On this day, 4 August 1990, the term "Two-Spirit", for Indigenous people "who embody diverse (or non-normative) sexualities, genders, gender roles, and/or gender expressions", was adopted at the 3rd Annual Gathering of Native American Gays and Lesbians being held in Beausejour, Manitoba, Canada.
First Nations Cree, counsellor, administrator, mentor and elder, Dr Myra Laramee brought the term to a sharing circle of 80 Indigenous LGBT+ people from across North America at the 1990 Gathering, and it was quickly adopted.
Another attendee, Albert McLeod, a Two-Spirit elder with Nisichawayasihk Cree and Metis ancestry, commented that: “It is important to note that with the assertion of this new term, it was an act of sovereignty of body and land.”
As Harlan Pruden, the managing editor of the Two-Spirit Journal, put it: "[Two-Spirit evokes] the time before the harshness of colonisation where many, not all, First Peoples had traditions and ways that were non-binary, where some Nations had 3, 4, 5, 6, or even 7+ different genders and these genders were not only accepted and honoured but also had distinct roles within their respective Nations. