Historical Timeline of Gender Diversity

Not a New Phenomenon

Societies around the world have recognized more than two genders since thousands of years. Cultures across continents have documented how they had space for those who lived outside the male-female binary—people we might today describe as intersex, transgender, or third gender. These individuals were not hidden or erased in ancient history; they were often honored, named, and given sacred roles within their communities.

This isn’t a new phenomenon. What’s new is the fear, the policing, and the erasure.

Even in Israel, the earliest Jewish writings include the mentioning of the word “androgynos” (אֲנְדְּרוֹגִינוֹס). A combination of the Greek roots: “andro” (man) + “gyné” (woman), this term was adopted into Rabbinic Hebrew for those people who felt both male and female, neither or a mixture. The Mishna Jewish law (500 BCE) had a law that anyone who killed or harmed an “androgynos” was subject to the exact same ramifications as someone who hurts a man or woman. In interesting to note that, according to ancient Jewish writings, there are and were six genders in classical Judaism: 

  • Zachar: Usually translated as “male” in English 
  • Nekevah: Usually translated as “female” in English 
    • Androgynos: A person with both male and female physical characteristics 
  • Tumtum: A person with indeterminate or obscured sexual characteristics
  • Ay’lonit: A female who does not develop secondary sex characteristics at puberty 
  • Saris: A male who has been castrated or had his male sex organ physically damaged, and later would usually become a Eunuch

Here are a few more samples from history around the world (click on arrows):

ITALY
  • In Neolithic Italy (7000 BCE): drawings and figurines are burials or religious settings of a “third sex” human figures having female breasts and male genitals or without distinguishing sex characteristics.
  • In Neolithic Greece and Cyprus (6000 BCE): figures found that are sometimes either dual-sexed or without identifying sexual characteristics.
  • Diodorus Siculus (1st Century BCE), an ancient Greek historian, also recalled the lives of Diophantus of Abae and Callon of Epidaurus, both who were intersex.
  • In Rome (203 CE), the male born emperor Elagabalus adopted feminine dress and requested to be referred to as “she”.
  • Isidore of Seville (560–636 CE) described a hermaphrodite (third gender) as those who “have the right breast of a man and the left of a woman, and can both sire and bear children.” 
  • Naples: There is a centuries-old phenomenon of femminielli, those assigned male at birth who dress and behave as women. They are respected figures and traditionally believed to bring good luck; a cultural tradition that may date back to pagan rituals of crossdressing, or eunuch priests.
  • In 155 CE (90 years after the death of the Apostle Paul), Tertullian (known as the founder of  Western theology and for being the first to use the term “Trinity”) and other Roman writers noted the existence of a third sex among people (male and female in one) when referring to the Galli, eunuchs of the Phrygian goddess Cybele.
  • In the Roman Empire (1-100 CE),  Philo of Alexandria and Marcus Manilius provided descriptions of transgender people during this era. writing about men who changed nature into women, some of them having their penises removed.
  • In Rome (54 CE), Sporus was a young slave boy who was forced to marry Nero, the Emeror of Rome. He was forced to wear female ceremonial clothing and Nero had him castrated.
  • In The Roman Empire (218 CE),  Roman emperor Elagabalus wanted to be called the mistress, wife, and queen of Hierocles, one of Elagabalus’s male lovers. The emperor wore makeup and wigs, preferred to be called a lady and not a lord, and offered vast sums to any physician who could provide the emperor with a vagina.
  • In Venice, Italy (1355 CE), Rolandino Roncaglia was one of the many that were burned to death for “sodomy” in Europe. He having confessed he “had never had sexual intercourse, neither with his wife nor with any other woman, because he had never felt any carnal appetite, nor could he ever have an erection of his virile member”. Rolandino started wearing female dresses. It is documented that he had a female look, voice and movements, even though he had “a male member and testicles, instead of a female orifice”. Many persons considered him to be a woman because of his appearance”.
  • In Rome, Italy (1498 CE), there was a Moor, who was likely a trans woman, was executed for wearing women’s clothing. Wearing her usual women’s clothes, she was placed on a bundle of wood and strangled at the column of the gallows” and subsequently burned.
Details

