In many contemporary Western discussions, gender is often presented as either a biological fact determined at birth or an identity based on individual self-understanding. Indigenous and traditional South Asian understandings of gender offer a different perspective that does not fit neatly into either of these categories.

Traditionally, gender development was understood as a process rather than a fixed status assigned at birth. At birth, a child is usually identified based on visible genital characteristics (लिङ्ग in Nepali) and categorized as male or female. In rarer cases, a child may be recognized as intersex.

However, birth assignment does not necessarily determine a person’s fully developed gender. As a child grows, additional bodily characteristics emerge. For females, these may include breast development, menstruation, and other sex-specific traits. For males, these may include facial hair, voice changes, muscular development, and other male-associated characteristics.

Yet human development does not always follow these expected pathways. Some people born with female genital characteristics develop significant masculine traits in their bodies, mannerisms, behaviors, and social expressions. Likewise, some people born with male genital characteristics develop feminine traits, expressions, and embodied ways of being. In many traditional societies of South Asia, such individuals were recognized not simply as men or women, but as belonging to one of several third-gender categories.

Under this framework, gender is neither entirely determined at birth nor entirely created through individual self-identification. Rather, it unfolds through the interaction of biological development, physical characteristics, behavioral tendencies, and social recognition throughout a person’s life.

A person becomes a woman, a man, or one of various third-gender identities through a developmental process. Gender is therefore broader than birth anatomy alone, but it is not merely a subjective identity detached from the body. The body remains central—not only through genital characteristics but through the totality of physical, hormonal, reproductive, psychological, and behavioral development.

This understanding differs significantly from the modern claim that gender itself is purely a social construct. Traditional Indigenous frameworks generally viewed gender as having biological foundations while recognizing a diversity that extends beyond a simple male-female binary. What societies constructed were the roles, expectations, responsibilities, and social meanings attached to different genders. Gender roles may vary across cultures and historical periods, but gender itself was understood as a naturally occurring aspect of human diversity.

Historically, many South Asian and Indigenous traditions did not treat third genders as people who had changed from one gender to another, nor simply as individuals possessing a particular identity. Rather, they were often understood as distinct categories of personhood emerging through the natural diversity of human development. Gender was viewed as something revealed and embodied over time rather than merely assigned at birth or declared by personal choice.

Such perspectives suggest that the contemporary Western debate between biological determinism and identity-based self-definition may be too narrow. Both positions remain focused on the individual, asking either what body a person has or how a person identifies. Indigenous frameworks often asked a broader question: how does a person develop, live, relate, and find recognition within the wider human community?

This limitation is particularly evident in the recent debates in the United States regarding transgender participation in women’s sports. The legal battles that culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court allowing states to enforce restrictions on transgender girls participating in girls’ and women’s sports have been framed largely as a conflict between two competing rights claims. One side argues for the protection of women’s sports based on biological differences between males and females. The other argues for the inclusion and dignity of transgender individuals based on gender identity and equal treatment.

The debate has therefore become a struggle between two narratives: the protection of female athletic competition and the recognition of transgender identities. Courts, legislators, activists, and media commentators have largely been forced to choose between these competing frameworks.

From an Indigenous perspective, however, the problem may lie deeper than either position acknowledges.

Both sides continue to operate within the assumption that humanity can be adequately understood through the categories of male and female, with disagreement arising only over who belongs in which category. The conservative position prioritizes birth sex. The progressive position prioritizes gender identity. Yet neither fundamentally questions the binary structure itself.

Traditional South Asian gender systems often recognized that some individuals developed along pathways that did not fit neatly within either male or female categories. Such persons were not necessarily understood as women, nor as men, but as members of distinct gender communities. Their existence did not threaten the existence of women or men because they were not expected to fit entirely into either category.

This historical perspective does not automatically provide a simple solution to contemporary sports policy. Competitive athletics involve legitimate questions about physiology, fairness, safety, and opportunity. These concerns deserve serious consideration and cannot be dismissed. At the same time, the dignity and humanity of gender-diverse people also deserve recognition and protection.

The Indigenous lesson is not that one side is right and the other is wrong. Rather, it is that the framework itself may be incomplete.

When every discussion is forced into the question of whether a transgender woman is “really” a woman or whether biological sex alone should determine participation, the conversation remains trapped within a binary model inherited from modern Western thought. Alternative possibilities become difficult even to imagine.

Many Indigenous societies approached human diversity through a more plural understanding of gender. Rather than asking which of two categories a person belongs to, they often recognized multiple pathways of human development and multiple forms of social recognition. The goal was not always to force every individual into one side of a binary but to create space for different kinds of people to exist within the community.

This does not mean that ancient traditions offer ready-made answers for modern sporting competitions. They do not. However, they do remind us that the categories through which contemporary societies debate gender are neither universal nor inevitable.

The current controversy over transgender athletes reveals not only disagreements about sports but also deeper disagreements about the nature of gender itself. Is gender determined at birth? Is it determined by identity? Is it something that emerges through bodily development over time? Is it purely individual, or is it also social, cultural, and relational?

Indigenous and South Asian traditions suggest that these questions cannot be reduced to a simple choice between biology and identity. Human beings develop in diverse ways, and societies have historically found multiple ways to recognize that diversity.

Human societies have long recognized that people develop along multiple pathways. The challenge is not to choose between biology and identity, but to understand the rich diversity of human gender development that exists beyond both rigid binaries and purely individual self-definition. The real question raised by the transgender athlete debate is not merely who should compete in which category. It is whether our inherited categories are sufficient to understand the full complexity of human gender diversity in the first place.