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Transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...
people (including
non-binary Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or femaleidentities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typically ...
and
third gender Third gender is a concept in which individuals are categorized, either by themselves or by society, as neither man nor woman. It is also a social category present in societies that recognize three or more genders. The term ''third'' is usually ...
individuals) have existed in cultures worldwide since ancient times. The modern terms and meanings of "transgender", "
gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
", "
gender identity Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the i ...
", and "
gender role A gender role, also known as a sex role, is a social role encompassing a range of behaviors and attitudes that are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for a person based on that person's sex. Gender roles are usually cent ...
" only emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. As a result, opinions vary on how to categorize historical accounts of gender-variant people and identities. Sumerian and Akkadian texts from 4,500 years ago document priests known as ''
gala Gala may refer to: Music * ''Gala'' (album), a 1990 album by the English alternative rock band Lush *'' Gala – The Collection'', a 2016 album by Sarah Brightman *GALA Choruses, an association of LGBT choral groups *''Gala'', a 1986 album by T ...
'' who may have been transgender. In Ancient Greece, Phrygia, and Rome, there were ''
galli A ''gallus'' (pl. ''galli'') was a eunuch priest of the Phrygian goddess Cybele (Magna Mater in Rome) and her consort Attis, whose worship was incorporated into the state religious practices of ancient Rome. Origins Cybele's cult may have orig ...
'' priests that some scholars believe to have been trans women. Roman emperor
Elagabalus Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (born Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus, 204 – 11/12 March 222), better known by his nickname "Elagabalus" (, ), was Roman emperor from 218 to 222, while he was still a teenager. His short reign was conspicuous for s ...
(d. 222 AD) preferred to be called a lady (rather than a lord) and sought
sex reassignment surgery Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a transgender or transsexual person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender, and alle ...
, and in the modern day has been seen as a trans figure. '' Hijras'' on the Indian subcontinent and ''
kathoey ''Kathoey'' or ''katoey'' ( th, กะเทย; ) is an identity used by some people in Thailand, whose identities in English may be best described as transgender women in some cases, or effeminate gay men in other cases. Transgender wom ...
s'' in Thailand have formed trans-feminine third gender social and spiritual communities since ancient times, with their presence documented for thousands of years in texts which also mention trans male figures. Today, at least half a million ''hijras'' live in India and another half million in Bangladesh, legally recognized as a third gender, and many trans people are accepted in Thailand. In Arabia, '' khanith'' today (like earlier ''
mukhannathun Mukhannath (; plural ''mukhannathun'' (); "effeminate ones", "ones who resemble women") was a term used in Classical Arabic to refer to effeminate men who appeared feminine and functioned sexually or socially in roles typically carried out by wom ...
'') fulfill a third gender role attested since the AD 600s. In Africa, many societies have traditional roles for trans women and trans men, some of which survive in the modern era. In the Americas prior to European colonization, as well as in some contemporary North American Indigenous cultures, there are social and ceremonial roles for
third gender Third gender is a concept in which individuals are categorized, either by themselves or by society, as neither man nor woman. It is also a social category present in societies that recognize three or more genders. The term ''third'' is usually ...
people, or those whose gender expression transforms, such as the
Navajo The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States. With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
''
nádleehi ''Nádleehi'' is a social and, at times, ceremonial role in Diné (Navajo) culture – an "effeminate male" or "male-bodied person with a feminine nature". However, the ''nádleehi'' gender role is also fluid and cannot be simply described in term ...
'' or the Zuni ''
lhamana ''Lhamana'', in traditional Zuni culture, are biologically male people who take on the social and ceremonial roles usually performed by women in their culture, at least some of the time. Page 269 They wear a mixture of women's and men's clothing ...
''. In the Middle Ages, accounts around Europe document transgender people.
Kalonymus ben Kalonymus Kalonymus ben Kalonymus ben Meir (Hebrew language, Hebrew: קלונימוס בן קלונימוס), also romanized as Qalonymos ben Qalonymos or Calonym ben Calonym, also known as Maestro Calo (Arles, 1286 – died after 1328) was a Jewish philo ...
's lament for being born a man instead of a woman has been seen as an early account of
gender dysphoria Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their gender identitytheir personal sense of their own genderand their sex assigned at birth. The diagnostic label gender identity disorder (GID) was used until ...
.
Eleanor Rykener Eleanor Rykener, also known as John, was a 14th-century sex worker arrested in December 1394 for performing a sex act with John Britby, a man who was a former chaplain of the St Margaret Pattens church, in London's Cheapside while wearing fema ...
, a male-bodied Briton arrested in 1394 while living and doing sex work dressed as a woman, has been seen as a trans woman. In the Balkans since the 1400s, female-assigned people have transitioned to live as men called
sworn virgins Celibacy (from Latin ''caelibatus'') is the state of voluntarily being unmarried, sexually abstinent, or both, usually for religious reasons. It is often in association with the role of a religious official or devotee. In its narrow sense, the ...
. In Japan, accounts of trans people go back to the
Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...
. In Indonesia, there are millions of trans-/third-gender ''waria'', and the ''
bugis The Bugis people (pronounced ), also known as Buginese, are an ethnicity—the most numerous of the three major linguistic and ethnic groups of South Sulawesi (the others being Makassar and Toraja), in the south-western province of Sulawe ...
'' of
Sulawesi Sulawesi (), also known as Celebes (), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Ar ...
recognize five genders. In Oceania, trans-/third-gender roles like the ''
akava'ine Akava'ine is a Cook Islands Māori word which has come, since the 2000s, to refer to transgender people of Māori descent from the Cook Islands. It may be an old custom but has a contemporary identity influenced by other Polynesians, through cros ...
'', '' fa'afafine'' and '' fakaleiti'' exist among the Cook Island Maori, Samoans, and Tongans. In colonial America,
Thomas(ine) Hall ? (Can't find online, and I'm not ordering a book from amazon for this) Taylor => Brown Brown => ? hort => ? Vaughan => ? Rose => ? Bridenbaugh => ? MSmith => reis2005 Floyd => ? reis2005 => reis2005 Here's some citations which I removed in try ...
in the 1600s adopted clothes and roles of both men and women, while in 1776 the genderless
Public Universal Friend The Public Universal FriendOriginal spelling: ''the Publick Universal Friend''. Shortened forms: ''the Universal Friend'', ''the Friend'', or ''P.U.F.'' (born Jemima Wilkinson; November 29, 1752 – July 1, 1819) was an American preacher born ...
refused both birth name and gendered pronouns. During the 1800s, some people began new lives as men and served in the military, including
Albert Cashier Albert D. J. Cashier (December 25, 1843 – October 10, 1915), born Jennie Irene Hodgers, was an American soldier who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Cashier adopted the identity of a man before enlisting, and maintained ...
and James Barry, or otherwise transitioned, like
Joseph Lobdell Joseph Israel Lobdell (December 02, 1829 - May 28, 1912; born ''Lucy Ann Lobdell'') was a 19th-century person who was assigned female at birth and lived as a man for sixty years, and is usually regarded today as a transgender man.Sarah Boslaugh, ...
; trans women like Frances Thompson also transitioned. In 1895, trans autobiographer Jennie June and others organized the Cercle Hermaphroditos; in the 1900s, musician
Billy Tipton Billy Tipton (December 29, 1914 – January 21, 1989) was an American jazz musician, bandleader, and talent broker. Tipton lived and identified as a man for most of his adult life; after his death, friends and family were surprised to learn that ...
lived as a man, while
Lucy Hicks Anderson Lucy Hicks Anderson (; 1886–1954) was an American socialite and chef, best known for her time in Oxnard, California, from 1920 to 1946. Assigned male at birth, she was adamant from an early age that she was a girl. Her parents, based on advice ...
was supported by her parents and community in being a woman.
Karl M. Baer Karl M. Baer (20 May 1885 – 26 June 1956) was a German-Israeli author, social worker, reformer, suffragist and Zionist. He came out as a trans man in 1904. In December 1906, he became the first transgender person to undergo sex reassignment ...
(in 1906) and
Alan L. Hart Alan L. Hart (born Alberta Lucille Hart, also known as Robert Allen Bamford Jr., October 4, 1890 – July 1, 1962) was an American physician, radiologist, tuberculosis researcher, writer, and novelist. Hart pioneered the use of x-ray photogr ...
(1917) underwent early female-to-male reassignment surgeries, while in 1930 and 1931
Dora Richter Dora "Dorchen" Richter (16 April 1891 – presumed 1933) was the first known person to undergo complete male-to-female gender reassignment surgery. She was one of a number of transgender people in the care of sex-research pioneer Magnus Hirschfel ...
and
Lili Elbe Lili Ilse Elvenes (28 December 1882 – 13 September 1931), better known as Lili Elbe, was a Danish painter and transgender woman, and among the early recipients of sex reassignment surgery. She was a successful painter under her birth name Eina ...
had early male-to-female surgeries including (for Elbe) an ovary and
uterus transplant A uterine transplant is a surgical procedure whereby a healthy uterus is transplanted into an organism of which the uterus is absent or diseased. As part of normal mammalian sexual reproduction, a diseased or absent uterus does not allow normal em ...
. Baer, Richter and Elbe were aided by
Magnus Hirschfeld Magnus Hirschfeld (14 May 1868 – 14 May 1935) was a German physician and sexologist. Hirschfeld was educated in philosophy, philology and medicine. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Com ...
, whose pioneering work at the
Institut für Sexualwissenschaft The was an early private sexology research institute in Germany from 1919 to 1933. The name is variously translated as ''Institute of Sex Research'', ''Institute of Sexology'', ''Institute for Sexology'' or ''Institute for the Science of Sexua ...
for trans medicine and rights was destroyed by the Nazis in 1933. In 1952, American trans woman
Christine Jorgensen Christine Jorgensen (May 30, 1926 – May 3, 1989) was an American trans woman who was the first person to become widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery. She had a career as a successful actress, singer and rec ...
's transition brought wide awareness of sex reassignment surgery to North America, while
Coccinelle Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy (23 August 1931 – 9 October 2006), better known by her stage name Coccinelle, was a French actress, entertainer and singer. She was transgender, and was the first widely publicized post-war gender reassignment ca ...
's 1958 transition did the same in Europe. The grassroots fight for trans rights became more visible with trans and gay people fighting back against police in the 1959
Cooper Donuts Riot The Cooper Do-nuts Riot was a small uprising in response to police harassment of LGBT people at the 24-hour Cooper Do-nuts cafe in Los Angeles in May 1959. This occurred 10 years prior to the better-known Stonewall riots in New York City and is ...
, 1966
Compton's Cafeteria Riot The Compton's Cafeteria riot occurred in August 1966 in the Tenderloin, San Francisco, California, Tenderloin district of San Francisco. The riot was a response to the violent and constant police harassment of drag queens and trans people, partic ...
, and multi-day
Stonewall Riots The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of Ju ...
of 1969. In the 1970s,
Lou Sullivan Louis Graydon Sullivan (June 16, 1951 – March 2, 1991) was an American author and activist known for his work on behalf of trans men. He was perhaps the first transgender man to publicly identify as gay,Highleyman, Liz"Who was Lou Sullivan?" ...
pioneered visibility for gay trans men and organized what became FTM International. At the same time, some feminists opposed the inclusion of trans women, creating what was later known as
trans-exclusionary radical feminism TERF () is an acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. First recorded in 2008, the term was originally used to distinguish trans-inclusive feminists from a group of Radical feminism, radical feminists who reject the assertion that tr ...
. In the 1990s and 2000s, the
Transgender Day of Remembrance The Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR), also known as the International Transgender Day of Remembrance, has been observed annually (from its inception) on November 20 as a day to memorialize those who have been murdered as a result of transp ...
was started and trans marches became more common; trans people were elected to public offices; and legislative and court actions began recognizing trans people's rights in some countries (especially in the West, India, and southern Africa). At the same time, other countries (especially in the rest of Africa, Central Asia, and Arabia) abridge trans people's rights due to
transphobia Transphobia is a collection of ideas and phenomena that encompass a range of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger tow ...
.