EUROPE
  • The Sweden, the Sami or Lapland people (the oldest indigenous tribe in Europe) have archeological evidence suggests that these people (who existed since before 8100 BC) were a gender open culture. Today, after the colonization of Christian missionaries, the culture is more patriarchal. While the culture use to revere and honor women, male violence against Sami women is now common.
  • In Prague, Czech Republic (2900 BCE), a male is buried in the outfit usually reserved for women, with grave goods and in a body position that was typically only seen in female burials of the time. Archaeologists theorize that the burial practices could possibly indicate the individual was transgender or held a “third gender” status in their society.
  • In Germany (98 CE), there were priests of the Swabian sub-tribe who were called the Nahanarvali, men that dressed and acted as women.
  • In Greece (3rd Century), the Kybele priests were people that were assigned male at birth, but identified as women and wore feminine clothing. They also ritually severed their own genitalia. The term “hermaphrodite” was historically used to describe people with ambiguous genitalia or gender. Diodorus Siculus, an ancient Greek historian, also recalled the lives of Diophantus of Abae and Callon of Epidaurus, both who were intersex.
  • In Greece, the Enarei (400 BCE), a class of third gender Scythian priests and healers. They were also called Eunuchs. Some had both male and female characteristics, and some were born male, but spoke like women and performed female work. The enarei are mentioned in many writings, by Hippocrates and Herodotus.
  • In France (1322 CE), Kalonymus ben Kalonymus was a Jewish philosopher composed a poem expressing discontent with having been born male instead of female. He curse having been born male, and referred to their penis as a “defect”,
  • In London, England (1395 CE),  – John Rykener is known today as a medieval example of a transgender person. Arrested for prostitution and cross-dressing in 1395 for cross-dressing, Rykener’s responses to interrogation have been described as one of the very few glimpses the modern era has into medieval queer and gender studies.  
  • In Krakow, Poland (1561 CE), Wojciech z Poznania was burned to death for “crimes against nature”, for marrying Wawrzyniec Włoszek.
  • In Lenzburg, Switzerland (1586 CE), Barbara Brunner of Kusnacht, was discovered to “be male under her clothes” and was burned at the stake on May 28. This is recorded in the chronicles of Johann Jakob Wick.
  • In France (1777), a third gender French courtier and spy of disputed gender identity, but finally agreed with a request by French authorities to live and present as a woman.
  • In Norway (1781), Jens Andersson, assigned female at birth but identifying as male, was imprisoned and put on trial after marrying Anne Kristine Mortensdotter. When asked about his gender, the response was that he believed he belonged to both.
  • In France (1895),  The Countess, a French transgender courtesan and singer, published her autobiography The Secret Confessions of a Parisian: The Countess, 1850-1871.
  • In Hamburg, Germany (1906), Karl M. Baer, born with ambiguous genitalia, was raised a girl. He came out at the age of 19 on saying he was male and later became the first transgender person to undergo sex reassignment surgery.
  • In Berlin (1931), Dora Richter became the first known transgender woman to undergo vaginoplasty.
  • In Czechoslovakia (1934),  Dora Richter applied for a legal name change, granted by the president.
  • In Copenhagen, Denmark (1952), the actress, singer, recording artist, Christine Jorgensen (born George William Jorgensen Jr.,) become widely known for having sex reassignment surgery. Upon her return to the United States, her transition was the subject of a New York Daily News front-page story. She became an instant celebrity and used the platform to advocate for transgender people.
  • In Britain (1954), the gender transition of Roberta Cowell, a British pilot during World War II, is reported internationally by the Associated Press. She also appeared that month on the cover of Picture Post, a then-popular magazine in the United Kingdom.
  • In Sweden (2024), a law is passed to lower age to change legal gender from 18 to 16.
MIDDLE EAST

In Israel, the earliest Jewish writings include the mentioning of the word “androgynos” (אֲנְדְּרוֹגִינוֹס). A combination of the Greek roots: “andro” (man) + “gyné” (woman), this term was adopted into Rabbinic Hebrew for those people who felt both male and female, neither or a mixture. The Mishna Jewish law (500 BCE) had a law that anyone who killed or harmed an “androgynos” was subject to the exact same ramifications as someone who hurts a man or woman. In interesting to note that, according to ancient Jewish writings, there are and were six genders in classical Judaism: 

