ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author sets out the contribution that a cross-cultural approach can make to questions of atypical gender identity. In relation to questions of atypical gender identity, such a comparative approach can explore the varied and different ways in which sexuality and gender are understood in other cultures and can underscore the importance of disengaging concepts of sex from those of gender. The author provides a broader framework within which to understand and thereby possibly ameliorate the problems encountered by children with atypical gender identity in Western societies. In radically divorcing "sex" from "gender", the field of possibility becomes much wider than might be commonly acknowledged in Western societies, where the two are more often regarded as having an intimate causal relationship. The author offers a more fundamental point: that claims from sexology for an indisputable and essential linking of sexual and gender identity and of the necessity of sexual dimorphism are overdrawn.
