Hello everyone! Hestia here with a new Megathread! Years ago, before I transitioned and when I was still in college I took an anthropology class. My favorite part of the class was when we were covering different gender customs across the globe and got to make a report on one of them. I can’t remember exactly which one I chose for that project, but what I do remember is a map with different pins scattered on it with various forms of gender-queerness. I decided to track it down and share it with you folks!
Edit: you have to open this in a browser, if you’re on a phone it will automatically try to open it in Google maps and won’t bring up the info.
This map provides a brief summary of these genders, but does not go in depth. If you find any you’re interested in, feel free to do some further research and share your findings here. I’ll pin a comment to this post you can attach them. I’m going to share a couple that I found interesting and decided to look further into myself, both of them are non-binary and native american in origin.
The first one I want to talk about is the Winkte, which is a third gender role that was particulatly notable in the Lakota tribe The Winkte are seen as half-men, half-women, and considered sacred. They are typically AMAB and historically have served unique roles in matters of romance and matchmaking and often served as intermediaries for prospecting couples and their families. They also participated in war parties, functioning primarily as witnesses to battle and as doctors to care for the injured. They were also seen as seers, able to forsee paths to victory.
https://www.sdpb.org/blogs/arts-and-culture/the-winkte-and-the-hundred-in-hand/
This next one I’m going to talk about seems mostly local to the Zuni people called the “Lhamana” and I find the Zuni culture to be particularly fascinating, even just doing a cursory glance at it.
Gender roles were well defined in Zuni culture, but the Zuni also valued the concept of a “middle” as it represented stability. This originates from their creation myth, which I won’t go in detail here because I don’t feel qualified to summarize it, but it’s in the link down below.
The Zuni culture is pretty neat and they don’t refer to gender when talking about children. They believed that gender wasn’t an inborn trait but something you acquired as you approached puberty. I wish this was the western approach, but alas.
As children approach puberty they begin to differentiate through different hair styles or clothing choices. AFAB Lhamana would grind corn and make a bowl of stew when they get their first period. There’s probably some cultural significance to this, but I’m not going to do a deep dive on it right now. AMAB Lhamana would start to wear dresses once they hit puberty and start performing women’s work. Both AMAB and AFAB Lhamana were allowed to switch between male and female gender roles as they pleased.
https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/The-Middle-Gender-in-Zuni-Religion
That’s all for now! To wrap thing up I would like to invite yall to our public matrix server! https://matrix.to/#/#tracha:chapo.chat
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Welp, I can no longer get blood tests for my diy
my gp doesn’t want to do it unless I start the process of trying to get meds the legitimate way, but i’m not willing to suffer through the shitty, extremely transphobic gatekeeper national service to maybe after like 3-4 years get oral or transdermal hrt when it’s much more convenient for me to do injection monotherapy and not have to be on an anti-androgen.
Idk what to do, even though it hasn’t been hard for me to get my test supressed and stuff I would feel a lot safer if I could just get routine check-ups every few months.
my old GP was like this, I recommend finding a new one asap it’s a clear sign they don’t care at all about your well-being. it falls under duty of care so refusing means they are a shitty doc/transphobic and will be no good for you. run away from them if you have the means, plenty of GPs have more humanity and will give you the care you need DIY or not.
Try a different clinic
Yup, my GP said the exact same thing.
Trying to figure it out myself.