Zachar: Usually translated as “male” in English 

Nekevah: Usually translated as “female” in English 

Androgynos: A person with both male and female physical characteristics 

Tumtum: A person with indeterminate or obscured sexual characteristics

Ay’lonit: A female who does not develop secondary sex characteristics at puberty 

Saris: A male who has been castrated or had his male sex organ physically damaged, and later would usually become a Eunuch

  • In ancient Mesopotamia, non-binary individuals and third gender figures were recognized and played important roles in culture: Lύ-sag and ša rēši (eunuchs), Hierodules (temple prostitutes that had characteristics of both men and women). Ur-Nanshe (a person who was born male, but they identified as a woman or eunuch). 
  • In Pakistan and Bangladesh, the hijras are officially recognized as third gender by the government, being neither completely male nor female. 
  • In Southern Mesopotamia, today’s Iraq (5000 BCE) there were “Gala“, priests who were assigned male at birth but crossed gender boundaries in their worship of goddesses Inanna.  They spoke their own dialect and took on feminine names.
  • In Sudan (200 BCE), The Nuba peoples of Sudan (including the Otoro Nuba, Nyima, Tira, Krongo, and Mesakin), had traditional roles for male-assigned people who dressed and lived as women and married men, which have been seen as transgender roles.
  • In Arabia, (600s), the khanith (like earlier mukhannathun) have occupied a third gender role.
  • In Israel (1950), Rina Natan becomes the first known transsexual woman in Israel to undergo sex reassignment surgery. The surgery was conducted as an emergency operation after she attempted to perform it on herself. After the incident, the Israeli government changed it’s policies on sex reassignment surgeries.
AFRICA
  • Uganda had the Ankole people, women who dressed and acted like men. 
  • Among the Sakalavas of Madagaskar, feminine boys were raised as girls, called the sekrata.
  • In Nigeria (6000 BCE), the Igbo people had third-gender and transgender roles, including for females who take on male status and marry women, a practice which also exists among the Dahomey. Anthropologist John McCall documented a female-assigned Ohafia Igbo named Nne Uko Uma Awa, who dressed and behaved as a boy since childhood, joined men’s groups, and was a husband to two wives.
  • In Ancient Egypt (1000 BCE), there is the Tale of Two Brothers , where Bata removes his penis and tells his wife “I am a woman just like you”.
ASIA & OCEANIA
  • In Thailand (800s BCE), the “Kathoey” were third gender people referenced in ancient Buddhist scriptures. These were people that express a more feminine gender regardless of their assigned sex at birth. They often held prominent roles in traditional arts and entertainment.
  • In Ancient Indian subcontinent, now India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (622 BCE), there were transgender, intersex, or eunuch people, feminine-identifying people assigned male at birth. The most well known is the Hijra people. There are other transgender terms, the Khwaja in Pakistan, and the Aravani, the Kinnar, the Kothi, and the Shiv-Shakthi in India.
  • In India (900s CE), Transgender women (or hijras, aravani) have been part of the Aravan cult, at Koovagam, in Tamil Nadu (India) for centuries. They are known for their festivals and rituals. Today a yearly festival carries on these events. Individuals often “marry” Aravan during these festivals.
  • In India (1500s) Century the Hijra community in India was a third gender community, which was included in the community and even held influential positions in court and society. However, after British colonization later brought criminalization the Hijra community, leading to social marginalization and persecution.  
  • In Polynesia (1500s CE ), the ancient third gender people were documented as Māhu. which translates to “in the middle” and refers to people who are neither men nor women. Māhū people were born men but embraced their feminine energy. They were respected and held sacred roles in society as educators and elders.• Throughout the Polynesian islands, there is an established tradition of a third gender—not male, not female, somewhere in the middle. In Hawai’i they are called Māhū. They were valued and respected as caretakers, healers, and teachers of ancient traditions who passed on sacred knowledge from one generation to the next, through hulu, chant, and other forms of wisdom. When American missionaries arrived in the 1800s, they were shocked and infuriated by these practices and did everything they could to abolish them.
  • In India (1998), Shabnam Mausi became the first transgender person to be elected.
  • In India (2014) the Supreme Court recognized a third gender that is neither male nor female, stating “Recognition of transgenders is human rights issue”.
