Intersexuality and alternative gender categories in non-Western cultures.

BACKGROUND In the Western world, it is widely accepted as natural - and seen almost as a law of nature - that mankind is divided into two sexes or genders - males and females. In many cultures and societies, however, more than two sex and/or gender categories are recognized, which in some instances refer to the biological sex and in others to gender roles and social status. AIMS To give an intercultural comparison of various ways of dealing with gender variance. METHODS In the following paper, we review the anthropological literature during the last 100 years describing individuals who live neither as men nor women in various non-Western cultures. RESULTS Only rarely, these individuals suffer from disorders of sex development in the modern medical or biological definition: in many if not all societies there have been individuals who are not covered by the gender category of male and female. CONCLUSION There thus appears to be a cultural need for people with a special neither-male-nor-female status, which might be classified as 'gender variance'.