Academic

These ideas, and their very real effect was brought home nicely in another example recemtly described by the Turkish press--the ritual of gender change in the Balkans, in which females, swearing eternal virginity, were permitted to become men in every sense but the biological. Dan Bilefsky, "Sworn to Virginity, Living as Men: In a Vanishing Ritual, Balkan Girls Take Over Leadership of Families, International Herald Tribune, June 24, 2008, at P. 1.

'Back then, it was better to be a man because, before, a woman and an animal were considered the same thing,' says Keqi, who has a bellowing baritone voice, sits with er legs wide open like a man, and relishes downing shots of Raki and smoking cigarettes. . . . The tradition of thew worn virgin can be traced back to Kanun of Leke Dukagjini, a code of conduct that has been passed on orally among the clans of nortern Albania for more than five centuries. Under the Kanun, the role fo women is severely circumscribed: Take care of children and maintain the home. While a woman's life is worth half that of a man, a vrgin's value is the same--12 oxen.

For the same reason, a man who seeks the sexual company of others acts in reverse. . .be assumes the role of a woman and will pay the price. In Albania, of course, homosexuality is still taboo. Id. The basis is likely, in part, rooted in the cultural understandings of ender that make gender migration is possible. And once within the system, it becomes self perpetuating. Another male female lamented that with the Europeanization of Albania, "women did not know their place." Id.