Indigenous 2S/LGBTQQIA+ Identities
Researched and written by Chelsea Bannatyne, 2024
Prior to colonization gender diversity was recognized and accepted in many Indigenous[i] nations across Turtle Island. Indigenous Two-Spirit or historically, third and fourth gender[ii] identities are multifaceted and have different meanings depending on who you ask or in which context it is being used. The term Two-Spirit came to Cree Elder Myra Laramee in a vision after which, she presented it at the Third Annual International LGBT Native American Gathering in 1990, held in Beausejour, Manitoba.[iii] Since then, “it has been taken up by many Indigenous LGBTQQIA+ people to describe an aspect of their identity.”[iv] The term Two-Spirit is said to originate from a translation of the “ Anishinaabemowin phrase niizh manidoowag, meaning ‘two spirits’ and has become a pan-Indigenous term used throughout English-speaking communities.”[v] Two-Spirit, in short, can refer to “gender identity (male, female, third gender), sexual identity (lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer) and spiritual identity (having both a male and female spirit).”[vi]
In a pre-colonial context, within Indigenous ways of being, Two-Spirit relatives “were either born with Two-Spirits while others readily adopted the gender role after a vision.”[vii] Many Indigenous communities are working to decolonize understandings of gender/sexuality and reclaim the teachings in which Two-Spirit people are valued members in their communities and fulfil a variety of roles. These teachings say that Two-Spirit identity “did not revolve around sexual activity, but rather, they were extraordinary people gifted with spiritual powers who were widely accepted within their societies as visionaries, healers, and medicine people.”[viii] They also say that Two-Spirit people “were put here to create balance by furthering the knowledge of both sides.”[ix]
Upon European contact those “considered to hold special gifts were dismissed and reduced by observers – mostly explorers and anthropologists – as ‘Berdaches’.”[x] The term “Berdache was widely used as a catch-all phrase for homosexuality, hermaphrodism, transvestitism and transgenderism – It has also been translated as ‘kept boy’ or ‘male prostitute.”[xi] In this colonial era, those individuals branded with this term were stigmatized and unfairly persecuted, including at Residential Schools in Canada. This term is now considered offensive.
Today many Indigenous LGBTQQIA+ people prefer to use Two-Spirit, or similarly Indigiqueer. The term Indigequeer or ‘Indigiqueer’ was first coined in 2004 by Plains Cree film maker, artist, and writer TJ Cuthand. According to Cuthand, the term Indigequeer was used to title the Vancouver Queer Film Festival’s Indigenous/Two-Spirit program that he headed. Cuthand stated the reasoning for inventing this term was that he shared the growing sentiment “that some LGBTQ Indigenous people don’t feel as comfortable with the Two-Spirit title because it implies some dual gender stuff.”[xii] This identity was popularized in the works of author Joshua Whitehead, first with full-metal indigiqueer (2017) and then Johnny Appleseed (2018). The terms Indigequeer and Two-Spirit are significant in that these are identities described for and by Indigenous gender-diverse individuals as an act to reclaim and simultaneously decolonize Indigenous gender and sexual identities. Additionally, these terms “strengthen Indigenous communities, protect youth, and care for “all my relations”.”[xiii]
Within various nations, Two-Spirit identity “took on diverse forms and had its own term or definition in their languages.”[xiv] Research has shown that approximately “two-thirds of 200 Indigenous languages recorded in Turtle Island and Inuit Nunangat have terms for people who are neither men or women.”[xv] Indigenous worldviews that tell of multiple genders and sexualities were severely disrupted by colonization and the imposition of Judeo-Christian culture and heteropatriarchal rule. The “cumulative effects of assimilation, of disenfranchisement through the Indian Act for First Nations, and of removal from the land for all Indigenous Peoples in Canada have contributed to the loss of culture, language and family.”[xvi] Exploring Indigenous worldviews, languages and customs may offer us a more intimate glimpse into the distinctive Indigenous teachings on multiple genders and sexualities. Oral traditions have been a vital means of passing Indigenous culture and knowledge to future generations, including singing, storytelling, and ceremony. The “loss of culture and language is particularly important in the case of words for Two-Spirit people.”[xvii]
First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Cultures
The Cree “dialect does not include gender-distinct pronouns”[xviii]. The “third person is nonspecific as to gender.”[xix] The “absence of he or she pronouns is reflective of many Indigenous languages”[xx]. The “Cree Creation story tells of the stars and a central figure or character, Weesageychak, represented by the constellation some other people call Orion. A trickster and a teacher, Weesageychak shifts gender, form and space to playfully teach us about ourselves and our connection to the wider universe, land and waters, living things and each other”[xxi].
