that article was amazing.

Wasn’t it? It’s learning stuff like that that makes me wonder if there isn’t some sort of massive global conspiracy to keep me ignorant.

I read about the Marsh Arabs a few years ago at National Geograhic, but they left out all the transgender stuff.

That is too cool, and should be robbed for fiction.

As history, I'm slightly skeptical. Thesiger was not exactly a neutral observer, but someone with an intense, romantic, troubled, obsessive relationships with both gender and with pre-industrial societies (somewhat like the protagonist of POTAW). On the one hand, that's precisely the sort of person you'd expect to discover -- or even notice -- the Transgender Marsh Arabs Men Don't See. On the other hand, he was unbound by any academic oversight, peer review, stuff like that, and he might also have been the kind of guy who would make shit up because it sounded really cool.

cf:
http://www.glbtq.com/literature/thesiger_wp.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Thesiger

Other societies with such sensible gender arrangements have been documented (in Polynesia, for instance), so I'm not skeptical in principle. I'd just like to see the report confirmed by someone other than Indiana Jones.