Hello everyone! Hestia here with a new Megathread! Years ago, before I transitioned and when I was still in college I took an anthropology class. My favorite part of the class was when we were covering different gender customs across the globe and got to make a report on one of them. I can’t remember exactly which one I chose for that project, but what I do remember is a map with different pins scattered on it with various forms of gender-queerness. I decided to track it down and share it with you folks!
Edit: you have to open this in a browser, if you’re on a phone it will automatically try to open it in Google maps and won’t bring up the info.
This map provides a brief summary of these genders, but does not go in depth. If you find any you’re interested in, feel free to do some further research and share your findings here. I’ll pin a comment to this post you can attach them. I’m going to share a couple that I found interesting and decided to look further into myself, both of them are non-binary and native american in origin.
The first one I want to talk about is the Winkte, which is a third gender role that was particulatly notable in the Lakota tribe The Winkte are seen as half-men, half-women, and considered sacred. They are typically AMAB and historically have served unique roles in matters of romance and matchmaking and often served as intermediaries for prospecting couples and their families. They also participated in war parties, functioning primarily as witnesses to battle and as doctors to care for the injured. They were also seen as seers, able to forsee paths to victory.
https://www.sdpb.org/blogs/arts-and-culture/the-winkte-and-the-hundred-in-hand/
This next one I’m going to talk about seems mostly local to the Zuni people called the “Lhamana” and I find the Zuni culture to be particularly fascinating, even just doing a cursory glance at it.
Gender roles were well defined in Zuni culture, but the Zuni also valued the concept of a “middle” as it represented stability. This originates from their creation myth, which I won’t go in detail here because I don’t feel qualified to summarize it, but it’s in the link down below.
The Zuni culture is pretty neat and they don’t refer to gender when talking about children. They believed that gender wasn’t an inborn trait but something you acquired as you approached puberty. I wish this was the western approach, but alas.
As children approach puberty they begin to differentiate through different hair styles or clothing choices. AFAB Lhamana would grind corn and make a bowl of stew when they get their first period. There’s probably some cultural significance to this, but I’m not going to do a deep dive on it right now. AMAB Lhamana would start to wear dresses once they hit puberty and start performing women’s work. Both AMAB and AFAB Lhamana were allowed to switch between male and female gender roles as they pleased.
https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/The-Middle-Gender-in-Zuni-Religion
That’s all for now! To wrap thing up I would like to invite yall to our public matrix server! https://matrix.to/#/#tracha:chapo.chat
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I can’t sleep so I have come to ramble
aromantic ramblings
The gush posts that happen in these threads get me thinking about my aromanticism or potential lack thereof again. I kind of low key hate never understanding this part of myself.
A while ago I thought I’d cracked the code with “you know what I think I just don’t like the idea of dating as a guy,” but then I slipped back into “no I’m definitely just aro.”
I keep reading about the aromantic experience and relating heavily. Like for example, I couldn’t even begin to tell you where the line is between platonic and romantic love. This is certainly muddied by the fact that I just simply do not have a sex drive at all, and thus sexual interest has never been a part of the equation for me.
But I often find myself wondering if I’ve actually never been flirted with, or if I’m just too aromantic to have ever picked up on it. And my thing is why do I care so much? Why do I keep asking myself that question? Honestly I think the answer is I want to be flirted with. I think it comes down to not feeling lovable and craving external validation to the contrary. But what’s confusing is I don’t want it to stop at flirting. I want to be continuously loved by someone and I want to love them back. I just don’t know what that looks like, but it sounds like being into someone.
Reading the gush posts, I relate to them. I know I’ve felt those ways before about people. I think I’d describe all of my close friends in a similar way. I’d describe my sister that way. I love my sister so god damn much and would do anything for her, but obviously I’m not interested in dating her. I’m capable of love I just don’t know what the fuck that looks like in a romantic context.
Maybe it’s priority that I crave. Maybe I just want to be someone’s priority and for them to be a priority of mine. I don’t really care if they also have that kind of thing with someone else, so maybe I’m also poly?
Or maybe it really is just the simplest solution and I’m just aroace and I will never understand romantic attraction and all of my relationships will always and forever be platonic.
Idk. I’m not sure if I’m making much sense but this was mostly a journaling exercise anyway. Hopefully sleeping will come easier now that I’ve put some of this to words.
I have similar concerns about asexuality
I feel like I don’t really have the urge to have sex anymore, but it’s not like I’m completely sex repulsed .
Like…porn can still turns me on, I’ve masturbated.
I don’t hate the idea of sex, but actually doing it….idk.
I feel like something is wrong with me and I don’t feel the way other people feel about it, or how you are supposed to.
I don’t know if it’s just my nerves and/ or physical and emotional hang ups, or the awkwardness of doing it for the first time, or if porn has just ruined my concept of what sex should be like irreversibly. Etc.
CW discussion about sex, romance
I don’t want to put any of my interpretations on you, it’s unlikely to match up with your experience, but I still feel like I could have written parts of this post, even as recently as last month. I hope you don’t mind me sharing my perspective a bit, I’m doubtful it’ll help but well, group journalling can be fun too, right?
I was having a lot of these same questions a few months ago, trying to figure out where I sit on romance, what that even means, why the lines feel kinda blurry for me, why I was _gay wistful sigh_ing all the time, etc.
I thought I was totally aromantic too, my partner and I didn’t really date per se, just started hanging out and doing things together, but we never really used that term. And at some point it just kinda turned into sex things? And since I couldn’t define “romance” at all (I just had normative thoughts in my head like flowers and fine dining), I just kinda thought “well, maybe I can’t define romance because I’m aromantic, maybe I’m demisexual and aromantic and that’s how it is.”
