish came and “con­quered” the Americas, they were outraged by the widespread homosexuality and transvestitism they found to be so prevalent among the Native peoples. They systematically destroyed any artwork that depicted these vile practices (Taylor, 1996).

They  noted that roughly 5% were gender variant.

French missionaries, who, in the eighteenth century came to convert the Native Americans, were puzzled by the Native view of the Berdache. They categorically condemned the Berdache for acting like women, and could not comprehend their promi­nent role in the non-white world (Williams, 1986).

“Through what superstition I know not, some Illinois while yet young, assume female dress, and keep it all their life. There is a mystery about it, for they never marry, and glory in debasing themselves to do all that is done by women; yet they go to war, though not allowed to use a bow and arrow, only a club. They are permitted to sing but nor to dance; they attend councils and nothing can be decided without their advice; finally, by profession of an extraordinary life, the)’ pass for Manitou’s, or persons of consequence”. (Sutton, 1970)

Cheyenne hetaneman or female two-spirit

Alternative gender roles were among the most widely shared features of North American societies. Male berdaches have been documented in over 155 tribes. In about a third of these groups, a formal status also existed for females who undertook a man’s lifestyle, becoming hunters, warriors, and chiefs. They were sometimes referred to with the same term for male berdaches and sometimes with a distinct term—making them, therefore, a fourth gender. (Thus, “third gender” generally refers to male berdaches and sometimes male and female berdaches, while “fourth gender” always refers to female berdaches.) Each tribe, of course, had its own terms for these roles, such as boté in Crow, nádleehí in Navajo, winkte in Lakota, and alyha: and hwame: in Mohave. Because so many North American cultures were disrupted (or had disappeared) before they were studied by anthropologists, it is not possible to state the absolute frequency of these roles. Those alternative gender roles that have been documented, however, occur in every region of the continent, in every kind of society, and among speakers of every major language group. The number of tribes in which the existence of such roles have been denied (by informants or outsider observers) are quite few. Far greater are those instances in which information regarding the presence of gender diversity has simply not been recorded.

Although there are important variations in berdache roles, which will be discussed below, they share a core set of traits that justifies comparing them:

     Specialized work roles. Male and female berdaches are typically described in terms of their preference and achievements in the work of the “opposite” sex and/or unique activities specific to their identities;

Gender difference. In addition to work preferences, berdaches are distinguished from men and women in terms of temperament, dress, lifestyle, and social roles;

Spiritual sanction. Berdache identity is widely believed to be the result of supernatural intervention in the form of visions or dreams, and/or it is sanctioned by tribal mythology;

Same-sex relations. Berdaches some times formed sexual and emotional relationships with non-berdache members of their own sex.

The Salish-speaking Pend d’Oreille (or Kalispel) and Flathead (or Salish) tribes of western Montana illustrate all the patterns of women’s participation in war found in the Plains region—from ceremonial roles to participation in battles to ongoing roles as warriors and leaders.

Kuilix in a drawing by Nicolas Point

The Jesuit fathers Pierre Jean De Smet, Nicholas Point, and Gregory Mengarini arrived in Montana in 1841 intending to “reduce” the Flatheads and Pend d’Oreilles to missions (much as their brethren had done among the natives of Paraguay). Instead, they found themselves accompanying their would-be converts on treks to the plains to hunt buffalo and fight their enemies. The tribes, for their part, welcomed the missionaries, hoping they would provide them with supernatural aid. But when the Jesuits began to scold them with “fatherly rebukes” and “exhortations” because they continued to give “themselves up to their old war-dances, to savage obscenity and to shameless excesses of the flesh,” attitudes quickly changed. As relations worsened, the Flatheads refused to sell the priests provisions. In 1850, St. Mary’s mission in the Bitterroot Valley was abandoned.

The Jesuits were especially baffled by the active role of Flathead and Pend d’Oreille women in warfare. Women joined dances dressed as warriors, and they frequently entered battle. As De Smet observed in 1846,

Even the women of the Flathead mingled in the fray. One, the mother of seven children, conducted her own sons into the battle-field. Having perceived that the horse of her eldest son was breaking down in a single combat with a Crow, she threw herself between the combatants, and with a knife put the Crow to flight. Another, a young woman, perceiving that the quivers of her party were nearly exhausted, cooly collected, amidst a shower of arrows, those that lay scattered around her, and brought them to replenish the nearly exhausted store.

At least one Pend d’Oreille woman distinguished herself in war and appears to have been a recognized leader. Her native name was Kuilix, “The Red One” (or “Red Shirt”), referring to a bright red coat she wore—probably part of a British military uniform. She was known to whites as Mary Quille or Marie Quilax. Father Point drew and painted her and described her in his journals and letters. He relates an occasion in 1842 when a small group of Pend d’Oreilles came upon a large party of Blackfoot and attacked them. When the sounds of gunfire reached the Pend d’Oreilles camp, the other warriors rode out to join the fray. According to Point:

The first Pend d’Oreille to dash out at the enemy was a woman named Kuilix, ‘The Red One,’ . . . Her bravery surprised the warriors who were humiliated and indignant because it was a woman who had led the charge, and so they threw themselves into the breach where nature’s shelter had protected the enemy. The Blackfeet immediately shot four shots almost at point-blank range; yet not a single Pend d’Oreille went down. Four of the enemy—some claim it was only two—managed to escape death by hiding in the thickets, but the rest were massacred on the spot.

Kuilix was also present at a battle with the Crows in 1846. According to Point, “The famous Kuilix . . . accompanied by a few braves and armed with an axe, gave chase to a whole squadron of Crows. When they got back to camp, she said to her companions, ‘I thought that those big talkers were men, but I was wrong. Truly, they are not worth pursuing.’” Point’s illustration of the episode bears the caption, “A woman warrior’s swift about-face left the enemy stupefied.” According to Point, Kuilix was “renowned for intrepidity on the field of battle.” De Smet referred to her as the “celebrated Mary Quille” and an engraving of her based on Point’s drawing appears on the title page of his 1844 Voyages aux montagnes rocheuses. FROM CHANGING ONES by WILL ROSCOE

 

 

Mahu

The Hawaiian language contains no female or male adjec­tives or articles, and even proper names are androgynous. This reflects the Polynesian emphasis on integration and balance of the male and female gods. The notion of gendered polarity of opposite sexes is foreign to Hawaiian thought. The mahu embody this ancient Polynesian principle of spiritual duality and are viewed as an honored intermediate sex, integral to Hawaiian culture and cosmology (Robertson, 1989):

Sometimes Mother Nature cannot make up her mind, whether to make a man or a woman, even in Polynesia, so she mixes up a little of the male with some of the female element. (p. 313)

The mahu phenomenon cannot be reduced to any parallel Western concept of gender. Many women in Hawaii were raised as boys by parents or grandparents to keep them free of sexual liaisons with men. In earlier generations, these girls would have performed tasks of healing or the sacred hula dances. Similarly, elderly Hawaiian men who begot many sons but no daughters often decided to raise the youngest boy as a girl. In this way, they were able to provide additional labor for women’s tasks. This practice seems to date back to ancient times (Robertson, 1989).

The mahu of Hawaii assume a large role in history and legend. Today’s mahu population contains an astounding variety of individuals. The term mahu can refer to women who dress and work as men, men who dress and work as women, women

or men who dress to conceal their biological classification, women who only associate with other women, men who dress “festively,” men who undergo hormonal or surgical procedures, true hermaphrodites, or those who Westerners call “gay.” Parents often choose to put their children in the care of mahu, for mixed gender people are deemed to be particularly compas­sionate and creative (Robertson, 1989).