Introduction
Historical Background
The changing of gender roles—the adoption, for the most varied reasons,
of the culturally defined social role of the opposite biological sex—has
been reported worldwide for numerous cultures and for all historic
periods. In Greek mythology, Thetis hides her son Achilles, whose death
before Troy has been prophesied, by disguising him as a girl at the
court of King Lycomedes on the island of Scyrus. But in order to win him
for the military campaign, Odysseus resorts to a ruse which, in modified
form, was also used by North American Indians in order to determine
whether a boy really was a "berdache": he has a spear and a shield
brought into the women's room, and orders the war trumpet blown.
Achilles reaches for the weapons and thus gives himself away as a man
(Ranke-Graves 1960, 2:271; Schwab 1986:354).

The Amazons of antiquity were described as an entire nation of women who
pursued male occupations (Hammes 1981; Herodotus 1971:292ff.). Change of
gender roles for a lifetime was found among some men of the Scythians,
and according to Herodotus, the young women of the neighboring
Sarmatians led the life of warriors until they had killed an enemy; only
then were they permitted to marry. But even as married women, they went
on the hunt dressed as men, whether alone or in the company of their
husbands, and they accompanied the men in war (see Herodotus 1971:294;
Hammond 188z:339ff., 1891:107ff.). Gender role change also occurred in
ancient Rome (Green 1974:4ff.), and the female pope Joan has gone down
in the history of the European Middle Ages as a spectacular, if
isolated, case (Fiocchetto 1988:212; Green 1974:6).

In later centuries, reports are encountered over and over again
concerning persons in Europe (see Dekker and Van de Pol 1990; Green
1974:7ff.) and in the United States (Katz 1985) who lived successfully
in the social role of the opposite sex, and who frequently went
unrecognized for a long time.

With the broadening of horizons during the Age of Discovery, it became
apparent that gender role change was also to be found in numerous
cultures outside of Europe, often even in institutionalized form
(Bullough 1976; Greenberg 1988; Karsch-Haack 1911; Williams
1986b:252ff.) The hijras of India (Nanda 1986), the Samoan faafafine
(Munroe and Munroe 1987:60), the Tahitian mahus (Williams 1986b:255ff.),
and the Siberian "soft men" (Bogoraz 1907:449ff.; Williams 1986b:252ff.)
are additional examples of this.

In the ethnographic literature, however, the best-known example is that
of the North American "berdaches" who constitute the subject of this
book. A listing of sources within the framework of the GAI (Gay American
Indians) history project reveals "berdaches" and other alternative
gender roles in I33 Indian groups (Gay American Indians and Roscoe
1988:217ff.; Roscoe 1987).

In our own culture, gender role change appears in the form of
transsexualism. Transsexuals aspire not only to the role but also to the
gender status of the opposite sex. Usually they desire a new
classification of their persons not as ambivalent (transsexual) but
rather as unambiguous and definite. In these cases hormonal, surgical,
and legal measures such as a change of personal status and of name are
intended to facilitate the adjustment of the physically actual to the
subjectively felt sex (see Benjamin 1966; Burchard 1961, Green 1974;
Green and Money 1969; Hamburger 1954a, 1954b; Kessler and McKenna 1977;
Pauly 1974; Schicketanz et al. 1989).

Not least because of their appearance in numerous groups and because of
the comparatively rich and comprehensive source material do the North
American "berdaches" seem particularly appropriate for the investigation
of gender role change in extra-European cultures. Regionally, the
present work embraces the entire North American subcontinent from the
Mexican border southwest of the United States to Alaska in the
northernmost part of the hemisphere, and along with the Indian groups,
also includes the Inuit (see Map 1).

The North American "Berdaches"
The designation "berdache" originally comes from the Arabic-speaking
region, where bardaj or barah meant "kept boy," "male prostitute,"
"catamite" (Angelino and Shedd 1955:121). "Berdache" is the French
adaptation of these terms and was first used by eighteenth-century
French travelers, who mainly applied the word to supposedly "passive
homosexual" Native American males who were transvestites and who
fulfilled the culturally defined role of a woman (see Angelino and Shedd
1955:121f.).

