This topic is incomplete without information about how this group treats gay people. The phrase "When boys express effeminacy" might hide a lot. Are these people "accept[ing] — and celebrat[ing] — gender nonconformity" or are they erasing homosexuality? Why is a boy being called "effeminate" and why is effeminacy something to be dealt with by channeling young people into what their culture deems the woman's role? Is that "gender nonconformity" or a particularly rigid idea of gender roles?
I have the feeling that the NYT fails to explore these questions because it is romanticizing and otherizing native people.
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Telling a little boy who likes to cook that he can't leave home and start his own family is a lot like locking a crazy relative up in the attic. It does not seem like a celebration.
And what about the girl who wants to drive a truck? What are her options as a gender nonconformist?
I wonder if the Zapotec do the same thing that modern transgender ideology would have us do here, i.e., force young people who experience some degree of gender dysphoria into an anomalous and special social category (muxe or transgender, as the case may be) when in fact many of them might outgrow their dysphoria. I know because I was such a gender-dysphoric child, but now I am happily married (to a member of the opposite sex) and perfectly happy being a man, though I may be more interested in clothes and household furnishings than Caitlin Flanagan would approve.
Indeed. An interest in traditionally female work is a lot different than living as a homosexual.
I have the feeling that the NYT fails to explore these questions because it is romanticizing and otherizing native people.
Exactly. Sometimes referred as "Noble Savages" journalism, or "Magical Black Person" film characters.
BERDACHE
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, French explorers, traders, and missionaries in the Mississippi Valley occasionally encountered Native Americans who could be classified neither as men nor women. They called such individuals berdaches, a French term for younger partners in male homosexual relationships. In fact, Plains Indian berdaches are best described as occupying an alternative or third gender role, in which traits of men and women are combined with those unique to berdache status. Male berdaches did women's work, cross-dressed or combined male and female clothing, and formed relationships with non-berdache men.
Plains Indian women often engaged in hunting and warfare, but a female role equivalent to that of male berdaches, although common west of the Rockies, has been documented in the Plains only among the Cheyennes (the hetaneman). Even so, some Plains Indian women became notable warriors and leaders and behaved much like berdaches. In the early nineteenth century, Running Eagle of the Piegans wore male clothing on war parties, while Woman Chief of the Crows had four wives.
Male berdaches were known among the Arapahos (hoxuxunó), Arikaras, Assiniboines (winktan'), Blackfoot (ake:śkassi), Cheyennes (he'eman), Comanches, Plains Crees (ayekkwe), Crows (boté), Gros Ventres, Hidatsas (miáti), Kansas (minquge), Kiowas, Mandans (mihdeke), Plains Ojibwas (agokwa), Omahas (minquga), Osages (mixu'ga), Otoes (mixo'ge), Pawnees, Poncas (minquga), Potawatomis (m'nuktokwae), Quapaws, Winnebagos (shiéngge), and the various Siouan-speaking tribes (winkte, Lakota; winkta, Dakota). The two most common reasons cited for individuals becoming berdaches were childhood preference for work of the other sex and/or certain dreams or visions. The Lakotas credited dreams of Double Woman with influencing men to become winkte; others credited the Moon. Such dreams also conveyed valued skills–in particular, proficiency in women's arts, such as quilling, tanning, and beading. Among the Dakotas the saying "fine possessions like a berdache's" was the highest compliment one could pay a household.
Berdaches often had distinct religious roles. A Crow boté selected the central pole used in constructing Sun Dance lodges. Cheyenne he'eman directed the tribe's most important ceremony, the scalp dance. In Hidatsa villages, miáti were an "organized group" of as many as fifteen to twenty-five, treated as a "special class of religious leaders." In several tribes, berdaches were shamans and healers. Other skills attributed to berdaches included the ability to foretell the future and convey luck by bestowing obscene nicknames (Lakota), make love magic (Pawnee), and arrange marriages (Cheyenne). By reputation, many Plains berdaches were sexually active. George Catlin illustrated a Sauk and Fox dance in which a berdache is the central figure surrounded by "her" male lovers. Dakota warriors sometimes visited berdaches before joining war parties in the belief that such encounters augmented their masculine ferocity. Prominent warriors and chiefs, including the Omaha American Horse and the Lakota Crazy Horse, had berdaches among their wives.
