User:Holland.blu/Third gender

Gender may be recognized and organized differently in different cultures. In some non-Western cultures, gender may not be seen as binary, or people may be seen as being able to cross freely between male and female, or to exist in a state that is in-between, or neither. In some cultures, being third gender may be associated with the gift of being able to mediate between the world of the spirits and the world of humans. For cultures with these spiritual beliefs, it is generally seen as a positive thing, though some third gender people have also been accused of witchcraft and persecuted. In most western cultures, people who did not conform to heteronormative ideals were often seen as sick, disordered, or insufficiently formed. However, as of 2013, individuals who live in countries where the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is used, being labeled as disordered for being transgender would no longer occur due to the manual's update. Instead, a new diagnosis was announced called gender dysphoria. This new diagnosis highlights the distress a transgender person may experience rather than labels individuals who identify with a third gender as sick or disordered.

One such term, Uranian, was used in the 19th century for a person of a third sex—originally, someone with "a female psyche in a male body" who is sexually attracted to men. Its definition was later extended to cover homosexual gender variant females and a number of other sexual types. It is believed to be an English adaptation of the German word Urning, which was first published by activist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825–95) in a series of five booklets (1864–65) that were collected under the title Forschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe ("Research into the Riddle of Man-Male Love"). Ulrich developed his terminology before the first public use of the term "homosexual", which appeared in 1869 in a pamphlet published anonymously by Karl-Maria Kertbeny (1824–82). Ulrich is widely regarded as one of the pioneering theorists who advocated for the natural occurrence of same-sex attraction, and he believed that such an orientation does not warrant criminalization. The word Uranian (Urning) was derived by Ulrichs from the Greek goddess Aphrodite Urania, who was created out of the god Uranus' testicles.; it stood for homosexuality, while Aphrodite Dionea (Dioning) represented heterosexuality.^{[unreliable source?]} German lesbian activist Anna Rüling used the term in a 1904 speech, "What Interest Does the Women's Movement Have in Solving the Homosexual Problem?"^{[pages needed]}

Several countries have adopted laws to accommodate non-binary gender identities.^{[citation needed]} As of 2019, the state of California the United States non-binary has become an option for individuals to select the sex category on their driver's license, birth certificates, and identity cards; this all became possible with the passing of California's Gender Recognition Act (SB 179).