Gynephilia and androphilia
Encyclopedia
Androphilia and gynephilia (or gynecophilia) are terms used in behavioral science to describe sexual orientation
, as an alternative to a homosexual and heterosexual conceptualization.
Androphilia or androsexuality describes sexual attraction to men or masculinity
, and gynephilia or gynesexuality describes sexual attraction to women or femininity
.
The terms are used for identifying a person's object of attraction without attributing a sex assignment
or gender identity
to the person. This can avoid confusion and offense when describing people in non-western cultures, as well as when describing intersex
and transgender
people.
divided men into four groups: pedophiles, who are attracted to prepubescent youth, ephebophiles, who are attracted to youths from puberty up to the early twenties; androphiles, who are attracted to persons between the early twenties and fifty; and gerontophiles, who are attracted to older men, up to senile old age. According to Karen Franklin
, Hirschfeld considered ephebophilia "common and nonpathological, with ephebophiles and androphiles each making up about 45% of the homosexual population.”
In his book Androphilia, A Manifesto: Rejecting the Gay Identity, Reclaiming Masculinity, Jack Malebranche
uses the term to emphasize masculinity
in both the object and the subject of male homosexual desire and to reject the sexual nonconformity that he sees in some segments of the homosexual identity.
The term androsexuality is occasionally used as a synonym for androphilia.
Alternate uses in biology and medicine
In biology
, androphilic is sometimes used as a synonym for anthropophilic, describing parasites who have a host preference for humans versus non-human animals. Androphilic is also sometimes used to describe certain protein
s and androgen receptor
s.
. In Idyll
8, line 60, Theocritus
uses γυναικοφίλιας as a euphemistic adjective to describe Zeus
' lust for women.
Sigmund Freud
used the term gynecophilic to describe his case study
Dora. He also used the term in correspondence. The variant spelling gynophilia is also sometimes used.
Rarely, the term gynesexuality has also been used as a synonym. Psychologist Nancy Chodorow
proposed that the preoedipal moment of psychological and libidinal focus on the mother, which both boys and girls experience, should be called gynesexuality or matrisexuality for its exclusive focus on the mother.
called chronophilia
. In such schemes, sexual attraction to adults is called teleiophilia or adultophilia. In this context, androphilia and gynephilia are gendered variants meaning "attraction to adult males" and "attraction to adult females," respectively. Psychologist Dennis Howitt
writes:
and Betty Steiner
in 1982. They were later modified by Ray Blanchard
in 1985, as the Modified Androphilia-Gynephilia Index (MAGI).
distinguished between gynephilic, bisexual, androphilic, asexual, and narcissistic or automonosexual gender-variant persons. Since then, some psychologists have proposed using homosexual transsexual and heterosexual transsexual or non-homosexual transsexual. Psychobiologist James D. Weinrich
has described this split among psychologists: "The mf transsexuals who are attracted to men (whom some call 'homosexual' and others call 'androphilic') are in the lower left-hand corner of the XY table, in order to line them up with the ordinary homosexual (androphilic) men in the lower right. Finally, there are the mf transsexuals who are attracted to women (whom some call heterosexual and others call gynephilic or lesbian."
The use of homosexual transsexual and related terms have been applied to transgender
people since the middle of the 20th century, though concerns about the terms have been voiced since then. Harry Benjamin
said in 1966:
Many sources, including some supporters of the typology, criticize this choice of wording as confusing and degrading. Biologist Bruce Bagemihl
writes "..the point of reference for "heterosexual" or "homosexual" orientation in this nomenclature is solely the individual's genetic sex prior to reassignment (see for example, Blanchard et al. 1987[24], Coleman and Bockting, 1988[25], Blanchard, 1989[26]). These labels thereby ignore the individual’s personal sense of gender identity taking precedence over biological sex, rather than the other way around." Bagemihl goes on to take issue with the way this terminology makes it easy to claim transsexuals are really homosexual males seeking to escape from stigma. Leavitt and Berger stated in 1990 that "The homosexual transsexual label is both confusing and controversial among males seeking sex reassignment. Critics argue that the term "homosexual transsexual" is "heterosexist
", "archaic", and demeaning because it labels people by sex assigned at birth instead of their gender identity
. Benjamin, Leavitt, and Berger have all used the term in their own work. Sexologist John Bancroft
also recently expressed regret for having used this terminology, which was standard when he used it, to refer to transsexual women. He says that he now tries to choose his words more sensitively. Sexologist Charles Allen Moser
is likewise critical of the terminology.