Cree Two-Spirit terms[xxii]:
napêw iskwêwisêhot (a man who dresses as a woman)
iskwêw ka napêwayat (a woman dressed as a man)
ayahkwêw (a man dressed/living/accepted as a woman)
înahpîkasoht (a woman dressed/living/accepted as a man)
iskwêhkân (one who acts/lives as a woman)
napêhkân (one who acts/lives as a man)
In the “Anishinaabe tradition, the Creator gave each person and culture roads to walk – Black, Yellow, Red and White. The Anishinaabe were given the Red Road to walk.” The “Anishinaabe say ‘the good red road’” which is the “true path of life… the path of traditional teachings and sacred medicines” contribute to “balance of emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual aspects of ones being.”[xxiii] “Anishinaabe society is based on the clan system. There are seven clans. Each man, woman and child has a voice in his or her clan and community because the Anishinaabe is a democratic society. … Within this system Two-Spirited people hold an important and honored position. They are considered gifted because of their duality (i.e., male and female spirit).”[xxiv]
Ojibwe terms for Two-Spirit:
Agokwa (male-assigned – “man-woman”)[xxv]
Okitcitakwe (female-assigned “warrior woman”)[xxvi]
Agookwe (hidden woman)[xxvii]
Ogokwe (wise woman)[xxviii]
Winkte (a Lakota word for Two-Spirit people)[xxix] ([‘wants’ or wishes’] to be [like] [a] woman[xxx].” (Dakota - “double woman”)[xxxi]
Nadle (Dine/Navaho men-assigned “weaver transformed” or “that which changes,” or “he who transforms”[xxxii]
Inuit gender is “traditionally fluid and does not fit into a binary framework.”[xxxiii] Within Inuit societies, “people were able to transgress gender categories, swap roles, and assume a mixture of responsibilities within their communities.”[xxxiv] According to Birket-Smith, Inuit “personal names have no gender association – birth names can be transmitted indifferently to a boy or a girl.”[xxxv] Further, the “children are raised with cross-or-mixed gender identities.”[xxxvi] Among the “Yupiit of Alaska and the Inuit of Nunavut, the gender swapping of a child was often the prelude to becoming a shaman.”[xxxvii] Shamans, also known as “anagakkuit”[xxxviii], occupied a non-binary gender status and were often “described as conduits to nonhuman worlds; they were responsible for curing illness and misfortune, dealing with the dead and saw the future.”[xxxix]
Inuit Terms for Two-Spirit:
angakkug (“shamans” – responsible for healing and mediating – wasn’t common for Inuit women to be angakkuit, although it wasn’t unheard of)[xl]
Aranu’tiq (a gender category that is neither fully masculine nor fully feminine, but a mixture of both. Described in Chugach, Alaska)[xli]
Kippijuituq (Among Netsilik Inuit. Children raised into the opposite gender role until they undergo a rite of passage around the time of puberty. Usually male bodied children raised as girls.)[xlii]
Sipiniq (infant whose sex changes at birth)[xliii] or spelled Sipiniit[xliv]
Qaigajuariit (Inuktitut – “Two soft things rubbing together,” word for lesbian)[xlv]
Angutauqatigiik (Inuktitut – “Two hard things rubbing together,” word for gay)[xlvi]
The Métis “have a distinct worldview centred around kinship with land and their First Nations relatives.”[xlvii] Métis “peoplehood is founded on wahkotowin – a set of deep, spiritual, relational structures that guide Métis ways of being, knowing and doing.”[xlviii] Dr. Chantal Fiola notes there is “cultural overlap… shared among Métis, Anishinaabe, Inninew cultures.”[xlix] A “shared value in Cree and Métis teachings is non-interference with respect to identity – allow individuals to discover and express themselves – including gender and sexuality – so long as the individual and community are not harmed.”[l] Métis “education is gendered”[li] which is due to the heteropatriarchal norms that were embedded. As a result, “literature related to Métis Two-Spirit people, generally, and Métis Two-Spirit land-based knowledges and practices are rare.”[lii]
In Michif some terms to describe Métis gender and sexual diversity include:
si kom di loo (it’s like water, fluid)
daañ li miljeu (in the middle/centre)[liii]
[i] Indigenous in this context refers to the First Peoples of Turtle Island, what is known as North America. More specifically, in the Canadian context it is used to refer First Nations, Métis and Inuit people (Community-Based Research Centre).