  • In Nepal (2007), the Supreme Court ruling allowed Nepalis to recognize their gender according to their “gender inside feelings”. Monica Shahi was the first person in Nepal to have a passport that recognizes her as neither male or female but as a member of a third category. Her passport is now marked with an “O” that represents “Other”. 
SOUTH & CENTRAL AMERICA
  • The Incas had third-gender shamans who would perform sacred rituals to honor their god.  
  • In Oaxaca, Mexico (500 BCE), the Zapotec community had a “muxe“, a person assigned male at birth who dressed and behaved in ways otherwise associated with women.
NORTH AMERICA
  • Native Americans had a diverse gender expression before European contact. “Two Spirit” was a term that described gay, lesbian, bisexual and gender-variant individuals. Over 150 different tribes had their own classifications for third gender roles. 
  • In Hawaii, the mahu referred to people that were both biological males and females. These third gender people actually held a sacred social role as educators and promulgators of ancient traditions and rituals. Native Americans had the Fa’afafine, people who identify themselves as male at birth, but showing both masculine and feminine gender traits. 
  • In Turtle Island, an Indigenous name for North America is documented that over 150 different indigenous communities had (and still have) people who embody both masculine and feminine “spirits”, called “two-spirit”, a translation of the Ojibwe phrase “niizh manidoowag,” meaning “having two spirits”. Two-spirit people were third gender people who were often celebrated as teachers, artists, and medicine people in their communities. In many tribes, Two-Spirit people were highly respected and held important spiritual roles within the community. Same-sex unions between two-spirit people were accepted. Today, some Native American tribes have laws that allow same-sex marriage, but the laws vary by tribe. 
  • In New Mexico, North America (2000 BCE), there were the “Lhamana” among the Zuni Native American community. The Lhamana were biologically male people who took on female roles in the culture. They wore a mixture of women’s and men’s clothing and much of their work is in the areas usually occupied by Zuni women. The most famous lhamana was We’wha (1849–1896), who in 1886 was part of the Zuni delegation to Washington D.C., where they met with President Grover Cleveland.
  • In Jamestown, Virginia (1629 CE), Thomas(ine) Hall was ordered by the court to wear a combination of male and female attire after a series of incidents that led to physical examination and the Court determining Hall to have a “dual nature” gender.
  • In New England (1776), a preacher, born male, changed their name to “Public Universal Friend” and took away all their pronouns and identified as either male or female.
  • In New York City (1836), Mary Jones, a transgender African-American was placed on trial in New York City and depicted in a published lithograph entitled “the Man-Monster”.
  • In Memphis, Tennessee (1876), Frances Thompson, a former African-American slave was arrested for “being a man dressed in women’s clothing”.
  • In New York (1895), the Cercle Hermaphroditos was founded, the earliest known transgender organization in the United States.
  • In Los Angeles, CA (1941), Barbara Ann Wilcox, a transgender woman, successfully petitions Los Angeles County Superior Court to change her legal name, one of the earliest known legal cases of its kind.
  • In New York (1953), Glen or Glenda, an American film featuring transgender surgery and transvestism, is released.
  • In Los Angeles, CA (1959), the Cooper Do-nuts Riot rioters were arrested, transgender women, lesbian women, drag queens, and gay men riot, one of the first LGBTQ uprisings in the US.
  • In San Francisco, CA (1966), the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot occurred by transgender women and Vanguard members in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. This incident was one of the first recorded transgender riots in United States history. After this riot, a network of transgender social, psychological, and medical support services was established, later creating the National Transsexual Counseling Unit [NTCU], the first such peer-run support and advocacy organization in the world.
  • In Greenwich Village, New York (1969), Stonewall riots occured, a series of spontaneous riots and demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn. Although the demonstrations were not the first time that the LGBTQ community fought back against government-sponsored persecution of sexual minorities, the Stonewall riots marked a new beginning for their rights around the world.
  • In the United States (2022), The Biden administration moved to strengthen protections against LGBTQ+ discrimination, including transgender rights.
  • In the United States (Jan 2025), President Donald Trump declares only two genders and declares a ban of Transgender people in the military.