Use of androphilia and gynephilia was proposed and popularized by psychologist Ron Langevin in the 1980s. Psychologist Stephen T. Wegener
writes, "Langevin makes several concrete suggestions regarding the language used to describe sexual anomalies. For example, he proposes the terms gynephilic and androphilic to indicate the type of partner preferred regardless of an individual's gender identity
or dress. Those who are writing and researching in this area would do well to adopt his clear and concise vocabulary."
Psychiatrist Anil Aggrawal
explains why the terms are useful in a glossary:
Sexologist Milton Diamond
, who prefers the correctly-formed term gynecophilia, writes, "The terms heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual are better used as adjectives, not nouns, and are better applied to behaviors, not people. Diamond has encouraged using the terms androphilic, gynecophilic, and ambiphilic to describe the sexual-erotic partners on prefers (andro = male, gyneco – female, ambi = both, philic = to love). Such terms obviate the need to specify the subject and focus instead on the desired partner. This usage is particularly advantageous when discussing the partners of transsexual or intersexed individuals. These newer terms also do not carry the social weight of the former ones."
Psychologist Rachel Ann Heath writes, "The terms homosexual and heterosexual are awkward, especially when the former is used with, or instead of, gay and lesbian. Alternatively, I use gynephilic and androphilic to refer to sexual preference for women and men, respectively. Gynephilic and androphilic derive from the Greek meaning love of a woman and love of a man respectively. So a gynephilic man is a man who likes women, that is, a heterosexual man, whereas an androphilic man is a man who likes men, that is, a gay man. For completeness, a lesbian is a gynephilic woman, a woman who likes other women. Gynephilic transsexed woman refers to a woman of transsexual background whose sexual preference is for women. Unless homosexual and heterosexual are more readily understood terms in a given context, this more precise terminology will be used throughout the book. Since homosexual, gay, and lesbian are often associated with bigotry and exclusion in many societies, the emphasis on sexual affiliation is both appropriate and socially just." Author Helen Boyd
agrees, writing, "It would be much more accurate to define sexual orientation as either “androphilic” (loving men) and “gynephilic” (loving women) instead." Sociomedical scientist Rebecca Jordan-Young challenges researchers like Simon LeVay
, J. Michael Bailey
, and Martin Lalumiere, who she says "have completely failed to appreciate the implications of alternative ways of framing sexual orientation."
inherent in Western conceptualizations of human sexuality. Writing about the Samoa
n fa'afafine
demographic, sociologist Johanna Schmidt writes:
Schmidt argues that in cultures where a third gender
is recognized, a term like "homosexual transsexual" does not align with cultural categories.
She cites the work of Paul Vasey and Nancy Bartlett: "Vasey and Bartlett reveal the cultural specificity of concepts such as homosexuality, they continue to use the more 'scientific' (and thus presumably more 'objective') terminology of androphilia and gynephilia (sexual attraction to men or masculinity and women or femininity respectively) to understand the sexuality of fa’afafine and other Samoans." Researcher Sam Winter has presented a similar argument:
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...
, as an alternative to a homosexual and heterosexual conceptualization.
Androphilia or androsexuality describes sexual attraction to men or masculinity
Masculinity
Masculinity is possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of or appropriate to a man. The term can be used to describe any human, animal or object that has the quality of being masculine...
, and gynephilia or gynesexuality describes sexual attraction to women or femininity
Femininity
Femininity is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with girls and women. Though socially constructed, femininity is made up of both socially defined and biologically created factors...
.
The terms are used for identifying a person's object of attraction without attributing a sex assignment
Sex assignment
Sex assignment refers to the assigning of the biological sex at the birth of a baby. In the majority of births, a relative, midwife, or physician inspects the genitalia when the baby is delivered, sees ordinary male or female genitalia, and declares, "it's a girl" or "it's a boy" without the...
or gender identity
Gender identity
A gender identity is the way in which an individual self-identifies with a gender category, for example, as being either a man or a woman, or in some cases being neither, which can be distinct from biological sex. Basic gender identity is usually formed by age three and is extremely difficult to...
to the person. This can avoid confusion and offense when describing people in non-western cultures, as well as when describing intersex
Intersex
Intersex, in humans and other animals, is the presence of intermediate or atypical combinations of physical features that usually distinguish female from male...
and transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
people.
