Overview
What sekrata means.
Sekrata is a word used among Sakalava and related communities of western and north-western Madagascar. It names a person assigned male at birth who was recognised as a girl in early childhood, raised as one by her family, and lives as a woman. The recognition, in the accounts that describe it, comes from family and community observation rather than self-declaration.
This word belongs to those communities. It is not a general label available to outsiders, no matter how closely someone's own experience might seem to match the description. English-language sources also record variant spellings — sekatra, saikatra — appearing in French colonial-era medical writing, and the closely related term sarimbavy (from Malagasy sary, image, and vavy, woman) is used more broadly across Sakalava and Vezo communities for male-bodied people who take on feminine dress, appearance and roles.
Almost everything published about sekrata in English traces back to a small number of older outsider accounts, repeated across gender wikis and short articles with little first-person material. This page stays short and cautious on purpose: it exists so that Malagasy readers can see the word treated respectfully rather than as a novelty, and so other readers understand clearly that it is not theirs to adopt.
In Madagascar, people assigned male at birth who are raised as girls to fill feminine roles in families.
Sekrata in one line
Origin
Where the word comes from
Sekrata is a Sakalava-language term, not a coined internet label, and it has no single identifiable inventor or date — it reflects an established social role recorded by outsiders since at least the French colonial period, when variant spellings such as sekatra and saikatra appear in medical texts. It is closely related to the broader term sarimbavy, used across Sakalava and Vezo communities of western Madagascar for male-bodied people who adopt feminine dress and social roles. Academic and ethnographic attention to related roles and identities in this region remains limited in English, and much of what circulates online is secondhand summary rather than direct testimony.
- Where
- Sakalava communities, western and north-western Madagascar
Signs people describe
Common experiences
None of these is a test. Most people recognise a few and shrug at the rest.
Not applicable in the way this section works for other pages on this site. Sekrata is a role recognised by a family and community in childhood, not a feeling an outsider can check against their own experience.
If you are Sakalava or from a Malagasy community where this word is genuinely used, your own family and community are the source for what it means and whether it applies — not this page.
Pronouns
Pronouns
Malagasy does not gender its pronouns — izy covers he, she and they without distinction, so the pronoun question that dominates so much English-language discussion of gender doesn't arise the same way in the language itself. Gender is instead carried by name, dress, work and kinship terms. In English or French writing about a sekrata, she and her are the accurate default, consistent with how she lives and is recognised.
Consider another path
This might not be your word if…
- 1You are not from a Sakalava or Malagasy community that uses this word — this is the first and largest filter, and nothing else overrides it.
- 2You are Malagasy but not Sakalava, and your own family or region has a different word — use that word instead.
- 3You are looking for a word you can choose for yourself — what is described here was conferred on a child by family members who recognised her, not selected by the person herself.
- 4You feel between genders or outside them entirely — that is not the shape described here, which is specifically about a girl and a woman, recognised and raised as such.
- 5You want a term with legal or medical infrastructure behind it — sekrata carries none of that; if that's what you need, transgender is the word that opens those doors.
Close by
Related identities
Sarimbavy
A broader Malagasy term (from sary, image, and vavy, woman) used across Sakalava and Vezo communities for male-bodied people who adopt feminine dress and roles; sekrata is documented in some colonial-era sources as a regional variant or related term.
Trans woman
From a distance the outcomes can look similar — assigned male, living as a woman — but the mechanism differs. Trans is a self-claimed identity with medicine, law and a political movement attached; sekrata, as described, is recognised and conferred by family and community in childhood.
Two-Spirit
An English umbrella term coined in 1990 by Native American and First Nations people, for themselves, specifically to replace outside anthropologists' labels. It is not a translation of anything Malagasy and does not extend to Sakalava communities.
ReadQuestions people ask
Frequently asked questions
What is sekrata?+
A word used among Sakalava communities of western Madagascar for a person assigned male at birth who was recognised as a girl in early childhood, raised as one, and lives as a woman. Recognition comes from family and community rather than self-declaration. Much of what is published about it in English traces back to a small number of older outsider accounts, repeated many times over.
Can I identify as sekrata if I am not Malagasy?+
No. It belongs to Sakalava communities in Madagascar and is not a translation of a general concept available to people outside those communities. If the life described here sounds familiar, the respectful step is to look for the word your own language and community offer, rather than take this one.
Is sekrata the same as being transgender?+
Not the same, though a sekrata living in a city today may use 'trans' as a word that gets her understood by people unfamiliar with the local term. The difference is the route: trans is a self-claimed identity with medicine, law and politics attached, while sekrata, as described in the available sources, is recognised by family in childhood and held by a community.
Is sekrata the same word as sarimbavy?+
They are closely related but not simply identical. Sarimbavy is the broader term used across Sakalava and Vezo communities for male-bodied people with feminine dress and social roles; some French colonial-era medical texts record sekrata (and variants like sekatra, saikatra) alongside it. The precise relationship between the terms in current usage is not something this page can settle from outside the community.
Are sekrata widely accepted in Madagascar today?+
Older accounts describe recognition within some communities as ordinary rather than remarkable, but that shouldn't be stretched into a claim about the whole country today. Madagascar is large and religiously plural, and trans and gender-variant Malagasy people in cities report stigma, harassment and a lack of legal recognition. A tidy story of universal traditional tolerance is an outsider's simplification, not a current national picture.
The flag
No documented pride flag originates from Sakalava communities themselves. A flag tagged 'sekrata' circulates on gender wikis, reportedly created around August 2020 by a wiki contributor outside Madagascar, styled after the Malagasy national flag with a non-binary symbol added — but this is one outside contributor's design, not a flag from the community the word belongs to, so it is not presented here as representative.
Sources
- Sarimbavy — Wikipedia Notes sekrata, sekatra and saikatra as variant spellings recorded in French colonial-era medical texts, alongside the broader term sarimbavy. Fetched 2026-09-06.
- In the Image of a Woman: Spirited Identifications and Embodied Interpellations Along the Betsiboka Valley (PhD thesis) Seth Thomas Palmer, University of Toronto, 2019 — ethnographic study of sarimbavy and related gender-expansive identities in Madagascar. Fetched 2026-09-06.
- Sekrata — LGBTQIA+ Wiki Summary definition, used here cautiously given its reliance on a single secondary source. Fetched 2026-09-06.
Still figuring things out?
Twenty questions, four minutes, and a few words worth trying on.