ITALY

  • In Neolithic Italy (7000 BCE): drawings and figurines are burials or religious settings of a “third sex” human figures having female breasts and male genitals or without distinguishing sex characteristics.
  • In Neolithic Greece and Cyprus (6000 BCE): figures found that are sometimes either dual-sexed or without identifying sexual characteristics.
  • Diodorus Siculus (1st Century BCE), an ancient Greek historian, also recalled the lives of Diophantus of Abae and Callon of Epidaurus, both who were intersex.
  • In Rome (203 CE), the male born emperor Elagabalus adopted feminine dress and requested to be referred to as “she”.
  • Isidore of Seville (560–636 CE) described a hermaphrodite (third gender) as those who “have the right breast of a man and the left of a woman, and can both sire and bear children.” 
  • Naples: There is a centuries-old phenomenon of femminielli, those assigned male at birth who dress and behave as women. They are respected figures and traditionally believed to bring good luck; a cultural tradition that may date back to pagan rituals of crossdressing, or eunuch priests.
  • In 155 CE (90 years after the death of the Apostle Paul), Tertullian (known as the founder of  Western theology and for being the first to use the term “Trinity”) and other Roman writers noted the existence of a third sex among people (male and female in one) when referring to the Galli, eunuchs of the Phrygian goddess Cybele.
  • In the Roman Empire (1-100 CE),  Philo of Alexandria and Marcus Manilius provided descriptions of transgender people during this era. writing about men who changed nature into women, some of them having their penises removed.
  • In Rome (54 CE), Sporus was a young slave boy who was forced to marry Nero, the Emeror of Rome. He was forced to wear female ceremonial clothing and Nero had him castrated.
  • In The Roman Empire (218 CE),  Roman emperor Elagabalus wanted to be called the mistress, wife, and queen of Hierocles, one of Elagabalus’s male lovers. The emperor wore makeup and wigs, preferred to be called a lady and not a lord, and offered vast sums to any physician who could provide the emperor with a vagina.
  • In Venice, Italy (1355 CE), Rolandino Roncaglia was one of the many that were burned to death for “sodomy” in Europe. He having confessed he “had never had sexual intercourse, neither with his wife nor with any other woman, because he had never felt any carnal appetite, nor could he ever have an erection of his virile member”. Rolandino started wearing female dresses. It is documented that he had a female look, voice and movements, even though he had “a male member and testicles, instead of a female orifice”. Many persons considered him to be a woman because of his appearance”.
  • In Rome, Italy (1498 CE), there was a Moor, who was likely a trans woman, was executed for wearing women’s clothing. Wearing her usual women’s clothes, she was placed on a bundle of wood and strangled at the column of the gallows” and subsequently burned.

