Kin Selection And How Transgender Males Might Have Been An Asset In Some Ancestral SocietiesOctober 2nd 2013, 06:14 PM
Transgendered androphilic males may have been accepted in ancient hunter-gatherer cultures because they were an extra set of hands to support their families, according to a new article in Human Nature.
"Androphilia" refers to a predominant sexual attraction towards adult males, and takes on one of two possible gender roles depending on the cultural context: sex-gender congruent male androphilia (the typical male gender role) or transgendered androphilia, a gender role markedly similar to that of females in a given culture. Typically one of these variations is dominant within a society. For example, sex-gender congruency is more common in Western cultures, whereas the transgendered form is more typical of non-Western cultures, such as that of the Polynesian island nation of Samoa.
By supporting their kin, these males ensured that their familial line was passed on to future generations despite their not having children of their own, according to an ethnographic study led by Doug VanderLaan, in Gender Identity Service, Child, Youth and Family Services at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. This altruistic "kin selection" is still at play in pro-transgender societies today, he and psychologists Zhiyuan Ren and Paul Vasey from University of Lethbridge write.
