ABSTRACT
All societies recognize distinctions in gender and sexuality and perceive these differently in dissimilar historical contexts. In this chapter I provide a synopsis of the shifting meanings and classifications of gender and sexual identities and practices from pre-colonial times to the present. I begin with a discussion of how gender and sexuality are related and yet different from each other. The following section takes us into the gendered and sexual worlds of pre-conquest peoples; here I emphasize the fluidity of gender and sexual identities and probe the importance of gendered parallelism and complementarity in Mesoamerican and Andean societies. The central thrust of the following third and fourth sections is on the multiple expressions and understandings of femininities and masculinities that vie for dominance. I then shift focus to the policing of reproductive behavior of poor Caribbean women and to the cultural politics of same-sex marriages in several LAC countries. I end this chapter by looking at how male migrants to the US are forced to reconcile conflicting expectations of their gender and sexual identities.
