Berdache is the form that non-Indians used to refer to individuals in native societies who exhibited cross-gender behavior, including dress. The term derived from an Arabic word meaning "sex slave boy." In general, berdaches were individuals who had male bodies but chose to participate in traditionally female roles within the Indian community. From an Indian perspective, berdaches rested somewhere on a gender continuum. The existence of the berdache makes it clear that Indian societies did not conceive of humanity as being sharply divided into two genders.
———Berdache refers mainly to men-as-women because outsiders tended to focus on men as the important figure or no mention of women-as-men (those with female bodies who fulfilled traditionally male roles.) Because the first non-Indian visitors to a tribal group were usually male, and sought sexual relations with native women, encounters with men-as-women were more common than with women-as-men. Most Indian societies believed that berdaches were in touch with sacred powers and deserved a prestigious position within tribal society. As contact with whites increased, berdaches were forced underground, altering their appearance as they experienced ridicule and ostracism by whites.

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