Koekchuch is an extinct

gender identity Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent and consistent with the in ...

recorded among the Itelmens of

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

. These were male assigned at birth individuals who behaved as women did, and were recorded in the late 18th century and early 19th century. The Russian researcher of Siberia and Kamchatka Stepan Krasheninnikov, in his "Description of the Land of Kamchatka" (''Описании земли Камчатки''), describes koekchuch as "people of the transformed sex" () - a special category of men who "go in women's dresses, do all the women's work and don't socialize with men" (). According to Krasheninnikov's description, the koekchuch also served as concubines. Krasheninnikov notes similar phenomena not only among the Itelmens but also among the

Koryaks Koryaks () are an Indigenous people#North Asia, Indigenous people of the Russian Far East who live immediately north of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Kamchatka Krai and inhabit the coastlands of the Bering Sea. The cultural borders of the Koryaks i ...

; however, the latter kept koekchuch, unlike Itelmens, "not in honor, but in contempt".

References

Gender systems History of Siberia 18th century in LGBTQ history 19th century in LGBTQ history Third gender {{Gender-studies-stub Indigenous LGBTQ culture Russian transgender people Transgender topics in Asia