The third gender of the Binniza between globalization and ethnicity

摘要

The influence of western lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual (LGBT) movements and the Mexican mass media is changing the role and habitus of the third gender of the Isthmus Zapotecs (Binniza), an indigenous people in southern Mexico. The author examines in a first step the traditional social function of this institutionalized homosexuality and the socialized constitution of the Muxe' identity in the preoedipal and oedipal phases. Subsequently the traditional, often intergenerational homoerotic relationships between the Binniza are analyzed and compared to the early Oedipus myth. Finally, the hybridized changes of the traditional social role of the Muxe' are discussed, which lead to growing self-determination and at the same time to increasing marginalization, especially of the semitranssexual Muxe'. These changes may eventually cause both an equalization of gender roles and an increase in the existing tensions between the three genders.