About a year ago, I stumbled across an acutely thought-provoking piece on the origins of the phrase "Two-Spirited." Bear in mind, my discovery was before Substack became the target of coordinated establishment hacks and attacks; see the platform's official hosting of a "post" from Taylor Lorenz where she proudly, as a village idiot showing her paint splatters, declares she "hates writing"...during an interview hosted on a service 'made' for writing.
(This is why I’m barely using the platform now aside from reposting essays.)
It doesn't get any more incoherent than that. Anyway, the failings of the platform aside, as a man married to a Métis man, the etymology of two-spirited and its historical antecedents—if any—was something I felt I should understand. Because we are, perhaps, the most historically ignorant and informationally abundant society in human history. So ignorance is not bliss; it's inexcusable.
Now, I don't want to coin or quote too heavily, or at all, from Stone Age Herbalist's extraordinary piece. I encourage you to read the entire dissertation and check his meticulous references at the end. He's a much more clinical and academic writer than I would ever aspire or hope to be, deserving of a follow on his Substack and Twitter. Conversely, I am a fantasist and deeply emotive writer, more interested in the cultural and personal impact of events. Therefore, I shall approach and explain this curious phrase and its witless proliferation from that angle. We see this term everywhere and often spouted by people so deeply invested in the equity shame game that, like any good cultist, they don't question the material they espouse.
Queer scholars would have us believe that "two-spirited" is more than just a word; it's a concept that has travelled through time and cultures, carrying layers of meaning and significance. While it's true that "two-spiritedness" encompasses Indigenous origins, those origins revolve around the harsh treatment of prisoners, the twisted pedophilic and pedastic influence of groups like the Radical Faeries, and the controversial theories and theorists that have cast shadows over LGB history.
The term "two-spirited" was not popularized within Indigenous communities in North America but in post-modern academia, mainly due to the influence of two ignoble men: Harry Hay and Will Roscoe (and a woman named Pat Califa, tangentially, too). But as a specific phrase used by ancient native people, anthropological records are, at best, sketchy and postulated. From what I can tell, there were men—almost exclusively men—who were "traded" between tribes during conquests and negotiations for peace or territory. I have seen no evidence that these trades were willing or amiable. They were mercenary exchanges like slavers swapping goods or generals trading prisoners of war. Likewise, dressing men in women's clothing was not so that these prisoners could "express their truest selves and live their authentic lives" as spiritual gurus and exchange students for another tribe.
No, Berdache prisoners, often captured during tribal conflicts, had their identities forcibly reshaped. They were relegated to roles as emasculated sexual slaves--raped and not romanced by their masters. Or they were set to work as domestic labourers with the womenfolk. What of "two-spirited" people, self-declared, within their own tribes? Understand that before the linguistic corruption of the term, it was used broadly to describe sodomites, berdache and sexually-abnormal peoples. Gregory Smithers, University of Pennsylvania, offers a compelling examination and detangling from the politicizing of the phrase in his 2014 paper: Cherokee "Two Spirits": Gender, Ritual, and Spirituality in the Native South. The year seems essential to note since the rise of woke authoritarianism and monopoly of thought hadn't yet crushed our institutions and opposing discourse. Good luck finding many papers after 2014 that don't follow the trans lobby narrative, into which two-spirited was eventually—and wrongly—claimed as evidence of transgenderism's persistence and prominence through every conceivable era of man. Objectnow, debunks this transwashing with cited sources, including Smither's piece—I'll suggest that for further reading. After all, doing your own research is a dangerous but rewarding pursuit.
Anyway, without straying too far off-topic, it's crucial to recap that not all Berdache individuals necessarily identified as "two-spirited." However, many that were traded were subjected to servile roles as a form of punishment or subjugation, typically involving performing traditionally feminine tasks.
Now that we've examined the historical application of the term, let's introduce the people who sought to invoke the phrase for modern use: the Radical Faeries. This group of scholars and activists, inspired by the countercultural movements of the 1960s and '70s, played a significant role in shaping the LGBTQ+ landscape. The term "two-spirited" gained prominence within the Radical Faeries as they drew inspiration from Indigenous cultures. As quasi-Pagans, it represented a blending of genders and an embrace of masculine and feminine qualities in an appeal to the Mother and Horned Gods. Given their nude gatherings and orgiastic rituals, you can easily argue that the group existed primarily to satiate its members' sexual desires. Still, there was a political aim of the group, with many--including its founding member, Hay, who we'll get to in a moment--being card-carrying Communists. Regardless, the Radical Faeries' adoption of "two-spiritedness" was an acknowledgment of the Indigenous concept of sexually non-dimorphic roles and behaviours mingled with the group's personal perspectives, rooted in the desire of the current zeitgeist to challenge societal norms and explore gender and sexual fluidity.
