This article is primarily a mid-20th century case-study of one particular woman from an upper-class clan of southern Iraq who is a poet and lives as a “mustergil”, that is, a woman living as a man. The informant reports that there are perhaps fifty women in her clan alone living as mustergils.
mustergil
(used in Iraq, I haven’t confirmed language of origin) More properly a transgender term than a lesbian one. A person assigned female at birth who adopts a masculine gender role, although not necessarily accepted socially as a man.