[ii] Roscoe 1998, p. 7
[iii] 2Spirit Manitoba Inc.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] NWAC, p.11
[vi] McLeod & Mordoch, et al, University of Manitoba, Returning to the Circle
[vii] Thoms, 2007, p. 19
[viii] Ibid., 19
[ix] Deschamps, 1998, p. 20
[x] MMIWG final report p.239
[xi] Thomas & Jacobs, 1999, p.92-93.
[xii] Cuthand, 2017.
[xiii] Native Woman’s Association of Canada, p.14
[xiv] Community Based Research Centre, p.2
[xv] Ibid.
[xvi] MMIWG Final Report, p.335.
[xvii] Pyle, 2018, p.579
[xviii] Wilson, 2015, p. 2
[xix] Pyle, 2018, p.582
[xx] MMIWG Final Report, p. 240
[xxi] Wilson, 2015, p.2
[xxii] Chelsea Vowel https://apihtawikosisan.com/2012/03/language-culture-and-two-spirit-identity/
[xxiii] Bell, 2016, p.13
[xxiv] Deschamps, 1998, p.19
[xxv] Pruden & Edmo, Ojibwa (Chippewa) p.7
[xxvi] Ibid.
[xxvii] McLeod & Mordoch, et al, University of Manitoba, Returning to the Circle
[xxviii] Deschamps, 1998, p.17
[xxix] Pyle, 2018, p. 584
[xxx] Pruden & Edmo, p. 7
[xxxi] Meyer-Cook & Labelle, 2004, p.32 “The Dakota used the terms Winkte (double woman)
[xxxii] Ibid.
[xxxiii] (Birket-Smith 1953: et.al) as cited by Walley, 2014, p.3
[xxxiv] Ibid.
[xxxv] Saladin d'Anglure, 2014. p.137
[xxxvi] Roscoe, 1998, p.15
[xxxvii] Ibid., (cf.Sternber, 1925) as cited by Saladin d'Anglure p.138.
[xxxviii] Walley, 2018, p.28
[xxxix] Ibid.
[xl] Saladin d’Anglure, p.138
[xli] Walley, 2018, viii
[xlii] Ibid.
[xliii] Pruden & Edmo, p.7
[xliv] Saladin d'Anglure p, 143
[xlv] Native Woman’s Association of Canada, p.15
[xlvi] Ibid.
[xlvii] Walley, 2018, p. 12
[xlviii] Ibid., 11
[xlix] Ibid., 72
[l] Native Women’s Association of Canada, p. 16
[li] Ibid., 15
[lii] Ibid., 19
[liii] Ibid., 18
Bell, Nicole (2016). Mino-Bimaadiziwin: Education for the good life. Indigenous perspectives on education for well-being in Canada, 7-20.
Blankestijn, J. A. (2021). Intersecting Indigenous Identities: Recognition of Two-Spirit Identity in Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Process (Doctoral dissertation).
