Today

Today, many Native Americans seek to change their ideas of gender to more traditional, pre-colonization conceptions that allows for gender beyond the binary, as Susan Shand and Dorothy Gundy report in “Native American Two-Spirits Look to Reclaim Lost Heritage” for Voice of America.

In the 1990s, the term “two-spirit” was chosen by an inter-tribal conference of Native American/First Nations gays and lesbians as the term they would use to describe Native Americans who don’t fit into the gender binary. The term, which comes from Ojibwe, is exclusively for use by Native Americans who understand native history and culture, and although some two-spirited people identify as LGBTQ, not all do.

In some native cultures, such as those of the Cherokee, Yokuts and Mono, two-spirits traditionally held special places in their societies. Two spirited people’s ability to move between male and female understandings and roles in the world led them to take on special, often spiritual responsibilities including becoming healers, seers, name givers and burial site diggers.

Today, two-spirited people are trying to reclaim this position in various tribes, but not all are accepting two-spirited people back into their societies. Colonization and the imposition of Christianity forced the end of two-spirit recognition in the 18th and 19th centuries, so as to comply with Western values, including a binary conception of gender. Today, this history has left its mark on native groups, many of which continue to have large populations of Christians and segments of their population who reject two-spirited people.

Wesley K. Thomas, a Navajo anthropologist interviewed by Shand and Gundy, said identifying as two-spirited can create a sense of comfort and belonging for individuals, but he does not believe they will ever see again the honor they were given in the past.
“It’s not possible,” he said. “We have been distanced too much from our traditional ways and cultures.”