title: Intersexuality and alternative gender categories in non-Western cultures.
abstract: 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.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  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.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  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'.
authors.affiliation: Department for Anthropology and African Studies, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lang
authors.forename: Ursula
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Kuhnle
mesh_terms: D003469:Culture; D012734:Disorders of Sex Development / Q000208:ethnology*; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012067:Religion; D012725:Sexual Behavior / Q000208:ethnology; D012923:Social Class; D019366:Western World