Androphilia
In a discussion of homosexuality, sexologist Magnus HirschfeldMagnus Hirschfeld
Magnus Hirschfeld was a German physician and sexologist. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which Dustin Goltz called "the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights."-Early life:Hirschfeld was born in Kolberg in a...
divided men into four groups: pedophiles, who are attracted to prepubescent youth, ephebophiles, who are attracted to youths from puberty up to the early twenties; androphiles, who are attracted to persons between the early twenties and fifty; and gerontophiles, who are attracted to older men, up to senile old age. According to Karen Franklin
Karen Franklin
Karen Franklin is a forensic psychologist known for her research on the psychosocial motivations of antigay violence perpetrators. She is adjunct faculty at the California School of Professional Psychology, Alliant International University.-Career:...
, Hirschfeld considered ephebophilia "common and nonpathological, with ephebophiles and androphiles each making up about 45% of the homosexual population.”
In his book Androphilia, A Manifesto: Rejecting the Gay Identity, Reclaiming Masculinity, Jack Malebranche
Jack Malebranche
Jack Donovan is an American writer. Mark Simpson, British journalist and editor of the 1995 book Anti-Gay, called Donovan “a straight-talking Drill Instructor for today’s gay generation, weaning them off pop divas and bear beauty pageants and licking them into a more manly, more...
uses the term to emphasize masculinity
Masculinity
Masculinity is possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of or appropriate to a man. The term can be used to describe any human, animal or object that has the quality of being masculine...
in both the object and the subject of male homosexual desire and to reject the sexual nonconformity that he sees in some segments of the homosexual identity.
The term androsexuality is occasionally used as a synonym for androphilia.
Alternate uses in biology and medicine
In biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, androphilic is sometimes used as a synonym for anthropophilic, describing parasites who have a host preference for humans versus non-human animals. Androphilic is also sometimes used to describe certain protein
Protein
Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...
s and androgen receptor
Androgen receptor
The androgen receptor , also known as NR3C4 , is a type of nuclear receptor that is activated by binding of either of the androgenic hormones testosterone or dihydrotestosterone in the cytoplasm and then translocating into the nucleus...
s.
Gynecophilia
The word appeared in ancient GreekAncient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
. In Idyll
Idyll
An idyll or idyl is a short poem, descriptive of rustic life, written in the style of Theocritus' short pastoral poems, the Idylls....
8, line 60, Theocritus
Theocritus
Theocritus , the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC.-Life:Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from his writings. We must, however, handle these with some caution, since some of the poems commonly attributed to him have little claim to...
uses γυναικοφίλιας as a euphemistic adjective to describe Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
' lust for women.
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
used the term gynecophilic to describe his case study
Case study
A case study is an intensive analysis of an individual unit stressing developmental factors in relation to context. The case study is common in social sciences and life sciences. Case studies may be descriptive or explanatory. The latter type is used to explore causation in order to find...
Dora. He also used the term in correspondence. The variant spelling gynophilia is also sometimes used.
Rarely, the term gynesexuality has also been used as a synonym. Psychologist Nancy Chodorow
Nancy Chodorow
Nancy Julia Chodorow is a feminist sociologist and psychoanalyst. She has written a number of influential books, including The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender ; Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory ; Femininities, Masculinities, Sexualities: Freud and Beyond ;...
proposed that the preoedipal moment of psychological and libidinal focus on the mother, which both boys and girls experience, should be called gynesexuality or matrisexuality for its exclusive focus on the mother.
Sexual interest in adults
Following Hirschfeld, androphilia and gynephilia are sometimes used in taxonomies which specify sexual interests based on age ranges, which John MoneyJohn Money
John William Money was a psychologist, sexologist and author, specializing in research into sexual identity and biology of gender...
called chronophilia
Chronophilia
The term chronophilia was used by John Money that he defined as a form of paraphilia in which an individual experiences sexual attraction limited to individuals of particular age ranges...
