Dictionary

acault en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ət͡ʃaʊ/

Etymology

A mistranslation of Burmese အခြောက် (a.hkrauk /⁠ăhcauʔ⁠/, “dry article; homosexual man”), from အ (a. /⁠ă⁠/, noun-forming prefix) + ခြောက် (hkrauk /⁠hcauʔ⁠/, “dry”). Apparently introduced before 1987 by Coleman et al. (see quotation below) who had an "inability to speak the local languages" and a "lack of training in anthropology".

Meanings

1. A male who has special role in Myanmar folk religion and behaves in a way usually associated with women.
   • A Burmese acault tells an ethnographer he is a woman only by his sexual role; otherwise, he expresses himself through his penis and its orgasms. 2000, Richard Grossinger, Embryogenesis: Species, Gender, and Identity, →ISBN, page 664:
   • According to a recent travelers' report (Coleman, Celgon, and Gooren, 1987), the hijra community of India (see this chapter) has a counterpart in Burma, where men who live as women are called acault (pronounced a·chow'). [1988, John Money, Gay, Straight, and In-Between, →ISBN, page 100:
   • Recall in any event that is not unusual, as Coleman et al. (1992:317) reported, for a male to have sexual relations with an acault or, presumably with someone in one of the other lexically marked subject positions, […] 2009, Michael G. Peletz, Gender Pluralism: Southeast Asia Since Early Modern Times, →ISBN, page 156:
   • Because Manguedon is the spirit who controls success and good fortune, acault become an important intermediary between those seeking good fortune and success and the -^([sic]) spirit god. 1990, Eli Coleman, “Paradigatic Changes in Our Understanding of Homosexuality”, in Sexology: An Independent Field, page 117:

Forms

Relateds

and the usage notes about those terms · berdache · kathoey · two-spirit