Title: Third gender - Wikipedia
Headings: Third gender
Third gender
Contents
Sex and gender
Intersex people and third gender
Transgender people and third gender
Third gender and sexual orientation
Third gender and feminism
Legal recognition
Modern societies without legal recognition
Africa
Asia-Pacific
Europe
Latin America and the Caribbean
Middle East
North American indigenous cultures
History
Mesopotamia
Egypt
Indic culture
Mediterranean culture
Israel
The Americas
Mesoamerica
Inca
Indigenous North Americans
Inuit culture
Art and literature
Spirituality
See also
References
Further reading

Content: The state of personally identifying as, or being identified by society as, a man, a woman, or other, is usually also defined by the individual's gender identity and gender role in the particular culture in which they live. Not all cultures have strictly defined gender roles. In different cultures, a third or fourth gender may represent very different things. To Native Hawaiians and Tahitians, Māhū is an intermediate state between man and woman, or a "person of indeterminate gender". Some traditional Diné Native Americans of the Southwestern US acknowledge a spectrum of four genders: feminine woman, masculine woman, feminine man, and masculine man. The term "third gender" has also been used to describe the hijras of India who have gained legal identity, fa'afafine of Polynesia, and sworn virgins. A culture recognizing a third gender does not in itself mean that they were valued by that culture, and often is the result of explicit devaluation of women in that culture. While found in a number of non-Western cultures, concepts of "third", "fourth", and "some" gender roles are still somewhat new to mainstream western culture and conceptual thought. The concept is most likely to be embraced in the modern LGBT or queer subcultures.