Sexuality and Gender in Certain Native American Tribes: The Case of Cross-Gender Females

“We Were the Town's Tomboys”: An Interview with Raukura “Bubs” Hetet

“…Also, arrangements in pre-European times may have allowed some individuals to live as the other sex, similar to some other Pacific and Native American societies. (See Besnier, 1994;Blackwood, 1984;Herdt, 1994;Medicine, 1983;Whitehead, 1981;Roscoe, 1994Roscoe, , 1996 Sex between males became illegal following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, formalized by the English Laws Act 1858. Not until the Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986 was male homosexual behavior decriminalized.…”

Gender-informed archaeology: The priority of definition, the use of analogy, and the multivariate approach

“…The terms "sex" and "gender" are no longer considered to be interchangeable (Lerner, 1986;Nicholson, 1994;Rubin, 1975;Seifert, 1991). Cross-cultural research, for example, has convincingly demonstrated the expansiveness of the concept of gender through fieldwork in societies that do not adhere to a male-female dichotomy but, rather, include a third or even a fourth gender category (e.g., Blackwood, 1984;CaUender and Kochems, 1983;Herdt, 1994;Hollimon, 1997;Meigs, 1990). Fieldwork of this sort challenges the habitual reduction of the concept of gender to the pervasive male-female dichotomy (Gilchrist, 1994;Whelan, 1991a).…”

Historic Heteroessentialism and Other Orderings in Early America

“…The 1990s saw studies of women's role in legal and judicial proceedings, attempts to regulate reproduction, and the abuse of women at the hands of their masters (see, e.g., Dayton 1991;Clinton and Gillespie 1997;Klepp 1998). The development of the field of lesbian and gay studies also inspired articles on sodomy (Murrin 1998); a transgender, possibly intersex colonist (Brown 1995); and Native American berdache (Blackwood 1984). So sexuality studies in early American history is not entirely new, but the widespread interest in and acceptance of this line of historical inquiry is.…”