(continued)
Some observers have explained berdache roles as niches for males unable to fulfill rigorous standards of Plains masculinity. But as Dakotas told anthropologist Ruth Landes, a distinction was made between men afraid to join war parties and berdaches, who "had a dream." In fact, Plains berdaches were active in all aspects of warfare, from providing assistance on war parties to leading war ceremonies and entering battles (and some Dakota berdaches hunted, even as they maintained tipis that women envied). When the Hidatsa chief Four Bears encountered a Lakota winkte, and his arrow failed to penetrate his robe, the winkte exclaimed, "You can't kill me for I am holy. I will strike coups on you with my digging stick." In 1866 a winkte predicted the success of Lakota and Cheyenne forces against the Americans at Fort Phil Kearny. In 1876 the Crow boté Finds Them and Kills Them killed a Lakota warrior in the Battle of the Rosebud.
In the reservation period, American missionaries denounced berdaches, government agents forced them to do men's work, and boarding-school teachers punished children for inappropriate gender behavior. As European American attitudes toward homosexuality were adopted in Indian communities, families often intervened to prevent their own members from becoming (or behaving like) berdaches. Nonetheless, traditional berdaches like Finds Them and Kills Them successfully resisted efforts to change their lifestyles. In the 1980s anthropologist Walter Williams found individuals on Plains reservations still performing traditional functions of the berdache role.
In the 1990s the term "two-spirit" was introduced by Native Americans as an alternative to berdache, and traditional third gender roles became the subject of renewed interest among Natives and non-Natives alike. As Michael Red Earth, a gay-identified Dakota, writes, "Once I realized that this respect and acceptance was a legacy of our traditional Native past, I was empowered to present my whole self to the world and reassume the responsibilities of being a two-spirited person."
There is quite a bit of literature on the muxes. See https://medium.com/the-omnivore/a-brief-history-of-mexicos-third-gender-7d80451419e6.
See also Behind the Mask. Alfredo Mirande.
Likely didn’t exist before the 1950s.
Doesn’t every culture celebrate alternative genders by confining them to parental control and not leaving the house? Yay. Tolerance! You know what culture is extremely welcoming, one may even say lassez faire attitude, towards other cultures? Us. The freaking USA. Why twist the world to make it seem welcoming when you can actually live here and exist in a tolerant society. We even put up with stupid writers misreading discrimination as “celebration.”
Ann Althouse said...
>Why is a boy being called "effeminate"<
Because his characteristics and behavior fulfill the definition of the word, one assumes.
>and why is effeminacy something to be dealt with by channeling young people into what their culture deems the woman's role?<
Because their culture also deems that the thing to do with effeminate boys.
Neither of these seem particularly puzzling.
"Is that "gender nonconformity" or a particularly rigid idea of gender roles?"
Good question! But you know the answer. The same as the answer for western transgenderism.
"I have the feeling that the NYT fails to explore these questions because it is romanticizing and otherizing native people."
Good feeling! But while otherizing the NYT is also appropriating: forcing the Other into its own narrative.
Very common among American Indians.
I have the feeling that the NYT fails to explore these questions because it is romanticizing and otherizing native people.
Nah. it's because teh answers aren't what they (the people at teh NYT) want, so they just ignore them
What Zapotec mothers do if their boy expresses a desire to be a pilot is the question.
Per wikipedia, muxes may or may not be gay. Muxe seems to be more about the kind of work an individual chooses to do than it does with their sexual orientation, but I think you have a point about gender fluidity and gender roles. It often seems to me that transgenderism argues for flexibility regarding biological sex while simultaneously reinforcing rigid gender roles, and I think this can be especially confusing to young people. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to be a GIRL who could be a bit of a tomboy and like science without worrying about whether I was really a girl, or if I was gender confused. Adolescence is confusing enough as is.
In Samoa, the same. These boys are called "fafines", slang for "afa" (half) "fafine" (woman). Although the cultural fine points are well beyond my knowledge, I do know, from living there, "feminine" interests/behaviors are noted at a young age; not suppressed; they are accepted for what they are, and are an integral part of almost every village/family. A very different and eye-opening cultural take.
I think the word multiplex has been hi-jacked, and Latinized by the LGBTQ community.
I'm sorry. I couldn't resist. LGBTQ elaborates to Let's Get Biden To Quit.
Thais have a similar concept with the term "katoey", which can denote either a male-to-female trans or an effeminate gay man. It's a "third gender" only in the sense that it broadly describes men who don't dress or behave in traditionally masculine ways and can include everything from a complete post-op trans person to gay men that would be described as flamers or queens in the US. That is, conspicuously effeminate. The notion of gender identity and sexual orientation has distinct concepts is not broadly appreciated in Thailand. For example, their notion of a lesbian is a woman who is attracted to a traditional-looking woman. They have a separate term for traditional-looking women who are attracted to butch women. Generally, labels are attached on the basis of social role behavior and not self-conception or personal identity.
