Article

Hombres Mujeres: An Indigenous Third Gender

Alfredo Mirandé1

Abstract This article interrogates West and Zimmerman’s Doing Gender paradigm by examining the Muxes of Juchitán, a little known third gender in El Istmo de Tehuantepec, Oaxaca México. After presenting preliminary findings based on per- sonal interviews with forty-two muxes and forty-eight community members, dis- tinguishing between muxes and gays and describing the wide variation in the muxe lifestyle, the essay concludes that muxes are a third sex/gender category that is actively redoing the prevailing Western gender binary as well as traditional Mexican conceptions of gender and sexuality. They are an indigenous third sex/gender category, which is less about Western conceptions of sexuality, sexual identity, or doing transgender and more about retaining the language, cultural categories, practices, and worldviews of indigenous communities.

Keywords muxe, Zapotec, two-spirit, third gender

This essay presents findings from an ethnographic study of the Muxes of Juchitán to

extend the debate engendered by West and Zimmerman’s (1987, 2009) Doing Gen-

der, which attempted to explain how gender is created and reproduced in society.

The muxes (pronounced ‘‘Moo-shey’’), an understudied indigenous group in El

Istmo de Tehuantepec, Oaxaca México, have been described as a third sex/gender

1 Department of Sociology, University of California, Riverside, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Alfredo Mirandé, Department of Sociology, University of California, 1219 Watkins Hall, 900 University

Ave., Riverside, CA 92521, USA.

Email: [email protected]

Men and Masculinities 2016, Vol. 19(4) 384-409

ª The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permission:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1097184X15602746

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category (Bennholdt-Thomsen 1997, 283) analogous to the institutionalized third

gender found among some Native American groups (Whitehead 1981; Williams

1986), the hijras of India and South Asia (Reddy 2005), and Moana values and

worldviews expressed by certain Pacific Islander groups, including the Tongan

Leiti, the Samoan Fa’afaine, and the Mahu in Tahiti and French Polynesia; biolo-

gical males who manifest feminine identities in a number of ways (Halapua 2006,

26).

Muxes are biological males who also manifest feminine identities in their dress

and attire, but they are not transsexual nor are they seeking to become women. They

both self-identify and are generally recognized and accepted as a third gender, rather

than as men or women, adopting characteristics of each gender. While lacking the

religious significance associated with Two-Spirit indigenous persons, hijras, and the

aforementioned Pacific Islander groups, muxes may have had such significance in

pre-Colombian times (Chiñas 2002, 109; Lacey 2008; Williams 1986, 135).

Nearly three decades after West and Zimmerman’s article first appeared, doing

gender theory has been so widely accepted that it may have reached a canonical

or law-like status (Jurik and Simen 2009). In fact, some argue that it ‘‘has become

the hegemonic theoretical framework for understanding gender’’ (C. Connell

2010, 31) and the ‘‘point of reference for Anglophone gender analysis’’ (R. Connell

2009, 105).

This essay seeks both to expound and expand on the doing gender debate by pro-

posing that, like Two-Spirit native people, muxes are a unique group of indigenous

men who upend conventional conceptions of sex category, gender, sexuality, and the

gender binary by openly dressing in female Zapotec attire and assuming traditional

feminine roles while being accepted and well integrated into the larger Zapotec com-

munity. Muxes also take us beyond the conventional gay/straight, object choice

Western binary in that their sexual partners are not other muxes or gay men but hom-

bres. I also seek to place these findings in a global indigenous context and suggest

that muxes are a third sex/gender category that cannot be understood by traditional

conceptions of gender and sexuality like those articulated by West and Zimmerman

(1987), Butler (1990, 2004), Lorber (2005, 2006), and other doing gender scholars or

within the rapidly emerging field of transgender studies (see Stryker 2008, 2013;

Valentine 2007).

After presenting a brief overview of the doing gender in the workplace literature,

the essay begins by discussing the increased recognition of Two-Spirit persons

among indigenous communities in North America, and attempts to link the literature

on the muxes to this movement. After discussing the methods and sample employed

in the study, I then present the major findings, focusing on the primary muxe orga-

nization, Las Auténticas Intrépidas Buscadoras del Peligro (Las Intrépidas) and the

great Intrépida Vela (community festival and dance). I conclude by discussing how

sexuality and gender are defined and manifested in Juchitán and profile a wide range

and variation in the muxe lifestyle and experience.

