Inscribed pottery from the Middle Kingdom of Egypt list three human genders!

Not everybody fits comfortably into the binary. The term “third gender” or “third sex” describes individuals who are categorized (either by their will or society’s) as neither man nor woman.

Some anthropologists have used the term third to simply mean “other,” while others have described “fourth,” “fifth,” and even some genders.

Genders outside of “male” and “female” have been around for a while. Inscribed pottery shards from the Middle Kingdom of Egypt found hear ancient Thebes list three human genders: Tai (male), sht (sekhet), and hmt (female). Sht is often translated as “eunuch,” although there is little evidence to suggest that such individuals were castrated.