Abstract

HERAULT, Laurence. Gender disorder and transgression: french explorers wrestling with american “berdaches”. Etnográfica [online]. 2010, vol.14, n.2, pp.337-360. ISSN 0873-6561.

From the texts of the French explorers describing “berdaches”, the paper tries to understand the way European cultures have conceived the native American transgender experiences. It shows, in particular, that the European labeling of these experiences (sodomite  / hermaphrodite) is less due to a confusion in front of an unknown figure in the European cultures (a third gender), than to the recognition of the transgressive character of “berdaches”, which reverse the hierarchy of gender. The American transgenders confronted Europeans with a problem less because they contravened the gender bi-partition or the “natural heterosexuality” but much more because they operated a reversal of prestige and power which was culturally unacceptable.

Keywords : berdache; transgender; two-spirit; gender role; transvestism; homosexuality.

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