Amanda lives in the united states, where she grew up thinking and feeling like she is female. when she spent a semester abroad in india, she met several hijra students who thought of themselves as something between male and female. amanda had a lot of difficulty understanding the experiences of these hijra students, most likely because in the united states, gender identity is usually thought of as

In the United States, gender identity is usually thought of as binary, whereas in India it is a continuum.
According to this question, in the US, there are two genders - male and female, and you are either a man or a woman based on this distinction. Nowadays, this has changed, and there is a difference between gender and sex (one is chosen, and one is assigned at birth). In India, there are no such things - there are no clear dividing points.