Historiography

Transgender people are known to have existed since ancient times. A wide range of societies had traditional third gender roles, or otherwise accepted trans people in some form. However, a precise history is difficult because the modern concept of being transgender, and gender in general, did not develop until the mid-1900s. Historical understandings are thus inherently filtered through modern principles, and were largely viewed through a medical lens until the late 1900s. Writer Genny Beemyn points out: Trans history has also been filtered through gay history, with some historians erasing the trans identities of historical figures such as
Billy Tipton Billy Tipton (December 29, 1914 – January 21, 1989) was an American jazz musician, bandleader, and talent broker. Tipton lived and identified as a man for most of his adult life; after his death, friends and family were surprised to learn that ...
to instead promote a gay reading of their lives. The absence of autobiographical accounts requires historians to assign identities to historical figures, which of course may be inaccurate. Author Jason Cromwell assesses that if a person indicated he was a man, modified his body to look more traditionally male, and lived his life as a man, he was a trans man; the same approach has been used to identify trans women. Genny Beemyn distinguishes trans people from crossdressers in the historical record by assessing that a person who crossdressed only in public did not mind exposing their dual life as a crossdresser, while those who crossdressed consistently (also in private) and sought to keep their assigned gender a secret were more likely trans. Beemyn also distinguishes non-binary individuals in the historical record. She notes that many societies in the New World had non-binary gender roles enshrined in their society, which enraged European explorers. For example, in 1513
Vasco Núñez de Balboa Vasco Núñez de Balboa (; c. 1475around January 12–21, 1519) was a Spanish explorer, governor, and conquistador. He is best known for having crossed the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean in 1513, becoming the first European to lead an ...
killed 40 natives on the
Panama Isthmus The Isthmus of Panama ( es, Istmo de Panamá), also historically known as the Isthmus of Darien (), is the narrow strip of land that lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, linking North and South America. It contains the country ...
for being sodomites, as they had been assigned male at birth but were practicing female gender roles. Not all Europeans were as judgmental: a matter-of-fact 1564 narrative describes "hermaphrodites" as "quite common". An account from Edwin Thompson Denig in the first half of the 19th century describes a "neuter" gender among the
Crow people The Crow, whose autonym is Apsáalooke (), also spelled Absaroka, are Native Americans living primarily in southern Montana. Today, the Crow people have a federally recognized tribe, the Crow Tribe of Montana, with an Indian reservation loca ...
. Denig said of it: "Strange country this, where males assume the dress and perform the duties of females, while women turn men and mate with their own sex!" Beemyn concludes that European writers lacked the language or cultural understanding to adequately describe the practices they were witnessing. Overall, she cautions not to make generalizations about native practices, since third gender roles were extremely diverse and ranged from exalted positions who were believed to have supernatural power, to denigrated underlings.


Medicalization


Africa


Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt had third gender categories, including for eunuchs. In the
Tale of Two Brothers The "Tale of Two Brothers" is an ancient Egyptian story that dates from the reign of Seti II, who ruled from 1200 to 1194 BC during the 19th Dynasty of the New Kingdom. The story is preserved on the Papyrus D'Orbiney, which is currently held in t ...
(from 3,200 years ago), Bata removes his penis and tells his wife "I am a woman just like you"; one modern scholar called him temporarily (before his body is restored) " transgendered".
Mut Mut, also known as Maut and Mout, was a mother goddess worshipped in ancient Egypt and the Kingdom of Kush in present-day North Sudan. In Meroitic, her name was pronounced mata): 𐦨𐦴. Her name means ''mother'' in the ancient Egyptian la ...
,
Sekhmet In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet ( or Sachmis (), also spelled Sakhmet, Sekhet, Sakhet among other spellings, cop, Ⲥⲁⲭⲙⲓ, Sakhmi), is a warrior goddess as well as goddess of healing. She is depicted as a lioness. Sekhmet is a solar de ...
and other goddesses are sometimes represented androgynously, with erect penises, and
Anat Anat (, ), Anatu, classically Anath (; uga, 𐎓𐎐𐎚 ''ʿnt''; he, עֲנָת ''ʿĂnāṯ''; ; el, Αναθ, translit=Anath; Egyptian: '' ꜥntjt'') was a goddess associated with warfare and hunting, best known from the Ugaritic texts. ...
wears clothes of both men and women.


North Africa

Trans people face stigma and are not able to change gender markers or access hormone therapy or reassignment surgery in
Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...
, but in 2018 some founded a group to oppose discrimination. In
Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...
, trans people mostly live in the shadows, or seek refuge in France; in 2014 the first LGBT magazine in the country, '' El Shad'', launched and profiled several. In
Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...
, trans people have been arrested, jailed, and tortured; some seek asylum in Greece.
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
today is also hostile to transgender people, who are subject to arrest. The
Nuba peoples The Nuba people are indigenous inhabitants of central Sudan. Nuba are various indigenous ethnic groups who inhabit the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan state in Sudan, encompassing multiple distinct people that speak different languages which b ...
of
Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...
(including the
Otoro Nuba The Otoro Nuba are an ethnic group in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan state, in southern Sudan. They speak Otoro language, a Niger-Congo language. The population of this group is approximately 12,000. See also *Nuba peoples The Nuba peop ...
, Nyima, Tira, Krongo, and
Mesakin Mesakin is an ethnic group in the Nuba Hills in Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. ...
), have traditional roles for male-assigned people who dress and live as women and may marry men, which have been seen as transgender roles. However, trans people face discrimination in the modern Sudanese state, and cross-dressing is illegal.


West Africa

By the modern period, the
Igbo Igbo may refer to: * Igbo people, an ethnic group of Nigeria * Igbo language, their language * anything related to Igboland, a cultural region in Nigeria See also * Ibo (disambiguation) * Igbo mythology * Igbo music * Igbo art * * Igbo-Ukwu, a ...
, like many other peoples, had gender and transgender roles, including for females who take on male status and marry women, a practice which also exists among the Dahomey ( Fon) of
Benin Benin ( , ; french: Bénin , ff, Benen), officially the Republic of Benin (french: République du Bénin), and formerly Dahomey, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the north ...
and has been viewed through both transgender and homosexual lenses. Anthropologist John McCall documented a female-assigned
Ohafia Ohafia is an Igbo town in the Ohafia local government area (LGA) in Abia State, Nigeria. It is an Igbo speaking region. The ancestral capital of Ohafia town is the centrally located village of Elu. Ohafia Local Government Area, is an administrative ...
Igbo named Nne Uko Uma Awa, who dressed and behaved as a boy since childhood, joined men's groups, and was a husband to two wives; in 1991, Awa stated "by creation I was meant to be a man. But as it happened, when coming into this world I came with a woman's body. That is why I dressed s a man"John C. McCall, ''Dancing Histories: Heuristic Ethnography with the Ohafia Igbo'' (2000, )
Toyin Falola Toyin Omoyeni Falola (born January 1, 1953) is a Nigerian historian and professor of African Studies. Falola is a Fellow of the Historical Society of Nigeria and of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, and has served as the president of the African ...
, ''Nigeria in the twentieth century'' (2002), p. 86
However, trans people in
Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
face harassment and violence.Megha Mohan, '' /www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-39271690 Why transgender Africans turned against a famous feminist', March 16, 2017, BBC In the modern
Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...
ian state, trans people face violence and discrimination in accessing healthcare, work, education and housing, as they also do in a number of other western African states like
the Gambia The Gambia,, ff, Gammbi, ar, غامبيا officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. It is the smallest country within mainland AfricaHoare, Ben. (2002) ''The Kingfisher A-Z Encyclopedia'', Kingfisher Publicatio ...
.''[//migri.fi/documents/5202425/5914056/64429_Status_of_LGBTI_people_in_Cameroon_Gambia_Ghana_and_Uganda_3.12.2015.pdf/678747c6-1b6f-477a-be13-984a62908e47 Status of LGBTI people in Cameroon, Gambia, Ghana and Uganda]'', December 3, 2015, Finnish Immigration Service Trans people face abuse from society, government, media and doctors in Senegal,Oscar Lopez, ''[//www.thedailybeast.com/i-dont-go-out-during-the-day-inside-senegals-lgbt-crackdown ‘I Don’t Go Out During the Day’: Inside Senegal’s LGBT Crackdown]'', February 2, 2018, ''The Daily Beast'' and are harassed (including by police) in
Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierra ...
, but have built some underground community spaces. Transphobia is rampant in modern
Mali Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mali ...
and trans women are often beaten in the streets. In
Liberia Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean ...
, sexual minorities have long been part of society, and founded the Transgender Network of Liberia in 2014, hold an annual pageant, and mark the Trans Day of Remembrance, but also face harassment. They benefited from US backing under Obama and were harmed by Trump administration cuts, and by Liberians who wrongly believe transness was introduced to the country by the West.Robbie Corey-Boulet, '' /www.thenation.com/article/queer-activism-liberia/ How the US Shapes Queer Activism in Liberia', June 21, 2019, ''The Nation'' In the
Ivory Coast Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital is Yamoussoukro, in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre is ...
, trans women (especially sex workers) face harassment and violence, especially since the 2011 election; since 2009, there has been an annual drag pageant, but it focuses more on gay men than trans women or ''
travesti Travesti may refer to: * Travesti (gender identity), a transgender identity in South America * Travesti (theatre), a performance while wearing clothes of the opposite sex * "Travesti", a section of Arca's 2020 single "@@@@@" See also

* Tr ...
s''. In modern
Benin Benin ( , ; french: Bénin , ff, Benen), officially the Republic of Benin (french: République du Bénin), and formerly Dahomey, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the north ...
, one trans woman was supported by her mother and the French in organizing other trans Beninese, but abused by other relatives, threatened by police, and forced to flee abroad. In
Cape Verde , national_anthem = () , official_languages = Portuguese , national_languages = Cape Verdean Creole , capital = Praia , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , demonym ...
, activist Tchinda Andrade came out in 1998, becoming so well known that trans people are locally called ''tchindas''; in 2015, the documentary ''
Tchindas ''Tchindas'' is a 2015 Spanish-Cape Verdean documentary film directed by Pablo García Pérez de Lara and Marc Serena. The film premiered at the Outfest Los Angeles 2015 where it received a Grand Jury Award. Plot In the Atlantic Ocean, the tin ...
'' followed her preparation for the annual carnival.Thomas Page, '' /www.cnn.com/2016/07/07/africa/tchinda-andrade-transgender-cape-verde-film/index.html Tchinda Andrade: Cape Verde's transgender hero', July 7, 2016, CNN Trans people still face intolerance, but
São Vicente, Cape Verde São Vicente (Portuguese for " Saint Vincent") is one of the Barlavento Islands, the northern group within the Cape Verde archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, off the West African coast. It is located between the islands of Santo Antão and Sant ...
is today among the more tolerant places in Africa, which locals attribute to its small size requiring people to work together.


Central Africa

In
Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...
, trans people face violence and discrimination in accessing healthcare, work, education and housing, and trans women have been attacked and jailed. Trans people in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...
today also face harassment. Trans and gay people in
Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...
live more openly and face less violence than in neighboring states, but face some stigma. In
Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...
, in the 2010s, trans singer
Titica Titica is an Angola, Angolan kuduro musician and dancer. She was named "the new face" of kuduro by the BBC. Career Titica was born in Luanda. Her stage name is Portuguese for "worthless" or "useless"; she chose the name to reclaim the hateful word ...
initially faced violence but has become popular, especially with young Angolans.


East Africa

Among Swahili-speaking people in
Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...
, male-assigned may take feminine names, marry men, and do womanly household work (while marry women). Among some other Kenyan peoples, male-assigned priests (called ''mugawe'' among the
Meru Meru may refer to: Geography Kenya * Meru, Kenya, a city in Meru County, Kenya ** Meru County, created by the merger of *** Meru Central District *** Meru North District *** Meru South District * Meru National Park, a Kenyan wildlife park Tanza ...
and
Kikuyu Kikuyu or Gikuyu (Gĩkũyũ) mostly refers to an ethnic group in Kenya or its associated language. It may also refer to: * Kikuyu people, a majority ethnic group in Kenya *Kikuyu language, the language of Kikuyu people *Kikuyu, Kenya, a town in Cent ...
) dress and style their hair like women and may marry men, and have been compared to trans women. Among the
Nuer people The Nuer people are a Nilotic ethnic group concentrated in the Greater Upper Nile region of South Sudan. They also live in the Ethiopian region of Gambella. The Nuer speak the Nuer language, which belongs to the Nilotic language family. They ...
(in what is now
South Sudan South Sudan (; din, Paguot Thudän), officially the Republic of South Sudan ( din, Paankɔc Cuëny Thudän), is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the C ...
and
Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
), female-assigned people who have borne no children may adopt a male status, marry a woman, and be regarded as the father of any children they bear (a practice which has been viewed as transgender or homosexual); the Nuer are also reported to have a male-to-female role. The
Maale people The Maale people (also spelled Male; pronounced /ˈmɑːli/), are a small ethnic group of approximately 95,000 located in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region at the border between north and south Omo of Ethiopia Ethiopia ...
of
Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
also have a traditional role for male-assigned ''ashtime'' who take on feminine roles; traditionally, they served as sexual partners for the king on days he was ritually barred from sex with women; with the introduction of modern transphobia, ''ashtime'' came to be viewed as abnormal by the 1970s. The
Amhara people Amharas ( am, አማራ, Āmara; gez, ዐምሐራ, ʾÄməḥära) are a Semitic-speaking ethnic group which is indigenous to Ethiopia, traditionally inhabiting parts of the northwest Highlands of Ethiopia, particularly inhabiting the Amhara ...
of Ethiopia stigmatize male-assigned people in their communities who adopt feminine dress. In
Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...
today, transphobia and homophobia is increasing, introduced in the 1800s and 1900s by Christian
missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...
and stoked in the 2000s by conservative
evangelicals Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...
; trans people are now often kicked out by their families and denied work, and face discrimination in accessing healthcare, though trans men are trying to challenge such transphobia and sexist gender roles. Traditionally, Ugandan peoples were largely accepting of trans and gay people; the
Lango people The Lango are a Nilo-Hamitic ethnic group of the Ateker peoples. They live in north-central Uganda, in a region that covers the area formerly known as the Lango District until 1974, when it was split into the districts of Apac and Lira, and ...
accepted trans women—male-assigned people called ''jo apele'' or ''jo aboich'' who were believed to have been transformed at conception into women by the androgynous deity Jok, and who adopted women's names, dress, and face-decorations, grew their hair long, simulated menstruation, and could marry men—as did the Karamojong and Teso, and the
Lugbara people The Lugbara are a Central Sudanic ethnic group who live mainly in the West Nile region of Uganda, in the adjoining area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and few in South Sudan. They speak the Lugbara language, a Central Sudanic langu ...
had roles for both trans women () and trans men (). In
Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...
, the U.S. State Department reported in 2011 that "sexual orientation and gender identity were not widely discussed" and attitudes ranged "from tacit acceptance to violent rejection, particularly of transgender sex workers". In the early 2000s, Balou Chabart Rasoana became one of the first publicly out trans women, and faced discrimination but was supported by her mother and, over time, her neighborhood; much of the LGBT community remains underground.


