Third gender
Third gender is the term comparative anthropology uses for a socially recognised gender position that is neither man nor woman. It covers Hijra in South Asia, Fa'afafine in Samoa, muxes among the Zapotec and dozens of others, and its usefulness is that it names a pattern most Western readers do not expect to find.
Featured in
- CollectionCategories That Resist TranslationSeven gender categories routinely given as the local word for transgender, and the specific reason each of those renderings fails.7 entries
- CollectionWhere the Law Drew a LineSix gender categories with a date, a jurisdiction and a document behind them, from a criminal tribe in 1871 to a third gender in 2014.6 entries
It is filed here as a concept rather than an identity because almost nobody says I am third gender. It is a description applied from outside, by scholars and by institutions, to categories that have their own names.
What the framing gets right
The finding is real and it is not small. Most cultures use a gender binary, and a substantial number do not, and the ones that do not are spread across every inhabited continent rather than clustered in one region. Harvard's Religion and Public Life project notes that people of non-binary gender expression have held roles in Hindu society for more than two thousand years. India recognised hijras as a third gender in 2014, and Meti and Khawaja sira carry the Nepali and Pakistani rulings with their dates. Naming the pattern is what let it be studied at all.
What the framing gets wrong
The arithmetic is the problem. Calling something the third gender fixes man and woman as the first two, which makes every other position an addition to a Western baseline rather than a part of a system in its own right.
The Bugis of South Sulawesi recognise five genders, which the phrase cannot express. Mahu means in the middle rather than third. And several of the categories described this way are defined by role and function rather than by position on any list at all.
The literature's own history makes the case. The word that third gender replaced in North American anthropology was berdache, a term taken from the language of the colonisers, applied by non-Native writers, and now recognised as a slur. Two-spirit was proposed in 1990, at the third Inter-tribal Native American, First Nations, Gay and Lesbian American Conference in Winnipeg, by Indigenous people specifically to replace it. That sequence is a reminder that the outside name has been wrong before.
How this catalogue uses it
The specific words are the entries. Third gender is a concept page that explains the comparative frame, records the objection to it, and links the categories rather than absorbing them. Where a community has named itself collectively, as the Pacific did with MVPFAFF, that name is preferred to this one.
Told apart
Often confused with Third gender
- Non-binaryNot interchangeable. Third gender names a recognised position inside a particular society; non-binary is a personal identity in a Western framework, and neither translates cleanly into the other.
- HijraHijra is one of the categories third gender is used to describe, and it is the specific word with the specific community. The general term is not a substitute for it.
- IntersexOlder sources conflate the two, treating third gender as a category of body rather than of social role. It is not one.
Common questions
Questions about Third gender
- What does third gender mean?
- A gender position recognised by a society that is neither man nor woman. It is a comparative term used by anthropologists rather than a self-description, and the people it describes almost always have their own word for themselves.
- Is third gender an offensive term?
- Not usually offensive, but it is contested. The objection is that counting to three sets man and woman as the baseline and files everything else as an addition, when many of the societies described this way recognise five positions or organise gender by role rather than by count.
- Which cultures recognise a third gender?
- Many, on every inhabited continent. South Asian hijra and khawaja sira communities, Samoan fa'afafine and the wider Pacific categories, Zapotec muxes in Mexico, Indigenous North American roles now grouped as two-spirit, and Albanian sworn virgins are among the best documented.
- What was the term berdache?
- The word non-Native anthropologists used for gender-variant Indigenous North Americans until the late twentieth century. It came from the language of the colonisers, has a history tied to sexual servitude, and is now recognised as a slur. Two-spirit was proposed in 1990 to replace it.
- Does third gender mean the same as non-binary?
- No. Third gender names a position recognised inside a particular society, with a role attached to it. Non-binary is a personal identity in a Western framework and covers many different positions, including having no gender at all. Neither translates cleanly into the other, and treating them as synonyms is what produces the impression that every culture has been describing the same thing all along.
Added 2026-08-28 · Revised 2026-08-28
Nearby in the catalogue
Related entries
- Non-binaryAn umbrella term and an identity at the very same time, and the reason its two headline figures are not remotely comparable with one another.
- HijraAn organised community with a lineage system and a ritual economy, registered as a criminal tribe in 1871 and recognised as a third gender in 2014.
- IntersexA fact about bodies that nearly every gender list files as an identity, and two prevalence figures thirty times apart from one source.
- BaklaA Filipino gender term paired with tomboy, meaning indecisiveness in Old Tagalog, a slur by the war, and no longer one since the 1990s.