At least that's the queer-friendly version. For further confabulations, you can read Wikipedia's fawning page on the Radial Faeries. But the truth is that one of the Faeries's founding members was Harry Hay: a worldly upper-middle-class academic who immigrated from England, who fancied himself a devout, declared pedophile and was a member of NAMBLA. In several interviews and quotes, Hay expressed age of consent as an 'interpretive' experience, not tied to societal expectations but to the individual's maturation and beliefs. He's admitted to "molesting" an older man during his adolescent years, too. In fact, his experience seems formative for his theories and academic assertions to justify what is, legally and truly, child sexual abuse. The empathy he shares with his abuser is irrelevant to the legal precedents or even our evolving, mutated social norms--for now, at least. Hay's predilections are both well known and continuously handwaved by the idealogues who position him as the father of the gay rights movement. If this is the core of the gay men's movement--normalizing man and boy sex—I continue to condemn and decry the corrupt bill of goods we've been sold.
When Hay died, one of his San Franciscan acolytes, Will Roscoe, continued his mentor's work. Will Roscoe's affiliations with Pat Califia, a trans-identified female writer known for her controversial views on sexuality and gender, further shaped and twisted the aspirations of this organization. Pat Califia's work often delved into themes that pushed the boundaries of acceptable discourse. She explores, encourages and seeks to normalize BDSM and pedophilia; her general sentiment toward feminism is that its safeguarding of women and girls is a puritanical misguidance.
“American society has become rabidly phobic about any sexual contact between adults and minors,” she says.
Ah, yes, the familiar chestnut of gaslighting "phobia" at the stomach-churning revulsion of another's deviancy. The pedophile isn't wrong for thinking of diddling kids. You're the bad one for condemning his normal, explorative thoughts. Indeed, Califa—and others like her and Hay—often argue that illicit material of underage men and women should be given to pedophiles to curb their instincts just like we starve anorexics or give ipecac to bulimics, right? No. No. And more no. These small psychological nudges and shifts in language are done to incrementally desensitize you to situations you would otherwise object to.
Ultimately, we have a trifecta of perverts shaping cultural norms, language and laws to suit their appetites and agendas. The conflation of Berdache roles, traditionally servile and mimicking actions often performed by women, with our modern anthropological view of gender seems done purposefully: to erase the unappetizing but true aspects. Not all Berdache individuals necessarily identified as "two-spirited" or embraced both masculine and feminine qualities. These roles were imposed upon them as punishment or humiliation.
This conflation highlights the complexities of understanding historical gender roles within Indigenous cultures. It's a reminder that our modern perspectives on gender, sexuality, and everything, really, must be viewed in the context, beliefs and customs of the time and culture in which they emerged.
Where does that leave us? Much like John Money's grotesque body of work on transgenderism, at the epicentre of which was a pedophilic sex scandal involving two male twins, the current usage of the term "two-spirited" appears founded in the same gobbledegook jargonism, hyper-sexualism and academic word games. Gay and indigenous activists, in particular, happily embrace the verbiage colloquialized by a handful of pretentious Caucasian degenerates. You think this would be a cardinal offence, but the standards and goalposts of modern activists shift as often as the weather. Again, like the paint-smeared village idiot, our decolonizers object to stereotypes while colonializing themselves. And the adoption of "two-spirited" is not a matter of evolving language and social norms. I would similarly point to and sneer at using the "N" word as a reclaimed expression. Although, at least in that instance, the perpetuators of the phrase generally understand its historical malignancy. Ask any gay, lesbian or bisexual native person why they have "two-spirited" on their Twitter handle or why it's added to their email signature, and they're almost sure to have no idea who Hay, Roscoe and Califa were or are and the seriousness of their iniquity.
History is ugly, violent, and often nauseating to process. Reality is not the sanitized, cuddly fairy tales we share in our padded, safe spaces. If you want to proudly declare yourself "two-spirited," you can do so. But understand what you're saying, that you're a participant of gendered inculcation, not the iconoclast you believe. Know that white academics with incredibly vile beliefs, including child exploitation, created the term and that you stand for colonization, not radical activism. You are, quite plainly, not the master of your choices but the slave.
I know which one I am. Do you?