Guna Yala: The Islands Where Women Make the Rules

“The Guna have taught me that children should have sufficient autonomy, as their ‘self’ comes from the heart, from within, and starts manifesting early. So if a male child starts showing a tendency toward being transgender, (s)he is not prevented to be himself,” he said.

boys may choose to become Omeggid, literally ‘like a woman’, where they act and work like other females in the community.

Throughout ages, across continents and cultures, gender fluidity and the concept of a third gender consistently reappears: the hijras in India; the Meti in Nepal; the Fa’afafine in Samoa; the ‘two-spirit’ people in North America. They are not the exception, we are. Western tradition has constructed a scientific mythology on gender binarism. And it