Transgender "Two Spirit" World
One of my favorite topics and one I still haven't researched as much as I like; is the status and relationships transgendered individuals carried on in ancient cultures. Specifically Native American.
The "she wired" site posted a Thanksgiving article reminding us the holiday is not a day of celebration for Native Americans but a day of mourning. In many ways Thanksgiving 1621 was the beginning of persecution and genocide for the numerous tribes.
The "Reverend Irene Moore" went on to remember the role of "two spirited" transgender individuals in the native cultures and how the culture changed:
"Homophobia is not indigenous to Native American culture. Rather, it is one of the many devastating effects of colonization and Christian missionaries that today Two-Spirits may be respected within one tribe yet ostracized in another.
"Homophobia was taught to us as a component of Western education and religion," Navajo anthropologist Wesley Thomas has written. "We were presented with an entirely new set of taboos, which did not correspond to our own models and which focused on sexual behavior rather than the intricate roles Two-Spirit people played. As a result of this misrepresentation, our nations no longer accepted us as they once had."
Traditionally, Two-Spirits symbolized Native Americans' acceptance and celebration of diverse gender expressions and sexual identities. They were revered as inherently sacred because they possessed and manifested both feminine and masculine spiritual qualities that were believed to bestow upon them a "universal knowledge" and special spiritual connectedness with the "Great Spirit." Although the term was coined in the early 1990s, historically Two-Spirits depicted transgender Native Americans. Today, the term has come to also include lesbian, gay, bisexual, and intersex Native Americans.
How unfortunate we weren't influenced more by the ancient cultures. How much easier would life have been?
The "she wired" site posted a Thanksgiving article reminding us the holiday is not a day of celebration for Native Americans but a day of mourning. In many ways Thanksgiving 1621 was the beginning of persecution and genocide for the numerous tribes.
The "Reverend Irene Moore" went on to remember the role of "two spirited" transgender individuals in the native cultures and how the culture changed:
"Homophobia is not indigenous to Native American culture. Rather, it is one of the many devastating effects of colonization and Christian missionaries that today Two-Spirits may be respected within one tribe yet ostracized in another.
"Homophobia was taught to us as a component of Western education and religion," Navajo anthropologist Wesley Thomas has written. "We were presented with an entirely new set of taboos, which did not correspond to our own models and which focused on sexual behavior rather than the intricate roles Two-Spirit people played. As a result of this misrepresentation, our nations no longer accepted us as they once had."
Traditionally, Two-Spirits symbolized Native Americans' acceptance and celebration of diverse gender expressions and sexual identities. They were revered as inherently sacred because they possessed and manifested both feminine and masculine spiritual qualities that were believed to bestow upon them a "universal knowledge" and special spiritual connectedness with the "Great Spirit." Although the term was coined in the early 1990s, historically Two-Spirits depicted transgender Native Americans. Today, the term has come to also include lesbian, gay, bisexual, and intersex Native Americans.
How unfortunate we weren't influenced more by the ancient cultures. How much easier would life have been?
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