EUROPE

  • The Sweden, the Sami or Lapland people (the oldest indigenous tribe in Europe) have archeological evidence suggests that these people (who existed since before 8100 BC) were a gender open culture. Today, after the colonization of Christian missionaries, the culture is more patriarchal. While the culture use to revere and honor women, male violence against Sami women is now common.
  • In Prague, Czech Republic (2900 BCE), a male is buried in the outfit usually reserved for women, with grave goods and in a body position that was typically only seen in female burials of the time. Archaeologists theorize that the burial practices could possibly indicate the individual was transgender or held a “third gender” status in their society.
  • In Germany (98 CE), there were priests of the Swabian sub-tribe who were called the Nahanarvali, men that dressed and acted as women.
  • In Greece (3rd Century), the Kybele priests were people that were assigned male at birth, but identified as women and wore feminine clothing. They also ritually severed their own genitalia. The term “hermaphrodite” was historically used to describe people with ambiguous genitalia or gender. Diodorus Siculus, an ancient Greek historian, also recalled the lives of Diophantus of Abae and Callon of Epidaurus, both who were intersex.
  • In Greece, the Enarei (400 BCE), a class of third gender Scythian priests and healers. They were also called Eunuchs. Some had both male and female characteristics, and some were born male, but spoke like women and performed female work. The enarei are mentioned in many writings, by Hippocrates and Herodotus.
  • In France (1322 CE), Kalonymus ben Kalonymus was a Jewish philosopher composed a poem expressing discontent with having been born male instead of female. He curse having been born male, and referred to their penis as a “defect”,
  • In London, England (1395 CE),  – John Rykener is known today as a medieval example of a transgender person. Arrested for prostitution and cross-dressing in 1395 for cross-dressing, Rykener’s responses to interrogation have been described as one of the very few glimpses the modern era has into medieval queer and gender studies.  
  • In Krakow, Poland (1561 CE), Wojciech z Poznania was burned to death for “crimes against nature”, for marrying Wawrzyniec Włoszek.
  • In Lenzburg, Switzerland (1586 CE), Barbara Brunner of Kusnacht, was discovered to “be male under her clothes” and was burned at the stake on May 28. This is recorded in the chronicles of Johann Jakob Wick.
  • In France (1777), a third gender French courtier and spy of disputed gender identity, but finally agreed with a request by French authorities to live and present as a woman.
  • In Norway (1781), Jens Andersson, assigned female at birth but identifying as male, was imprisoned and put on trial after marrying Anne Kristine Mortensdotter. When asked about his gender, the response was that he believed he belonged to both.
  • In France (1895),  The Countess, a French transgender courtesan and singer, published her autobiography The Secret Confessions of a Parisian: The Countess, 1850-1871.
  • In Hamburg, Germany (1906), Karl M. Baer, born with ambiguous genitalia, was raised a girl. He came out at the age of 19 on saying he was male and later became the first transgender person to undergo sex reassignment surgery.
  • In Berlin (1931), Dora Richter became the first known transgender woman to undergo vaginoplasty.
  • In Czechoslovakia (1934),  Dora Richter applied for a legal name change, granted by the president.
  • In Copenhagen, Denmark (1952), the actress, singer, recording artist, Christine Jorgensen (born George William Jorgensen Jr.,) become widely known for having sex reassignment surgery. Upon her return to the United States, her transition was the subject of a New York Daily News front-page story. She became an instant celebrity and used the platform to advocate for transgender people.
  • In Britain (1954), the gender transition of Roberta Cowell, a British pilot during World War II, is reported internationally by the Associated Press. She also appeared that month on the cover of Picture Post, a then-popular magazine in the United Kingdom.
  • In Sweden (2024), a law is passed to lower age to change legal gender from 18 to 16.

MIDDLE EAST

  • In Israel, the earliest Jewish writings include the mentioning of the word “androgynos” (אֲנְדְּרוֹגִינוֹס). A combination of the Greek roots: “andro” (man) + “gyné” (woman), this term was adopted into Rabbinic Hebrew for those people who felt both male and female, neither or a mixture. The Mishna Jewish law (500 BCE) had a law that anyone who killed or harmed an “androgynos” was subject to the exact same ramifications as someone who hurts a man or woman. In interesting to note that, according to ancient Jewish writings, there are and were six genders in classical Judaism: 
    • Zachar: Usually translated as “male” in English 
    • Nekevah: Usually translated as “female” in English 
      • Androgynos: A person with both male and female physical characteristics 
    • Tumtum: A person with indeterminate or obscured sexual characteristics
    • Ay’lonit: A female who does not develop secondary sex characteristics at puberty 
    • Saris: A male who has been castrated or had his male sex organ physically damaged, and later would usually become a Eunuch
  • In ancient Mesopotamia, non-binary individuals and third gender figures were recognized and played important roles in culture: Lύ-sag and ša rēši (eunuchs), Hierodules (temple prostitutes that had characteristics of both men and women). Ur-Nanshe (a person who was born male, but they identified as a woman or eunuch). 
  • In Pakistan and Bangladesh, the hijras are officially recognized as third gender by the government, being neither completely male nor female. 
  • In Southern Mesopotamia, today’s Iraq (5000 BCE) there were “Gala“, priests who were assigned male at birth but crossed gender boundaries in their worship of goddesses Inanna.  They spoke their own dialect and took on feminine names.
  • In Sudan (200 BCE), The Nuba peoples of Sudan (including the Otoro Nuba, Nyima, Tira, Krongo, and Mesakin), had traditional roles for male-assigned people who dressed and lived as women and married men, which have been seen as transgender roles.
  • In Arabia, (600s), the khanith (like earlier mukhannathun) have occupied a third gender role.
  • In Israel (1950), Rina Natan becomes the first known transsexual woman in Israel to undergo sex reassignment surgery. The surgery was conducted as an emergency operation after she attempted to perform it on herself. After the incident, the Israeli government changed it’s policies on sex reassignment surgeries.