Part of me wasn’t satisfied with the aroace label, because I have done poly back in my 20s, and while I had a ton of trouble due to inconsistency, life stuff, and the fact that like apparently my sex drive is extremely picky as I’m so distractable, and just generally feeling a lack of connection to people and there being such a focus on sex (note: its possible that some of this was in my head since I had a lot of baggage I hadn’t dealt with at this point). I swore off poly for years because of a really bad relationship, too…
Today, I call myself demisexual, maybe even demiromantic as well, because I met someone a bit ago and realized that “no, actually, I do feel these romantic feelings, this person is in a separate category than even my closest friends, and uhhhh I kinda want to build a life with her. Oh and I am still really happy with my current partner too, so I guess I’m poly as well???”
The worst part is, I still can’t define romance. Maybe I could, vaguely, and I would say things like “making someone a priority” like you did, but at the same time I’d still be like “ok but I love my dad and make him a priority too.” So, best I’ve got is someone you want to make space for in your life for the foreseeable future, even if it means one of you moving across the continent, I guess? Someone you want to live with part-time? Someone who will make you sad if you don’t hear from them often? Idk
Also: turns out flirting is great, actually, and I want to do it with everyone now? I’m audhd, aren’t I supposed to not even be able to pronounce the word or whatever? Ig it’s nice because like you I crave that external validation, that people care about me, that I’m worth being around and liking, but for me I guess it’s less of a sexual thing (for most people) and more of a way to connect with people I guess? I don’t have a lot of experience.
spoiler, bad relationship history
Oh I don’t mind you sharing your perspective at all. Group journaling is wonderful and might help me figure things out even if not everything matches up with my experience.
I relate to this pretty hard. I think I want to experience what you’re talking about, with the person who is in a different category to even your close friends, but am not sure if I ever will. I read your recent “don’t read this” gush post and reading stuff like that actually makes me melt. It’s so adorable, and I want to feel it for someone and I want someone to feel it for me, but I’m just stuck in friend limbo where no one I’ve met really exits the close friend category in my mind.
Maybe it’s a thing where I’ll experience it one day but won’t be able to describe what makes it different, but I think part of me is scared of dating anyone because of the possible aromantic thing. I dated someone before and it did NOT go well. I won’t go into it but there was a good deal of gaslighting on her end :(. I started realizing I might be aromantic after that ended, and then I felt suuuuuper bad feeling that I’d led her on because I didn’t properly understand myself. I convinced myself that every crush I’ve ever had (which is I think maybe 5 total throughout my life) was actually just a desire for a really close friendship because when I think about that feeling of a crush, all I can really describe it as is “I want to be around this person and talk to them all day.” And if I ask myself what materially I would actually like to change in our relationship if we chose to put a different label on it, I can never really think of anything. All of this to say that I think the thing that scares me the most is finding someone that wants to be romantically involved with me and me not wanting that back, and putting them in a bad situation. So this sort of clouds my mind to even the possibility of also being romantically interested in a person, because to me it’s like I shouldn’t risk it. I was (maybe) wrong with the person I dated before, and I don’t want to put another. It’s better to be wrong about myself saying that I could never be romantically into someone or see someone as some kind of special to me than it is to be wrong about myself that I do have those feelings.
The flirting is definitely not a sexual thing for me haha. Again, I’m not even really sure if I have ever actually engaged in flirting. I have engaged in complimenting people but idk where the line is tbh. I joke with some of my friends that I need people to stop and tell me “just so you know, I am about to flirt with you” because I’m that dense lol. The concept of it is nice, I just wish I knew how to do it so I could try it lol
yapping about one bit
No
Your Mileage May Vary but mostly I find autistic people (not sure if the adhd side affects this much) have difficulty telling when there is flirting, but I doubt anything innately stops us from being able to partake in and enjoy flirting. It’s been ages for me but I found it fun too. Beautiful gays flirting with me, ah sweet memories…
I relate to what you say wrt to the more validating than sexual aspect, yea same. Being told that you are attractive by a gorgeous goth
spoiler
The intersection of gender, romantic attraction, and sexual attraction can be frustrating at times. Have similar doubts. For me, I’ve suspected the reason I don’t want to date is I did not want to date within the social construction of being a guy and all the expectations society put on guys far longer than I had a clue I was an egg.
Right after becoming confident in the ace label, my egg cracked and ruined that confidence. I still generally think I’m probably ace, but there’s now the nugget of doubt of “maybe its just because I don’t want to have sex with my current body.”
I think for me, it helps to remember its not a binary of either black-stripe aroace or allosexual. There’s a whole spectrum to being aroace, and I’m at least pretty sure now that I’m somewhere in it. Granted, that doesn’t help with figuring out what sort of interpersonal relations I would want, but I figure that’s something to worry about later.
spoiler
Oh gosh also trying to figure out the asexual side on top of everything else sounds hard.
I’m definitely on the aroace spectrum. Pretty unambiguously ace actually. And I definitely have a good deal of aro in me but it’s not nearly as cut and dry as the asexuality. And godddddd I’ve been trying to figure this out for years and I’ve just been going around in circles.
additional context
I should mention that the feeling of not being aromantic, just not liking the idea of dating as a guy, was so strong and constant, that it was the one thing I could cling to at the very very beginning of my gender journey when I wasn’t feeling trans enough. When I wasn’t feeling trans but was wanting to, I would think about being someone’s romantic partner as a girl and that dissatisfaction would go away.
But now that I always feel I’m going in the right direction for myself, I feel that that feeling I clung to is kind of gone. I’m not sure if I feel that way still. Though idk I might? Who knows really