Since at least the 1970s, anthropologists have described gender categories in some cultures which they couldn’t explain using the male/female framework

The Hijra of India are one of the most well known and populous third sex types

They may be born intersex, or physically male, dress in feminine clothes and generally see themselves as neither men nor women

When I once asked her if she would like to go to Singapore for a sex change operation, she told me “You really do not understand. I am the third sex, not a man trying to be a woman. It is your society’s problem that you only recognize two sexes”

The relationship between two or more people that is based on common ancestry, marriage, or adoption

We may think of our biological family as unchangeable and common across cultures, but the anthropological record tells a different story

Anthropologists recognize different patterns of descent, or how people trace their ancestry.

Ancestry often determines inheritance, loyalty, obligations, who you can marry, and kinship groups

Three main patterns: matrilineal, patrilineal, bilineal

a kinship system in which people trace their ancestry through their mothers

a kinship system in which people trace their ancestry through their fathers

a kinship system in which people trace their ancestry through both their mothers and fathers