In the course of time, very different phenomena came to be referred to
by the designation "berdache": transvestism (cross-dressing),
effeminacy, the carrying out of female tasks and activities, entering
into homosexual relationships, and intersexuality (Angelino and Shedd
1955: 122ff.). Around the beginning of this century, the term was
extended to females who had taken on the social role of a man. Emphasis
on the choice of sexual partners was particularly long-lasting, so that
the designations "berdache" and "homosexual" frequently appear as
synonymous, but the terms "berdache" and "transvestite" often occur as
synonymous as well (see Angelino and Shedd 1955: 122ff.).

However, so many variant expressions of gender role change exist that
such equations turn out to make little sense: males in the social role
of a woman enter into marriages with women; males in a masculine role
have sexual relations with non-"berdache" men; and transvestism
(cross-dressing) proves to be as readily dispensable a component of any
gender role change as homosexual behavior (Angelino and Shedd
1955:122ff.). With this in mind, Angelino and Shedd suggested a
definition of "berdache" which is based on such persons' social (gender)
role:

In view of the data we propose that berdache be characterized as an
individual of a definite physiological sex (male or female) who assumes
the role and status of the opposite sex, and who is viewed by the
community as being of one sex physiologically but as having assumed the
role and status of the opposite sex. (1955:125)

Thirty years later, in light of more recent investigations and the
results of his own fieldwork, Williams proposed another definition:
"Briefly, a berdache can be defined as a morphological male who does not
fill a society's standard male role, who has a nonmasculine character.
This type of person is often stereotyped as effeminate, but a more
accurate characterization is androgyny" (1986b:2). At the basis of this
definition lies the observation, also attested to both by numerous
primary sources and by Native American terms for women-men and
men-women, of "gender mixing." Gender mixing represents a combination of
masculine and feminine gender statuses instead of a genuine change from
"one" gender into "the" other. Consequently, gender mixing is often
expressed by a combination of the feminine gender role with the
masculine gender role (see Callender and Kochems 1986). As will be shown
in what follows, this combination is not uniform, and comprises a
spectrum from quasi-masculine to quasi-feminine role makeup and
organization (Ausgestaltung).

The entire adoption of the feminine gender role by males, which lies at
the basis of Angelino and Shedd's (1955) definition, is found here as
well, but it no more leads to the ascription of a feminine gender status
(ie., the gender status of "woman") than does a "mixed" gender role.

In this connection, the distinction between gender category and gender
status is significant: the gender category is based on the biological
distinction between males and females, whereas the gender status, as
culturally defined, can be either masculine (man) or feminine (woman),
but can also entail and hold open other possibilities:

At the gender-category level, classification as not-male necessarily
means being classified as female, and vice versa. At the level of gender
status, however, definition as not-man is not equivalent to
identification as woman... because status depends on the cultural
construction of gender. While women are, by definition, not-men, other
social groups within a society may consist of males whose gender status
is that of not-men but who are also defined as not-women. Gender-mixing
statuses... are an example. (Callender and Kochems 1986:166)

This view, shared by Whitehead (1981), Kessler and McKenna (1977), and
Martin and Voorhies (1975), assumes at the outset that, beyond a purely
masculine or feminine socially defined gender membership, other,
"supernumerary genders" (Martin and Voorhies) can also exist which can
be characterized as gender mixing.

Within the framework of this view, investigations of nonmasculine or
nonfeminine genders in other cultures no longer need to be limited by
the polarization of sex/gender membership so characteristic of Western
culture—a polarization that in fact shapes gender role change in Western
culture. Because the category "gender mixing" does not exist in the
West, transsexuals strive for complete identification with the opposite
sex, even to the extent of a new, surgically constructed physical
definition of their sex (see Benjamin 1966; Green 1974; Green and Money
1969; Kessler and McKenna 1977:26).

In Western culture, the social pressures to conform to a nonambivalent
gender status are great. Gender status is not defined as in Callender's
and Kochems' cross-cultural notion: if you are a man but do not so
identify yourself, you must try to be accepted as a woman; likewise for
a woman who does not identify herself as such. Within this pattern of
thinking, there is no place for the ambivalence of androgyny.