Southern Africa


Traditional Bantu third genders

Various
Bantu peoples The Bantu peoples, or Bantu, are an ethnolinguistic grouping of approximately 400 distinct ethnic groups who speak Bantu languages. They are native to 24 countries spread over a vast area from Central Africa to Southeast Africa and into Southern A ...
in
southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number of ...
, including the Zulu,
Basotho The Sotho () people, also known as the Basuto or Basotho (), are a Bantu nation native to southern Africa. They split into different ethnic groups over time, due to regional conflicts and colonialism, which resulted in the modern Basotho, who ...
,
Mpondo The Mpondo People or simply AmaMpondo, is one of the kingdoms in what is now the Eastern Cape.Mpondo people
and
Tsonga Tsonga may refer to: * Tsonga language, a Bantu language spoken in southern Africa * Tsonga people, a large group of people living mainly in southern Mozambique and South Africa. * Jo-Wilfried Tsonga Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (; born 17 April 1985) i ...
, had a tradition of young men (''inkotshane'' in Zulu, ''boukonchana'' in
Sesotho Sotho () or Sesotho () or Southern Sotho is a Southern Bantu language of the Sotho–Tswana ("S.30") group, spoken primarily by the Basotho in Lesotho, where it is the national and official language; South Africa (particularly the Free Sta ...
, ''tinkonkana'' in Mpondo, and ''nkhonsthana'' in Tsonga; called "boy-wives" in English) who married or had intercrural or anal sex with older men, and sometimes dressed as women, wore breast prostheses, did not grow beards, and did women's work; these relationships became common among South African miners and continued into the 1950s, and while often interpreted as homosexual, boy-wives are sometimes seen as transgender.


Botswana

In two cases in 2017, Botswana's High Court ruled trans men and trans women have the right to have their gender identity recognized by the government and to change gender markers; the court said the registrar's refusal to change a marker was unreasonable and violated the person's "rights to dignity, privacy, freedom of expression, equal protection of the law, freedom from discrimination and freedom from inhumane and degrading treatment".


South Africa

From the 1960s to 1980s, the
South African Defence Force The South African Defence Force (SADF) (Afrikaans: ''Suid-Afrikaanse Weermag'') comprised the armed forces of South Africa from 1957 until 1994. Shortly before the state reconstituted itself as a republic in 1961, the former Union Defence F ...
forced some white gay and lesbian soldiers to have
sex reassignment surgery Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a transgender or transsexual person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender, and alle ...
. Since March 2004, trans and
intersex Intersex people are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical bina ...
people are allowed to change their legal sex after medical treatment such as
hormone replacement therapy Hormone replacement therapy (HRT), also known as menopausal hormone therapy or postmenopausal hormone therapy, is a form of hormone therapy used to treat symptoms associated with female menopause. These symptoms can include hot flashes, vaginal ...
. Several
Labour Court A labor court (or labour court or industrial tribunal) is a governmental judiciary body which rules on labor or employment-related matters and disputes. In a number of countries, labor cases are often taken to separate national labor high courts. O ...
rulings have found against employers that mistreated employees who transitioned.


Americas


North America


Early history

Prior to western contact, some Native American tribes had
third-gender Third gender is a concept in which individuals are categorized, either by themselves or by society, as neither man nor woman. It is also a social category present in societies that recognize three or more genders. The term ''third'' is usually ...
roles, like the Diné (Navajo) ''
nádleehi ''Nádleehi'' is a social and, at times, ceremonial role in Diné (Navajo) culture – an "effeminate male" or "male-bodied person with a feminine nature". However, the ''nádleehi'' gender role is also fluid and cannot be simply described in term ...
'' and the Zuni ''
lhamana ''Lhamana'', in traditional Zuni culture, are biologically male people who take on the social and ceremonial roles usually performed by women in their culture, at least some of the time. Page 269 They wear a mixture of women's and men's clothing ...
''. European anthropologists usually referred to these people as ''
berdache Two-spirit (also two spirit, 2S or, occasionally, twospirited) is a modern, , umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people in their communities who fulfill a traditional third-gender (or other gender-variant) ...
s'', which Indigenous people have always considered an offensive slur. In 1990, some Indigenous North Americans, largely in academia, adopted the pan-Indian neologism ''
two-spirit Two-spirit (also two spirit, 2S or, occasionally, twospirited) is a modern, , umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people in their communities who fulfill a traditional third-gender (or other gender-variant) ...
'', as an attempt to organize inter-tribally. Though acceptance of this term in traditional Native communities which already have their own terms for such people has been limited, it has generally met with more acceptance than the slur it replaced. One of the first European accounts of Iroquois practices of gender was made by missionary Joseph-François Lafitau who spent six years among the
Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
starting in 1711, and observed "women with manly courage who prided themselves upon the profession of warrior, nd seemedto become men alone", and people he called "men cowardly enough to live as women." There is archaeological evidence that trans- or third-gender individuals existed in California 2,500 years ago at rates comparable to those at which they exist among indigenous peoples there in the modern era, and archaeological and ethnographic evidence suggests third-gender categories may be of great antiquity in North America overall;
Barbara Voss Barbara L. Voss (born 1967) is an American Historical archaeology, historical archaeologist. Her work focuses on cross-cultural encounters, particularly the Spanish colonization of the Americas and Overseas Chinese communities in the 19th century ...
suggests they may go back to the first migrations of people from eastern Asia and Siberia over 10,000 years ago.


Canada

During the colonial period a European system of beliefs and values was imposed on the
First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...
and enforced among the colonists. In 1970,
Dianna Boileau Dianna Boileau ( – 2014) was a Canadian transgender woman, and among the first Canadians to undergo gender-affirming surgery. Boileau began living as a woman in her late teens. She first came to public attention after her involvement in a fatal ...
underwent sex reassignment surgery at
Toronto General Hospital The Toronto General Hospital (TGH) is a major teaching hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and the flagship campus of University Health Network (UHN). It is located in the Discovery District of Downtown Toronto along University Avenue's Hospital ...
, becoming possibly the first in Canada to do so. Over the following two years, Boileau shared her story with a number of press outlets and published a 1972 memoir, ''Behold, I Am a Woman'', before retreating from the public eye. In 2002,
sexual orientation Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generall ...
and
gender identity Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the i ...
were included in the
Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories (abbreviated ''NT'' or ''NWT''; french: Territoires du Nord-Ouest, formerly ''North-Western Territory'' and ''North-West Territories'' and namely shortened as ''Northwest Territory'') is a federal territory of Canada. ...
Human Rights Act. In June 2012, gender identity and expression were added to the Ontario Human Rights Code, and gender identity was added to the Manitoba Human Rights Code. In December 2012 Nova Scotia added gender identity and expression to the list of things explicitly protected from harassment in that province's Human Rights Act. In May 2012, after a legal battle to reverse her disqualification for not being a "naturally born female", Vancouver resident
Jenna Talackova Jenna Talackova (born October 15, 1988) is a Canadian model, television personality and beauty pageant titleholder who gained media attention in 2012 when she successfully waged a legal battle to be allowed to compete in the Miss Universe Canada a ...
became the first trans woman to compete in a
Miss Universe Miss Universe is an annual international beauty pageant that is run by a United States and Thailand based Miss Universe Organization.Natalie Tadena (July 2, 2015"Donald Trump's Miss USA Pageant Lands on Reelz Cable Channel". ''The Wall Stre ...
pageant, and was one of four contestants to win "Miss Congeniality". In March 2013, the House of Commons passed Bill C-279 to officially extend
human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
protections to trans people in Canada. In February 2015, the
Senate of Canada The Senate of Canada (french: region=CA, Sénat du Canada) is the upper house of the Parliament of Canada. Together with the Crown and the House of Commons, they comprise the bicameral legislature of Canada. The Senate is modelled after the B ...
amended the bill in ways that were criticized as
transphobic Transphobia is a collection of ideas and phenomena that encompass a range of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger tow ...
. In December 2015, legislator
Estefania Cortes-Vargas Estefan Cortes-Vargas (born Estefania Cortes-Vargas, 1991) is a Colombian-born Canadian politician and non-profit administrator who was elected in the 2015 Alberta general election to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, representing the elector ...
came out as
non-binary Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or femaleidentities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typically ...
in the
Legislative Assembly of Alberta The Legislative Assembly of Alberta is the deliberative assembly of the province of Alberta, Canada. It sits in the Alberta Legislature Building in Edmonton. The Legislative Assembly currently has 87 members, elected first past the post from singl ...
during a debate over the inclusion of transgender rights in the provincial human rights code. /www.macleans.ca/news/canada/for-the-record-an-alberta-mla-on-battling-gender-identity/ "An Alberta MLA on battling gender identity" ''
Maclean's ''Maclean's'', founded in 1905, is a Canadian news magazine reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events. Its founder, publisher John Bayne Maclean, established the magazine to provide a uniquely Canadian perspe ...
'', December 1, 2015
While the provincial ''
Hansard ''Hansard'' is the traditional name of the transcripts of parliamentary debates in Britain and many Commonwealth countries. It is named after Thomas Curson Hansard (1776–1833), a London printer and publisher, who was the first official print ...
'' normally reports members' speeches under the gender honorifics "Mr." or "Ms.", Cortes-Vargas is recorded as "Member Cortes-Vargas". On December 17, 2015,
Kael McKenzie Kael McKenzie (born 1971) is a Canadian judge, who was appointed to the Provincial Court of Manitoba on December 17, 2015. He is noted as the first transgender person ever appointed a judge in Canada.Provincial Court of Manitoba The Provincial Court of Manitoba (french: Cour provinciale du Manitoba) is the lower trial court of the Province of Manitoba. It has mainly a criminal jurisdiction, as well as limited concurrent jurisdiction with the Court of King's Bench in ma ...
, becoming Canada's first openly transgender judge. In 2016, gender identity or expression was added to the
Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms The ''Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms'' (french: Charte des droits et libertés de la personne), also known as the "Quebec Charter", is a statutory bill of rights and human rights code passed by the National Assembly of Quebec on June 27, 1 ...
. The same year,
Jennifer Pritzker Jennifer Natalya Pritzker (born James Nicholas Pritzker; August 13, 1950) is an American investor, philanthropist, and member of the Pritzker family. Pritzker retired as a Lieutenant Colonel (United States), lieutenant colonel from the Illinois ...
gave a $2 million donation to create the world's first endowed academic chair of
transgender studies Transgender studies, also called trans studies or trans* studies, is an interdisciplinary field of academic research dedicated to the study of gender identity, gender expression, and gender embodiment, as well as to the study of various issues of ...
, at the
University of Victoria in British Columbia The University of Victoria (UVic or Victoria) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. The university traces its roots to Victoria College, the first post-secondary institu ...
;
Aaron Devor Aaron H. Devor (born 1951), is a Canadian sociologist and sexologist known for researching transsexuality and transgender communities. Devor has taught at the University of Victoria since 1989 and is the former dean of graduate studies. Gartner, ...
was chosen as the inaugural chair. In May 2016,
Bill C-16 ''An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code'' (french: Loi modifiant la Loi canadienne sur les droits de la personne et le Code criminel) is a law passed by the Parliament of Canada. The law adds gender expression and ...
was introduced aiming to update the
Canadian Human Rights Act The ''Canadian Human Rights Act'' (french: Loi canadienne sur les droits de la personne) is a statute passed by the Parliament of Canada in 1977 with the express goal of extending the law to ensure equal opportunity to individuals who may be vi ...
and
Criminal Code A criminal code (or penal code) is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that migh ...
to include gender identity and expression as protected grounds from discrimination, hate publication and advocacy of genocide, and to add targeting of victims on the basis of gender identity and expression to the list of aggravating factors in sentencing, /www.cbc.ca/news/politics/transgender-bill-trudeau-government-1.3585522 "Transgender Canadians should 'feel free and safe' to be themselves under new Liberal bill"
CBC News CBC News is a division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC.ca. ...
, May 17, 2016
the first time such a bill was put forward by the governing party in the House of Commons. Since June 2017, all places within Canada explicitly within the Canadian Human Rights Act or equal opportunity or anti-discrimination legislation do prohibit discrimination against gender identity or expression. Since August 2017, Canadians can indicate that they are neither male nor female on their passports, using an 'x' marker. In January 2018,
Canadian Women's Hockey League The Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL; french: Ligue canadienne de hockey féminin ‒ LCHF) was a women's ice hockey league. Established in 2007 as a Canadian women's senior league in the Greater Toronto Area, Montreal, and Ottawa, the league ...
player Jessica Platt came out, the first trans woman to come out in North American professional hockey.


