American Historical Review 93 (February 1988):218-219 By skillfully integrating historical and anthropological literature with the results of his own unique cross-cultural fieldwork among contemporary berdaches, Williams provides an extraordinarily perceptive study of the berdache and the most comprehensive treatment of this controversial topic to date. One of the goals of this work is to “allow Indian people to speak for …

Many Native American indigenous cultures have traditionally held intersex, androgynous people, feminine males, and masculine females in high respect. The most common term to define such persons today is to refer to them as Two Spirit people, but in the past feminine males were sometimes referred to as “berdache” by early French explorers in North America, who adapted a Persian …

The interaction between religion and a society’s construction of gender has important ramifications for transgender communities within that culture. This relationship is especially compelling in the Ancient Mediterranean, in which a number of cultures with diverse spiritual and social environments thrived prior to the spread of Christianity. Within these cultures, religion provided a space for transgender individuals within a larger …

It is easy to get bored of spending vacations in Europe, Argentina and the more exotic locations around the world. This is when most travelers think of coming to Asia for their next yearly vacation. For any LGBT + traveler, however, Asia is far from the ideal location for travel, unless the focus is on sightseeing and not LGBT services. If …

Looking for some more good gay oriented reading material? Here are some books with more practical gay dating tips, gay tips, guides and advice as well as some humor for gay men. Enjoy! On Picking Fruit by Arthur Wooten Although he was born gay, Curtis Jenkins has trouble, uh, picking fruit. He is still searching for that elusive man of …

Diversity means difference or unlikeness or the opposite of same. Men and women are perfect examples of diversity. In fact, men and women are called opposites. Sexism and racism are examples of zero gender or zero race diversity, respectively. The US constitution codifies a requirement for equal treatment (equality) of certain classes of people. Men and women are two such classes …

As I was watching “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” the Bravo reality series where five fabulous gay guys transform a straight, uncultured slob, I was struck by a moment where I identified more with the hetero than the homo. It was a scene where Carson, the fashion maven, was going through the closet of Slob ‘O The Week, and …

Gender is a primary category in which individuals both identify themselves and are identified by others. Gender is not a set of binary categpries, but rather a spectrum. The concept of gender can be restrictive in many ways. People are generally expected to identify as a particular gender, the one which has been assigned to them, and act in specific …

Transgenderism is the practice of transgressing gender norms. A Transgender person is someone whose gender display at least sometimes runs contrary to what other people in the same culture would normally expect. Transgender folks come in several flavors: FTM (female to male) are people who were born female but see themselves as partly to fully masculine. MTF (male to female) …

This is for everyone who’s planning to tell their parents soon and to everyone whose parents know but just don’t understand (I apologize in advance to FtM readers and non-transsexual readers. This is written in terms of a transsexual woman. I hope you can find useful insight regardless)… As you may know when I came out to my mum last …