Prevailing uses of the term "berdache" reflect this inflexibility as
well as the distortions that can result from imposing gender polarity on
non-Western cultures. Williams pointed out, for example, that the
application of the term "berdache" to females who effect a change in
gender roles is inappropriate because the word originally derives from a
term for male prostitutes, as well as because females in the role of
hunters and warriors would also be conceptualized in Native American
cultures as being different from male "berdaches." He therefore
suggested the term "Amazons" (1986b:11). This does not appear to be the
optimal solution, however, because historically, Amazons are distinctly
associated with the warlike element of the masculine role: the ancient
sources emphasize above all the Amazons' warlike fighting spirit (see
Hammes 1981). In Native North America, however, this warlike component
appears in connection with women who go to war without either giving up
the feminine role or transforming their feminine gender status into an
ambivalent one (see Chapter 17).

What terminology, then, is appropriate? As noted in the Preface, Native
Americans and anthropologists alike have rejected the term "berdache" as
inappropriate for persons of either sex; in the following, it will be
retained only in references to earlier sources. For reasons also
outlined in the Preface, those individuals who were referred to as male
"berdaches" in the earlier anthropological writings will usually be
termed "women-men" in this book; females in a masculine role who occupy
a nonfeminine gender status in their respective tribes will be termed
"men-women." And, as noted, I will also use the Native American terms
for these individuals.

The designation "gender role change" will serve as a higher level
generic term for various kinds of crossing over culturally defined
gender roles, usually including the entrance into an ambivalent gender
status. At the same time, I assume along with Callender and Kochems
(1986:166) that a change of gender roles does not imply a change of
gender status from "man" to "woman" or vice versa. (For the definition
of "status" and of "role" used in this study, see Chapter 4.) Following
Callender and Kochems (1986:168), I will define gender role change using
four features which in turn form the basis for defining an alternative
gender status ("gender mixing"). However, unlike Callender and Kochems,
I will refer to persons of both sexes. Furthermore, I will call
ambivalent gender status what they designate as "gender-mixing status"
(see Chapter 4).

Gender role change may include the following characteristic features:

partial or complete transvestism (cross-dressing);
the expression of culturally defined characteristic behavior patterns of
the opposite sex;
the carrying out of activities that are culturally assigned to the
opposite sex;
no sexual relations with persons who occupy the same gender status as
the person in question.
Transvestism may not appear at all, and would seem to be the most
dispensable component of gender role change and ambivalent gender status
(see Callender and Kochems 1986:168). Further, modes of behavior and
occupations that belong to the standard gender role of one's own sex can
be retained, along with the practice of behavioral modes and activities
of the opposite sex. The most important characteristic of gender role
change is the preference for the occupations and activities of the
opposite sex (Callender and Kochems 1986:176; Whitehead 1981: 85f.). The
following definition of women-men and men-women (as opposed to those who
cross gender role boundaries without having a special assigned status in
their own culture) combines the elements of gender role change and
gender status change: A woman-man or a man-woman is a person of usually
physically unambiguous sex who voluntarily and permanently takes on the
culturally defined activities and occupations of the opposite sex, and
who has a special (ambivalent) gender status assigned to him or her by
his or her culture. The following are distinguished in Native American
cultures from women-men and men-women ("berdaches"):

persons who have sexual relations with members of their own sex without
carrying out a change of gender roles;
persons who wear the clothing of the opposite sex (transvestites)
without carrying out a change of gender role (e.g., in certain ritual
situations);
feminine men and masculine women who retain their gender status;
"warrior women" and other persons who cross gender role boundaries
without, by so doing, exchanging their gender status for an ambivalent
one; and
men who because of a failure in the warrior role are forced as a
humiliation to wear women's clothing, and occasionally also to take on
the womanly role (although these men actually want the masculine role
and occasionally rehabilitate themselves by undertaking some daredevil
act of war on their own; see Bossu's example from the Illinois,
1962:82).
Hermaphrodites and intersexuals were usually integrated into the
woman-man/man-woman statuses because their physical ambivalence was
regarded as comparable to the ambivalence (due to the discrepancy
between physical sex and lived-out gender role) manifested by
nonintersexual women-men and men-women (see Chapter 8 ). The above list
of exceptions should not be taken as absolute. The distinction between
gender role change and gender role crossing is not qualitative, but
rather quantitative. When sources give details concerning persons to
whom an ambivalent gender status has been assigned by the members of an
ethnic group, such "emic" classifications and their culturally specific
backgrounds must be considered. The definition suggested here has the
advantage of taking into account the wide range of statuses formerly
referred to as "berdache." It seems reasonable to include examples of
gender role crossing in the present study. Gender role crossing refers
to people who take up some elements of the culturally defined role of
the other sex but at the same time largely retain the standard gender
role culturally assigned to their own sex. Unlike the majority of
women-men or men-women, they do not take up the gender role of the other
sex more or less completely. In many places, gender roles are more
flexible than has long been assumed (see Blackwood 1984). Yet there is
scarcely any information available concerning the degree or point in
gender role crossing beyond which a person was classified as a woman-man
or man-woman (see Parsons 1939h: 38 and 38 n. on the delimitation of
gender role crossing and woman-man/man-woman statuses among the
Pueblos). A comparison of women-men and men-women with persons who cross
over into the role of the opposite sex without being so classified can
help to illuminate the statuses of women-men and men-women within a
broader cultural context.

