Some of the cultures I think of offhand will often have two genders for (roughly speaking, and due to lack of language) for people we would consider men who take up a female role, and vice versa. They would have special places in their societies--warriors, doctors, or people of specific religious significance. We often boil them down to "trans women" or "trans men" but that more reflects our OWN culture's sights on gender rather than theirs.
For Princess and Monster, I actually did research on some old Jewish texts, and they reported four gender terms besides male and female that are kinda ambiguous to modern readers.
While trans people have existed since pretty much day one, far as I can tell, the CONCEPTION of them as trans is a pretty modern recent thing, and often associated with the medical industry.
Also, how gender is even presumed in cultures can be kinda complicated. Just using my own work as an example, 'gender' for some insects in Treehouse are more about the jobs they do and fertility or lack thereof than anatomy or identity. (And I based that around real insects-- the vast majority of all bees are female, but I honestly think it makes more sense to divide those female bees into two different categories because they inhabit vastly different social and biological roles.)
Gender is a social construct, more so than a lot of people realize, which makes it complicated and squishy as hell.
no subject
For Princess and Monster, I actually did research on some old Jewish texts, and they reported four gender terms besides male and female that are kinda ambiguous to modern readers.
While trans people have existed since pretty much day one, far as I can tell, the CONCEPTION of them as trans is a pretty modern recent thing, and often associated with the medical industry.
Also, how gender is even presumed in cultures can be kinda complicated. Just using my own work as an example, 'gender' for some insects in Treehouse are more about the jobs they do and fertility or lack thereof than anatomy or identity. (And I based that around real insects-- the vast majority of all bees are female, but I honestly think it makes more sense to divide those female bees into two different categories because they inhabit vastly different social and biological roles.)
Gender is a social construct, more so than a lot of people realize, which makes it complicated and squishy as hell.
--Rogan