23:03"The Navajo have a category of person they call a berdache. What a berdache is, basically, is someone who adopts a gender other than their biological one. Remember, Cal. Sex is biological. Gender is cultural. The Navajo understand this. If a person wants to switch her gender, they let her. And they don’t denigrate that person — they honor her. The berdaches are the shamans of the tribe. They’re the healers, the great weavers, the artists." — Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides

(Source: moiststar, via uglyghosts)