beautiful youth

The beautiful youth (ǧawān-i zēbā) is a third gender role in Sabaean culture. Assigned male at birth, they adopt feminine or androgynous gender presentation around puberty, and are typically consecrated to cult of the Lady, or otherwise take up femininely-gendered labor.[1]

  1. Cf. the Neapolitan feminiello and other third gender roles of Eurasia.↩︎