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

Abstract

Ideological concepts of gender and sexuality arise from cultural constructions and vary from culture to culture. The female cross-gender role in certain Native American tribes constituted an opportunity for women to assume the male role permanently and to marry women.' Its existence challenges Western assumptions about gender roles. Some feminist anthropologists assume that it is in the nature of sex and gender systems to create asymmetry in the form of male dominance and female subservience and to enforce corresponding forms of sexual behavior.2 Because kinship and marriage are closely tied to gender systems, these social structures are implicated in the subordination of women. The existence