White supremacy and colonization really forced that male/female binary forced onto so many communities, lands, and cultures, huh?
I’m noticing that trend ☝🏾…a lot of cultures historically recognized more than the binary system that they’ve been shoving down our throats for centuries. Because they came and pushed their beliefs on everyone and made them assimilate. Come to find out that they were wrong…about a lot of things. But the irreparable damage they’ve caused 🤧.
See I look these up and it always seems to be something like “historically māhū were male at birth… performed the roles of goddesses in hula dances that took place in temples which were off-limits to women… described as not having access to political power, being unable to aspire to leadership roles, and perceived as always available for sexual conquest by men…”
Almost every time I hear about a “third gender” in historical indigenous peoples, it ends up being less like ‘we have a complex spectrum of gender and sexuality with deep respect for non-binary people’ and more like ‘well there are women who have to do woman things, men who get to be in charge of everything, and broken men who aren’t up to real men’s roles so they don’t get shit’.
I’m totally in favor of the idea of maintaining the best parts of your ancient traditions while discarding the fucked up bits, but the idea that everything was a magical utopia until the evil white men arrived is just continuing the missionaries’ work, erasing what’s left of the real history of these places to replace it with something that won’t offend your modern sensibilities.
“We have a third gender, and it’s (Blatantly a place to shove gay and effeminate men so that they can fill a woman’s role, including being the victim of rape, in places where women are not allowed to be.)’
You know I hate that this is a repeating trope. That we’re asked to treat a horrible custom used to abuse men as some kind of enlightened position because it ‘bucks the gender binary’. Like, this isn’t a third gender, it’s a ritualized version of a ‘Prison Bitch’.
Don’t even get me fuckin started on “two spirit.”
noble savage
And then there’s Hijra – which is basically trans women and infertile men forced to do sex work for money.
People painting all non-whites as a bunch of hippies who all got along with zero problems before “de ebil wypeple” came, ticks me off so much. It’s babying them by erasing their flaws and own terrible acts. As if they couldn’t understand evil on their own and take responsibility for it like responsible adults. Nope! “It was all sunshine and rainbows and the POCs didn’t know any better!”
Discussion ¬