Mirandé 385

The essay concludes by placing these preliminary findings in a global indigenous

context that challenges West and Zimmerman’s (2009) assertion that it is impossible

to ‘‘undo gender’’ and suggesting that muxes are a third sex/gender category that is

actively redoing the prevailing Western gender binary as well as traditional Mexican

conceptions of gender and sexuality. In the end, I argue that muxes are an indigenous

third sex/gender category, which is less about sexuality, sexual identity, or doing

transgender and more about retaining the language, cultural categories, practices,

and worldviews of indigenous communities.

Doing Gender, Work, and the Muxes

Doing Gender in the Workplace: A Brief Overview of the Literature

West and Zimmerman first challenged the prevailing role theory model of gender

differences in 1987 by drawing on Garfinkel’s (1967) ethnomethodological case

study of Agnes, a preoperative transsexual raised as a boy who adopted a female

identity as a teenager. They proposed a distinct sociological understanding of gender

‘‘as a routine, methodical, and recurring accomplishment’’ and rather than viewing

gender as an internal property, they saw it as emergent from social situations and

external to the individual (West and Zimmerman 1987, 31).

In elaborating their theory, West and Zimmerman (1987, 2009) were careful to

distinguish among sex, sex category, and gender. Sex refers to socially constructed

biological criteria used in classifying individuals as female or male, such as genital

differences at birth or chromosomal differences. Persons are then placed in a sex

category through the application of these socially constructed indicators, but in

everyday life such classification is created and maintained ‘‘by socially required

identification displays that proclaim one’s membership in one or the other category’’

(West and Zimmerman 1987, 127). Although sex category presupposes one’s sex

and often serves as a proxy for sex, the two can and do vary independently, so that

like Agnes who had to preserve the secret of her penis and present herself to society

as a woman, one can declare membership in a sex category even when the socially

constructed sex criteria are absent (West and Zimmerman 1987, 2009).1 Gender, on

the other hand, entails the process of managing behavior according to normative

conceptions of appropriate attitudes and actions that are deemed to correspond to

one’s sex category. Such membership activities in turn develop from and reinforce

one’s sex category.

Critical works have started to focus not only on doing gender but on how one goes

about ‘‘undoing’’ and ‘‘redoing’’ gender by questioning the prevailing gender binary

and promoting social change (Butler 1990, 2004; Deutsch 2007; Risman 2009;

Lorber 2005, 2006). Lorber (2005), for example, uses the metaphor of ‘‘breaking the

bowls’’ and calls for a deliberate degendering of society in order to promote equality

and social change (2006).

386 Men and Masculinities 19(4)

Although the debate has been mostly theoretical (C. Connell 2010), an emerging

body of empirical work has looked at how transgender persons have attempted to

undo the heteronormative binary model. Not surprisingly, some of this research has

examined the workplace experiences of transgender-identified individuals2 (C. Con-

nell 2010). Transgender persons are not only able to transcend conventional notions

about how one goes about doing gender in their daily interactions (Deutsch 2007;

Risman 2009) but also to alter and expand norms associated with gender (C. Connell

2010).

Drawing on an empirical analysis of nineteen in-depth interviews with transgen-

der persons, Catherine Connell, for example, reports how they negotiate and manage

gender interactions in the workplace in order to critique West and Zimmerman’s

notion of doing gender. Five of the nineteen transgender persons in C. Connell’s

study were described as doing gender in the same sense that others do gender on

a daily basis. Rather than coming out and challenging the gender binary by publicly

declaring their transgender status, they were quietly performing ‘‘stealth’’ in the

workplace, and coworkers did not identify them as transgender (C. Connell 2010).3

The remaining fourteen participants, on the other hand, were said to be undoing

or redoing gender or doing transgender because they were ‘‘out’’ and their cowor-

kers, friends, and family knew they were transgender. While these persons blended

masculine and feminine gender performances, they ‘‘often felt they were gender dis-

ciplined and/or reinterpreted according to conventional gender norms’’ (C. Connell

2010, 40).4 While many transgender persons believe that they are radically altering

the gender binary, most are in fact directly and indirectly supporting or reifying the

very system they are seeking to change (Gagné, Tewksbury, and McGaughey

1997),5 supporting West and Zimmerman’s (2009) assertion that it is impossible

to undo gender and that attempts to change and subvert the gender binary only work

to reinforce it.

