Promoting and Protecting Human Rights in relation to Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Sex Characteristics A Manual for National Human Rights Institutions These terms typically assume that being a lesbian implies a masculine gender expression. Local words that describe feminine lesbians tend to focus on their behaviour or identity as the partner of a butch lesbian, as this is what marks them out from majority social norms. For example, the Chinese term for a feminine lesbian means ‘tomboy’s wife’.50 Some South East Asia terms for feminine women who have sex with butch lesbians are cewek in Indonesia, dees in Thailand and mars in the Philippines. 1.4.3. Regional terms for people with intersex traits Culturally-specific terms to describe intersex people are rare in the Asia Pacific region. This may be because intersex variations are more likely to be described in medical terms and are frequently cloaked in stigma and secrecy. In South Asia, terms used to describe third gender people who have undergone a traditional castration process are sometimes applied to intersex people too. 51 Naming intersex itself has been difficult. The preferred term for intersex in Taiwan, 陰陽⼈, doesn’t work in Hong Kong or mainland China. No intersex people here like to be called 陰陽⼈ and this affects how we come together for peer support and advocacy work. Now we use 雙性⼈ to mean intersex in Hong Kong, Macau, China and Taiwan and so more intersex people and their families are coming to seek help and join together. The new UN fact sheet uses the same term, 雙性⼈. Small Luk, intersex activist, Hong Kong51 In Nepal the term for intersex is अन्तरलिंगी or arntarlingi.52 In New Zealand, the indigenous term te ruaruanga taha wahine, taha tane was developed by former Human Rights Commissioner Merimeri Penfold in 2007 as a positive description of intersex variations. It uses the imagery of intertwining male and female eels, as they move across each other in a narrow stream, as a way to convey the diverse combinations of male and female sex characteristics.53 1.4.4. Other groups There is considerable diversity within all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex communities. Some people face additional human rights challenges or are less visible or insufficiently acknowledged in those communities; for example, those who are indigenous or live with disabilities or come from a refugee or migrant background. A 2011 Australian research report described the effects of both homophobia and racism on same-sex attracted people from Arabic-speaking backgrounds.54 Indigenous tākatapui (Maori lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people) in New Zealand have published a resource on identity and well-being. It describes how takatāpui identity is based on and affirms traditional indigenous concepts.55 18 50 UNDP, Being LGBT in Asia: China Country Report, 2014. 51 See http://intersexday.org/en/beyond-boundaries-intersex-hk-china/. 52 Personal communication with Nepal intersex human rights activist Esan Regmi, 21 February 2016. 53 This term appeared in the 2008 report of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission’s Transgender Inquiry. 54 ACON and Arab Council of Australia, We’re Family Too: a report into the effects of homophobia in Arabic-speaking communities in NSW, 2011. 55 E. Kerekere, Takatāpui: Part of the Whānau, 2015 Auckland Tiwhanawhana Trust and Mental Health Foundation.