This section of the guide features books, films, and other resources by 2 Spirit and Indigiqueer people.
2 Spirit or 2S or Two Spirit - "used by some Indigenous people to describe their sexual, gender and/or spiritual identity. The creation of the term “two-spirit” is attributed to Elder Myra Laramee, who proposed its use during the Third Annual Inter-tribal Native American, First Nations, Gay and Lesbian American Conference, held in Winnipeg in 1990. The term is a translation of the Anishinaabemowin term niizh manidoowag, two spirits." from Re:searching for 2SLGBTQA+ Health
Indigiqueer - used by some LGBTQIA+ Indigenous people who feel that two-spirit does not describe their identity. Coined by TJ Cuthand in 2004 (also spelled Indigequeer or Indige-Queer)
It is important to note that not all queer Indigenous people identify with either of these terms, and may instead or additionally use terms specific to their language and culture; further, that the concept of Two Spirit is not universal to all Native American worldviews. Finally, it is essential in learning about 2S and queer Indigenous people that although the terms 2 Spirit and Indigiqueer are relatively new, they have a long history pre-dating colonization.
References: Native Governance Center, The Indigenous Foundation, 2-Spirited People of the First Nations
A Two-Spirit Journey is Ma-Nee Chacaby's extraordinary account of her life as an Ojibwa-Cree lesbian. Chacaby's story is one of enduring and ultimately overcoming the social, economic, and health legacies of colonialism.
One Bead at a Timeis the oral memoir of Beverly Little Thunder, a two-spirit Lakota Elder from Standing Rock, who has lived most of her life in service to Indigenous and non-Indigenous women in vast areas of both the United States and Canada. Transcribed and edited by two-spirit Métis writer Sharron Proulx-Turner, Little Thunder's narrative is told verbatim, her melodious voice and keen sense of humour almost audible overtop of the text on the page.
Part manifesto, part memoir, This Wound Is a World is an invitation to "cut a hole in the sky / to world inside." Belcourt issues a call to turn to love and sex to understand how Indigenous peoples shoulder their sadness and pain without giving up on the future. His poems upset genre and play with form, scavenging for a decolonial kind of heaven where "everyone is at least a little gay."
This poetry collections focuses on a hybridized Indigiqueer Trickster character named Zoa who brings together the organic (the protozoan) and the technologic (the binaric) in order to re-beautify and re-member queer Indigeneity. This Trickster is a Two-Spirit / Indigiqueer invention that resurges in the apocalypse to haunt, atrophy, and to reclaim. Following oral tradition (à la Iktomi, Nanaboozho, Wovoka), Zoa infects, invades, and becomes a virus to canonical and popular works in order to re-centre Two-Spirit livelihoods.
Evolving from a conversation between Joshua Whitehead and Angie Abdou, Indigiqueerness is part dialogue, part collage, and part memoir. Beginning with memories of his childhood poetry and prose and travelling through the library of his life, Whitehead contemplates the role of theory, Indigenous language, queerness, and fantastical worlds in all his artistic pursuits. This volume is imbued with Whitehead's energy and celebrates Indigenous writers and creators who defy expectations and transcend genres.
As a gay Native artist, Gibson explores in his work issues of oppression and civil rights in America, as well as universal ideas of love, community, strength, vulnerability, and survival. This magnificent volume focuses on nearly 60 works completed in the last decade, including culturally adorned punching bags, three-dimensional figurative works, text-based wall hangings, painted works on rawhide and canvas, and light and video works.
This exciting and groundbreaking fiction anthology showcases a number of new and emerging 2SQ (Two-Spirit and queer Indigenous) writers from across Turtle Island. These visionary authors show how queer Indigenous communities can bloom and thrive through utopian narratives that detail the vivacity and strength of 2SQness throughout its plight in the maw of settler colonialism's histories. Love after the End demonstrates the imaginatively queer Two-Spirit futurisms we have all been dreaming of since 1492. Contributors include Darcie Little Badger, Mari Kurisato, Kai Minosh Pyle, David Alexander Robertson, and jaye simpson.
An anthology of works by Two-Spirit Transgender, Intersex, & Gender Non-Conforming Native American Artists
This landmark collection strives to reflect the complexity of identities within Native Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Two-Spirit (GLBTQ2) communities. Collaboratively, the pieces in Sovereign Erotics demonstrate not only the radical diversity among the voices of today's Indigenous GLBTQ2 writers but also the beauty, strength, and resilience of Indigenous GLBTQ2 people in the twenty-first century.
Inspired by the civilizations of the Pre-Columbian Americas and woven into a tale of celestial prophecies, political intrigue, and forbidden magic, this epic adventure explores the decadence of power amidst the weight of history and the struggle of individuals swimming against the confines of society and their broken pasts in this "absolutely tremendous" (S.A. Chakraborty, nationally bestselling author of The City of Brass) and most original series debut of the decade.
Return to The Meridian with New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Roanhorse's sequel to the most critically hailed epic fantasy of 2020 Black Sun--finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Lambda, and Locus awards.
A unique, shattering vision of Indigenous life, full of grit, glitter, and dreams. "You're gonna need a rock and a whole lotta medicine" is a mantra that Jonny Appleseed, a young Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer, repeats to himself in this vivid and utterly compelling debut novel by poet Joshua Whitehead.
