Cultural Gender Explained

The hardest one for white people off the binary to accept. There are a handful of genders that you must be born to and part of the culture to be said gender. For example if born Lakota, you may identify as Two Spirit (a handful of other Indigenous tribes also have this gender). If you are not part of these indigenous cultures you may not be Two Spirit. Two Spirit really came to prominence with the murdered Nex Benedict, who also identified as trans (Nex was born to a Choctaw Grandmother though not a tribe member. He lived next to a Cherokee reservation).

White People found it twee and unique and started appropriating it. This is not okay and not acceptable. I don’t want to hear about your alleged Cherokee great grandma (and so help me god if shes a princess, which didn’t exist). If you aren’t born to that culture, or have that close lineage, you may not be that gender.

Many of these genders also overlap with trans/nonbinary/queer. Someone may be Two Spirit and also nonbinary if they are of that culture.

Cultural Genders (some overlap, you absolutely must be part of the related culture to be these):

Autigender (one must be autistic)

Tumtum (Jewish)

Intergender (Often, but not always, considered simply for intersex people)

Intersex (Only people born intersex)

Oceania

The following may only be used from the Indigenous tribes whence they came:

Cree Tribe

  • Cree: iskwêw ka-napêwayat, ᐃᐢᑵᐤ ᑲ ᓇᐯᐘᔭᐟ, “A woman who dresses as a man.”[9]
  • Cree: napêw iskwêwisêhot, ᓇᐯᐤ ᐃᐢᑵᐏᓭᐦᐅᐟ, “A man who dresses as a woman.”[9]
  • Cree: înahpîkasoht, ᐄᓇᐦᐲᑲᓱᐦᐟ, “A woman dressed/living/accepted as a man.”; also given as “someone who fights everyone to prove they are the toughest”.[9]
  • Cree: napêhkân, ᓈᐯᐦᑳᐣ, “One who acts/lives as a man.”[9]
  • Cree: iskwêhkân, ᐃᐢᑵᐦᑳᐣ, “One who acts/lives as a woman.”[9]

Lakota Tribe

  • Lakota: wíŋkte is the contraction of an older Lakota word, Winyanktehca, meaning “wants to be like a woman”.[27] Winkte are a social category in historical Lakota culture, of male-bodied people who in some cases have adopted the clothing, work, and mannerisms that Lakota culture usually consider feminine. In contemporary Lakota culture, the term is most commonly associated with simply being gay. Both historically and in modern culture, usually winkte are homosexual, though they may or may not consider themselves part of the more mainstream LGBT communities. Some winkte participate in the pan-Indian Two Spirit community.[27] While historical accounts of their status vary widely, most accounts, notably those by other Lakota, see the winkte as regular members of the community, and neither marginalized for their status, nor seen as exceptional. Other writings, usually historical accounts by anthropologists, hold the winkte as sacred, occupying a liminal, third gender role in the culture and born to fulfill ceremonial roles that can not be filled by either men or women.[27] In contemporary Lakota communities, attitudes towards the winkte vary from accepting to homophobic.[27][28]

Ojibwe Tribe

  • Ojibwe: ininiikaazo, “Women who functioned as men” / “one who endeavors to be like a man”.[32]
  • Ojibwe: ikwekaazo, “Men who chose to function as women” / “one who endeavors to be like a woman”.[32] Academic Anton Treuer wrote that in Ojibwe culture “[s]ex usually determined one’s gender, and therefore one’s work, but the Ojibwe accepted variation. Men who chose to function as women were called ikwekaazo, meaning ‘one who endeavors to be like a woman’. Women who functioned as men were called ininiikaazo, meaning, ‘one who endeavors to be like a man’. The French called these people berdaches. Ikwekaazo and ininiikaazo could take spouses of their own sex. Their mates were not considered ikwekaazo or ininiikaazo, however, because their function in society was still in keeping with their sex. If widowed, the spouse of an ikwekaazo or ininiikaazo could remarry someone of the opposite sex or another ikwekaazo or ininiikaazo. The ikwekaazowag worked and dressed like women. The ininiikaazowag worked and dressed like men. Both were considered to be strong spiritually, and they were always honoured, especially during ceremonies.”[32] The Ojibwe word agokwe was used by John Tanner to describe gender-nonconforming Ojibwe warrior Ozaawindib (fl. 1797–1832). Pruden and Edmo spell it agokwa: “male-assigned: Agokwa – ‘man-woman'”, along with “female-assigned: Okitcitakwe – ‘warrior woman'”.[3]

Other Indigenous Tribes

  • Aleut: tayagigux’, “Woman transformed into a man.”[3]
  • Aleut: ayagigux’, “Man transformed into a woman.”[3]
  • Blackfoot: ninauh-oskitsi-pahpyaki, “Manly-hearted-woman.” This term has a wide variety of meanings ranging from women who performed the roles of men, dressed as men, took female partners, or who participated in activities such as war.[21]
  • Blackfoot: a’yai-kik-ahsi, “Acts like a woman.”
  • Cheyenne: heemaneh, a cross-gender or third gender person, typically a male-bodied person who takes on the roles and duties of a woman.[24] Heemaneh have had specialized roles within Cheyenne society, including officiating during the Scalp Dance, organizing marriages, acting as messengers between lovers, and accompanying men to war.[25]
  • Crow: batée. A word that describes both trans women and homosexual males.[26]
  • Warao: tida wena, “twisted women”.[33]
  • Zuni: lhamana, men who at times may also take on the social and ceremonial roles performed by women in their culture. Accounts from the 1800s note that lhamana, while dressed in “female attire”, were often hired for work that required “strength and endurance”,[34] while also excelling in traditional arts and crafts such as pottery and weaving.[35] Notable lhamana We’wha (1849–1896), lived in both traditional female and male social and ceremonial roles at various points in their life, and was a respected community leader and cultural ambassador.[36][37]
  • Navajo: nádleeh (also given as nádleehi), “One who is transformed” or “one who changes”.[29][30][31] In traditional Navajo culture, nádleeh are male-bodied individuals described by those in their communities as “effeminate male”, or as “half woman, half man”.[1] A 2009 documentary about the tragic murder of nádleeh Fred Martinez, entitled, Two Spirits, contributed to awareness of these terms and cultures.[1] A Navajo gender spectrum that has been described is that of four genders: feminine woman, masculine woman, feminine man, masculine man.[1]

South America

  • Muxe or muxhe (Zapotec people)
  • Biza’ah: In Teotitlán, they have their own version of the muxe that they call biza’ah. According to Stephen, there were only 7 individuals in that community considered to be biza’ah in comparison to the muxe, of which there were many.[63] Like the muxe they were well-liked and accepted in the community.[63] Their way of walking, talking and the work that they perform are markers of recognizing biza’ah.[63]
  • Tida wena: Among the Indigenous Warao people of Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname, people considered to be neither man nor woman. Historically respected, and sometimes serving as shamans or in other honored positions in their tribes, colonization has brought harsher times.[67]
  • Travesti/estidas/maricón/cochón/joto/marica/pájara/traveca/loca (South America)

Asia

Africa/Middle East