AFRICA

  • Uganda had the Ankole people, women who dressed and acted like men. 
  • Among the Sakalavas of Madagaskar, feminine boys were raised as girls, called the sekrata.
  • In Nigeria (6000 BCE), the Igbo people had third-gender and transgender roles, including for females who take on male status and marry women, a practice which also exists among the Dahomey. Anthropologist John McCall documented a female-assigned Ohafia Igbo named Nne Uko Uma Awa, who dressed and behaved as a boy since childhood, joined men’s groups, and was a husband to two wives.
  • In Ancient Egypt (1000 BCE), there is the Tale of Two Brothers , where Bata removes his penis and tells his wife “I am a woman just like you”.

SOUTH & CENTRAL AMERICA

  • The Incas had third-gender shamans who would perform sacred rituals to honor their god.  
  • In Oaxaca, Mexico (500 BCE), the Zapotec community had a “muxe“, a person assigned male at birth who dressed and behaved in ways otherwise associated with women.

ASIA

  • In Thailand (800s BCE), the “Kathoey” were third gender people referenced in ancient Buddhist scriptures. These were people that express a more feminine gender regardless of their assigned sex at birth. They often held prominent roles in traditional arts and entertainment.
  • In Ancient Indian subcontinent, now India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (622 BCE), there were transgender, intersex, or eunuch people, feminine-identifying people assigned male at birth. The most well known is the Hijra people. There are other transgender terms, the Khwaja in Pakistan, and the Aravani, the Kinnar, the Kothi, and the Shiv-Shakthi in India.
  • In India (900s CE), Transgender women (or hijras, aravani) have been part of the Aravan cult, at Koovagam, in Tamil Nadu (India) for centuries. They are known for their festivals and rituals. Today a yearly festival carries on these events. Individuals often “marry” Aravan during these festivals.
  • In India (1500s) Century the Hijra community in India was a third gender community, which was included in the community and even held influential positions in court and society. However, after British colonization later brought criminalization the Hijra community, leading to social marginalization and persecution.  
  • In India (1998), Shabnam Mausi became the first transgender person to be elected.
  • In India (2014) the Supreme Court recognized a third gender that is neither male nor female, stating “Recognition of transgenders is human rights issue”.
  • In Nepal (2007), the Supreme Court ruling allowed Nepalis to recognize their gender according to their “gender inside feelings”. Monica Shahi was the first person in Nepal to have a passport that recognizes her as neither male or female but as a member of a third category. Her passport is now marked with an “O” that represents “Other”. 

OCEANIA

  • In Polynesia (1500s CE ), the ancient third gender people were documented as Māhu. which translates to “in the middle” and refers to people who are neither men nor women. Māhū people were born men but embraced their feminine energy. They were respected and held sacred roles in society as educators and elders.• Throughout the Polynesian islands, there is an established tradition of a third gender—not male, not female, somewhere in the middle. In Hawai’i they are called Māhū. They were valued and respected as caretakers, healers, and teachers of ancient traditions who passed on sacred knowledge from one generation to the next, through hulu, chant, and other forms of wisdom. When American missionaries arrived in the 1800s, they were shocked and infuriated by these practices and did everything they could to abolish them.