A sweeping history of Indigenous traditions of gender, sexuality, and resistance that reveals how, despite centuries of colonialism, Two-Spirit people are reclaiming their place in Native nations. Reclaiming Two-Spirits decolonizes the history of gender and sexuality in Native North America. It honors the generations of Indigenous people who had the foresight to take essential aspects of their cultural life and spiritual beliefs underground in order to save them.
"This book is an imagining." So begins this collection examining critical, Indigenous-centered approaches to understanding gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, and Two-Spirit (GLBTQ2) lives and communities and the creative implications of queer theory in Native studies. This book is not so much a manifesto as it is a dialogue--a "writing in conversation"--among a luminous group of scholar-activists revisiting the history of gay and lesbian studies in Indigenous communities while forging a path for Indigenous-centered theories and methodologies.
The first book to take an in-depth look at contemporary American Indian gender diversity. Drawing on a wealth of observations from interviews, oral histories, and meetings and ceremonies, Brian Joseph Gilley provides an intimate view of how Two-Spirit men in Colorado and Oklahoma struggle to redefine themselves and their communities.
In Cherokee Asegi udanto refers to people who either fall outside of men's and women's roles or who mix men's and women's roles. Asegi, which translates as "strange," is also used by some Cherokees as a term similar to "queer." For author Qwo-Li Driskill, asegi provides a means by which to reread Cherokee history in order to listen for those stories rendered "strange" by colonial heteropatriarchy. As the first full-length work of scholarship to develop a tribally specific Indigenous Queer or Two-Spirit critique, Asegi Stories examines gender and sexuality in Cherokee cultural memory, how they shape the present, and how they can influence the future.
Powerful stories of "Metis futurism" that envision a world without violence, capitalism, or colonization. "Education is the new buffalo" is a metaphor widely used among Indigenous peoples in Canada to signify the importance of education to their survival and ability to support themselves, as once Plains nations supported themselves as buffalo peoples. The assumption is that many of the pre-Contact ways of living are forever gone, so adaptation is necessary. But Chelsea Vowel asks, "Instead of accepting that the buffalo, and our ancestral ways, will never come back, what if we simply ensure that they do?"
Edited by Lindsey Mantoan, Angela Farr Schiller and Leanna Keyes, the plays selected explicitly call for trans characters as central protagonists in order to promote opportunities for trans performers, making this an original and necessary publication for both practical use and academic study.
With a focus on historic sites, this volume explores the recent history of non- heteronormative Americans from the early twentieth century onward and the places associated with these communities. Authors explore how queer identities are connected with specific places: places where people gather, socialize, protest, mourn, and celebrate.
This new volume offers a broad overview of topics pertaining to gender-related health, violence, and healing. Employing a strength-based approach (as opposed to a deficit model), the chapters address the resiliency of Indigenous women and two-spirit people in the face of colonial violence and structural racism. The book centers the concept of "rematriation"--the concerted effort to place power, peace, and decision making back into the female space, land, body, and sovereignty--as a decolonial practice to combat injustice.
This book offers insights from young trans, queer, and two-spirit Indigenous people in Toronto who examine the breadth and depth of meanings that two-spirit holds. Tracing the refusals and desires of these youth and their communities, Urban Indigenous Youth Reframing Two-Spirit expands critical conversations on queerness, Indigeneity, and community and simultaneously troubles the idea that articulating a definition of two-spirit is a worthwhile undertaking.
Sherenté Mishitashin "Being Thunder" Harris, a Two Spirit Genderqueer teenager from the Narragansett tribe in Rhode Island, boldly challenges the status quo of what it means to be a queer indigenous person in a world bound by binary gender roles. (1 hour 25 minute runtime, streaming video)
Indigenous dancers Sean and Adrian challenge the rulebook of San Manuel's Native American Sweetheart Special as they attempt to compete in the annual couple's competition. Dancing not only against the other dancers, but against the drums of oppression and closed-mindedness, this two-spirit couple is determined to rewrite the rules of "one man, one woman" with their resplendent charisma, character and resilience. (13 minute runtime, streaming video)
In this upbeat and empowering film, Native American lesbians and gay men speak of their unique historical and spiritual role. Within the Native American community, homosexuality was traditionally associated with the power to bridge worlds. Interviews with leading activists and personal testimony attest to the positive and painful experiences of being Native and gay. Produced by Smith (Dakota) for the Minnesota American Indian AIDS Task Force to raise issues of homophobia within the Indian community, this ground-breaking documentary is also an important contribution to culturally sensitive discussions of homosexuality. (15 minute runtime, streaming video)
In the lavishly staged satire "Miss Chief: Justice of the Piece," Miss Chief,--the glamorous, powerful, mythical alter ego of artist Kent Monkman--as well as a host of other performers, illuminate policies that determine Native American identity. Unlike other populations in North America, Indians are defined not solely by self-designation, but by laws (some originating from archaic notions of biological race such as blood quantum) that measure one's heredity by percentages. Miss Chief has decided to take the ultimate political stand against these laws and create her own nation and is looking for members. But, as is common with Miss Chief, her invitation is a grand event. (30 minute runtime, on DVD - need a DVD player? Borrow a DVD or Blu-ray drive from the Libraries!)