Native American concepts of gender and sexual orientation

in our opinion, its not really an illness but its sad that the common conception of gender is so dualistic, we feel a lot is mixed, and that these systems of degrees are not specific only to Native American Cultures, but actually are much more widespread than we think, in fact they are alive pretty much everywhere, where individuals have stopped even in a moment of forgetfulness thinking of themselves as Man, boy or Woman, girl, but thanks to the Native American Tribes for preserving this wisdom and putting it out in a written form so we all don't have to constantly recreate it to put it into the awareness of... the internet?

We also believe that all people to some degree have these attributes, and that two is one, all of us, and everything is divine, and has dual nature, this is the meaning of Yin and Yang. So there is both medicine and poison here, poison we believe from raising up an individual beyond many others simply for being two spirited and saying that all two-spirits have these healing abilities etc, because our understanding is that these abilities came from a combination of the orientation (both on a physical level and even symbolically/astrally in the spiritual realm), individual gifts, and also the tribal cultures way of assimilating and working with people like this, but medicine in explaining what two spirited actually means, to some degree, and maybe making some of us question gender roles which we may have defined rigidly beforehand.

By Sandra Laframboise and Michael Anhorn

The two-spirited person is a native tradition that researchers have
identified in some of the earliest discoveries of Native artifacts.
Much evidence indicates that Native people, prior to colonization,
believed in the existence of cross-gender roles, the male-female, the
female-male, what we now call the two-spirited person.

In Native American culture, before the Europeans came to the
America's, "two-spirit" referred to an ancient teaching. This type of
cross-gender identity has been documented in over 155 tribes across
Native North America (Roscoe 1988).

Our Elders tell us of people who were gifted among all beings because
they carried two spirits, that of male and female. It is told that
women engaged in tribal warfare and married other women, as there were
men who married other men. These individuals were looked upon as a
third and fourth gender in many cases and in almost all cultures they
were honoured and revered. Two-spirit people were often the
visionaries, the healers, the medicine people, the nannies of orphans,
the care givers (Roscoe 1988). They were respected as fundamental
components of our ancient culture and societies. This is our guiding
force as well as our source of strength. This is the heart of
Two-Spirited People of the 1st Nations (2 Spirit Nation of Ontario)
This paper explores what we know of the past of two-spirit people,
compares that to the present experience and looks forward to the role
that two-spirit people could play in the future of First Nation's
people in Canada and across North America.

Before beginning our discussion on two-spirit people and their roles,
it is necessary to take a moment to discuss the terminology used here.
Native and Native American are used to refer to the peoples who
inhabited North America before European contact. Certain quotations
also use the term First Nation's to refer to the same. These terms are
in common usage among First Nation's people in Canada to refer to
themselves. In addition, the term two-spirit refers to the concepts of
gender variant people in Native America traditions. Early explorers of
North America refered to this concept as berdache. Two-spirit is
preferred as it emerged from Native American people whereas berdache
was imposed upon Native American's by the colonial explorers.
The Past - Uncommon gender identity integrated into society

Most tribes were aware of the existence of two-spirit people, and many
still have a name in their traditional language for them.
For example, The Din éh (Navaho)refer to them as nàdleehé or one who
is 'transformed', the Lakota (Sioux) as winkte, the Mohave as alyha,
the Zuni as lhamana, the Omaha as mexoga, the Aleut and Kodiak as
achnucek, the Zapotec as ira' muxe, the Cheyenne as he man eh, etc.
(Roscoe, 1988).Some tribes had different names for two-spirited men
and women. Other tribes, though, did not have such a concept.

The abundance of terms that we find as we study various tribes
testifies to the familiarity of Native Americans with gender-variant
people. It is important to note that this is different than sexual
orientation as such words did not exist in Native languages. Concern
for appropriate terminology should always be on one's mind because
'Gender' is an obligatory grammatical category in the English/French
and Latin languages. It is a linguistic term and has no connection
with biological sex or social identity of an individual. This issue
comes to a head in the area where 'gender' intersects with the Native
people of North America. Many non-natives have misinterpreted
two-spirit as referring to people with homosexual tendencies, when in
fact, the ceremonies and practices were based on different genders
being manifested, and not on sexual preferences or practices.

Many tribes had rituals for children to go through if they were
recognized as acting different from their birth gender. These rituals
ensured the child was truly two-spirit. If parents noticed that a son
was disinterested in boyish play or manly work, they would set up a
ceremony to determine which way the boy would be brought up. They
would make an enclosure of brush, and place in the center both a man's
bow and a woman's basket. The boy was told to go inside the circle of
brush and to bring something out, and as he entered the brush would be
set on fire. The tribe watched what he took with him as he ran out,
and if it was the basketry materials they reconciled themselves to his
being a 'berdache'. (Roscoe, 1988)

In another ritual, usually carried out when the child is between the
ages of nine and twelve, that helped identify a child's two-spirit
nature, a singing circle would be prepared, unbeknownst to the boy,
involving the whole community as well as distant friends and
relatives. On the day of the ceremony everyone gathered around and the
boy was led into the middle of the circle. If he remained in the
centre, the singer, hidden in the crowd, began to sing the ritual
songs and the boy, if he was destined to follow the two-spirit road,
starts to dance in the fashion of a woman. After the fourth song the
boy was declared a two-spirit person and was raised from then on in
the appropriate manner (Two Spirit Tradition - internet citation).

