Mukhannath (; plural mukhannathun (); "effeminate ones", "ones who resemble women") was a term used in Classical Arabic and Islamic literature to describe gender-variant people, and it has typically referred to effeminate men or people with ambiguous sexual characteristics, who appeared feminine and functioned sexually or socially in roles typically carried out by women. Mukhannathun, especially those in the city of Medina, are mentioned throughout the ḥadīth literature and in the works of many early Arabic and Islamic writers. During the Rashidun era and first half of the Umayyad era, they were strongly associated with music and entertainment. During the Abbasid caliphate, the word itself was used as a descriptor for men employed as dancers, musicians, and/or comedians. In later eras, the term mukhannath was associated with the receptive partner in gay sexual practices, an association that has persisted into the modern day. Khanith is a vernacular Arabic term used in some parts of the Arabian Peninsula to denote the gender role ascribed to males and occasionally intersex people who function sexually, and in some ways socially, as women. The term is closely related to the word mukhannath. Etymology The origins of the term mukhannath in Classical Arabic are disputed. The 8th-century Arab lexicographer al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad al-Farāhīdī connected the etymology of the term mukhannath to khuntha, meaning hermaphrodite/intersex. According to the 9th-century Arab lexicographer Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim ibn Sallām, the term mukhannath instead derives from the Arabic verb khanatha, meaning "to fold back the mouth of a waterskin for drinking", indicating some measure of being languid or delicate. This definition attained prominence among Islamic scholars until medieval times, when the term came to be associated with homosexuality. Mentions in the ḥadīth literature Mukhannathun already existed in pre-Islamic Arabia, during the time of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and early Islamic eras. A number of ḥadīth reports indicate that mukhannathun were used as male servants for wealthy women in the early days of Islam, due to the belief that they were not sexually interested in the female body. These sources don't state that the mukhannathun were homosexual, only that they "lack desire". According to the Iranian scholar Mehrdad Alipour, "in the premodern period, Muslim societies were aware of five manifestations of gender ambiguity: This can be seen through figures such as the khasi (eunuch), the hijra, the mukhannath, the mamsuh and the khuntha (hermaphrodite/intersex)." Gender specialists Aisya Aymanee M. Zaharin and