Transgender people in tribal communities.

[lady amarant]

Tebogo Nkoana is a transman who works with our local South African transgender rights NGO, Gender Dynamix. He presented a talk in Seattle in August about his experiences as both a transman and a traditional healer, which was posted at GDX's website:

Tebogo's Presentation

I'm quite fascinated by how various ancient cultures have dealt with and interpreted gender variance, both from a religious/magickal and from a purely secular viewpoint, and I wonder how common this sort of experience still is today? Not just being called as a shaman/witchdoctor/healer, but in a more general sense, be it a past-life regression that points to unfinished business from a previous lifetime or a pagan who takes a patron god/dess and has a specific kind of relationship with that deity or whatever - mystical experiences are as varied as the people who have them and the cultures in which they occur.

As another example, Lord Fanny (yeah, I know - the comic satirises and parodies everybody and everything, not just trans-people.), one of the four principle characters of "The Invisibles", for example, is a transgendered Brazilian shaman who's patron is the Aztec god of death. In her culture (in the story anyway, still researching the reality) only women can be shamen. She is born a boy but raised a girl, and then at age 14 initiated. During her vision-quest her patron appears to her and acknowledges her as one of his priestesses, whereas boys are normally left dead or insane in cases where somebody tries to initiate them as shamen.

So basically, I'm wondering how many of you might've come across these sorts of experiences or have had them yourselves, especially where such experiences are understood and accepted by your community. Be it a pagan circle or a travelling preacher healing people or in the context of Voudoun or whatever, how common do you think the more mystical understanding of being transgender still is?

~Simone.


~Simone.

[gennee]

I have Native-American ancestry (Choctaw) and it was in my tribe. Transgenderism has been identified in at least 130 tribes. Some tribes have homophobic and transphobic attitudes as a result of European influences. I have read a little about the tribes of South America. Transgender people were often revered and sought out for advice and counsel.

Gennee

[Hypatia]

I've read a lot of studies of transgender in other cultures, and most of them either relegate us to a "third gender" category, or define trans women as just another form of gay male. Very disappointing. Also, if you're a trans woman in most other cultures, you're expected to only date men, so if you're lesbian well then you're just S.O.o.L. What at first seems to be a benefit turns out to have hidden costs.

My own modern white middle-class American culture may not be very enlightened on trans issues, but at least here I find plenty of support for my being a woman and even a lesbian, which I doubt I would find in most cultures who are supposed to be so trans-accepting. They might accept me on their terms, but they would place me into a category that isn't me, so all things considered that would be no improvement over what I've got now.

If anyone can cite me a non-Western culture where I could be accepted as fully a woman and lesbian to boot, please let me know about it.