Haiti

In 1791, early in the
Haitian Revolution The Haitian Revolution (french: révolution haïtienne ; ht, revolisyon ayisyen) was a successful insurrection by slave revolt, self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti. The revolt ...
, a black planter who had been raised as a boy led an uprising in southern HaitiColin A. Palmer, ''Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History'' (2006), p. 1972Matthias Middell, Megan Maruschke, ''The French Revolution as a Moment of Respatialization'' (2019), p. 71 under the name
Romaine-la-Prophétesse Romaine-la-Prophétesse (, Romaine the Prophetess), born Romaine Rivière around 1750 in Santo Domingo, was a free black coffee plantation owner and leader of an uprising early in the Haitian Revolution. In 1791, in response to rising racial ten ...
("Romaine the Prophetess").Terry Rey, "Kongolese Catholic Influences on Haitian Popular Catholicism", in Linda M. Heywood (editor), ''Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora'' (2002), pp. 270-271Terry Rey, ''Bourdieu on Religion: Imposing Faith and Legitimacy'' (2014, Routledge, ), pp. 119-120 Romaine dressed like a woman and spoke of being possessed by a female spirit,Jeremy D. Popkin, ''A Concise History of the Haitian Revolution'' (2011), p. 51 may have been transgender or
genderfluid Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or femaleidentities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typicall ...
, and has been compared to the transgender feminine religious figures of West Africa, the area many black Haitians descended from. Mary Grace Albanese and list Romaine among the women who led the Haitian Revolution, while Terry Rey argues calling Romaine transgender could be anachronistic. Romaine has been compared to
Kimpa Vita Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita, Kimpa Mvita, Tsimpa Vita or Tchimpa Vita (1684 – 2 July 1706), was a Kongo Empire prophet and leader of her own Christian movement, Antonianism; this movement taught that Jesus and other early Christian figures wer ...
, who professed to be the incarnation of a male Catholic saint. In the modern era, discrimination and violence against transgender people is common in Haitian society, though many LGBT people find it easier to be open about their gender within the Vodou subculture, in which it is believed, for example, that people may be possessed by divinities of the opposite sex. Haiti's criminal code prohibits vagrancy, with a specific mention of
transvestite Transvestism is the practice of dressing in a manner traditionally associated with the opposite sex. In some cultures, transvestism is practiced for religious, traditional, or ceremonial reasons. The term is considered outdated in Western c ...
s.


Mexico

In several pre-Columbian communities across Mexico, anthropologists and colonial accounts document acceptance of third-gender categories. Transvestitism was an accepted practice in the native cultures of Central (and South) America, including among the Aztecs and Mayans (as reflected in their mythologies). Spanish colonizers were hostile to it. The
Zapotec people The Zapotecs ( Valley Zapotec: ''Bën za'') are an indigenous people of Mexico. The population is concentrated in the southern state of Oaxaca, but Zapotec communities also exist in neighboring states. The present-day population is estimated at app ...
of
Oaxaca Oaxaca ( , also , , from nci, Huāxyacac ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), is one of the 32 states that compose the political divisions of Mexico, Federative Entities of Mexico. It is ...
have a third gender role for ''
muxe In Zapotec cultures of Oaxaca (southern Mexico), a muxe (also spelled muxhe; ) is a person assigned male at birth who dresses and behaves in ways otherwise associated with women; they may be seen as a third gender. Etymology The Zapotec word ...
s'', people who dress, behave and perform work otherwise associated with the other binary
gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
; ''vestidas'' wear feminine clothes, while ''pintadas'' wear masculine clothes but also makeup and jewellery. They may marry women, men, or other muxes.Lynn Stephen, "Latin American Perspectives" (2002), issue 123, v. 29, No. 2, March 2002, pp. 41-59. It has been suggested that while the three gender system predates Spanish colonization, the phenomenon of muxes dressing as women may be more recent.
Juchitán de Zaragoza Juchitán de Zaragoza (; Spanish name; Isthmus Zapotec: ''Xabizende'' ) is an indigenous town in the southeast of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It is part of the Juchitán District in the west of the Istmo de Tehuantepec region. With a 2005 census ...
, an indigenous community on the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec The Isthmus of Tehuantepec () is an isthmus in Mexico. It represents the shortest distance between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Before the opening of the Panama Canal, it was a major overland transport route known simply as the Te ...
, has so many well-accepted muxes there is a myth attributing their numbers to a bag of third-genders carried by Saint Vicent ripping and accidentally spilling many out over the town; one study estimated 6% of males in the community in the 1970s were muxes. During the
Mexican Revolution The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
,
Amelio Robles Ávila Amelio Robles Ávila (3 November 1889 – 9 December 1984) was a colonel during the Mexican Revolution. Assigned female at birth with the name Amelia Robles Ávila, Robles fought in the Mexican Revolution, rose to the rank of colonel, and lived ...
began to dress and demand to be treated as a man and, gaining respect as a capable leader, was promoted to colonel. Robles' maleness was accepted by family, society, and the Mexican government, and he lived as a man from age 24 until death; a neighbor said that if anyone called Robles a woman, Robles would threaten them with a pistol, and he killed two men who attacked him and tried to reveal his anatomy.


United States

Thomas(ine) Hall ? (Can't find online, and I'm not ordering a book from amazon for this) Taylor => Brown Brown => ? hort => ? Vaughan => ? Rose => ? Bridenbaugh => ? MSmith => reis2005 Floyd => ? reis2005 => reis2005 Here's some citations which I removed in try ...
, an
indentured servant Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an " indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensation or debt repayment ...
in Virginia, reported being both a man and a woman and adopted clothes and roles of each at different times until ordered by a court in 1629 to wear both men's breeches and a woman's apron; Hall is thought to have been
intersex Intersex people are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical bina ...
and is cited as an early example of "a gender nonconforming individual in colonial America". In 1776, the
Public Universal Friend The Public Universal FriendOriginal spelling: ''the Publick Universal Friend''. Shortened forms: ''the Universal Friend'', ''the Friend'', or ''P.U.F.'' (born Jemima Wilkinson; November 29, 1752 – July 1, 1819) was an American preacher born ...
reported being genderless, dressed androgynously, and asked followers gained while preaching throughout New England over the next four decades not to use their birth name or gendered pronouns; some scholars have called the Friend a chapter in trans history "before
he word He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
'transgender'". There were also cases of people living as the opposite gender in the early years of the Republic, such as
Joseph Lobdell Joseph Israel Lobdell (December 02, 1829 - May 28, 1912; born ''Lucy Ann Lobdell'') was a 19th-century person who was assigned female at birth and lived as a man for sixty years, and is usually regarded today as a transgender man.Sarah Boslaugh, ...
, who was
assigned female Sex assignment (sometimes known as gender assignment) is the discernment of an infant's sex at or before birth. A relative, midwife, nurse or physician inspects the external genitalia when the baby is delivered and, in more than 99.95% of bir ...
at birth in 1829, lived as a man for sixty years, and married a woman.
Charley Parkhurst Charley Darkey Parkhurst (born Charlotte Darkey Parkhurst; 1812 – December 18, 1879) also known as "One-Eyed Charley" or "Six-Horse Charley", was an American stagecoach driver, farmer and rancher in California. Raised female in New England, Pa ...
was a
stagecoach A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are draw ...
driver who was assigned female at birth but lived his professional life as a man. During the Civil War, over 200 people who had been assigned female at birth donned men's clothing and fought as soldiers; some lived the rest of their lives as men and are thought by some to have been transgender, such as
Albert Cashier Albert D. J. Cashier (December 25, 1843 – October 10, 1915), born Jennie Irene Hodgers, was an American soldier who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Cashier adopted the identity of a man before enlisting, and maintained ...
. After the war, Frances Thompson, a formerly enslaved black trans woman, testified before Congress's investigation of the
Memphis Riots of 1866 The Memphis massacre of 1866 was a series of violent events that occurred from May 1 to 3, 1866 in Memphis, Tennessee. The racial violence was ignited by political and social racism following the American Civil War, in the early stages of Reco ...
; ten years later, she was arrested for "being a man dressed in women's clothing". In the late 1800s,
We'wha We'wha (1849–1896, various spellings) was a Zuni Native American from New Mexico, a notable fiber artist, weaver and potter. As the most famous ''lhamana'' on record, We'wha served as a cultural ambassador for Native Americans in general, an ...
, a Zuni ''
lhamana ''Lhamana'', in traditional Zuni culture, are biologically male people who take on the social and ceremonial roles usually performed by women in their culture, at least some of the time. Page 269 They wear a mixture of women's and men's clothing ...
'' fiber artist and potter, became a prominent cultural ambassador, visiting
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
in 1896 and meeting President
Grover Cleveland Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...
. The ''lhamana'' are male-bodied people who may at times take on the social and ceremonial roles usually performed by women in their culture, and at other times the roles more traditionally associated with men. In 1895 a group of self-described androgynes in New York organized a club called the Cercle Hermaphroditos, "to unite for defense against the world's bitter persecution". They included Jennie June (assigned male at birth in 1874), whose ''The Autobiography of an Androgyne'' (1918) was one of a few first-person accounts in the early years of the 20th century which cast light on what life for a transgender person was like then. In some cases, immigrants would change their gender identity upon arrival in the United States, especially those assigned female at birth, ostensibly for social mobility, like Frank Woodhull, a Canadian immigrant who lived for about 15 years as a man in
California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
and in 1908 was forced to disclose this during processing at
Ellis Island Ellis Island is a federally owned island in New York Harbor, situated within the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, that was the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States. From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 mi ...
. American jazz musician and bandleader
Billy Tipton Billy Tipton (December 29, 1914 – January 21, 1989) was an American jazz musician, bandleader, and talent broker. Tipton lived and identified as a man for most of his adult life; after his death, friends and family were surprised to learn that ...
(assigned female at birth in 1914) lived as a man from the 1940s until his death, while socialite and chef
Lucy Hicks Anderson Lucy Hicks Anderson (; 1886–1954) was an American socialite and chef, best known for her time in Oxnard, California, from 1920 to 1946. Assigned male at birth, she was adamant from an early age that she was a girl. Her parents, based on advice ...
insisted as a child that she was a girl and was supported by her parents and doctors and later by the
Oxnard, California Oxnard () is a city in Ventura County, California, United States. On California's South Coast, it is the most populous city in Ventura County and the 22nd-most-populous city in California. Incorporated in 1903, Oxnard lies approximately west ...
community in which she was a popular hostess from the 1920s to 1940s. In 1917,
Alan L. Hart Alan L. Hart (born Alberta Lucille Hart, also known as Robert Allen Bamford Jr., October 4, 1890 – July 1, 1962) was an American physician, radiologist, tuberculosis researcher, writer, and novelist. Hart pioneered the use of x-ray photogr ...
was one of the first trans men to undergo a
hysterectomy Hysterectomy is the surgical removal of the uterus. It may also involve removal of the cervix, ovaries (oophorectomy), Fallopian tubes (salpingectomy), and other surrounding structures. Usually performed by a gynecologist, a hysterectomy may b ...
and
gonadectomy Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which an individual loses use of the testicles: the male gonad. Surgical castration is bilateral orchiectomy (excision of both testicles), while chemical castration uses pharmaceu ...
, and later became a pioneering
physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
and
radiologist Radiology ( ) is the medical discipline that uses medical imaging to diagnose diseases and guide their treatment, within the bodies of humans and other animals. It began with radiography (which is why its name has a root referring to radiatio ...
. The possibility of someone changing sex became widely known when
Christine Jorgensen Christine Jorgensen (May 30, 1926 – May 3, 1989) was an American trans woman who was the first person to become widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery. She had a career as a successful actress, singer and rec ...
in 1952 became the first person widely publicized as undergoing
sex reassignment surgery Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a transgender or transsexual person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender, and alle ...
. Around the same time, organizations and clubs began to form, such as
Virginia Prince Virginia Charles Prince (November 23, 1912 – May 2, 2009), born Arnold Lowman, was an American transgender activist. She published '' Transvestia'' magazine, and started the ''Foundation for Personality Expression (FPE)'' and later the Society ...
's ''Transvestia'' publication for an international organization of
cross-dressers Cross-dressing is the act of wearing clothes usually worn by a different gender. From as early as pre-modern history, cross-dressing has been practiced in order to disguise, comfort, entertain, and self-express oneself. Cross-dressing has play ...
, but this operated in the same shadows as the still forming gay subculture. In the late 1950s and 1960s, modern transgender and gay activism began with the 1959
Cooper Donuts Riot The Cooper Do-nuts Riot was a small uprising in response to police harassment of LGBT people at the 24-hour Cooper Do-nuts cafe in Los Angeles in May 1959. This occurred 10 years prior to the better-known Stonewall riots in New York City and is ...
in Los Angeles, 1966
Compton's Cafeteria riot The Compton's Cafeteria riot occurred in August 1966 in the Tenderloin, San Francisco, California, Tenderloin district of San Francisco. The riot was a response to the violent and constant police harassment of drag queens and trans people, partic ...
in San Francisco, and a defining event in gay and transgender activism, the 1969
Stonewall Riots The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of Ju ...
in New York; prominent activists included
Sylvia Rivera Sylvia Rivera (July 2, 1951 – February 19, 2002) was an American gay liberation and transgender rights activist September 21, 1995. Accessed July 24, 2015. who was also a noted community worker in New York. Rivera, who identified as a drag q ...
. The 1970s and 1980s saw organizations devoted to transgender social activities or activism come and go, including activist Lou Sullivan's FTM support group that grew into FTM International, the leading advocacy group for trans men. Some
feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
and lesbian organizations and individuals began to debate whether transgender women should be accepted into women's groups and events, such as the women's music collective
Olivia Records Olivia Records is a women's music record label founded in 1973 by lesbian members of the Washington D.C. area. It was founded by Ginny Berson, Cris Williamson, Meg Christian, Judy Dlugacz, and six other women. Olivia Records sold more than one ...
where trans woman Sandy Stone had long been employed, or the
Michigan Womyn's Music Festival The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, often referred to as MWMF or Michfest, was a feminist women's music festival held annually from 1976 to 2015 in Oceana County, Michigan, on privately owned woodland near Hart Township referred to as "The La ...
which had a " women-born-women" in policy. The 1990s saw the establishment of
Transgender Day of Remembrance The Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR), also known as the International Transgender Day of Remembrance, has been observed annually (from its inception) on November 20 as a day to memorialize those who have been murdered as a result of transp ...
to honor those lost to violence, '' Paris is Burning'' documenting gay and trans New York
ball culture The Ballroom Scene (also known as the Ballroom community, Ballroom culture, or just Ballroom) is an African-American and Latino underground LGBTQ+ subculture that originated in New York City. Beginning in the late 20th century, Black and Latino ...
, transgender marches and parades around the time of
Pride Pride is defined by Merriam-Webster as "reasonable self-esteem" or "confidence and satisfaction in oneself". A healthy amount of pride is good, however, pride sometimes is used interchangeably with "conceit" or "arrogance" (among other words) wh ...
celebrations, and—increasingly in the 2000s and after—the visibility of transgender people rose, with
Monica Roberts Monica Katrice Roberts (May 4, 1962October 5, 2020) was an African-American blogger, writer, and transgender rights advocate. She was the founding editor of ''TransGriot'', a blog focusing on issues pertaining to trans women, particularly Africa ...
starting ''TransGriot'' in the mid-2000s to model accurate media coverage of the trans community, actress
Laverne Cox Laverne Cox (born May 29, 1972) is an American actress and LGBT advocate. She rose to prominence with her role as Sophia Burset on the Netflix series ''Orange Is the New Black'', becoming the first transgender person to be nominated for a Pri ...
being on the cover of ''TIME'' in 2014 and
Caitlyn Jenner Caitlyn Marie Jenner (born William Bruce Jenner; October 28, 1949) is an American media personality and retired Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete. Jenner played college football for the Graceland Yellowjackets before incurring a kne ...
coming out in 2015. Early trans officials like
Joanne Conte Joanne Marie Conte (October 18, 1933 – January 27, 2013) was an American politician. She is considered to be the first openly transgender person to be elected to a city council in the United States. She served on Arvada's City Council from 1991- ...
(elected in 1991 to
Arvada, Colorado Arvada () is a home rule municipality located in Jefferson and Adams counties, Colorado, United States. The city population was 124,402 at the 2020 United States Census, with 121,510 residing in Jefferson County and 2,892 residing in Adams Coun ...
's city Council) and
Althea Garrison Althea Garrison (born October 7, 1940) is an independent American politician from Boston, Massachusetts, who has served on the Boston City Council as an at-large councilor. Garrison was elected as a Republican to the Massachusetts House of Rep ...
(elected to the Massachusetts house in 1992, serving from 1993 to 1995) were not out when elected in the 1990s; while
Kim Coco Iwamoto Kim Coco Iwamoto (born May 26, 1968) is an American politician from Hawaii. She was one of the Democratic primary candidates for the position of Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii in the 2018 election. She previously served as a commissioner on the Ha ...
became the first openly trans person elected to statewide office when she won election to the Hawaii Board of Education in 2006 (and later to the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission in 2012), and Danica Roem became the first openly trans person to serve in a state legislature when she won a seat in the Virginia house in 2017. Organizations such as the Girl Scouts and the Episcopal Church announced acceptance of transgender members in the 2010s. In 2016, the Obama administration issued guidance that clarified Title IX protections for transgender students, the most well-known being allowing trans students to use bathrooms and locker rooms matching their gender identity. However, some legislative bodies passed discriminatory bills, such as North Carolina's
HB 2 The Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, commonly known as House Bill 2 or HB2, was a North Carolina statute passed in March 2016 and signed into law by Governor Pat McCrory. The bill amended state law to preempt any anti-discrimination ...
(in 2016), and beginning 2017 the Trump administration rescinded the Obama-era protections of trans students, rescinded rules against healthcare providers discriminating against trans patients, and issued a series of orders against employment of trans people by the department of defense. In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in ''
Bostock v. Clayton County ''Bostock v. Clayton County'', , is a landmark United States Supreme Court civil rights case in which the Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees against discrimination because they are gay or transgender. T ...
'' that
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requir ...
protects employees against discrimination because of
gender identity Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the i ...
(or sexual orientation).


