ABSTRACT
Berdache is the name given to North American Indians, usually male but sometimes female, who abandoned the gender ordinarily associated with their anatomical sex, and laid claim to the gender associated with the opposite sex. Usually this change entailed adopting the clothing, occupational specializations, mannerisms and speech patterns of the opposite gender (Angelino & Shedd, 1955; Callender & Kochems, 1983; Forgery, 1975; Jacobs, 1968; Katz, 1976; Thwaites, 1899; Whitehead, 1981). Under white influence, however, some components of the transformation, such as cross-dressing, were sometimes suppressed (Lurie, 1953). Berdaches' choice of sexual partners was usually homosexual, and some berdaches married same-sex spouses, but this was not invariably the case.
