Changing Ones (Chapter 6 & 7)

Chapter 6
Social gender is based on natural facts of sex and since there are only two sex’s people assume there are only two genders. In this case, people assume if you are not one, than you must be the other. Drawing a line between sex and gender is not enough. A multiple gender paradigm takes the original insight underlying the sex /gender distinction that biology is not a destiny. Gender categories often include perceptions of anatomical and physiological differences but the perceptions are mediated by language and symbols.

Chapter 7
Third and fourth gender roles become a feature of the Mohave culture. Some myths that exist in the Mohave social life are gambling, shamanism and dancing. The Yuman tribes are ancestors of the Mohave tribe. The Mohave were the largest of the Yuman tribes and they also were recognized as cultural leaders by other Yuman’s. Most of the information on Mohave alternative gender roles is found in the writings of George Devereux. Devereux states that if a child has desire to become a transvestite (interchangeable with homosexual) that child will act different at a very early age. The Mohave’s believed that life-shaping dreams occurred while the child was still in the mother’s womb and then reoccurred at puberty revealing their adult identities. If a child shows interest in the activities of the opposite sex, it was considered evidence that their prenatal dreams were those of an alyha. Mohave berdaches consistently behave according to the precepts of a cross gender model. It’s not that the person wants to change sexes they just want to imitate and act like the opposite sex.