Interesting:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/ ... 820200.stm

Note that what they call "eunuch" is pretty much what we would call a transsexual here. However, the article is still interesting in showing India's acceptance of transsexuals. I am not aware of many other places in the world where transsexuals have a chance to sit in parliament. Heck, the US has yet to have a female president, or even an unmarried male president (I think).

The “hijira,” India’s eunuchs, consider themselves to be a third sex, a third gender. Given the choice of pronouns in most of India’s languages, they prefer “she” to distance themselves from the male sex which they began with. Most chose castration as young adults, some few were castrated as infants by their parents as a religious sacrifice. There are some interesting articles on them that I’ve posted on the Nonfiction Board. I have a couple more which will go up when I have the time to enter them.