Work, Sexuality, and Gender in Juchitán

Despite the obvious theoretical and practical significance of the emergent research

on doing and redoing gender in the workplace, it is not without limitations

(C. Connell 2010; Deutsch 2007; Risman 2009; Schilt 2006; Gagné, Tewksbury,

and McGaughey 1997; Rosenfeld 2009). One limitation, as noted, is that in

attempting to reconfigure sex and gender roles in the workplace, transgender per-

sons may inadvertently reinforce the gender binary and heteronormative system

that they are seeking to challenge. A second, related limitation is that such

research is based on the sex/gender binary, which tends to conflate sex, sex cate-

gory, and gender. In Juchitán, on the other hand, sex, sex category, and gender are

separate and somewhat independent entities. Muxes identify with lo femenino or

what is feminine and many dress in traditional female attire, but they are not gen-

erally seeking to be transgender, or to be accepted as women.

Mirandé 387

Regardless of their dress or appearance, they are recognized as muxe by the com-

munity and by gay identified men. Biinizia informed me that a number of muxes

have eschewed professions and occupations that would require them to adhere to

modern and rigid masculine and feminine forms of attire. Interestingly, muxes do

not seek to go stealth by dressing in Western female attire because as Intrépidas, they

in fact aspire to maintain their Zapotec dress, language, and customs. It should also

be noted that there is no traditional male Zapotec way of dressing. Men at the velas,

religiously inspired four-day festivals, are expected to wear black pants and a white

guayabera (a loose fitting tropical shirt), but this form of dress is found throughout

Mexico, although muxes often adorn these shirts with brightly colored flowers and

embroidery.

I argue that in Juchitán, sex, sex category, and gender are upended and do not

necessarily correspond. Ironically, acceptance of muxes as a third sex/gender

category may be facilitated, not only by a sharp division of sex roles but also by the

prevalence of gender equity in Isthmus Zapotec society (Chiñas 2002; Bennholdt-

Thomsen 1997). Juchitán is not a matriarchal society,6 but a matrifocal family

system which persists in the face of patriarchy, where both men and women have

important cultural and ritual roles and where women exercise a great deal of power

and autonomy economically, socially, and in the kinship system (Chiñas 2002;

Bennholdt-Thomsen 1997). Because women assume the role of merchants and tra-

ders in the market they also control family resources and are recognized as economic

heads of households.

El Mercado (the market) has been described as ‘‘The Heart of Juchitán’’

(Bennholdt-Thomsen 1997, 67) and is controlled by women. Juchitecas (Tecas) have

a reputation for being hard workers and interestingly, when a man works hard, he is

praised because ‘‘he knows how to work like a woman’’ (Bennholdt-Thomsen 1997,

281). A man who works hard is treated like a muxe and accepted in the market not

because he is a woman but because he works like one.

The idea of going stealth in the workplace is antithetical to muxe identity since

their workplace, or better yet, their work ethic, defines their identity. Like the

women of Juchitán, muxes are praised for being very hardworking. Even those who

do not dress in feminine attire are openly recognized as a third sex category and take

on the characteristics of each gender. They are seen as neither women nor as men but

like the Zuni Man/Woman or Hombres/Mujeres, as combining and incorporating

dimensions of each gender. When asked whether they identify as men or women,

muxes invariably responded that they are neither; they are muxe; a third gender that

combines male and female traits that belie the prevailing Western gender binary.

Muxes are therefore continuously not only doing but also redoing gender.

In an interesting reversal in Juchitán, lighter work associated with music,

poetry, and art is typically defined as men’s domain, whereas heavy work like

working in the market and preparing for velas is defined as women’s domain.

