Two Spirited Natives On Western Wednesday...!

While many folks have questions about how we deal with and handle sexual preferences in this day and age, but as far back as we care to go in our history the questions have been handled in many different ways.

Even the Native Americans, considered by many to be "savages", dealt with the issue far better than some of us in this era of enlightenment. Maybe we should take some pointers, ya think?

Native Americans

Photo credit: The Numinous

The phrase “two-spirited” has become an LGBT catchphrase. It’s something a lot of people embrace, imagining a precolonial America in which LGBT people were celebrated. In a way, they were—but it was a bit different than most people imagine.

The concept of “two-spirited” people existed in about 130 North American tribes, which is a lot, but there were more than 500 tribes, so it was by no means the majority. Every tribe was different, too, so the details were never exactly the same.

Generally, though, a two-spirited person was someone who didn’t fit gender norms. If a young boy showed an interest in sewing, for example, or a girl showed an interest in hunting, some tribes would say that they had two spirits and would give them a special role in the community.

A two-spirited man might end up wearing women’s clothing and doing a woman’s work, but he wasn’t necessarily gay. It was perfectly natural for a two-spirited person to be heterosexual or even to switch between male and female clothes from day to day.


For savages, I'd say they handled the situation in a manner that was peaceful and certainly with more dignity than some today. More power to them is all I can say.

Coffee in the kitchen this morning, needless to say. Another storm moving in masquerading as a cold front.