NORTH AMERICA

  • Native Americans had a diverse gender expression before European contact. “Two Spirit” was a term that described gay, lesbian, bisexual and gender-variant individuals. Over 150 different tribes had their own classifications for third gender roles. 
  • In Hawaii, the mahu referred to people that were both biological males and females. These third gender people actually held a sacred social role as educators and promulgators of ancient traditions and rituals. Native Americans had the Fa’afafine, people who identify themselves as male at birth, but showing both masculine and feminine gender traits. 
  • In Turtle Island, an Indigenous name for North America is documented that over 150 different indigenous communities had (and still have) people who embody both masculine and feminine “spirits”, called “two-spirit”, a translation of the Ojibwe phrase “niizh manidoowag,” meaning “having two spirits”. Two-spirit people were third gender people who were often celebrated as teachers, artists, and medicine people in their communities. In many tribes, Two-Spirit people were highly respected and held important spiritual roles within the community. Same-sex unions between two-spirit people were accepted. Today, some Native American tribes have laws that allow same-sex marriage, but the laws vary by tribe. 
  • In New Mexico, North America (2000 BCE), there were the “Lhamana” among the Zuni Native American community. The Lhamana were biologically male people who took on female roles in the culture. They wore a mixture of women’s and men’s clothing and much of their work is in the areas usually occupied by Zuni women. The most famous lhamana was We’wha (1849–1896), who in 1886 was part of the Zuni delegation to Washington D.C., where they met with President Grover Cleveland.
  • In Jamestown, Virginia (1629 CE), Thomas(ine) Hall was ordered by the court to wear a combination of male and female attire after a series of incidents that led to physical examination and the Court determining Hall to have a “dual nature” gender.
  • In New England (1776), a preacher, born male, changed their name to “Public Universal Friend” and took away all their pronouns and identified as either male or female.
  • In New York City (1836), Mary Jones, a transgender African-American was placed on trial in New York City and depicted in a published lithograph entitled “the Man-Monster”.
  • In Memphis, Tennessee (1876), Frances Thompson, a former African-American slave was arrested for “being a man dressed in women’s clothing”.
  • In New York (1895), the Cercle Hermaphroditos was founded, the earliest known transgender organization in the United States.
  • In Los Angeles, CA (1941), Barbara Ann Wilcox, a transgender woman, successfully petitions Los Angeles County Superior Court to change her legal name, one of the earliest known legal cases of its kind.
  • In New York (1953), Glen or Glenda, an American film featuring transgender surgery and transvestism, is released.
  • In Los Angeles, CA (1959), the Cooper Do-nuts Riot rioters were arrested, transgender women, lesbian women, drag queens, and gay men riot, one of the first LGBTQ uprisings in the US.
  • In San Francisco, CA (1966), the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot occurred by transgender women and Vanguard members in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. This incident was one of the first recorded transgender riots in United States history. After this riot, a network of transgender social, psychological, and medical support services was established, later creating the National Transsexual Counseling Unit [NTCU], the first such peer-run support and advocacy organization in the world.
  • In Greenwich Village, New York (1969), Stonewall riots occured, a series of spontaneous riots and demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn. Although the demonstrations were not the first time that the LGBTQ community fought back against government-sponsored persecution of sexual minorities, the Stonewall riots marked a new beginning for their rights around the world.
  • In the United States (2022), The Biden administration moved to strengthen protections against LGBTQ+ discrimination, including transgender rights.
  • In the United States (Jan 2025), President Donald Trump declares only two genders and declares a ban of Transgender people in the military.

Not a Modern Invention

Understanding the historical presence of third-gender, intersex, and transgender people helps us realize that gender diversity is not a modern invention—it is a deeply human reality, written into the story of every culture and era. What varies is not the existence of these people, but how societies treat them. In some eras they were honored; in others, hidden.

By recovering these stories, we not only affirm the dignity of people today—we also challenge the false narrative that gender diversity is somehow unnatural or ungodly. This history invites us to listen, to learn, and to make room. Because erasing people never honors God. But recognizing the image of God in every human being—including those who live outside our binary expectations—just might.

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