Intermediate activities like making decorations for the velas and fiestas do not

readily fit into one of these categories and are considered an appropriate realm

388 Men and Masculinities 19(4)

of work for muxes. They design, embroider, and make traditional feminine Zapotec

attire. Several of the persons interviewed like Mayté and Darina designed decorations,

huipiles (traditional dresses), and/or high fashion dresses, work that is valued and in

high demand.

Literature Review: Two-spirit Peoples and the Muxes of Juchitán

In the 1980s, the so-called Anthropology of the Berdache was criticized by Native

peoples in North America as gay, lesbian, and transgender indigenous anthropolo-

gists sought to ‘‘displace colonial knowledge by making Native knowledge the

methodological ground of research by and for Native peoples’’ (Morgensen 2011,

139; Lang 1998, 7). The emergence of Two-Spirit Identity represented a critique

of the Anthropology of the Berdache (Whitehead 1981) and of Western notions of

gender and sexuality (Driskill et al. 2011a). Will Roscoe’s book (1991), The Zuni

Man-Woman, for example, argued that the Zuni Llhamana represented a third gender

status which combined the work and traits of both men and women. The Lhamana

was ‘‘less about sexual identity and more about the cultural categories of indigenous

communities’’ (Driskill et al. 2011a, 12). The newer Two-Spirit or ‘‘Two-Spirited’’

term confronts the Anthropology of the Berdache and refers to gender constructions

and roles that occur in many native or indigenous communities outside the Western

gender binary as well as to Native people who are now reclaiming and redefining

these roles within their respective communities (Driskill et al. 2011b).

The muxes are also indigenous persons who speak Zapotec, lead very public lives

24/7, live within a society and culture which, like the Zuni man-woman, recognizes

the existence of an indigenous third sex/gender category that is neither male nor

female but muxe. While most muxes cross-dress and are called vestidas, some only

dress for the fiestas, yet there is no necessary relationship between being muxe and

cross-dressing.

While there is an extensive body of research on Juchitán and surrounding Isthmus

communities, most of this research has focused either on its rich history and legacy

of political resistance in the region (Campbell et al. 1993) or on the women of Juchi-

tán and the so-called Isthmus matriarchy (Bennholdt-Thomsen 1997). Juchitán is

perhaps best known as the home of, Coalición Obrera Campesina Estudiantil del

Istmo (COCEI) a radical leftist Worker–Peasant–Student indigenous coalition that

has dominated politics in the region for the last thirty years (Campbell, Bindford,

Bartolomé, and Barabas 1993, xviii).

The literature on the muxes is limited and has been conducted primarily by out-

siders. Beverly Newbold Chiñas (2002), for example, an American anthropologist,

studied The Isthmus Zapotecs and devoted a scant four pages near the end of her slim

book to the muxes. In the Preface to The Isthmus Zapotecs, Chiñas acknowledges

that she entered the field not only ‘‘uninvited, unannounced, and unexpected,’’ but

Mirandé 389

ultimately unwelcomed and a number of women in the market refused to answer her

questions (Newbold Chiñas 2002, xii).

A team of German anthropologists headed by Bennholdt-Thomsen (1997) simi-

larly focused mostly on women and the matriarchal nature of Zapotec society but

only the last chapter of their excellent book, Juchitán, la ciudad de las mujeres, is

devoted to the muxes. To date, the definitive work on the muxes was carried out

by the now deceased Italian anthropologist, Marinella Miano Borruso. Her out-of-

print Spanish language book, Hombre, mujer y muxe’: en el Istmo de Tehuantepec

(Miano Borruso 2002) presents the life history of a Zapotec woman from birth to

death. Another account is a short pamphlet, Las Otras Hijas de San Vicente pub-

lished in Oaxaca by a Juchiteco, Elı́ Valentı́n Bartolo Marcial in 2010.

Method and Sample

Preliminary field research in Juchitán was conducted on four separate occasions in

2009, 2011, 2013, and 2014 through participant observation, attendance at muxe

velas (festivals), and conducting open-ended interviews with a purposive sample

of muxes and a select group of community members. Many of the muxes inter-

viewed were directly or indirectly associated with a local muxe organization, Las

Auténticas Intrépidas Buscadoras del Peligro (The Authentic, Fearless Seekers of

Danger) which has been in existence for almost forty years. The longevity of the

Intrépida organization speaks to its public acceptance by the business community,

political leaders, and even the Catholic Church. Leaders of the organization proudly

proclaimed that members and associates of Las Intrépidas come from all walks of

life, including accountants, lawyers, teachers, politicians, and merchants.