Focus of This Book
Although "berdaches" (primarily women-men) have been the subject of
in-depth investigations by Callender and Kochems (1983), Trexler (1995),
and Williams (1986b), a thorough, detailed, and systematic reappraisal
of the available published sources of information is still lacking. The
present study is intended to fill this gap and constitutes an expansion
of the above-named investigations. At the same time, however, it is also
intended as a close reexamination of statements and of theoretical
reflections encountered in these and other works on the subject.

The primary emphasis of the present study is on the traditional status
(i.e., the status as held in the tribal societies and in the early
reservation period) of women-men and men-women in Native American
cultures in North America. For a discussion of more recent and to some
extent homosexual/gay self-definitions by members of widely differing
Native American groups, the reader should consult Williams (1986b). In
his detailed investigation of the "berdache" phenomenon, Williams dealt
mainly with those groups in which women-men enjoyed high standing as
recipients of especially potent latent spiritual power. He also analyzed
the changes that the "berdache" roles and statuses underwent within
processes of acculturation. However, he heavily emphasized the sexual
aspect of the institution as a culturally approved opportunity for same
sex relationships. By contrast, the present study takes into
consideration groups from which a "berdache" status has (to my
knowledge) ever been reported, irrespective of the prevailing attitude
toward women-men and men-women within the respective groups, and whether
or not a spiritual component existed (although when present, the latter
has naturally been taken into account).

The study which in its approach most closely resembles my own is that of
Callender and Kochems (1983), who also adduced the entire corpus of
available information in order to arrive at definitive statements
concerning the "berdache" status. However, because that study is in
essay form, many questions of detail had to remain unanswered. Among
other things, the present study is intended to address some of these
questions, so that, against the background of a broader cultural
context, more differentiated statements can be made. In the other most
recent work on this topic (Kenny 1988; Midnight Sun 1988; Trexler 1995;
Whitehead 1981), the body of data has been applied selectively, partly
in order to support preconceived theoretical standpoints. Because of
this, the authors mentioned have not done justice to the complexity of
the topic. For example, Whitehead's argument (see Chapter 3) is
acceptable only if one accepts her equation:

male: female :: culture: nature

and shares her view that a universal gender hierarchy necessarily
results from it.

Finally, investigations of gender role change among females and of
female homosexuality have been scarce up to now (but see Allen 1981,
1986; Blackwood 1984; Whitehead 1981; Williams 1986b:233ff.). The
present volume, by using the entire corpus of data on men-women and
women-men, will contribute to this relatively unexplored area of study.

Primarily, this investigation focuses on working out the relationship of
gender role, as it is lived out and experienced by the woman-man or
man-woman, to the sexual role differentiation customary in each of the
respective groups for which data have been reported. The goal is to
determine the kind and degree of gender role change and at the same time
to pursue the question of the gender status of the women-men/menwomen.
In connection with this, my point of departure is recent theoretical
approaches to problems of gender status which depart from the concept of
two polarized gender statuses. Instead, these approaches demonstrate
that a change of gender status is more likely to result in an ambivalent
status than in the status of the opposite sex: it will be shown in the
case of the women-men/men-women and related phenomena that "gender
mixing', takes place, not "gender crossing" (Callender and Kochems 1986;
Kessler and McKenna 1977; Martin and Voorhies 1975; Whitehead 1981;
Williams 1986b). This viewpoint will also make it possible to recognize
the alternative gender status constructions that exist in non-European
societies, and, by examining the experiences of persons who live in such
mixed roles, to come to grips with these constructs. A two-part
preliminary question, therefore, is this: which North American Indian
cultures developed an ambivalent gender status? For the groups where it
existed, how was/is the content structure of this status actually worked
out and enacted by individuals making use of the gender roles? It is
also necessary to determine whether persons described in the literature
as "berdaches" actually were/are women-men or men-women, according to
the definition provided above. If they are not, it is important to
determine whether they were classified as "berdaches" in the sources by
anthropologists or other writers on the basis of the sex/gender concepts
of the ethnographer or of the consultant. In addition, it is crucial to
consider how men-women and women-men might have been associated with
particular social phenomena. For example, the Navajo connected nadle
(women-men and men-women; in more recent literature also spelled
nádleehé, see Thomas, 1997) with intersexuality, whereas some
Shoshoni-speaking groups associated them with infertility.