. In such schemes, sexual attraction to adults is called teleiophilia or adultophilia. In this context, androphilia and gynephilia are gendered variants meaning "attraction to adult males" and "attraction to adult females," respectively. Psychologist Dennis Howitt
Dennis Howitt
Dennis Howitt is a British psychologist. He is a reader in Applied Psychology at Loughborough University and the author of numerous psychology textbooks. He is a chartered forensic psychologist and a Fellow of the British Psychological Society...
writes:
Definition is primarily an issue of theory, not merely classification, since classification implies a theory, no matter how rudimentary. Freund et al. (1984) used Latinesque words to classify sexual attraction along the dimensions of sex and age:
Gynephilia. Sexual interest in physically adult women
Androphilia. Sexual interest in physically adult males
Androphilia and gynephilia scales
The 9-item Gynephilia Scale was created to measure erotic interest in physically mature females, and the 13-item Androphilia Scale was created to measure erotic interest in physically mature males. The scales were developed by Kurt FreundKurt Freund
Kurt Freund was a Czech-Canadian physician and sexologist best known for developing phallometry , research studies in pedophilia, and for the "courtship disorder" hypothesis as a taxonomy of certain paraphilias Kurt Freund (17 January 1914–23 October 1996) was a Czech-Canadian physician and...
and Betty Steiner
Betty Steiner
Betty Wilson Steiner-Conduit was a Canadian psychiatrist. Steiner was the first head of the Gender Identity Clinic at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry. She is known for her work with transgender and intersex people....
in 1982. They were later modified by Ray Blanchard
Ray Blanchard
Ray Milton Blanchard is an American-Canadian sexologist, best known for his research studies on pedophilia, gender dysphoria, and sexual orientation. He has also published research studies on phallometry and several paraphilias, including transvestism and autoerotic asphyxia.-Education and...
in 1985, as the Modified Androphilia-Gynephilia Index (MAGI).
Gender identity and expression
Magnus HirschfeldMagnus Hirschfeld
Magnus Hirschfeld was a German physician and sexologist. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which Dustin Goltz called "the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights."-Early life:Hirschfeld was born in Kolberg in a...
distinguished between gynephilic, bisexual, androphilic, asexual, and narcissistic or automonosexual gender-variant persons. Since then, some psychologists have proposed using homosexual transsexual and heterosexual transsexual or non-homosexual transsexual. Psychobiologist James D. Weinrich
James D. Weinrich
James Donald "Jim" Weinrich is an American sex researcher and psychobiologist. Much of his work examines the relationship of biology and sexual orientation. He won the Outstanding Contributions to Sexual Science Award at the 2011 Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality Western Region annual...
has described this split among psychologists: "The mf transsexuals who are attracted to men (whom some call 'homosexual' and others call 'androphilic') are in the lower left-hand corner of the XY table, in order to line them up with the ordinary homosexual (androphilic) men in the lower right. Finally, there are the mf transsexuals who are attracted to women (whom some call heterosexual and others call gynephilic or lesbian."
The use of homosexual transsexual and related terms have been applied to transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
people since the middle of the 20th century, though concerns about the terms have been voiced since then. Harry Benjamin
Harry Benjamin
Harry Benjamin was a German endocrinologist, widely known for his clinical work with transsexualism. He was raised in an observant Ashkenazy Jewish home.- Early life and career :...
said in 1966:
....it seems evident that the question "Is the transsexual homosexual?" must be answered "yes" and " no." "Yes," if his anatomy is considered; "no" if his psyche is given preference.
What would be the situation after corrective surgery has been performed and the sex anatomy now resembles that of a woman? Is the "new woman" still a homosexual man? "Yes," if pedantry and technicalities prevail. "No" if reason and common sense are applied and if the respective patient is treated as an individual and not as a rubber stamp.
Many sources, including some supporters of the typology, criticize this choice of wording as confusing and degrading. Biologist Bruce Bagemihl
Bruce Bagemihl
Bruce Bagemihl is a Canadian biologist, linguist, and author of the book Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity.-Life and career:He served on the faculty of University of British Columbia, and he earned a Ph.D...
writes "..the point of reference for "heterosexual" or "homosexual" orientation in this nomenclature is solely the individual's genetic sex prior to reassignment (see for example, Blanchard et al. 1987[24], Coleman and Bockting, 1988[25], Blanchard, 1989[26]). These labels thereby ignore the individual’s personal sense of gender identity taking precedence over biological sex, rather than the other way around." Bagemihl goes on to take issue with the way this terminology makes it easy to claim transsexuals are really homosexual males seeking to escape from stigma. Leavitt and Berger stated in 1990 that "The homosexual transsexual label is both confusing and controversial among males seeking sex reassignment. Critics argue that the term "homosexual transsexual" is "heterosexist
Heterosexism
Heterosexism is a system of attitudes, bias, and discrimination in favor of opposite-sex sexuality and relationships. It can include the presumption that everyone is heterosexual or that opposite-sex attractions and relationships are the only norm and therefore superior...
