396 CHAPTER 10
Although the causes of gender dysphoria are not fully understood, there is some evi-
dence for both prenatal influences and early childhood experiences as causes (Stein, 1984; Ward,
1992; Zhou et al., 1995). While some people with this condition feel so strongly that they are the
wrong gender that they have surgery to acquire primary and/or secondary sexual sex char-
acteristics of the gender they feel they were always meant to be, many others prefer to receive
hormone treatment only or to embrace their identity as it is. People who choose to alter them-
selves physically through surgery or hormonal treatments are generally termed transsexuals.
Many Native American tribes have long recognized the role of the male winkte (a con-
traction of the Lakota word winyanktehca, meaning “to be as a woman or two-souls person”) in
their societies. (Other tribes had different names, such as berdache or nadleehe, but the concept
was the same.) These tribes traditionally were not only tolerant of such different individu-
als but also had important places for them in the social structure as caretakers of children,
as cooks, and as menders and creators of clothing (VanderLaan et al., 2013). The winkte also
performed certain rituals for bestowing luck upon a hunt (Medicine, 2002). Although some
winkte (now often referred to as people with two spirits) may have been homosexual in orien-
tation, many were not and would now be recognized as transgender. Unfortunately, as tribes
have modernized and become more integrated into the larger European-dominated culture
of the United States, the tolerant attitudes of other Native Americans toward the winkte and
other two-spirit people have begun to be replaced with homophobic attitudes and aggressive
behavior toward those who are different in this way (Gilley, 2006; Medicine, 2002).
In today’s culture, being transgender is only beginning to become part of accepted
gender identity, with many transgender individuals facing mockery, discrimination, and
abuse, resulting in increased risk of stress-induced problems such as eating disorders and
suicide (Diemer et al., 2015; Haas et al., 2014). to Learning Objective 14.9 and 14. 11.This is We-Wa, a Zuni berdache (the Zuni
version of winkte). This photograph was
taken near the end of the nineteenth century.
CCWatch the Video TransgenderAnother alternate gender condition is couvade syndrome, in which a man whose part-
ner is pregnant may experience a kind of “sympathy pregnancy.” For instance, he may
feel physical pain while his wife is in labor. Men in Western cultures, as their roles as par-
ticipating fathers have changed, have actually shown an increase in couvade experiences.
There are several possible explanations for couvade syndrome. Some view it as a
psychiatric disorder—perhaps out of jealousy of the attention given to the pregnant wife.