English Dictionary

third sex

noun

A third gender, a category of people who are not male or female, or whose sexual roles, anatomy, or identities place them outside of the established male and female categories.

The concept of the third sex is recognized in some cultures.

意味（1）

A third gender, a category of people who are not male or female, or whose sexual roles, anatomy, or identities place them outside of the established male and female categories.

The words of St. Paul in Cor. vii., of Our Lord in Mat. xix., concerning the third sex of the eunuchs, and of St. John in Apoc. xiv., […]

意味（2）

(dated, collective) Gay people.

“Now in here,” their guide, sweating dark tentacles into his tab collar, briefed them, “you are going to see the members of the third sex, the lavender crowd this city by the Bay is so justly famous for.

意味（3）

(dated, collective) The clergy, the priesthood (seen as emasculate or not participating in sex).

It is not surprising, then, that the Christian Churches […] extend just sufficient verbal patronage to labor to save themselves from being howled at, […] the clergy, who, as Sidney Smith said, are a third sex — neither male nor female, but effeminate — are instinctively conservative, thoroughly enamored of what is, and obstinately averse to all radical changes. Their timidity would be quite phenomenal, if they were not the third sex; and, like all timid people, they can shriek and yell and curse and foam at the mouth when they are well frightened.