South America


Bolivia

In 2016, Bolivia passed the Gender Identity Law, which allowed people over 18 to change their name, gender, and picture on legal documents.


Chile

In March 1973, the first
sexual reassignment surgery Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a transgender or transsexual person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender, and alle ...
in Latin America took place in Chile, when Marcia Torres underwent it in a Santiago hospital. This took place just months before the
1973 Chilean coup d'état The 1973 Chilean coup d'état Enciclopedia Virtual > Historia > Historia de Chile > Del gobierno militar a la democracia" on LaTercera.cl. Retrieved 22 September 2006. In October 1972, Chile suffered the first of many strikes. Among the par ...
, and the new dictatorship under
Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...
began adopting policies which criminalized and marginalized the activities of gay and trans people. Torres, however, was able to acquire the changed identity documents she sought from the courts after her surgery. In 2018, President Sebastián Piñera signed the Gender Identity Law, which allows transgender people over age 14 "to update their names on legal documents and guarantees their right to be officially addressed according to their true gender."


Colombia

In December 2018, Davinson Stiven Erazo Sánchez was charged with the murder of Anyela Ramos Claros, a transgender woman, as a gender-based hate crime. Under the Rosa Elvira Cely law, feminicide, defined as "the killing of a woman because of her gender, or where there were previous instances of violence between the victim and the accused, including sexual violence," was made punishable by a prison sentence of 20 to 50 years. Claros was only the second transgender woman to have her murderer punished under this law.


Peru

Prior to the 16th century arrival of Spanish conquistadors, the Inca Empire and their Moche predecessors revered third-gender persons and organized their society around an Andean cosmovision that made room for masculine and feminine ambiguity based in "complementary dualism." Third-gender shamans as ritual practitioners were subject to violence as the Spanish suppressed pre-colonial worldviews. In 2014, the Peruvian Constitutional Court ruled against a transgender woman changing her gender on her national identity document, but in October 2016 the court reversed the earlier decision, acknowledging "people are not only defined by their biological sex, but one must also take into consideration their psychic and social reality." Following this, trans people in Peru can apply to a judge for a gender change without undergoing sex reassignment surgery.


Uruguay

In 2018, Uruguay passed a law granting rights to transgender people, giving them the right to sex reassignment surgery and hormones paid for by the Uruguayan state. The law also mandates that a minimum number of transgender people be given public jobs. Transgender people can now self-identify and change their legal names without needing approval from a judge. In addition, transgender people who faced persecution during the 1973 to 1985 military dictatorship will receive compensation. The law also lets people under 18 legally change names without the previous requirement of parents' or a court's approval.


Asia


Ancient Sumer and Assyria

In
Sumer Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of c ...
, androgynous trans priests known as ''
gala Gala may refer to: Music * ''Gala'' (album), a 1990 album by the English alternative rock band Lush *'' Gala – The Collection'', a 2016 album by Sarah Brightman *GALA Choruses, an association of LGBT choral groups *''Gala'', a 1986 album by T ...
'' used a women's-speech dialect called ''eme-sal'' and sometimes took female names. During the
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo- syllabi ...
period, similar people known as ''kurgarrū'' and ''assinnu'' served
Ishtar Inanna, also sux, 𒀭𒊩𒌆𒀭𒈾, nin-an-na, label=none is an ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, war, and fertility. She is also associated with beauty, sex, divine justice, and political power. She was originally worshiped in S ...
wearing feminine clothing and performing dances in her temples; the goddess was believed to transform them from masculine to feminine. In ancient
Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
, transgender cult prostitutes took part in public processions, singing, dancing, wearing costumes and sometimes women's clothes, carrying feminine symbols, and even at times performing the act of giving
birth Birth is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring, also referred to in technical contexts as parturition. In mammals, the process is initiated by hormones which cause the muscular walls of the uterus to contract, expelling the f ...
.


West Asia (the Middle East)

For the history of Roman and Byzantine Asia, see § Rome and Byzantium.


Arabian peninsula

'' Khanith'' are a gender category in
Oman Oman ( ; ar, عُمَان ' ), officially the Sultanate of Oman ( ar, سلْطنةُ عُمان ), is an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of t ...
and
Arabia The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate. ...
who function in some sexual and social ways as women, and are variously considered to fill an "alternative gender role", to be transgender, or (as they are still considered men by Omani standards and laws) to be transvestites. Discussing the (male-assigned) khanith, older
mukhannathun Mukhannath (; plural ''mukhannathun'' (); "effeminate ones", "ones who resemble women") was a term used in Classical Arabic to refer to effeminate men who appeared feminine and functioned sexually or socially in roles typically carried out by wom ...
and Egyptian khawalat, and the (female-assigned) ghulamiyat, Everett Rowson writes there is "considerable evidence for institutionalized cross-dressing and other cross-gender behavior in pre-modern Muslim societies, among both men and to some extent women" which existed from
Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد;  570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...
's day and continued into the
Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...
and
Abbasid The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...
periods and, in the khanith, into the present.


Iran

Under
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , title = Shahanshah Aryamehr Bozorg Arteshtaran , image = File:Shah_fullsize.jpg , caption = Shah in 1973 , succession = Shah of Iran , reign = 16 September 1941 – 11 February 1979 , coronation = 26 October ...
, transsexuals and crossdressers were classed with gays and lesbians and faced lashing or death. Beginning in the 1970s, trans woman
Maryam Khatoon Molkara Maryam Khatoonpour Molkara ( fa, مریم خاتون ملک‌آرا; 1950 – 25 March 2012) was a campaigner for the rights of transgender people in Iran, where she is widely recognized as a matriarch of the transgender community. Sex assignmen ...
wrote to
Ruhollah Khomeini Ruhollah Khomeini, Ayatollah Khomeini, Imam Khomeini ( , ; ; 17 May 1900 – 3 June 1989) was an Iranian political and religious leader who served as the first supreme leader of Iran from 1979 until his death in 1989. He was the founder of ...
asking for support to live as a woman, and building on a 1963 decision that corrective surgery for intersex people was not against Islamic law, he agreed. After the
Islamic Revolution The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dyna ...
, Molkara was institutionalized and forced to
detransition Detransition is the cessation or reversal of a transgender identification or gender transition, whether by social, legal, or medical means. Some individuals detransition on a temporary basis. Estimates of the rate at which detransitioning occurs ...
, but later released, and in 1985 personally convinced Ahmad Khomeini to decree transition and sex reassignment surgery allowed in Islamic law; she advocated for transgender rights until her death in 2012. Iran carries out more sex change operations than any other nation except Thailand;[//www.theguardian.com/frontpage/story/0,,2177277,00.html "Sex change funding undermines no gays claim"], Robert Tait, ''The Guardian'', September 26, 2007; accessed September 20, 2008 the government pays up to half the cost for those needing financial assistance, and a sex change is recognized on one's birth certificate. However, trans people in Iran still face widespread harassment. Though all trans people are discriminated against in Iran, the public response to trans women and trans men is very different, with trans women facing further discrimination and questioning for their reasoning and validity in transitioning. Some gay people are also pressured into sex reassignment. Transgender director Saman Arastoo directs plays about and starring trans people in Iran.


Israel and Palestine

In 1998, Israeli pop singer Dana International became the first trans person to enter and win the Eurovision Song Contest. In 2008, singer and trans woman Aderet (singer), Aderet became popular in Israel and neighboring Lebanon. The second week of June is the Tel Aviv Pride Parade, during international Gay pride, LGBT Pride month. In 2008 it coincided with the building of an LGBT Centre in Tel Aviv. In 2015, the parade was led by Gila Goldstein, who in the 1960s became one of the first Israelis to receive sex reassignment surgery. The festival is popular, with over 200,000 participants in 2016. Israel is sometimes accused, including by transgender Palestinians, of Pinkwashing (LGBT), pinkwashing—projecting a gay and trans-friendly image to appear more progressive or distract from mistreatment of Palestinians—while others argue its actions on trans issues should be regarded as sincere. Trans people in Israel face widespread harassment and difficulty in accessing employment and healthcare; half have been physically attacked.


Ottoman Empire

Eunuchs, who served in the Ottoman Empire from the 16th to late 19th century (and were commonly exiled to Egypt after their terms, where black eunuchs had served pre-Ottoman rulers as civil servants since the 10th century) have sometimes been viewed as a kind of third gender or an alternative male gender.


