Two-Spirit a memory, a gift.
Two-Spirit is a term used by Indigenous peoples to [Occupied] Turtle Island and [Occupied] Abya Yala.
Turtle Island stretches from Alaska down to Mexico. Anything below that is Abya Yala. The entire landmass you know as “The Americas” was once ALL of Turtle Island.
The term Two-Spirit describes Native Americans, as in those who are Indigenous to any portion of The Americas, people in their community who fulfill a specific tribal-nation-defined gender, ceremonial, spiritual, and social role within their cultures.
In some Native cultures being two-spirit is also a part of the person’s sexuality.
The term Two-Spirit originated in 1990 at the Third Annual Inter-tribal Native American, First Nations, Gay and Lesbian American Conference in Winnipeg when Cree elder, Myra Laramee received a vision.
Two-Spirit is a translation of “niizh manidoowag” or “two spirits” in the Anishinaabe language.
This term gives access to those Indigenous people who have been detribalized and had their language fall victim to the genocide of colonization. Specific terms for each tribal nation should be used in context with respect to those peoples.
A person is born two-spirit, often identified as such at birth, designation received via elders.
ONLY INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF OCCUPIED TURTLE ISLAND AND OCCUPIED ABYA YALA (post-colonization the Americas.)
If you are not Native, using this term, assigning it to yourselves is a violation of our culture and spirituality. Not all QUEER and TRANS NATIVES are two-spirit.
This term is one we give to non-Natives to describe us, however if a two-spirit person has a specific term use it Example) the Lakota have “winkte. Quechua people have the term “quariwarmi”or “man-woman. In Oaxaca, Mexico there are muxes.
The term to acknowledge the specific intersectionality of 2SLGBTQIA+ Indigenous peoples is Indigequeer.
Modern peoples often conflate transgender with two-spirit. They are not the same. Two-spirit is not under a colonial umbrella structure. Two-spirit people can be transgender, but it does not mean that all two-spirit people are transgender.
Two-spirit people experience the same systems of marginalization within their own culture as those who are not Indigenous.
We cannot skip over acknowledging the unique experience of two-spirit that runs parallel to that of women and girls.
MMIWG2S = Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two Spirit
It's a community grassroots movement raising awareness addressing the lack of systemic and societal response when Native women, girls, and Two Spirit people go missing or are murdered.
*Indigenous boys & men are also often subject to racialized violence due to not conforming to colonialism and/or the gender binary.
The Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women
Selected Resources:
Spaces Between Us: Queer Settler Colonialism and Indigenous Decolonization by Scott Lauria Morgensen
Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America by Will Roscoe
Decolonizing Trauma Work: Indigenous Stories and Strategies by Renee Linklater
Legacy: Trauma, Story, and Indigenous Healing by Suzanne Methot