These rituals determined if the person was two-spirited and taught
young boys to do women's work in addition to that reserved for men.
Similar rituals applied to woman. Children of both genders would also
spend time with healers, often two-spirit people themselves. Above
all, their childhood was marked by acceptance and understanding by the
whole tribe. Multi-gendered adult people were usually presumed to be
people of power. Because they have both maleness and femaleness
totally entwined in one body, they were known to be able to 'see' with
the eyes of both biological men and biological women. They were often
called upon to be healers, mediators, interpreters of dreams, or
expected to become singers or others whose lives were devoted to the
welfare of the group. If they did extraordinary things in any aspect
of life, it was assumed that they had the license and power to do so,
and therefore, they were not questioned.

In everyday life the two-spirit male typically would wear women's
clothes and do women's work. He might take a husband from among the
men of the tribe, or might have affairs with several, depending on the
role of the gender the two-spirit man in his tribe. This is very
different from homosexuality as we know it today. Two-spirit
individuals were expected to behave within the two-spirit gender norms
of his or her tribe. Roscoe reports that early ethnographers observed
a Mojave two-spirit man who was also faking a woman's menstruation by
scratching his inner thighs until he bled thus faking menstrual
bleeding. When the partner threaten to leave the two-spirit male even
mimicked pregnancy by adding clothes inside his upper shirt and stop
the menstruation cycle. He would then eat foods that would give
indigestion and stomach cramps thus faking some of the symptoms of
pregnancy. When time came to give birth he went into the woods and
came back childless under the pretence of still birth. Generally
two-spirit males were not expected to have sexual relations with
women. All of these rules, however, were culture specific and even
within any given Native culture, there was often room for various
expressions of gender variance. Throughout historical documents, we
see that type of variation from the norm, change, transformation, and
fluidity of roles for those who felt called to that path and yet most
often they were welcome and appreciated.

Besides their spiritual abilities, their capacity for work also
figured into the high status of two-spirit people. Even though a
two-spirit male would have taken on the gender identity of a woman, he
would still have the endurance and strength of a man. Thus his
productivity was greater than that of most women, and for that reason
he would have been valued as a marriage partner. Other characteristics
that Natives associate with two-spirit people which help explain their
desirability as partners were their highly developed ability to relate
to and teach children, a generous nature, and exceptional intellectual
and artistic skills.

As we begin to understand the great diversity of genders in Native
America cultures, and the ways in which sexuality influenced the
performance of gender roles, we are drawn back to the original
pre-colonial rituals. The inner calling of contemporary two-spirited
people, however, is often mixed in with modern understandings of
sexuality, thus creating a perception that homosexuality was well
accepted in pre-colonization instead of recognizing that these
homosexual behaviours were accepted under the role of gender identity.
Arguably culture is not static and thus evolves and incorporates all
the experiences of life. Therefore today the modern movement of
reclaiming Two-Spirit Traditions incorporates sexual orientation and
sexual identity.
The Present - Colonialization takes its toll

Since European colonization, the existence of the two-spirit community
has been systematically denied and alienated from their Aboriginal
identity. As a result, two-spirit people are often viewed as
perverted, untraditional or untrustworthy and two-spirit people have
lost their place in society and their dignity. Persecution began by
the church and an attempt to eradicate these individuals, often the
spiritual leaders and healers of the tribes, and their behaviours
based on the church's moralistic code.

The attempt to exterminate Native Americans and their rituals by both
the church and the government resulted in a loss of many rituals
including those who identified and honour cross-gender individuals.
With very few exceptions, there is no longer a place in Native
cultures for a man-woman or a woman-man. The tribes have forgotten the
two-spirit teachings and many of the ancient two-spirit ways are no
longer being practiced. Instead, this role appears as a ghost of the
past or a dirty secret. Elders who may know the stories and teachings
are often afraid to talk about them because of their experiences in
Residential Schools and other forms of colonialization.

Because so many Native American cultures were disrupted (or had
disappeared) before they were studied by researchers, it is not
possible to know how frequently these spiritual ceremonies happened or
the roles ascribed to those people. These alternative gender roles
that have been documented, however, occur in every region of the
continent, lending credibility to the claim that acceptance of
two-spirit people was relatively common among Native American
cultures. Today we have to confront a very real problem - it is
impossible to define precisely what two-spirit experience was.
Although most people now agree that such individuals existed, the
particulars of that identity remain for most part a ghost of history.
Nonetheless, like many Native American rituals and traditions the
two-spirit peoples are experiencing a re-awakening to the validity of
their cultural and spiritual roots.

