mudoko dako

{{Short description|Langi and Ugandan third gender}}

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A mudoko dako (also known as mudoko daka or dano mulokere{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WfJQAwAAQBAJ&q=%22mudoko+dako%22&pg=PT49|title=Queering Creole Spiritual Traditions: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Participation in African-Inspired Traditions in the Americas|last1=Conner|first1=Randy P.|last2=Sparks|first2=David Hatfield|publisher=Routledge|year=2014|isbn=9781317712817|pages=37}}) is an effeminate male who is considered by Langi society to be a different gender, though were mostly treated as woman among the Langi in Uganda. {{lang|laj|Mudoko dako}} also could be found among the Teso and the Karamojan people.{{Cite book|chapter-url=http://www.arcados.ch/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/MURRAY-ROSCOE-BOY-WIVES-FEMALE-HUSBANDS-98.pdf|title=Boy-wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African Homosexualities|publisher=Palgrave|year=1998|isbn=0312238290|editor-last=Murray|editor-first=Stephen O.|pages=35–36|chapter=Overview|editor-last2=Roscoe|editor-first2=Will}} Recognition of the mudoko dako can be traced back prior to colonialism in Africa.{{Cite book|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CuK5BAAAQBAJ&q=%22mudoko+dako%22&pg=PA345|title=Handbook of LGBT Communities, Crime, and Justice|last1=DeJong|first1=Christina|last2=Long|first2=Eric|publisher=Springer|year=2014|isbn=9781461491880|editor-last=Peterson|editor-first=Dana|pages=345|chapter=The Death Penalty as Genocide: The Persecution of 'Homosexuals' in Uganda|editor-last2=Panfil|editor-first2=Vanessa R.}}

Mudoko dako was considered an "alternative gender status" and were able to marry men with no social sanctions. The word, {{lang|laj|dako}}, in the Lango language means "woman".{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pzrywnLP_6IC&q=dako&pg=PA148|title=Ceremonial Change in Lango, Uganda|last=Curley|first=Richard T.|publisher=University of California Press|year=1974|isbn=978-0520021495|pages=148–149}} In his work, The Lango: A Nilotic Tribe of Uganda (1923), anthropologist Jack Herbert Driberg describes the mudoko dako people among the Langi. Driberg describes how men, known as Jo Apele or Jo Aboich, go on to become mudoko dako, dressing in the manner of women and taking on women's traditional roles.{{Cite book|url=https://www.loc.gov/item/2021666779/|title=The Lango: A Nilotic Tribe of Uganda|last=Driberg|first=Jack Herbert|publisher=T. Fisher Unwin Ltd.|year=1923|pages=210|oclc=2501700}} Driberg even observed mudoko dako simulating menstruation.