☘︎ ݁ a third-gender (?) term originating from ancient Egypt.

this is an old flag redesign of mine for the sekhet identity.

☘︎ sekhet as a historical gender identity is highly debated. the most agreed to answer is that this term referred to eunuchs. i personally am not entirely confident in this answer, since though they definitely knew what castration was, there doesn’t seem to be any hard basis that the Egyptians themselves practiced it often enough to warrant an entirely separate gender category. on that same note, there is no other evidence of the sekhet existence than the pottery sherds that the term seemingly originates from.

☘︎ however, there is a relief from the sarcophagus of Lady Kawit, a wife of Mentuhotep II, that supposedly depicts a eunuch. i bring this up because these pottery sherds are dated to about 2000-1800 BCE in the middle kingdom, around the same time Mentuhotep II reigned. apparently, in these sort of depictions, they are also painted in a mix of the red and yellow tones, designated for men and women respectively, indicating this category of person was viewed as a sort of in-between of the two genders. so while we can never know for sure that Lady Kawit’s servant was a eunuch, or if they were categorized as sekhet, there does seem to be at least some evidence, though minimal, of a third gender.