deanne wrote:
The third gender, as it occurs historically, categorized trans and intersexed people. Medical transition is a very recent phenomenon. The extent of bodily modification of earlier civilizations was usually castration. Being that trans-people could never really expect to transition into their target gender, like we do today, they were thus delineated as part of the "third gender." This still goes on today. For example, the hijra of India are a society of trans-people that typically do not complete transition beyond castration. For most, it is probably a matter of availability of resources. However, there are some hijra who actually choose not to fully transition. There are other trans-people around the world that also choose to transition to varying degrees of completeness, because they identify as distinctly trans.
Nature doesn't always hand us a perfectly male or female body. Likewise, some people do not identify as perfectly male or female. At the end of the day, it's all just junk and brains!
I agree with your historical assessment.
But I've been reading quite a bit about modern Hijra, and there does seem to be a distinction made between being trans and being a third sex.
Many Hijra do not undergo castration (or any other bodily feminization) by choice, not just out of lack of resources.
Although they dress in female clothes and use female pronouns, many of them do not consider themselves women, but rather something completely outside of the standard gender binary.
As stated by Hijra Mona Ahmed to author Dayanita Singh, "I am the third sex, not a man trying to be a woman. It is your society's problem that you only recognize two sexes."
On the other hand, there are those who identify as "gender queer" and/or androgynes.
They prefer gender neutral pronouns (like "they", as opposed to "he"
or "she"), and think of themselves as genderless.
There are so many categories these days, it makes my brain hurt.
