I don’t know what the life of the hijras was like before colonization, but from everything I’ve read the life of hijras, fa’afafine, muxe, ladyboys and travestis is just as much of a gender straitjacket as any other gender category. All of these “third genders” are expected to be attracted to and have sex with men, but are rarely allowed the full privileges of marriage and motherhood. In fact, it almost seems more rigid than a gender binary, because in a gender binary male-bodied femmes can find a place of their own in a whole category of queer nonconformists. I wrote about this in my blog:

http://transblog.grieve-smith.com/?p=43