Women-men's and men-women's relationships with partners as an expression
of gender role and gender status also require examination. Among other
things, it is necessary to investigate the extent to which
classifications such as "homosexual" or "heterosexual" are applicable to
women-men and men-women, or whether such classifications instead
represent projections of Western categories upon non-Western cultural
phenomena.

The motivation for gender role change constitutes an additional topic of
investigation, and it is important to distinguish between what
consultants said about this topic and what outside observers reported.
All too often, ethnographers and other observers speculated about
etiology in terms of unsubstantiated ideas based on prevailing Western
psychiatric and psychological models (such as overprotective mothers,
weak masculine identity, latent homosexuality, etc.).

Another question that needs to be addressed is the nature of the special
spiritual powers sometimes attributed to women-men (and, though to a
lesser extent, to men-women) on account of their gender ambivalence.
What special tasks were assigned to them? Are these tasks associated
with the feminine or masculine role domain? Furthermore, given that
these powers have by no means been universally granted to the women-men,
in which cultural context(s) were they regarded as being spiritually
gifted?

Because the sources have focused almost exclusively on women-men, much
of the present discussion focuses on them. Part 3 deals with the
available source materials relating to females in a masculine role.
Gender role crossing, which has been observed much more frequently among
women than among men (e.g., in the form of "warrior women,"
manly-hearted women, etc.), will also be discussed, even though gender
role crossing is, as noted, not the same as gender role change.

The present book, therefore, first of all examines the componential
organization of gender role as executed by women-men and men-women: what
feminine and masculine role components, respectively, are lived out? Are
there differences between transvestite and nontransvestite women-men and
men-women? Apart from everyday and specialized activities, what behavior
patterns or attributes could possibly signal that the person who adopted
these has or will effect a change of gender role and gender status? What
is the relationship of women-men and men-women, who are ambivalent
because of a discrepancy between biological sex and behavior, to
hermaphrodites or intersexuals, who manifest a sexual ambivalence that
is purely biological?

This book also addresses the consequences of gender role change. To what
specialized occupations or ritual activities were women-men and/or
men-women entitled on the basis of their special gender status? On the
other hand, which of these activities or occupations were, by contrast,
seen as constituent aspects of a feminine or masculine role? These
questions are especially instructive for drawing conclusions regarding
the gender status of women-men and men-women, for example, in cases in
which they carry out occupations otherwise reserved for members of their
own biological sex. In other cases, it is necessary to ask whether an
activity possibly devolved upon the woman-man or man-woman less because
of any inherent special powers than because the activity in question was
chosen by the woman-man or man-woman as an additional component of his
or her chosen opposite-sex role.

Relationships of marriage or of partnership with persons of the same
biological sex can also be an expression of gender role change. These
relationships, as well as relationships with partners of the opposite
sex are discussed in Chapter 11. The central question is, to what extent
were relationships with partners of the same biological sex, but not of
the same gender, actually comparable to those relationships classified
in Western culture as homosexual, as some authors have asserted (see
Chapter 3)? A further issue for investigation here is the degree to
which sexual relations between partners of the same biological sex and
of the same gender might have corresponded to the definition of
homosexuality currently valid in Western culture. In addition, the
cultural background of the promiscuity frequently attributed to
women-men will also be discussed.