Native American Queer Communities have to deal with unique issues as a
result of our history, cultural status, and perceptions as Natives. We
come out of a history of genocide, our people have been persecuted,
killed, kidnapped, forced into residential schools and assimilated for
hundreds of years, and we still face lingering aspects of genocide. We
face homophobia and sexism from our own people, racism from lesbians
and gays, and racism, homophobia, and sexism from the dominant
society, not to mention the classism many Native Americans have to
deal with. It is important to remember that we Natives today are not
the same as the Natives that lived before the arrival of the white
man.

Interaction with whites and the cultural genocide perpetrated on
Natives has changed Native Americans' perception of gender and
sexuality. Though it is interesting to speculate about how two-spirits
were treated in traditional Native American cultures, a focus on such
speculation can hide the lives and realities of Native American Queer
communities today. Despite the encouraging things written about the
acceptance and honour of the 'Two-Spirited' of the past, Queer Natives
today face homophobia in their own communities.

I remember a member of one of the agencies that I co-founded and ran
for a few years, was HIV+ and living in a cross-gender role, wanting
to go home and die with dignity surrounded with family members and
love, so she went home and she would communicate with us letting us
know that all is well and she had been well received home. When she
finally passed away we found out that the tribe had rented a house
outside the reserve as they did not want her on the reserve and she
was not respected in the cross-gender role she had chosen. This type
of behaviour is endemic of remote communities that are still healing
from centuries of cultural genocide behaviours from the government
policies.

In 1990 in Winnipeg, at a meeting of the members of the 2-Spirit
Nation of Ontario, the Canadian Aboriginal Aids network and other Gay
Native people, a consensus was reached to adopt the term 'two-spirited
people' to refer to all Canadian Aboriginal gender variant people to
honour our ancestral past and reclaim our Aboriginal identity. This
marked the beginning of the modern movement of two-spirit people in
Canada. It was also where the Aboriginal community began incorporating
the words gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and transvestite for
multi-gendered Natives and various sexual orientations.

The re-emergence of two-spirit people in modern context while engaging
in century old ceremonial rituals has created a lot of friction
between the traditionalists and those who do not see culture has being
static. This has resulted in many two-spirited people facing expulsion
from their tribes with no or very little communication with their
families or communities. This makes the queer Indian lifestyle a
difficult road to walk.
The Future - Reclaiming our place among the leaders and healers of our cultures

So, what comes next for the two-spirit community? I believe there are
several things we need to be conscious of and work to address as we
move forward.

Our two-spirited community is unique and is starting to reclaiming our
cultural roots. We also recognize that much has been lost and much has
changed. Although some of our issues and concerns overlap with those
of all Native Americans, there are others that are unique to our
community. We are members of a group of people whose way of life has
been drastically altered by historical circumstance. However like many
other Aboriginal rituals and way of life, we see a strong re-emergence
of the two-spirited people. We need to continue this trend to
celebrate our roots while acknowledging our unique challenges in
today's world.

Although the modern two-spirit movement has been very important for
queer Native Americans, it leaves out members of the heterosexual
community who would have been identified as two-spirited in the past.
These individuals often expressed their gender through dress and work
roles, however, they were celibate and so did not express it through
their sexual practices. The modern two-spirit movement needs to find a
way to acknowledge and incorporate these people into our movement.

While some of the Elders may speak of such acceptance of Two-Spirit
individuals in the past the reality is that it is not without
controversy. Although there is a rekindling of two-spirit traditional
practices, the effort is not without the slings and arrows of
controversy. Not only is there a rift between Native and Non-Native
two-spirit people, many 'straight' Native Americans take a familiar
post-colonialism posture and wish the two-spirits would shut up and go
away altogether. We have come a long way to reclaim our past but need
to work harder to gain acceptance and recognition today.

Native American cultures have proved to be very resilient and
adaptable. As our culture and society evolved so did our warriors.
Today instead of warring in battlefields, some of our warriors became
political activists, fighting in the court system for the advancement
of the rights of their tribal members. It is my hope that we will see
a similar resilience among our two-spirited brother/sisters and
sister/brothers. We must work with those spiritual leaders and healers
within the Native communities that deny our existence or our place in
our cultures to reclaim our place. We must also work with non-Native
leaders to ensure our rights in the wider Canadian culture within
which we now live. We must be more determined, in touch with our
feelings and our power now then ever before!
References

Androphile Project. (2004) 'The world history of male love -
Two-spirit tradition in native american experience.' Downloaded from
http://www.androphile.org January 21, 2006.
Kehoe, A. (undated) 'Appropriate Terms.' Downloaded from
http://www.saa.org January 21, 2006.
Roscoe, W. [Editor] (1988) Living the Spirit: A Gay American
Indian Anthology. City: Publisher
2-Spirited People of the 1st Nations. (undated) Information
Guide. Downloaded from http://www.2spirits.com January 21 2006.
Unknown. (undated) “The North American Two Spirit Information
Page.' Downloaded from http://www.ucalgary.ca January 21 2006.