Cuthand, T. (2017). Indigequeer/Indigiqueer. WordPress. https://www.thirzacuthand.com/2017/05/12/indigequeerindigiqueer/
Community-Based Research Centre, & Two-Spirit Dry Lab. (n.d.). Two-Spirit Terminology Guide . Community-Based Research Centre. https://assets.nationbuilder.com/cbrc/pages/2301/attachments/original/1649805476/Final-_Two-Spirit_Terminology_guide-v4.pdf?1649805476
Deschamps, G. (1998). We Are Part of a Tradition: A guide on Two-Spirited People for First Nations Communities. 2-Spirited People of the 1st Nations.
Driskill, Q. L., Justice, D. H., Miranda, D., & Tatonetti, L. (Eds.). (2011). Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two-Spirit Literature. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
DRISKILL, Q.-L. (2004). Stolen From Our Bodies: First Nations Two-Spirits/Queers and the Journey to a Sovereign Erotic. Studies in American Indian Literatures, 16(2), 50–64. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20739500
Ferland, N. A. (2022, June 1). “We’re Still Here”: Teaching and learning about Métis women’s and two-spirit people’s relationships with land in Winnipeg. University of Saskatchewan HARVEST. https://harvest.usask.ca/handle/10388/13931
Government of Canada. (n.d.). Intersections: Indigenous and 2SLGBTQQIA+ Identities. Native Woman’s Association of Canada. https://nwac.ca/assets-knowledge-centre/2S_Intersections_Booklet_V2.pdf
McIvor, O. (2013). Protective effects of language learning, use and culture on the health and well-being of Indigenous people in Canada. Proceedings of the 17th FEL Conference. FEL XVII: Endangered Languages Beyond Boundaries: Community Connections, Collaborative Approaches and Cross-Disciplinary Research, Ottawa, ON (pp. 123-131). Foundation for Endangered Languages in association with Carleton University.
McLeod, E. A., Mordoch, Dr. E., Chartier, C., & Guillas, R. S. (n.d.). Returning to the Circle - University of Manitoba. University of Manitoba/Winnipeg Suicide Prevention Network . https://umanitoba.ca/Returning-to-the-circle.pdf
Meyercook, F., & Labelle, D. (2004). Namaji: two-spirit organizing in Montreal, Canada. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services, 16(1), 29-51.
Métis Nation of Ontario. (n.d.). In the circle - Two-Spirit Métis Awareness Resource. metisnation.org. https://www.metisnation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/2S-Awareness-Resource_2022a.pdf
National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. (2019). Reclaiming power and place. The final report of the national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. The National Inquiry. https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Final_Report_Vol_1a-1.pdf
Pruden, H., & Edmo, S. (n.d.). Two-Spirit People: Sex, Gender & Sexuality in Historic and Contemporary Native America. National Congress of American Indians. https://www.ncai.org/policy-research-center/initiatives/Pruden-Edmo_TwoSpiritPeople.pdf
Pyle, K. (2018). Naming and Claiming: Recovering Ojibwe and Plains Cree Two-Spirit Language. Transgender Studies Quarterly, 5(4), 574-588.
Saladin d'Anglure, Bernard. (2005). The 'Third Gender' of the Inuit. Diogenes. 52. 134-144.
Thomas, W., & Jacobs, S. E. (1999). “… And We Are Still here”: From Berdache to Two-Spirit People. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 23(2), 91-107.
Thoms, J. M. (2007). Leading an Extraordinary Life: Wise Practices for an HIV prevention campaign with Two-Spirit men.
2Spirit Manitoba Inc. (n.d.). About Us: Our History. 2Spirit Manitoba Inc. https://twospiritmanitoba.ca/about-us
Roscoe, Will. (1998). Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Walley, M. (2018). Examining Precontact Inuit Gender Complexity and its Discursive Potential for LGBTQ2S+ and Decolonization Movements (Doctoral dissertation, Memorial University of Newfoundland).
Wilson, Alex, Our Coming In Stories: Cree Identity, Body Sovereignty and Gender Self- Determination, Journal of Global Indigeneity, 1(1), 2015.