Redefining Third Gender in terms of 'homosexuality'

Evidence that in the eighteenth century there were deliberate attempts in the West to define the femininity of the third sex in terms of a "sexual desire for sodomy" per se, without differentiating between masculinity and femininity and without differentiating between the penetrator and the penetrated.

"...  the word "sodomy" seems to have a rather broader meaning, i.e. sex of any sort between males. Indeed,  in Cocker's English dictionary of 1724 sodomy is defined simply as "male venery", which is really as abstract as the modern synonym "male homosexuality". Incidentally, the word "catamite" is sometimes just a synonym for "sodomite", and was not always restricted to one who submits to sodomy. There are also some other surprises. For example, the word "molly" appeared in a Swedish/English dictionary in 1762, where it is simply defined as a sodomite, a buggerer, without effeminate connotations."

-- excerpted from: Homosexual Terms in 18th-century Dictionaries

Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England

A sourcebook compiled by Rictor Norton