The United States and much of the Western world have divided gender into two strict identities called a binary (woman and man). However, different cultures have been known to view gender in other ways, often more complex, and not simply cut and dry.
Cultures Where “Other Genders” are Recognized
Native American
Native American tribes were very conscientious of those who were “trans” and they called these people “two-spirit” (formerly called berdache). These people dressed in clothes of the “opposite” sex, but embodied cultural characteristics of both sexes. Unfortunately, these people were recognized because they were feared – Native Americans believed that “two-spirits” were touched by otherworldly beings and given special gifts; therefore, they were also considered shamans. Berdache had a very negative connotation and therefore, fell out of usage. Even in this seemingly more open and diverse community in regards to transgender acceptance, there was a strict view of who was a “real” two-spirit; a “real” two-spirit had to be intersex (Thomas, 1990).
Indian
The Native Americans are not the only ones who had a more open environment for transgender people. The country of India has the “hijras” which are generally “males” who dress as women. In today’s society, they often have to work as prostitutes in order to pay for a surgery (which is very risky in India) in order for them to “fully” transition. Traditionally, and similarly to Native Americans, “real” hijras had to be intersex. Indian society has recently made strides in officially recognizing this “third gender”. (“India court recognises third gender”, 2014).
Indonesian
A community in Indonesia is known for having 5 genders which all are recognized and equally important in the culture as well as in speech. There’s “man”, “woman”, “womanish-man”, “manish-woman”, and a “spirit” gender which is more equally gendered. These three other genders are called “calalai”, “calabai”, and “bissu” respectively (Graham, 2001).
Languages that are Genderless or Gender Neutral
Unlike English, there are many languages that are gender neutral or genderless to a degree. This means there are no she/he pronouns (there’s just one gender neutral) and in some of these languages, there are not even different nouns to describe woman/man; it’s just one term used for everyone. These languages focus on being gender inclusive and resort to words like “human” and “person” before “he”, “man” or “businessman” for example. Below are a few of these languages and how gender functions in their language (“Gender neutrality in genderless languages”, 2012).
The lack of gendered pronouns greatly lessens gender performativity in language since pronouns (and even nouns) no longer mark for “sex” (that is to say, biological sex and what reproductive organs one has).
- Persian
For any gender, the same nouns, pronouns, and adjectives are used. For example,
oo (او) is used for both “he” and “she”;
aan (آن) is used for “it” as in English
There also aren’t any apparent morophological changes in Persian to mark for gender. The same nouns are used for both female and male professionals. For example: baazigar (بازیگر) means both actor and actress.
Additionally, there is no differentiation of possessive pronouns or object pronouns.
For example, The noun suffix -ash (اَش) serves either as a possessive adjective or an object pronoun for both males and females as well as things, situations, etc. For example,
- ketaabash (کتابش) means “her/his book”;
- paayash (پایش) means “its/her/his leg”;
Oo labash raa boosid (او لبش را بوسید) means “He kissed her lips” or “she kissed his lips” or “he kissed his lips” or “she kissed her lips” or if we consider -ash as an object pronoun we can translate the sentence as “he/she kissed her/him on the lips”.
- Hungarian
In Hungarian, there are no gender specific pronouns. The pronoun ő is the equivalent of he/she in English. Therefore, if one wants to refer to “gender” it is necessary for the person to explicitly say “the man” or “the woman”.
- Korean
Korean, like a few other East Asian languages such as Japanese, does not use pronouns in everyday language, relying on context to clarify the intended meaning. In case of confusion, there are pronouns to clarify the position, but normally the actual subject (person) is named rather than the pronoun. As for job titles, these are not gender-specific.