Central Asia

In Kazakhstan, since 2009, trans people who undergo sterilizing sex reassignment surgery can change gender on legal documents, but have few other rights. In Kyrgyzstan, especially since the drafting of discriminatory legislation in 2014, trans people face widespread discrimination in access to work, and such severe and widespread violence that many move to Russia.''[//www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41437866 Transgender Kyrgyz seek unlikely refuge in Russia]'', April 10, 2018, BBC In Uzbekistan, too, trans people are often beaten, raped, or murdered, though laws adopted by the Soviets in the 1980s under Western pressure enable a few Uzbeks to transition. Trans people also face harassment in Tajikistan, where reportedly just three reassignment surgeries were performed between 2006 and 2016, and Turkmenistan, a repressive state notorious for violating human rights.


East Asia


China

Eunuchs (who existed in China since 4000 years ago, were imperial servants by 3000 years ago, and were common as civil servants by the time of the Qing dynasty until a century ago) have sometimes been viewed as a third sex, or a transgender practice, and Chinese histories have often expressed the relationship of a ruler to his officials in the terms of a male relationship to females.Song Hwee Lim, ''Celluloid Comrades: Representations of Male Homosexuality in Contemporary Chinese Cinemas'' (2006, ), p. 71 Cross-gender behavior has long been common in Chinese theatre, especially in dan role, ''dan'' roles, since at least the Ming dynasty, Ming and Qing dynasty, Qing dynasties. Today, Jin Xing is a well-known entertainer and trans woman. In the mid-1930s, after Yao Jinping's father went missing during the war with Japan, the 19-year-old reported having lost all feminine traits and become a man (and was said to have an Adam's apple and flattened breasts) and left to find him; the event was widely reported on by the press.P. Zhu, ''Gender and Subjectivities in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature'' (2015, ), p. 115Howard Chiang, ''Sexuality in China: Histories of Power and Pleasure'' (2018, ), pp. 240-241 Du He, who wrote an account of it, insisted Yao did become a man, and Yao has been compared to both
Lili Elbe Lili Ilse Elvenes (28 December 1882 – 13 September 1931), better known as Lili Elbe, was a Danish painter and transgender woman, and among the early recipients of sex reassignment surgery. She was a successful painter under her birth name Eina ...
(who underwent sex reassignment in the same decade) and Hua Mulan (a mythical wartime crossdresser). In the 1950s, doctors in Taiwan forced Xie Jianshun, an intersex man, to undergo male-to-female sex reassignment surgery; Taiwanese press compared the former soldier to
Christine Jorgensen Christine Jorgensen (May 30, 1926 – May 3, 1989) was an American trans woman who was the first person to become widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery. She had a career as a successful actress, singer and rec ...
, who had sought out surgery, and the decade-long media frenzy over Xie led to increased coverage of intersex and transgender people in general. In the 1990s, transgender studies was established as an academic discipline. Transgender people are considered a "sexual minority" in China, where widespread
transphobia Transphobia is a collection of ideas and phenomena that encompass a range of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger tow ...
means trans people face discrimination in accessing housing, education, work, and healthcare.Chiang (2012), p. 8 China requires trans people to get the consent of their families before sex reassignment surgery, leading many to buy hormones on the black market and attempt surgeries on themselves.Ben Westcott, ''[//www.cnn.com/2019/05/09/health/china-transgender-amnesty-report-intl/index.html China's transgender people driven to self-medicate, report says]'', May 9, 2019, CNNKaren McVeigh, ''[//www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/may/10/china-failing-trans-people-as-young-attempt-surgery-on-themselves-study China 'failing trans people' as young attempt surgery on themselves – study]'', May 10, 2019, ''The Guardian''


Japan

Historical documentation of male- and female-assigned transgender people is extensive, especially in the
Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...
.Saskia E. Wieringa, ''Women's Same-Sex Practices in Japan'', in S. Wieringa, E. Blackwood, A. Bhaiya (eds.), ''Women's Sexualities and Masculinities in a Globalizing Asia'' (2007, ), pp. 26-27, 39, 41 Trans man, Trans-masculine people were found especially in Yoshiwara, Edo's red-light district, and in the modern era have worked in ''onabe'' bars since the 1960s. At the start of the Edo period in 1603, Izumo no Okuni founded kabuki (dressing as a handsome man to tryst with a woman in one popular performance, and being honored with a statue near where she performed which depicts her as a cross-dressing samurai with a sword and fan); in 1629, when the Tokugawa shogunate banned women from acting, male performers took on the roles of women. Some, such as ''onnagata'' actor Yoshizawa Ayame I (1673–1729) dressed, behaved and ate like women even outside the theatre. Outside the entertainment industry, however, trans people face stigma, and in 2004 Japan passed a law requiring trans people who want to change their gender marker to have sex reassignment surgery and be sterilized, be single, and have no children under age 20, which the supreme court upheld in 2019. In 2017, Japan became one of the first countries in the modern world to elect an openly trans man to office, electing Tomoya Hosoda as a city councillor in Iruma, Saitama, Iruma.


South and Southeast Asia


Cambodia

Under the Khmer Rouge, Phnom Penh's trans community was expelled or killed, and trans women and men were raped, jailed, or killed.Dianne Otto (ed.), ''Queering International Law: Possibilities, Alliances, Complicities, Risks'' (2017, ), pp. 121-125 Some escaped and live as refugees in the US. In Cambodia today, trans or traditional third-gender people are often harassed and denied employment; some do sex work.


Indian subcontinent

Indian texts from as early as 3000 years ago document a third gender, which has been connected to the ''Hijra (South Asia), hijras'' who have formed a category of third-gender or trans-feminine people on the Indian subcontinent since ancient times.Barbara A. West, ''Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania'' (2010, ), pp. 277-278 In the ''Rigveda'' (from roughly 3500 years ago), it is said that before creation the world lacked all distinctions, including of sex and gender, a state ancient poets expressed with images like men with wombs or breasts. The ''Mahabharata'' (from 2–3000 years ago) tells of a trans man, Shikhandi. In the ''Ramayana'' (from roughly 2000 years ago), when Rama asks "men and women" not to follow him, hijras remain and he blesses them.Richard Guy Parker, Peter Aggleton (eds.), ''Culture, Society and Sexuality'' (1999, ), p. 227 Most hijras are assigned male at birth (and may or may not castrate themselves), but some are intersex and a few are assigned female. Hijras wear feminine clothing and usually adopt feminine names, often live together in households (often regardless of differences in caste or religion) and relate to each other as female fictive kin (sisters, daughters, etc.), and perform at events such as births and weddings. The Buddhist ''Tipitaka'', composed about 2100 years ago, documents four gender categories: female, male, ''pandaka'', and ''Buddhism and sexual orientation#Ubhatovyanjañakas, ubhatobyanjanaka''.Lawrence Osborne, ''Bangkok Days'' (2009, ), p. 248 It says the Buddha was tolerant of monks transitioning to nuns,Richard Totman, ''The Third Sex: Kathoey: Thailand's Ladyboys'' (2011, ) at least initially, though trans people did face some stigma, and the possibility of monastic transition was later curtailed when the tradition of bhikkhunī, female monasticism was extinguished in Theravada Buddhism, and between the third to fifth century, Indian Buddhists were hostile to transgender people. These trans- and third-gender categories have been connected to the #Kathoeys, § kathoeys who exist in Thailand. Beginning in the 1870s, the colonial authorities attempted to eliminate hijras, prohibiting their performances and transvestism.Jessica Hinchy, "Obscenity, Moral Contagion and Masculinity: Hijras in Public Space in Colonial North India", in Lyn Parker (anthropologist), Lyn Parker, Laura Dales, Chie Ikeya, ''Contestations Over Gender in Asia'' (2017, ), p. 112 In India, since independence, several state governments have introduced specific welfare programs to redress historical discrimination against hijras and transgender people. Today, there are at least 490,000 hijras in India,Rema Nagarajan, ''[//timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/First-count-of-third-gender-in-census-4-9-lakh/articleshow/35741613.cms First count of third gender in census: 4.9 lakh]'', Mary 30, 2014, ''The Times of India'' and an estimated 10,000 to 500,000 in Bangladesh, and they are legally recognized as a third gender in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. In 1999, Kamla Jaan became the first hijra elected mayor of an Indian city, Katni, and around the same time Shabnam Mausi was elected as a legislator from Gorakhpur. In Bangladesh, in 2019, several trans people filed to run for parliament, which currently has no trans or hijra members. In Hinduism, Ardhanarishvara, a half-male, half-female fusion of Shiva and Shakti, is one of several deities important to many hijras and transgender Hindus, and has been called an androgynous and transgender deity.


Indonesia

Indonesia has a trans-/third-gender category of people called ''waria (person), waria''. It has been estimated that there are over 7 million ''waria'' in the Indonesian population of 240-260 million people. The Bugis of
Sulawesi Sulawesi (), also known as Celebes (), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Ar ...
recognize three sexes (male, female,
intersex Intersex people are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical bina ...
) and Gender in Bugis society, five genders: ''makkunrai'', comparable to cisgender women; ''oroané'', to cisgender men; ''calabai'', to trans women; ''calalai'', to trans men; and ''bissu'', an androgynous gender. An all-transgender netball team from Indonesia competed at the 1994 Gay Games in New York City. The team had been the Indonesian national champions.


Philippines

Today, male-assigned people who adopt a feminine gender expression and are transgender or gay are termed ''bakla'' and sometimes considered a third gender. Historically, cross-gender babaylan shamans were respected and termed or in Luzon and ''asog'' in the Visayan Islands until outlawed in 1625 and suppressed by Spanish colonial authorities. The Teduray people in Mindanao accepted two trans identities, ("one who became a man") and ("one who became a woman") into at least the 1960s.Christian Joy Cruz, ''The Social Experiences of Trans People in the Philippines'' (2015), in ''Transrespect versus Transphobia: The Social Experiences of Trans and Gender-diverse People in Colombia, India, the Philippines, Serbia, Thailand, Tonga, Turkey and Venezuela'' (eds. Carsten Balzer, Carla LaGata, Jan Simon Hutta), pp. 36-43 Crossdressing was practiced during American colonial rule. Singer and actress Helen Cruz was a prominent trans figure, especially in the 1960s, and pioneer of Swardspeak.


Thailand

Some (especially Thai) scholars identify the third- and fourth genders documented in the ''Tipitaka'' with the ''
kathoey ''Kathoey'' or ''katoey'' ( th, กะเทย; ) is an identity used by some people in Thailand, whose identities in English may be best described as transgender women in some cases, or effeminate gay men in other cases. Transgender wom ...
'', a third-gender category which was already a part of traditional Thai and Khmer culture by that the time that scripture was composed about 2100 years ago. Some (especially Thai) Buddhists say Ananda (Buddha's cousin and attendant) was born a ''kathoey''/transgender in many previous lives, but that it was to expiate for a past misdeed. The category of ''kathoey'' was historically open to male-assigned, female-assigned and intersex people. Since the 1970s, the term has come to be used (by others) to denote mainly male-assigned transvestites or trans women,Shane J. Barter, Michael Weiner, ''The Pacific Basin: An Introduction'' (2017, ), p. 183 the latter of whom usually refer to themselves simply as ' ("women"); a minority refer to themselves as ' ("second-type women") or ' ("second-type females"), and only very few refer to themselves as '. ''Kathoey'' is often rendered into English as "ladyboy". Thailand has become a center for performing
sex reassignment surgery Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a transgender or transsexual person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender, and alle ...
, and now performs more than any other country. In 2015, the government proposed recognizing third-gender people in the constitution, but instead only retained protections for individuals regardless of ''phet'' ("sex") which was interpreted to include trans people; a third gender is not recognized on identity documents.


Europe


Earliest history

Certain drawings and figures from the Neolithic period and Bronze Age found around the Mediterranean have been interpreted as genderless. Near what is today Prague, a burial from 4,900 to 4,500 years ago was found of a biologically male skeleton in a woman's outfit with feminine grave goods, which some archaeologists consider an early transgender burial.


Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and Byzantium

In Ancient Greece, Phrygia, and the Roman Republic and Empire, Cybele and Attis were worshiped by
galli A ''gallus'' (pl. ''galli'') was a eunuch priest of the Phrygian goddess Cybele (Magna Mater in Rome) and her consort Attis, whose worship was incorporated into the state religious practices of ancient Rome. Origins Cybele's cult may have orig ...
priests (documented from around 200 BCE to around 300 CE) who wore feminine clothes, referred to themselves as women, and often castration, castrated themselves, ISDN 1-57344-180-5 and have therefore been seen as early transgender figures. In Rome, cross-dressing was also practiced during ''Saturnalia'', which some argue reinforced established gender identities by making such practices unacceptable outside that rite. Romans also viewed cross-dressing negatively and imposed it as a punishment, as when Charondas of Catane decreed deserters wear female clothes for three days or when, after Crassus' defeat, the Persians hung a lookalike of the dead general clad as a woman. Women who cross-dressed as men could have access to male opportunities, as depicted in the fictional story of an Athenian woman dressing as a man to vote in the ''ekklesia'' in Aristophane's ''Assemblywomen, Ekklesiazusae'', or when Agnodice of Athens dressed as a man to get a degree in medicine, Axiothea of Phlius, Axiothea from Phlius cross-dressed to attend Plato's lectures, and the wife of Calvisius Sabinus dressed as a soldier to join a military camp. Roman emperor
Elagabalus Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (born Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus, 204 – 11/12 March 222), better known by his nickname "Elagabalus" (, ), was Roman emperor from 218 to 222, while he was still a teenager. His short reign was conspicuous for s ...
( 204222) is said by Roman historians to have depilated, worn makeup and wigs, rejected being called a lord and preferred being called a lady, and offered vast sums of money to any physician who could sex reassignment surgery, provide the imperial body with female genitalia. Despite marrying several women, the Syrian's most stable relationship was with chariot driver Hierocles, and Cassius Dio says Elagabalus delighted in being called Hierocles' mistress, wife, and queen. The Severan emperor has therefore been seen by some writers as transgender or transsexual. In the 500s, Anastasia the Patrician fled life in the court of Justinian I in Constantinople to spend twenty-eight years (until death) dressed as a male monk in
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
, coming to be viewed by some today as a transgender saint. Coptic texts from that era (the fifth to ninth centuries), like texts from around Europe, tell of many female-assigned people transitioning to live as men; in one, a monastic named Legend of Hilaria, Hilaria (child of Zeno (emperor), Zeno) dresses as a man, brings about a reduction in breast size and cessation of menstruation through asceticism, and comes to be accepted by fellow monks as a male, Hilarion, and by some modern scholars as trans; the story of Marina the Monk, Marinos (Marina), another Byzantine, who became a monk in Lebanon, is similar. Other Byzantine hagiographies describe eunuchs, who occupied a kind of third-gender status, like Ignatios of Constantinople (who became patriarch of Constantinople and a saint).


Early Scandinavia, Viking-era Norse

Norse society stigmatized effeminacy (especially sexual passivity, but also—it is sometimes said—transgender and cross-dressing behavior), calling it ''ergi'',David Clark, ''Between Medieval Men'' (2009, ), p. 54 At the same time, the characteristics the Norse revered in their gods were complicated;Carolyne Larrington, ''Norse Myths: A Guide to the Gods and Heroes'' (2017, ), p. 113 Odin was skilled in effeminate ''seiðr'' magic,John Lindow, ''Norse Mythology: A Guide to Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs'' (2002, ), pp. 217-219 and assumed the form of a woman in several myths, and Loki too changed gender on several occasions (for which reason some modern works label or depict the trickster deity as
genderfluid Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or femaleidentities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typicall ...
). In 2017, archaeologists found that the bones of a Birka female Viking warrior, Viking buried in Birka with masculine grave goods were female; some suggested the burial could be a trans man, but the original archaeologists said they did not want to apply a "modern" term and preferred to see the person as a woman.


Middle Ages

A 2021 study concluded that a grave from 1050 to 1300 in Hattula, Finland, containing a body buried in feminine clothing with brooches, valuable furs and a hiltless sword (with a second sword later buried above the original grave), which earlier researchers speculated to be two bodies (a male and female) or a powerful woman, was one person with Klinefelter syndrome and that "the overall context of the grave indicates that it was a respected person whose gender identity may well have been non-binary". In the 1322 book ''Even Boḥan'',
Kalonymus ben Kalonymus Kalonymus ben Kalonymus ben Meir (Hebrew language, Hebrew: קלונימוס בן קלונימוס), also romanized as Qalonymos ben Qalonymos or Calonym ben Calonym, also known as Maestro Calo (Arles, 1286 – died after 1328) was a Jewish philo ...
(from Provence, France) wrote a poem expressing lament at and cursing having been born a boy, calling a penis as a "defect" and wishing to have been created as a woman, which some writers see as an expression of
gender dysphoria Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their gender identitytheir personal sense of their own genderand their sex assigned at birth. The diagnostic label gender identity disorder (GID) was used until ...
and identification as a trans woman. In 1394, London authorities arrested a male-bodied sex worker in women's clothing who went by the name
Eleanor Rykener Eleanor Rykener, also known as John, was a 14th-century sex worker arrested in December 1394 for performing a sex act with John Britby, a man who was a former chaplain of the St Margaret Pattens church, in London's Cheapside while wearing fema ...
. Rykener reported having first gotten women's clothing, and learned embroidery (perhaps completing an apprenticeship, as female apprentices did) and how to sleep with men for pay, from Elizabeth Brouderer; Rykener also slept with women. Rykener's testimony offers a glimpse into medieval sexual identities. Carolyn Dinshaw suggests Rykener's living and working in Oxford as a woman for some time indicates Rykener enjoyed doing so, and Cordelia Beattie says "it is evident [Rykener] could pass as a woman", and passing "in everyday life would have involved other gendered behaviour"; historian Ruth Mazo Karras argues Rykener was a trans woman, and could also be described as bisexual. Historian Judith Bennett argues people were familiar enough with hermaphroditism that "Rykener's repeated forays into the space between 'male' and 'female' might have been as unremarkable in the streets of fourteenth-century London as they would be in Soho today", while Robert Mills argues officials would have been even more concerned by Rykener's switching of gender roles than by sex work.Mills (2015), p. 105 A few medieval works explore female-to-male transformation and trans figures. In the 13th century French ''Roman de Silence'', Nature and Nurture personified try to sway a child born a girl but raised a boy, who longs to do some feminine things but also long enjoys life as a man before being put into a female identity and clothing at the end of the story; Silence has been viewed as (at least temporarily) transgender. Christine de Pizan's ''Livre de la mutacion de Fortune'' (1403) opens "I who was formerly a woman, am now in fact a man [...] my current self-description is the truth. But I shall describe by means of fiction the fact of my transformation" using the metaphor of Iphis and IantheRobert Mills, ''Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages'' (2015, ), pp. 121-122 (a myth John Gower's ''Iphis and Ianthe'' also took up), leading some modern scholars to also view ''Fortune''s protagonist (and Gower's) as transgender.Ann Marie Rasmussen, ''Rivalrous Masculinities: New Directions in Medieval Gender Studies'' (2019, ), p. 329Barbara Newman, "The Case of Dame Nature", in Mary Carpenter Erler, Maryanne Kowaleski (eds.), ''Gendering the Master Narrative: Women and Power in the Middle Ages'' (2003, ), p. 148


Transgender people and the medieval Christian church

Trans figures and non-normative gender traits were acknowledged by the medieval church, and were often interpreted as expressions of God's plan, rather than deviations from it. Many transgender saints and clergy members were celebrated and uplifted by the medieval church. Trans people were canonized in the early days of Christianity on account of their "extraordinary lives" and the view that they were extraordinarily blessed by God. However, as the medieval church developed stricter policies and procedures, its view of trans people changed. Marina the Monk, Marinos is often used as an example of a transgender person in the clergy. Sources vary, but Marinos likely lived somewhere between the fifth and eighth century near modern-day Syria. Marinos, though assigned female at birth, chose to enter a monastery as a monk, following his father and saying the modesty and abstinence that came with the life of a monk would protect his identity. He was expelled from the monastery after a woman accused him of impregnating her, but never refuted the claims made against him, as doing so would involve revealing his genitals; instead, he fathered the child and was eventually allowed back into the monastery along with his son. His sex was only discovered after his death. He is named a saint by both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. The theme of "sexual disguise" was popular, especially in early monasticism. Numerous female hermits living alone in the desert dressed identical to male hermits. Mary of Egypt, who was born in Alexandria in the early fifth century, is one popular example of an "emasculated female saint." In depictions of her after her conversion to ascetic life, both in visual art and in personal accounts, Mary is portrayed as seemingly genderless. When she stripped herself of all aspects of her previous identity, she also seemed to have shed her gender. Thecla, a contemporary of the apostle Paul, shaved her head and adopted a man's dress in order to prove her devotion and piety. She, like Mary of Egypt, shed her female identity in pursuit of a devoutly religious lifestyle. Historian Caroline Walker Bynum has explored the idea of Jesus as an androgynous figure. In the 12th century, the idea of "mother Jesus" began showing up more and more in religious texts. In many Cistercian texts, Jesus is described as both the son of God, and the mother of all people. He is ascribed traits like nurturing and affectionate, which were not used to describe men at the time, presenting Jesus as somewhere between distinctly male and distinctly female. Trans ideas continued to show up in religious writing throughout the Middle Ages. One story that bridged the gap between secular and religious ideas of transness is the fictional story of Blanchandin, which gives insight into attitudes towards transgender people in the Middle Ages. The fourteenth-century chanson de geste ''Tristan de Nanteuil'' details how Blanchandin was physically transformed from woman to man in order to father St. Gilles, being visited by an angel who gives him testicles and a penis. Rather than being portrayed as a transgression against the natural order of things, this transition is seen as a "radiant expression of God's will". Blanchandin was viewed as having a special relationship to God and to his mission on earth. Around the turn of the thirteenth century, the church’s view of trans people began to change. The church developed a firmer stance on issues including non-normative gender expressions. As tensions rose between Christianity and Judaism, so did the divide between who was a part of the church and who was not. Individuals who did not fit neatly into the gender binary did not fit into the church. Religious doctrine insisted that intersex individuals choose one sex organ or the other to perform sexual acts with, lest they be accused of engaging in sodomy. The Catharism, Cathars, who erased all ideas of sex and gender from their belief system, were labeled as heretics. The church’s reaction to the Cathars exemplified a greater trend within the medieval church, one that did not accept rejection of the gender binary.


Balkans

Balkan sworn virgins such as Stana Cerović are people assigned female at birth who transition to live as men, out of personal desire or at the urging of family or necessity; they dress as men, socialize with men, do men's activities, and are usually referred to with masculine pronouns in and outside their presence. They take their name from the vow of celibacy they traditionally swore. The gender, found among several national and religious groups in the Balkans (including Muslims and Christians in Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia and Dalmatia), dates to at least the 15th century. It is thought to be the only traditional, formally socially defined trans man, trans-masculine gender role in Europe, but it has been suggested that it may be a survival of a more widespread pre-Christian European gender category. In Serbia today, since 2019, trans people are able to change legal gender after approval from a psychiatrist and an endocrinologist, without undergoing surgery; one notable trans woman is , a former army major.


Belgium

Since 2017, Belgians have the right to change legal gender without sterilization. Many Belgian hospitals specialize in
sex reassignment surgery Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a transgender or transsexual person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender, and alle ...
, attracting patients from other countries such as France. On October 1, 2020, Petra De Sutter was sworn in as a deputy prime minister of Belgium under Alexander De Croo, becoming the most senior trans politician in Europe; De Sutter was previously a Senate (Belgium), Belgian senator and a Member of the European Parliament, and is a gynaecologist and the head of the department of reproductive medicine at Ghent University Hospital.


Denmark

Lili Elbe Lili Ilse Elvenes (28 December 1882 – 13 September 1931), better known as Lili Elbe, was a Danish painter and transgender woman, and among the early recipients of sex reassignment surgery. She was a successful painter under her birth name Eina ...
was a Danish trans woman and one of the first recipients of
sex reassignment surgery Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a transgender or transsexual person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender, and alle ...
. Elbe was assigned male at birth and was a successful painter before transitioning. She transitioning (transgender), transitioned in 1930 and changed her legal name to Lili Ilse Elvenes, and died in 1931 from complications after overy and uterus transplants. Denmark is also known for its role in the transition of American
Christine Jorgensen Christine Jorgensen (May 30, 1926 – May 3, 1989) was an American trans woman who was the first person to become widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery. She had a career as a successful actress, singer and rec ...
, whose operations were performed in Copenhagen starting in 1951. In 2017 Denmark became the first country in the world to remove transgender identities from its list of disorders of mental health.