One trend that I have noticed among trans-cultural trans and "third gender" concepts is how dominant the male-to-female variety is over female-to-males. Societies tend to be much more tolerant of women dressing as men than men dressing as women. There does seem to be some element of misogyny at play there. There was a British film in the early 90s called The Cement Garden in which one of the characters remarks, "Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short, wear shirts and boots, because it's OK to be a boy, but for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, because you think that being a girl is degrading."
"When boys express effeminacy, some Zapotec mothers will begin to train them in traditional female roles... Similarly, many mothers do not disavow young men who show an interest in work traditionally assigned to women."
Replace "Zapotec mothers" with "US mothers" and still would be 100% true. Doesn't say much.
Wow.
Talk about clickbait for LLR Chuck and The Lincoln Pedophile Project....
Phoebe Maltz Bovy & Katie Herzog discuss deep issues and at 20 minutes in mention "otherizing."
I think it's a good example of how unlistenable only women's voices are. A male voice is always needed in the discussion.
Also of not understanding the Other in its original postmodernism context, which is that the Other has all the rights and stature, at the origin of morality.
So don't be sure that otherizing serves as the easy slam that's imagined.
I dunno, let a boy do girlie things and before you know it he's hanging out at the glory hole.
At least that's pretty much how things were seen in my tribe.
Here’s a interesting look at a practitioner in native habitat… https://youtu.be/PGNiXGX2nLU
In Golden Age of Athens, as we have long heard, sexual relationships between men and young boys was accepted without approbation. However, if the relationship continued beyond the youth of the boy, there was a distinction between the stick and the receiver. Long-term homosexual relationships were accepted for the stick but not the receiver. It was considered excessively emotional and weak constitutionally to be a receiver and thus not worthy of respect among the male citizenship.
In Hopi culture, a boy who was gay was supported by the clan and tribe in a nontraditional role. They were typically healers and clowns in tribal dances. This was not meant as a role of disrespect or disparagement. They simply accepted the boys/men for who they were but did not expect them to be the aggressive warriors essential to the tribe's survival and did not accord them with leadership positions in the clan/tribe because they were not mainstream.
Is it possible to recognize a difference and not be prejudiced?
JeanE,
I am grateful that I had the opportunity to be a GIRL who could be a bit of a tomboy and like science without worrying about whether I was really a girl, or if I was gender confused.
Me too (!) I was a kid who spent most of adolescence reading and making model airplanes and being in the math team and the Nomic group and so forth. No one -- thank God -- ever told me that I was "really" male. Possibly because both my parents were scientists, and understood where I was coming from, and didn't assume that only men could possibly do or want such things.
Why is a boy being called "effeminate" and why is effeminacy something to be dealt with by channeling young people into what their culture deems the woman's role?
Perhaps because effeminate is an adjective used to describe a male as female-like. I would be interested in the precise translation of the adjective the Indians actually use.
edutcher: "Very common among American Indians."
I am not sure the movie "Little Big Man" was a documentary......except for the Custer part.
"Who Is Teddy Villanova" by the Big Man author Thomas Berger is good.
"and why is effeminacy something to be dealt with by channeling young people into what their culture deems the woman's role? Is that "gender nonconformity" or a particularly rigid idea of gender roles?"
Bang on. Typecast for life based on a phase or an eccentricity in childhood. Hopefully the Zapotec don't have access to hormones.
It is odd how thoughtlessly Progs celebrate some of these things. There's a streak of triumphal sadism in LGBT thought and it seems to be primarily aimed at children.
The "Noble Savage" raises his head once again. Lefties love their myths.
The fact that 0.018% of the world's population are true hermaphrodites is scientific proof that male or female is up to the individual.
What's a boy?
Watch your language
Thomas Berger was a national treasure. The Little Big Man movie barely touches the essentials of the book. I'm also a huge fan of his Carlo Rinehart books, and Teddy Villanova already mentioned.
I've got Arthur Rex unread on my shelf . . . did he wring something new out of that old tale?
Blogger Sebastian said...
"But while otherizing the NYT is also appropriating: forcing the Other into its own narrative."
I had the same thought. The Times has its Narrative, and must jam the story into it.
One thing that everyone seems to overlook: just what jobs and skills are considered appropriate for which sex seems to vary almost infinitely across cultures, but every culture until recently has divided work by sex. That suggests some deep need is being met by doing so.
And in the modern cultures that don't so segregrate work roles, we see an apparently universal fall-off of the birth rate to less than replacement level. Interesting.
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