The name Intrépidas is significant because it connotes that the group’s members

represent muxes who are authentic and fearless seekers of danger. Members are in

fact committed to taking on unpopular or controversial issues, including sex educa-

tion, safe sex, AIDS awareness, and the eradication of domestic violence. The name

Intrépida (fearless) also suggests that one is not going stealth or in the closet.

Although a Mexican national, bilingual and bicultural, and a heterosexual male, I

was an outsider who was neither Zapoteco nor muxe, and expected that it would be

difficult to gain access to members of the organization. I found muxes to be surpris-

ingly warm, inviting, eager to talk about, and share their experiences. My initial con-

tacts in Juchitán were made through social notables, a term employed by Wayne

Cornelius (1982) and by Cecilia Menjı́var (2000). A critical social notable was

Felina, the owner of a salon that bears her name and who is past president of Las

Intrépidas. Felina’s Estética is both a salon and a place where muxes congregate

daily. It became a place I frequented often, where I made contacts, and conducted

interviews with Intrépidas and community members. It was also a communication

center where people left messages or met with me for interviews. I also obtained

referrals from other persons I came into contact with like the staff at the hotel where

I stayed. Davı́d, a young trainer at a local gym where I worked out, provided a great

390 Men and Masculinities 19(4)

deal of information on Juchitán and community views on various issues, referred me

to one of the gay men whom I interviewed. Roque, a hair stylist, and Gabriel, a per-

son who sells computer networks, were other persons I befriended who also served

as social notables and greatly facilitated the research. I also attended a number of

local community events and activities hosted by Las Intrépidas, which yielded more

contacts and served as occasions for participant observation.

The study used a wide range of qualitative research methods, including archival

research, ethnographic field research, participant observation, and in-depth personal

interviews. Through these contacts, I was able to observe, engage in informal con-

versations, and conduct forty-two open-ended interviews with muxes at Felina’s

Hair Salon, the velas, restaurants, Intrépida basketball games, and other locales.

An additional forty-eight interviews were carried out with community members in

order to assess their views of muxes. These included ordinary citizens in Juchitán

and the surrounding communities as well as other social notables like two priests

at the San Vicente Ferrer Parish, the Assistant to the Municipal President, the Assis-

tant Director of the local Colegio Nacional de Educación Profesional Técnica (CON-

ALEP), (National School for Professional Technical Education), a government

supported vocational/trade high school, and a staff worker at Ama la vida (Gunaxhı́l

Guendanabani) an organization devoted to the prevention of HIV, which has been in

existence for twenty years. Finally, I conducted interviews with five self-described

gay men who were not muxe.

The interview schedule was open-ended, lasted approximately forty-five minutes,

and covered a broad range of topics, including where the person was born and grew up,

what their parents did for a living, when the person first realized he was muxe, how

their families responded to their sexual orientation and lifestyle, whether they were

teased, harassed, or bullied as children and adolescents, how muxes were distinct from

gay men, whether they were, or had been, in a stable relationship with a man, as well

as the accomplishments and challenges faced by Las Intrépidas as an organization and

their societal acceptance in the community at large. All interviews were conducted in

Spanish, audio-recorded, translated into English, and transcribed by the author.

Because many muxes have adopted feminized or artistic names, I generally use the

feminine pronoun when referring to persons like Biiniza or Felina who are vestidas

and clearly assume a feminized identity and persona and the masculine pronoun and

pseudonyms for those who have not adopted a feminine persona. Some muxes alter-

nate between the masculine and feminine pronoun. Kike, a well-known travesti,7 and

performance artist, for example, uses Kike in his daily life as a hair stylist and Kika

when he transforms into a woman. He even refers to himself in the third person as

La Kika. Muxes appear to use the pronoun ‘‘he’’ when referring to a person’s total per-

sona, including childhood, and ‘‘she’’ when referring to the current person as

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