France

Christine de Pisan makes one of the early accounts of gender transitioning in her autobiographical allegorical poem Le Livre de la mutation de fortune . The Chevalier d'Éon (1728–1810) was a French diplomat and soldier who appeared publicly as a man and pursued masculine occupations for 49 years,Gary Kates, ''Monsieur D'Eon Is a Woman'' (2001, ), pp. xxi but during that time successfully infiltrated the court of Empress Elizabeth of Russia by presenting as a woman, and later promoted (and may have engineered) rumours that d'Éon had been assigned female at birth,Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, ''Dressing d'Eon'', in ''The Chevalier d'Eon and his Worlds'' (2011, ), Simon Burrows, Jonathan Conlin, Russell Goulbourne (eds.), pp. 97-99 and thereafter agreed with the French government to dress in women's clothing, doing so from 1777 until death. Doctors who examined d'Éon's body after death discovered "male organs in every respect perfectly formed", but also feminine characteristics; modern scholars think d'Eon may have been a trans woman and/or intersex.Hugh Ryan, ''[//www.them.us/story/chevalier-d-eon-trans-woman Chevalier d’Éon was a spy, soldier, celebrated diplomat — and publicly out as trans]'', April 9, 2018, ''them'' Herculine Barbin (1838–1868) was a French
intersex Intersex people are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical bina ...
individual Sex assignment, assigned female at birth and raised as a girl. After a doctor's examination at age 22, Barbin was reassigned male, and legal papers followed declaring Barbin officially male. Barbin changed names to Abel Barbin, and wrote memoirs using female pronouns for the period before transition, and male pronouns thereafter, which were recovered (following Barbin's suicide at age 30) and published in France in 1872, and in English in 1980. Judith Butler refers to Michel Foucault's commentary on Barbin in their book ''Gender Trouble''.
Coccinelle Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy (23 August 1931 – 9 October 2006), better known by her stage name Coccinelle, was a French actress, entertainer and singer. She was transgender, and was the first widely publicized post-war gender reassignment ca ...
(Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy, 1931 – 2006) was a French actress, entertainer and singer who made her debut as a transgender showgirl in 1953, and became the first person widely publicized as getting gender reassignment case in post-war Europe, where she became an international celebrity and a renowned club singer. Coccinelle worked extensively as an activist on behalf of transgender people in later life, founding the organization "Devenir Femme" ("To Become Woman"). In March 2020, Tilloy-lez-Marchiennes elected—and in May, inaugurated—Marie Cau as mayor, making her the first openly transgender mayor in France.''[//www.france24.com/en/20200525-france-s-first-transgender-mayor-vows-to-wake-up-village France's first transgender mayor vows to wake up village]'', May 25, 2020, ''France 24''


Germany

In the early 1900s, transgender people became a subject of popular interest in Germany, covered by several biographies and the sympathetic liberal press in Berlin.Robert Beachy, ''Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity'' (2015)
p. 171
/ref> In 1906,
Karl M. Baer Karl M. Baer (20 May 1885 – 26 June 1956) was a German-Israeli author, social worker, reformer, suffragist and Zionist. He came out as a trans man in 1904. In December 1906, he became the first transgender person to undergo sex reassignment ...
became one of the first known trans men to have sex reassignment surgery, and in 1907 gained full legal recognition of his gender with a new birth certificate, married his first wife, and published a semifictionalized autobiography, ''Aus eines Mannes Mädchenjahren'' ("Memoirs of a Man's Maiden Years"); in 1938, he emigrated to Palestine. The same year, Brazilian socialite Dina Alma de Paradeda moved to Breslau and became engaged to a male teacher, before committing suicide, after which a doctor revealed that her body was male. This made her one of the first trans women known by name in Central Europe or of South American origin. A biography published in 1907, ''Tagebuch einer männlichen Braut'' ("Diary of a male bride"), was supposedly based on her diary.Harald Neckelmann, ''Die Geschichte von Lili Elbe: Ein Mensch wechselt sein Geschlecht'' (2020)
p. 10
/ref> During the Weimar Republic, Berlin was a Liberalism, liberal city with one of the most active LGBT movements, LGBT rights movements in the world.
Magnus Hirschfeld Magnus Hirschfeld (14 May 1868 – 14 May 1935) was a German physician and sexologist. Hirschfeld was educated in philosophy, philology and medicine. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Com ...
co-founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (WhK) in Berlin and sought social recognition of homosexual and transgender men and women; with branches in several countries, the committee was (on a small scale) the first international LGBT organization. In 1919, Hirschfeld co-founded the
Institut für Sexualwissenschaft The was an early private sexology research institute in Germany from 1919 to 1933. The name is variously translated as ''Institute of Sex Research'', ''Institute of Sexology'', ''Institute for Sexology'' or ''Institute for the Science of Sexua ...
, a sexology research institute with a research library, a large archive, and a marriage and sex counseling office. The institute was a worldwide pioneer in the call for civil rights and social acceptance for homosexual and transgender people. Hirschfeld coined the word ''
transvestite Transvestism is the practice of dressing in a manner traditionally associated with the opposite sex. In some cultures, transvestism is practiced for religious, traditional, or ceremonial reasons. The term is considered outdated in Western c ...
''. In 1930 and 1931, with Hirschfeld's (and other doctors') help,
Dora Richter Dora "Dorchen" Richter (16 April 1891 – presumed 1933) was the first known person to undergo complete male-to-female gender reassignment surgery. She was one of a number of transgender people in the care of sex-research pioneer Magnus Hirschfel ...
became the first known trans woman to undergo vaginoplasty, along with removal of the penis (following removal of testicles several years earlier), and
Lili Elbe Lili Ilse Elvenes (28 December 1882 – 13 September 1931), better known as Lili Elbe, was a Danish painter and transgender woman, and among the early recipients of sex reassignment surgery. She was a successful painter under her birth name Eina ...
underwent similar surgeries in Dresden, including an unsuccessful ovary and
uterus transplant A uterine transplant is a surgical procedure whereby a healthy uterus is transplanted into an organism of which the uterus is absent or diseased. As part of normal mammalian sexual reproduction, a diseased or absent uterus does not allow normal em ...
, complications from which resulted in her death.Meyer (2015), pp. 271-281 In 1933, the Nazis burned the institute's library. On June 12, 2003, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of Van Kück, a German trans woman whose insurance company denied her reimbursement for sex reassignment surgery and Hormone replacement therapy (male-to-female), hormone replacement therapy, who sued under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 6 and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.


Italy

Traditional Naples, Neapolitan culture recognized ''femminielli'', a sort of third gender of male-assigned people with markedly feminine gender expression and an androphilic/homosexual orientation, who remain largely unstigmatized. In 2006 Vladimir Luxuria became the first openly transgender woman elected to the Italian Parliament and the first transgender member of a parliament in Europe. In 2015, the Court of Cassation ruled that sterilization and
sex reassignment surgery Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a transgender or transsexual person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender, and alle ...
was not required in order to obtain a legal gender change. In 2017 Alex Hai came out as a trans man, becoming the first openly trans gondolier in Venice.


Russia

Since 2013—when the government passed a law against "promoting" "non-traditional relations"—Russia has become notoriously hostile, with trans people facing increasing harassment.Ilaria Parogni, ''[//www.thenation.com/article/transgender-russians-struggle-to-take-their-movement-out-of-the-shadows/ Transgender Russians Struggle to Take Their Movement Out of the Shadows]'', February 3, 2016, ''The Nation'' Dmitri Isaev's clinic, which provided medical authorization for half the sex reassignment surgeries, was forced to operate in secret.Katerina Patin, ''[//www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/01/russian-doctor-defies-intimidation-to-authorise-gender-reassignment-surgery Russian doctor defies intimidation to authorise gender reassignment surgery]'', February 1, 2017, ''The Guardian'' In 2019, a court in Saint Petersburg, Russia's most liberal city, ordered a business which had fired a woman when she transitioned to reinstate her.


Indigenous peoples of the Far East

Among the Itelmens of Siberia, a third gender category of the koekchuch was recorded in the 18th and 19th centuries, individuals who were assigned male at birth but dressed as women did.


Soviet Union

According to historians Dan Healey and Francesca Stella, scholarship on trans identities in the Soviet Union has been fragmentary and that "a comprehensive history of the Soviet transsexual is needed." Following the revolutions of 1917, LGBT rights in the Soviet Union expanded greatly, including a greater awareness of gender diversity. Nikolai Koltsov, director of the Institute of Experimental Biology, stated that there was "an infinite quantity of intermediate sexes," and Evgenii Fedorovich M., a State Political Directorate employee who had been born Evgeniia Fedorovna M. and who presented as a man, stated that "people live among us who do not fit neither the one nor the other gender" who "will begin to feel a sense of responsibility before society and become useful to it only when that society stops oppressing them and strangling them due to its lack of consciousness and its petty-bourgeois barbarity." In 1929, the People's Commissariat for Health organised a conference on "transvestites," including discussions about people seeking to change sexes and culminating in a resolution calling for same-sex marriage to be officially recognised. However, much of the relative openness of the 1920s was reversed in the 1930s under Joseph Stalin, including the re-criminalisation of homosexuality in 1933. In 1961, an interview with a trans woman was featured in the press where she recounted the Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union, abuse she faced from doctors, including being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and being physically beaten. In 1968, in the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, surgeon Viktor Kalnberz, who had invented a penile implant that had already seen relatively widespread use in the Soviet Union and Europe to treat erectile dysfunction, was approached by a trans man on the subject of
sex reassignment surgery Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a transgender or transsexual person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender, and alle ...
. After the patient underwent consultations with several specialists, including an endocrinologist and a psychiatrist, Kalnberz was able to obtain authorisation from the Latvian Ministry of Health to perform the surgery over the course of 1970 to 1972. Kalnberz's actions were subsequently reviewed by a special committee, which found that the operation had been medically necessary, but he was formally reprimanded by the Soviet Ministry of Health.


Spain

There are records of several individuals in Spain in the 1500s who were raised as girls subsequently adopting male identities under various circumstances who some historians think were transgender, including Eleno de Céspedes and Catalina de Erauso.Leslie Feinberg, ''Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman'' (1996, ), p. 33 During the Francisco Franco, Franco era, thousands of trans women and gay men were jailed, and today fight for compensation. In 2007, a law took effect allowing trans people to change gender markers in documents such as birth certificates and passports without undergoing sterilization and sex reassignment surgery.


Turkey

Bülent Ersoy, a Turkish singer who was assigned male at birth, had a gender reassignment surgery in April 1981. Rüzgar Erkoçlar, a Turkish actor who was assigned female at birth, came out as a trans in February 2013.


United Kingdom

Irish-born surgeon James Barry had a long career as a surgeon and rose to the second highest medical office in the British Army, improving conditions for wounded soldiers and the inhabitants of Cape Town, Cape Colony, South Africa, and performing one of the first caesarean sections in which both the mother and child survived. In 1946, the first sex-reassignment phalloplasty was performed by one British surgeon on another, Harold Gillies on Michael Dillon (an earlier phalloplasty was done on a cisgender man in 1936 in Russia). In 1961, English model April Ashley was outed as transgender; she is one of the earliest Britons known to have had sex reassignment surgery, and was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2012 for promoting trans equality. In 2004, the Gender Recognition Act 2004, Gender Recognition Act passed, giving transgender people legal recognition of their gender before the law subject to certain conditions.


Oceania


Australia

The first reported case of an Australian undertaking a sex change operation was an ex-Royal Australian Air Force, RAAF Staff Sergeant Robert James Brooks in February 1956. The Gender Dysphoria Clinic at Queen Victoria Hospital, Melbourne was established by Dr Trudy Kennedy and Dr Herbert Bower in 1975. It moved to Monash Medical Centre in 1989 and closed in 2009. Australia's first transgender rights and advocacy organizations were established in 1979: the Melbourne-based Victorian Transsexual Coalition and the Victorian Transsexual Association; followed in 1981 by the Sydney-based Australian Transsexual Association, which included prominent activist, academic and author Roberta Perkins.


New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Niue

In 1995, Georgina Beyer became the first openly trans mayor in the world when Carterton, New Zealand elected her, and in 1999, she became the first transgender member of a parliament, winning election to represent Wairarapa; in 2003, the former sex worker helped pass the Prostitution Reform Bill decriminalizing sex work. Some Maori use the terms ''whakawahine'' ("like a woman"), ''tangata ira tane'' ("human man") to refer to trans-woman- and trans-man-like categories. The related term ''fakafifine'' denotes male-assigned people in Niue who fulfill a feminine third gender. Similarly, in the Cook Islands, ''
akava'ine Akava'ine is a Cook Islands Māori word which has come, since the 2000s, to refer to transgender people of Māori descent from the Cook Islands. It may be an old custom but has a contemporary identity influenced by other Polynesians, through cros ...
'' is a Cook Islands Māori (Rarotongan) word which, due to cross-cultural contact with other Polynesians living in New Zealand (especially the Samoan fa'afafine), has been used since the 2000s to refer to transgender people of Māori descent from the Cook Islands.


Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and Tahiti

In Samoa, the '' fa'afafine'' ("in the manner of women") are a third gender with uncertain origins which go back at least to the beginning of the twentieth century. Fa'afafine are assigned male at birth, and express both masculine and feminine gender traits, performing a role otherwise performed by women.Ashleigh Feu'u, ''[//e-tangata.co.nz/reflections/when-did-you-first-know-you-were-a-faafafine/ ‘When did you first know you were a fa’afafine?’]'', October 14, 2018, ''E-Tangata'' The word ''fa'atamaloa'' is sometimes used for a trans-male or tomboyish gender category or role.Lynda Johnston, ''Transforming Gender, Sex, and Place: Gender Variant Geographies'' (2018, ), p. 133 In Tonga, the related term ''fakafefine'' or more commonly '' fakaleiti'' ("in the manner of ladies") denotes male-assigned people who dress and work as women and may partner with men, and call themselves simply ''leiti'' ("ladies").West (2010), p. 817 They are common—one of the children of former king Taufa'ahau Tupou IV (d. 2006) is a ''leiti''—and still held in high regard, though colonization and westernization have introduced some transphobia. In Fiji, ''vakasalewalewa'' (also written ''vaka sa lewa lewa'') are male-assigned people who perform roles usually carried out by women.Niko Besnier, Kalissa Alexeyeff, ''Gender on the Edge: Transgender, Gay, and Other Pacific Islanders'' (2014), p. 164 In Tahiti, the ''rae rae'' fulfil a similar role.


See also

* Digital Transgender Archive * International Transgender Day of Visibility * Intersex in history * LGBT history * Transgender History (book), ''Transgender History'' (book) * Timeline of LGBT history * Timeline of transgender history * Transgender legal history in the United States * Transgender rights * Transgender studies * History of cross-dressing


References

;Notes ;Citations {{DEFAULTSORT:Transgender History Transgender history, LGBT history, Trans Transgender studies