", "archaic", and demeaning because it labels people by sex assigned at birth instead of their gender identity
Gender identity
A gender identity is the way in which an individual self-identifies with a gender category, for example, as being either a man or a woman, or in some cases being neither, which can be distinct from biological sex. Basic gender identity is usually formed by age three and is extremely difficult to...
. Benjamin, Leavitt, and Berger have all used the term in their own work. Sexologist John Bancroft
John Bancroft
Dr John H.J. Bancroft is a physician who was Director of The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction at Indiana University from 1995 to 2004. He is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Indiana University School of Medicine....
also recently expressed regret for having used this terminology, which was standard when he used it, to refer to transsexual women. He says that he now tries to choose his words more sensitively. Sexologist Charles Allen Moser
Charles Allen Moser
Charles Allen Moser is an American physician specializing in internal medicine and focusing on sexual medicine. Moser is based in San Francisco and focuses his research and practice on individuals in the LGBT, kink, and fetish communities...
is likewise critical of the terminology.
Use of androphilia and gynephilia was proposed and popularized by psychologist Ron Langevin in the 1980s. Psychologist Stephen T. Wegener
Stephen T. Wegener
Stephen Thomas Wegener is an American rehabilitation psychologist specializing in the psychology of pain management. His work seeks to improve function and reduce disability for persons with chronic illness and impairments, including occupational injuries, rheumatic disease, spinal cord injury or...
writes, "Langevin makes several concrete suggestions regarding the language used to describe sexual anomalies. For example, he proposes the terms gynephilic and androphilic to indicate the type of partner preferred regardless of an individual's gender identity
Gender identity
A gender identity is the way in which an individual self-identifies with a gender category, for example, as being either a man or a woman, or in some cases being neither, which can be distinct from biological sex. Basic gender identity is usually formed by age three and is extremely difficult to...
or dress. Those who are writing and researching in this area would do well to adopt his clear and concise vocabulary."
Psychiatrist Anil Aggrawal
Anil Aggrawal
Anil Aggrawal M.D. is a professor of forensic medicine at the Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi, India. He is known chiefly as the Editor-in-Chief of the Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology.-Early life:Dr...
explains why the terms are useful in a glossary:
Androphilia – The romantic and/or sexual attraction to adult males. The term, along with gynephilia, is needed to overcome immense difficulties in characterizing the sexual orientation of transmen and transwomen. For instance, it is difficult to decide whether a transman erotically attracted to males is a heterosexual female or a homosexual male; or a transwoman erotically attracted to females is a heterosexual male or a lesbian female. Any attempt to classify them may not only cause confusion but arouse offense among the affected subjects. In such cases, while defining sexual attraction, it is best to focus on the object of their attraction rather than on the sex or gender of the subject.
Sexologist Milton Diamond
Milton Diamond
Milton Diamond is a retired professor of anatomy and reproductive biology at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. He has had a very long and productive career in the study of human sexuality...
, who prefers the correctly-formed term gynecophilia, writes, "The terms heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual are better used as adjectives, not nouns, and are better applied to behaviors, not people. Diamond has encouraged using the terms androphilic, gynecophilic, and ambiphilic to describe the sexual-erotic partners on prefers (andro = male, gyneco – female, ambi = both, philic = to love). Such terms obviate the need to specify the subject and focus instead on the desired partner. This usage is particularly advantageous when discussing the partners of transsexual or intersexed individuals. These newer terms also do not carry the social weight of the former ones."
Psychologist Rachel Ann Heath writes, "The terms homosexual and heterosexual are awkward, especially when the former is used with, or instead of, gay and lesbian. Alternatively, I use gynephilic and androphilic to refer to sexual preference for women and men, respectively. Gynephilic and androphilic derive from the Greek meaning love of a woman and love of a man respectively. So a gynephilic man is a man who likes women, that is, a heterosexual man, whereas an androphilic man is a man who likes men, that is, a gay man. For completeness, a lesbian is a gynephilic woman, a woman who likes other women. Gynephilic transsexed woman refers to a woman of transsexual background whose sexual preference is for women. Unless homosexual and heterosexual are more readily understood terms in a given context, this more precise terminology will be used throughout the book. Since homosexual, gay, and lesbian are often associated with bigotry and exclusion in many societies, the emphasis on sexual affiliation is both appropriate and socially just." Author Helen Boyd
Helen Boyd
Helen Boyd is the pen name of Gail Kramer, the American author of two books about her relationship with her transgender partner. Her partner is referred to in both books as "Betty Crow", though this is also a pseudonym.-Biography:...
