The tiny archipelago Guna Yala, consisting of some 300 mostly uninhabited islands scattered across Panama’s Caribbean coast, is home to the indigenous Guna people whose lives mirror their ancestors. Away from the sprawling concrete jungle of Panama City barely an hour’s flight away, the Guna people live in simple wooden shacks and subsist on fishing and crafting tourist artefacts. An outsider might feel transported back in time. Yet the Guna people with their notion of gender fluidity, as embodied in their tradition of <em>Omeggid</em>, individuals considered neither male nor female but a <em>third</em> gender, are ahead of their time. <br><br>Whereas the term ‘transgender’ suggests a hybrid of male and female genders, the term Omeggid refers to a distinct, additional gender. The notion of the third gender is not a new phenomenon, but embedded in the creation mythology of the Guna people, according to which an ancestral leader Wigudun is said to belong to the third gender. In contrast to values taught in most developed countries, Omeggid suggests that gender is not about biology but more about the way we identify and express ourselves as individuals. <br><br>The Omeggid community predominantly consists of males who become third-gender women. A boy who chooses to become Omeggid will often adopt a female work role. This is considered to be completely normal, and naturally accepted by the family, friends and wider community. For the people of Guna, it is not about being a transperson, it is just about being a person.<br>