Karankawa People - Gender Roles

Gender Roles

One unusual aspect of the Karankawa culture was their distinction in having three gender roles: male, female, and a third role taken on by some males. Males who took on this third role are called berdache (Karankawa: monanguia), and generally took on female roles and activities in daily life, while playing a special role in religious rites. According to some accounts, the berdache were passive sexual partners for the other males.

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