agrees, writing, "It would be much more accurate to define sexual orientation as either “androphilic” (loving men) and “gynephilic” (loving women) instead." Sociomedical scientist Rebecca Jordan-Young challenges researchers like Simon LeVay
Simon LeVay
Simon LeVay is a British-American neuroscientist. He is known for his studies about brain structures and sexual orientation.-Personal life:LeVay was born on August 28, 1943 in Oxford, England...
, J. Michael Bailey
J. Michael Bailey
John Michael Bailey is an American psychologist and professor at Northwestern University. He is best known among scientists for his work on the etiology of sexual orientation, from which he concluded that homosexuality is substantially inherited...
, and Martin Lalumiere, who she says "have completely failed to appreciate the implications of alternative ways of framing sexual orientation."
Gender in non-Western cultures
Some researchers advocate use of the terminology to avoid biasBias
Bias is an inclination to present or hold a partial perspective at the expense of alternatives. Bias can come in many forms.-In judgement and decision making:...
inherent in Western conceptualizations of human sexuality. Writing about the Samoa
Samoa
Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in...
n fa'afafine
Fa'afafine
Fa'afafine may be viewed as a third gender specific to Samoan culture.Fa'afafine are biological males who have a strong feminine gender orientation, which the Samoan parents recognize quite early in childhood. Not always are they raised as female children or rather 'third gender' children...
demographic, sociologist Johanna Schmidt writes:
Kris Poasa, Ray BlanchardRay BlanchardRay Milton Blanchard is an American-Canadian sexologist, best known for his research studies on pedophilia, gender dysphoria, and sexual orientation. He has also published research studies on phallometry and several paraphilias, including transvestism and autoerotic asphyxia.-Education and...
and Kenneth ZuckerKenneth ZuckerKenneth J. Zucker is a Jewish American-Canadian psychologist and sexologist, and head of the child and adolescent gender identity clinic at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Based on his collaboration with Susan Bradley, Zucker is considered an international authority in the field...
(2004) also present an argument that suggests that fa'afafine fall under the rubric of ‘transgenderal homosexuality’, applying the same birth order equation to fa’afafine’s families as have been used with ‘homosexual transsexuals’. While no explicit causal relationship is offered, Poasa, Blanchard, and Zucker’s use of the term ‘homosexual transsexual’ to refer to male-to-female transsexuals who are sexually oriented towards men draws an apparent link between sexual orientation and gender identity. This link is reinforced by mention of the fact that similar birth order equations have been found for ‘homosexual men’. The possibility of sexual orientation towards (masculine) men emerging from (rather than causing) feminine gendered identities is not considered.
Schmidt argues that in cultures where a third gender
Third gender
The terms third gender and third sex describe individuals who are categorized as neither man nor woman, as well as the social category present in those societies who recognize three or more genders...
is recognized, a term like "homosexual transsexual" does not align with cultural categories.
She cites the work of Paul Vasey and Nancy Bartlett: "Vasey and Bartlett reveal the cultural specificity of concepts such as homosexuality, they continue to use the more 'scientific' (and thus presumably more 'objective') terminology of androphilia and gynephilia (sexual attraction to men or masculinity and women or femininity respectively) to understand the sexuality of fa’afafine and other Samoans." Researcher Sam Winter has presented a similar argument:
Terms such as ‘homosexual’ and heterosexual (and ‘gay’ ‘lesbian’ bisexual etc) are Western conceptions. Many Asians are unfamiliar with them, there being no easy translation into their native languages or sexological worldviews. However, I take the opportunity to put on record that I consider an androphilic transwoman (ie one sexually attracted to men) to be heterosexual because of her attraction to a member of another gender and a gynephilic transwoman (ie one attracted to women) as homosexual because she has a same-gender preference). My usage is contrary to much Western literature (particularly medical) which persists in referring to androphilic transwomen and gynephilic transman as homosexual (indeed as homosexual transsexual males and females, respectively).