The cultural world of the Two Spirit, the traditional role of Native individuals believed to possess both male and female spirit, is explored in both “old ways” and current-day experiences. Cultural beliefs and meanings around sexual identity are discussed from a Native perspective with recommendations for counseling Two Spirit clients.
Research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and other sexual-minority (two-spirit) American Indians/Alaska Natives is sparse. Existing epidemiologic data, however, indicate that the general American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) population is at disproportionately greater risk for poorer general health and physical pain and impairment. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, in 2004 American Indians/Alaska Natives had…
Synthesis of current research with the self-stories of Native American two-spirit, lesbian and gay people suggests differences in social locations that may produce sexual orientation identity development processes absent from the current literature. We employed a modified form of grounded theory analysis to explore the identity experiences of six self-identified two-spirit, lesbian or gay Native…
The institution of berdache in aboriginal North America is a relatively well-known phenomena among social scientists, yet a thorough, comprehensive investigation of the institution is lacking. In general, it involved a socially recognized means by which an individual might assume the dress, role, and status of the opposite sex. In this paper, the institution of…
Despite the prominence of poverty in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, two-spirit, and other sexual and gender minorities (LGBTQ2S+) in Canada, studies that centre the material conditions of these groups as sites of inquiry remain scant. Accordingly, in this paper we present an intersectional narrative review of the limited Canadian literature on LGBTQ2S+ poverty. We…
Indigenous sexual and gender minority people have been identifying as two-spirit since 1990 and are reclaiming traditional Indigenous gender terms such as nádleehí or agokwe. At the same time, Settler-dominated communities are undergoing a cultural shift toward challenging binary categories of sex and gender, causing some Settler governments to adopt a multigender framework reminiscent of…
Abstract Background: Systematic efforts of assimilation removed many Native children from their tribal communities and placed in non-Indian-run residential schools. Objectives: To explore substance use and mental health concerns among a community-based sample of 447 urban two-spirit American Indian/Alaska Native adults who had attended boarding school as children and/or who were raised by someone who…
Indigenous feminist and LGBTQ/Two-Spirit criticisms have established the ineluctably gendered and sexual quality of settlers’ attempted conquest of indigenous peoples. This literature teaches that heteropatriarchal colonialism has sexualised indigenous lands and peoples as violable, subjugated indigenous kin ties as perverse, attacked familial ties and traditional gender roles, and all to transform indigenous peoples for assimilation…
Archive News Vol. 3 No. 1 (October, 1992) Bulletin of the Trans-Gender Archive A News and Information Bulletin for the International Trans-Gender Community
FIERCE FEMMES AND NOTORIOUS LIARS: A DANGEROUS TRANS GIRL’S CONFABULOUS MEMOIR is the highly sensational, ultra-exciting, sort-of true coming-of-age story of a young Asian trans girl, pathological liar, and kung-fu expert who runs away from her parents’ abusive home in a rainy city called Gloom. Striking off on her own, she finds her true family…