Gender was Never Binary: An Exploration of Two-Spirit Identities
📸: Canva.com
Two-Spirit emissaries and diplomats are some of the key writers of Indigenous history. However, the oppression of colonialism has effectively erased their place in history. These days, our understanding of gender dominates not just how we view modern communities, but historic Indigenous people. Despite this influence, the tradition of genderqueer and Two-Spirit identities in Indigenous cultures across the globe is vast, and the perseverance of these traditions is a testament to the resiliency of the Indigenous identity.
A History of the Two-Spirit Identity
Most of our current understanding of early Indigenous history comes from a written record that starts after European settlers landed in North America. From those texts, we have some understanding of what gender looked like in many native communities. It’s understood that many Indigenous cultures allowed for gender diversity outside of an anatomical binary. Many individuals that embodied both masculine and feminine traits held high positions in their communities, serving in roles like warriors, healers, artisans, and historians.
Based on this early documentation, we know that more than 130 Indigenous nations had recognized roles for gender-diverse individuals. Each community recognized these members differently. The Lakota people had the winkte, or someone who “speaks like a woman.” While the Diné identified the nádleehi as “one who changes.”
While each nation had a unique word for gender-diverse individuals, a French colonial-era slur became the anthropologic term that described genderqueer natives. The Indigenous community set out to reclaim the identity, and adopted the term “Two-Spirit” during the 1990 Indigenous Lesbian and Gay International Gathering in Winnipeg. Since it’s adoption, “Two-Spirit” has exploded in popularity, becoming the most recognized term for genderqueer Indigenous people. These days, many official governments and organization include “2S” as part of the gender and sexual identity acronym, 2SLGBTQIA+.
Two-Spirit Expression in Today’s Indigenous Communities
Two-Spirit identities are as unique and varied as the cultures they come from. The term encompasses a range of gender and sexual identities. It’s important to remember that although Two-Spirit identities are diverse, the term itself is not a catch-all. Just as we recognize trans and nonbinary identities on a spectrum today, Two-Spirit serves as it’s own unique space that defines a gendered experience that does not exist in a time after European contact.
“Now it’s becoming more of an individual's definition,” said Yuè Begay, the Co-Chair and founding member of Indigenous Pride LA. “The way I’m Two-Spirit is going to be different than the way someone else from another tribe is going to be to be Two-Spirit…because the intent was that we're not all the same people, we're not a monolith. Everyone's different. And even in my tribe, for example, Two-Spirit in one family could look different from Two-Spirit in another family. I've seen that happen before. So it’s a broad, ever-changing thing. And I think that's what gets non-native people upset about. Because they want a strict definition”
That flexibility in the definition allows Indigenous individuals to find their own meaning. In an interview with She-Explores, Pinar Sinopoulos-Lloyd, the co-founder of Queer Nature, connected their experience as a queer Indigenous person to the history of their people.
“As an Indigenous queer, it also has a subversive element to it that is life-giving liken to a trickster who flips perspectives of normativity,” Sinopoulos-Lloyd said. “I also cannot talk about queerness without speaking about my queer lineage of Quariwarmi–Andean “Two-Spirit” sibling. From my ancestry, the Incan cosmology is centered around an androgynous creative force. The third gender ceremonialists, Quariwarmis, represented the liminal spaces that held together our cultural story as a people. Queer is akin to decolonizing structures in a way that gives back to Pachamama and reestablishes a balance that in-between medicine can offer.”
Holding Space for Indigenous Diaspora in the Two-Spirit Community
When white settlers came to the Americas, they brought with them a unique set of tools to raze the continent. One of those was the enforcement of a gender binary that propped up a European patriarchal society. When settlers interacted with Indigenous societies, they identified and targeted these powerful Two-Spirit Individuals, identifying them as targets for violence.
White colonists and missionaries enforced heterosexual and patriarchal gender roles on Indigenous people. As missionary work in the 1600s developed into the residential school system, white settlers forcibly removed genderqueer identities from Indigenous communities, inserting their own homophobia in its place. Residential schools remained active until 1978 in the US, and 1996 in Canada, ensuring the toxic, homophobic, and transphobic beliefs could persist.
These Anti-Indigenous practices, and others, such as the forced removal of natives from their ancestral lands, and the forced removal of native children, have resulted in a significant population of Indigenous folks who are unaware of their ancestral tribes or cultures. Two-Spirit identities can help queer Indigenous individuals find space in an Indigenous community that allows them to connect to their ancestral traditions.
“A lot of people who are detribalized or are disconnected from their heritage will use the term Two-Spirit,” Begay Said. “Especially if they're trying to research their tribe. A lot of these tribes have had their ways lost, changed, or distorted through colonization. They [their members] can say they're Two-Spirit. Now, some of the other members of their tribes may get mad and say, ‘we've never had Two-spirit people.’ That's where the placeholder comes in. The intention of the Two-Spirit as a placeholder was that on the chance that we may have not had this type of gender system in our culture, that I'm creating this space. I'm taking my sovereignty, and I'm creating the space for me within our tribe.”
Threats to the Two-Spirit identity aren’t only well-known media pundits who are critical of gender diversity. A more subversive threat comes from white members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community who fail to recognize the closed nature of the Two-Spirit identity. As a historic and spiritually informed identity, Two-Spirit is exclusive for Indigenous individuals.
Two-Spirit Joy as a Radical Act
📸: Yuè Begay
These days, it’s not unusual to find young Two-Spirit people active on social media, taking up a mantle of activism and advocacy. They’re bringing awareness to laws that impact Indigenous ways of life, advocating about the Landback Movement, campaigning for the protection of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) and sharing their culture and identity with the world.
Throughout history, Two-Spirit natives have served as intermediaries, connecting and educating white settlers. Today’s social media educators are following in the footsteps of We’wha, a Zuni lhamana who famously met with President Grover Cleveland in 1886. In connecting with and educating today’s public on the traditions of the past, today’s Two-Spirit youth are establishing a new record for Indigenous people. One that accepts and praises their gender diversity in spite of misogynistic pressure that attempts to erase it from the land.
“I really think that we were mediators in many instances,” Begay said. “And that story of We’wha solidifies that. That some of us Two-Spirit do have that calling, to push and represent our people, to make sure that our people's political rights are being fought for. But on the other side, I know a couple of Two-Spirit people in the Navajo Nation who are just artists. They don't want to be in the spotlight. There’s Two-spirit people who just want to be amongst their own people.”
For the Two-Spirit individuals who have worked so hard to reclaim their lands, names, and identity, being able to reclaim their time might be their most important duty of all.