The actual process of carrying out a change of gender role is likewise a
topic of the present inquiry. What motives lie at the basis of a
person's taking on the role of the opposite biological sex? How was
entry into a new gender status legitimized and, if necessary, culturally
standardized? Did visions provide occasions in an individual's life for
an abrupt turning point from one gender status to another, or did they
only legitimate a process of change that had been under way for a long
time? How did the social environment react to signs of a gender role
change, or to those persons who entered into an ambivalent gender
status?

Another important goal of the present study is to determine how it
becomes possible for individual persons in the Native American cultures
investigated to cross over or even to abandon completely the standard
gender role of their sex in a culturally acceptable and often even
institutionalized form. One factor is surely the construction of
alternative gender statuses in addition to the standard masculine and
feminine ones. Western culture does not admit entry into gender
ambivalence; it recognizes only a polarization into male and female,
masculine and feminine. Ambivalent individuals consequently have to
choose one or the other of these poles. Furthermore, in extreme cases
(e.g., among transsexuals), this leads to a situation in which
individuals actually feel out of place in their own bodies, and
consequently attempt by surgical means to adjust their "wrong" bodies to
their "right" sexual identity. This constitutes a gender crossing in the
sense of Callender and Kochems (1986), as well as a change in gender
status and probably even in terms of gender categories. Transsexuals in
Western culture do not wish for a "berdache" status for themselves, but
rather a nonambivalent gender status: "There're only two alternatives in
society. You're either a man or a woman. If I don't feel like a woman
then it's got to be the other way" (female-to-male transsexual, in
Kessler and McKenna 1977:112). In other cultures, quite obviously, there
are more than two alternatives. The present study is intended to show
how gender status alternatives can in fact be formulated culturally.

A comparison of research results pertaining to women-men as opposed to
men-women also makes it possible to arrive at distinctions about the
cultural acceptance or institutionalization of gender role change and
gender role crossing. In particular, the biologistic explanatory
pronouncement of Whitehead (1981; and see below, Chapter 3) requires
close examination: were female "berdaches" essentially rarer than male
ones because the female bodily functions made access to male areas of
life impossible? This explanatory statement is not acceptable if one
does not agree with the structuralist equation, first formulated by
Ortner (1974) and later asserted by Whitehead, that female is to male as
nature is to culture, together with the assumption deriving from it of a
universal dominance of man (Culture) over woman (Nature) (see Ortner
1974: 67ff.). The discussion in the literature regarding the existence
of male dominance in Native American cultures has not yet been
concluded. However, several authors have justifiably come out against
the sweeping assumption of such a dominance (see Albers and Medicine
1983; M. N. Powers 1986; Weist 1980). Above and beyond this, it can be
shown that crossing beyond the boundaries of their gender role was
easier for women than it was for men, and that in such cases women did
not have to take on an alternative gender status permanently (see
Chapter 17). The present study likewise seeks explanations for this
differential flexibility with regard to gender roles. For example, could
the higher incidence of women-men possibly be connected with the fact
that there existed more gender role alternatives for women than for men?
(see, e.g., Kehoe 1983:66, on Blackfoot women). And how does this
variability relate to a possible gender hierarchy?

Before proceeding to investigate male and female gender role change, I
first need to discuss several topic-specific problems regarding the
source materials and then present a critical account of the contemporary
state of research as well as previous theoretical approaches to the
topic. After these preliminaries, I will describe the mutual
interconnection of gender identity, gender role, and gender status.
These relationships are crucial to the approach taken in the present
work, which constitutes a study of women-men and men-women against the
background of culturally defined gender roles and gender statuses, with
special reference to aspects of gender role change among members of
North American Indian nations.

hang on I need my other glasses....

Do you have a question to go with this?

could some one give me the readers digest version

I'm making some point form notes now...*scratching my head*

Do you think maybe hes tired of the closet??

The relationship question here is.......?

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Is is true that opposite genders and the same genders often have
relationships or are they reversed??????

why even bother putting something up that is that long i didnt bother to
read it because of length.
maybe mke should put a limit on how many words can be in a post

T, hey T,,,WAKE UP!!!!!

HUH ?????????????

Shadoweagle, I am interested, and have read what you have posted here,
am wondering what responses you are looking for?

WOW, alot of information. My eyes got all crossed up after the first few
paragraphs.

OMG Are you writting a book on here?

hahahaha,writing a book? That would be me, but I put it in poetry and
stories section...

So the silversmith's assistant was the murderer all along!

Can I get the children's version please?