Last week, Humboldt County, California, recognized March 19 as “Two-Spirit day of Celebration and Awareness.” A county supervisor, Natalie Arroyo, proudly noted that the holiday’s celebration would be the “first of its kind” in the United States. Immediately following the county’s declaration, the cities of Eureka and Arcata, which are both located in Humboldt County, proclaimed the holiday as well. Arroyo emphasized that conversations are undergoing at the state level to extend recognition to the holiday.
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“Two-spirit” is put forward as gender identity specific to the indigenous people of the Americas. It is proclaimed to be a “third gender” that combines aspects of both masculinity and femininity. Prior to European colonization, so the assertion goes, people with this status were highly acclaimed in Native American cultures. The theory further postulates that the presence of such persons in Native American cultures led to a conception of gender and sexuality that was fluid and open — and totally contrary to the Western norms of male and female as the two distinct sexes and of marriage as between a man and a woman. It is said that colonization disrupted this indigenous vision of gender and sexual fluidity.
At the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors meeting, several Native Americans spoke regarding their two-spirit identity. “I myself identify as Two-Spirit which is a significant and powerful part of me as a person. It’s my truth in its whole identity,” said C.J. Lewis, who was identified in a local news report as a “Queer Humboldt intern from Hoopa Valley High School.” Andy Martin further said of “two-spirit” identity: “We as a people have been here since the dawn of time. Our spirits have allowed us to combine women and men’s activities, and to commune with the Creator and the spirits in our own unique way.”
The Indian Health Service, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, describes “two-spirit”–identifying people in the following way:
Traditionally, Native American two-spirit people were male, female, and sometimes intersexed individuals who combined activities of both men and women with traits unique to their status as two-spirit people. In most tribes, they were considered neither men nor women; they occupied a distinct, alternative gender status….
Two-spirit individuals were experts in traditional arts — such as pottery making, basket weaving, and the manufacture and decoration of items made from leather. Among the Navajo, two-spirit males often became weavers, usually women and men’s work, as well as healers, which was a male role. By combining these activities, they were often among the wealthier members of the tribe. Two-spirit females engaged in activities such as hunting and warfare, and became leaders in war and even chiefs.
“Two-spirit” identity is explored in numerous academic articles and books — all of which are tied to the academic traditions of critical theory, indigenous studies, gender studies, LGBTQ studies, and/or studies of colonialism. A pioneering work on this topic is Walter Lee Williams’ 1986 book Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture, which was the winner of numerous awards, including the Gay Book of the Year Award from the American Library Association and the Ruth Benedict Award from the Association for Queer Anthropology, formerly known as the Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists. Williams was a professor of anthropology and gender studies at the University of Southern California until he was arrested and convicted for sex crimes against children.
Soon after the publication of Williams’ book, the first Native American gay and lesbian gathering was held in 1988 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At the third such conference, held in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1990, Myra Laramee, who is a member of the Fisher River Cree Nation, proposed the use of the term “two-spirit” to describe Native Americans with diverse genders and sexualities. She explained that the term had come to her in a dream. It was subsequently adopted by the conference.
In 2021, Laramee described the dream in which she says she received the term “two-spirit”:
The grandfathers came in a dream, the grandmothers showed all of us, the gift and the greatness of two-spirit….
One night, actually, seven orbs of light, as I was standing out on the grass, it was like the tepee disappeared and the everything except the tobacco in my hand, and the way in which I could see them, through those legislature lights, they came, one after the other, seven of them, and each time one came, there was a male face and a female face that would transform back and forth. And the first time the grandpa came, the mooshum face came, he said, “You are as of us, you are one of us, and you have been here like us since the beginning of time, and you have come to know which way and how we traveled the earth and the sky world and the spirit world.” And he said, “You will begin to know many different kinds of things about the two-spirit nation.”
Critical to Laramee’s dream is the idea that “two-spirit” is a long-term phenomenon in Native American culture that was only lost as a result of colonization. Indeed, it is often asserted that although the term “two-spirit” was coined in 1990, the identity that it describes has existed for thousands of years. For example, filmmaker Victoria Anderson-Gardner, who identifies as “two-spirit,” wrote: “Two-spirit has always been an identity, even if we didn’t always have the words.” Anderson-Gardner further asserted: “Two-spirited people have existed since time immemorial and have filled special spiritual roles as healers, ceremonial leaders and visionaries. Indigenous tribes across North America have historically held intersex, androgynous, masculine females and feminine males in high respect.”
While gender studies literature asserts that Native Americans acclaimed people with unique gender identities — and that the large number of these gender-diverse people resulted in societies without a binary vision of gender — there is not significant historical evidence for this view. In fact, copious evidence shows that men and women in indigenous societies in the Americas had distinctly defined roles — with men typically responsible for hunting and women tasked with raising children. Moreover, marriage was understood as a union between a man and woman. In some cases, polyamory was practiced, but this was between a man and several or many women.
Some have asserted that this lack of historical evidence for diverse gender expression in Native American societies is due to Western colonizers stamping it out. For example, the National Park Service explains that the “cultural legacy of [Native Americans with diverse gender expression] was nearly erased by religious indoctrination and the imposition of laws criminalizing varied sexuality and gender expression.” It further states, “This erasure makes discovering and discussing such a diverse heritage difficult; in many cases, the only remaining record is that of the colonizer.” In another example, the ERA Coalition says, “[T]he cultural legacy of [two-spirit] people was almost eradicated by religious indoctrination and the criminalization of varied sexuality and gender expressions.”
Others claim that, in spite of cultural repression, there is significant evidence of gender-diverse people in Native American societies who existed alongside the cultural reality that men and women were regarded quite differently. To back up this claim, people cite ethnographies of Native American tribes in which Native Americans with unusual gender expression are mentioned. For example, one of anthropologist Robert H. Lowie’s 1912 ethnographical papers of Native American tribes reads: “At present there is but one surviving berdache, who lives in the Bighorn District. I saw him once at Lodge Grass. He is probably over fifty years of age, stands 5 ft. 7 inches, and is of a large build. According to several informants, former agents have repeatedly tried to make him don male clothes, but the other Indians themselves protested against this, saying that it was against his nature.” In addition, in an anthropological work on the Crow tribe, S.C. Simms wrote: “I was informed that there were three hermaphrodites in the Crow tribe, one living at Pryor, one in the Big Horn district, and one in Black Lodge district. These persons are usually spoken of as ‘she,’ and as having the largest and best appointed tipis; they are also generally considered to be experts with the needle and the most efficient cooks in the tribe, and they are highly regarded for their many charitable acts.” Advocates of the idea that Native Americans had diverse gender identities prior to the arrival of Westerners often note that Spanish explorer Hernando de Alarcón wrote in 1540: “There were among these Indians three or foure men in womens apparell.”
In general, however, it is difficult to fully understand the pasts of Native Americans prior to the arrival of Europeans in the late 15th century given that, north of present-day Mexico, they were largely nomadic hunter-gatherers who did not have writing systems. Moreover, tribes had vastly different cultures, making it all the more difficult to prove the thesis that Native Americans at large had a special regard for people with diverse gender expressions. In addition, there is evidence that homosexuality was punished in several Native American cultures. For example, the Aztecs would execute men who engaged in homosexuality and had a strong cultural animus against men who were seen as effeminate.
The limited evidence for the ideas that pre-colonial Native Americans recognized at least three genders and held gender-diverse people in high regard has not stopped those ideas from gaining major traction. The Canadian government, for instance, officially recognizes “two-spirit” individuals. The official acronym it uses for diverse genders and sexualities is “2SLGBTQI+,” which stands for “Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and additional sexually and gender diverse.” In this formulation, “two-spirit” individuals are given pride of place as the first identity in the acronym. When that acronym was updated in 2022, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his action plan for “2SLGBTQI+” people would:
Support Indigenous 2SLGBTQI+ resilience and resurgence including by continuing to fund Indigenous 2SLGBTQI+ community organizations, placing the “2S” to represent Two-Spirit people at the front of the 2SLGBTQI+ acronym, and creating a dedicated Two-Spirit Senior Advisor position within the 2SLGBTQI+ Secretariat.
In the United States, Deb Haaland, who heads the Department of the Interior, has spoken out regarding two-spirit people, saying, “Those who experience intersecting forms of discrimination, such as people with disabilities or members of the LGBTQI+ community, including two-spirit people, face even greater challenges.” Haaland says she has a child who identifies as “two-spirit.” President Joe Biden has also spoken out about “two-spirit” people. When he signed an executive order to investigate the “crisis of missing or murdered Indigenous people,” he said that the epidemic “most often impacts women, girls, LGBTQI+ people in the community, and Two-Spirit Native Americans.”
While it remains unclear whether there really was adulation across Native American tribes for people who took on both masculine and feminine characteristics, the idea that such a phenomenon took place has been instrumental evidence for the assertion that the gender binary is a Western cultural norm.
For example, PBS published an article in 2015 that uses “two-spirit” identity as evidence that the gender binary is a Western norm:
Throughout recorded history and since time immemorial, thriving cultures have recognized, revered, and integrated more than two genders. Terms such as transgender, gay, or bisexual are Western constructs that often assume three things: that there are only two sexes (male/female), as many as three sexualities (gay/straight/bisexual), and only two genders (man/woman).
Even after the end of the modern era and as the colonial period wanes, hundreds of distinct Indigenous societies around the globe still retain their own long-established traditions for third, fourth, fifth, or more genders.
Bound up in “two-spirit” identity is the idea that gender and sexual identities are culturally specific. While this premise can be effective for opposing the gender binary, it also implicitly challenges the idea that other LGBTQ identities, such as transgenderism, are innate.
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As “two-spirit” identity continues to grow and gain greater visibility, it will have a more significant cultural impact. For example, a two-spirit nonprofit in Montana, “Montana Two Spirit Society,” is challenging a Montana state law that defines “sex” as male or female. David Herrera, executive director of the organization, explained to CNN: “We don’t ascribe to just simply biologic definitions. We acknowledge that there are different genders, and our cultures have always known that there are more than two genders. In some of the Indigenous cultures, there may be as many as four to six different genders.”
The next development to watch for is whether the state of California will follow the lead of Humboldt County in celebrating and recognizing “two-spirit” identity.
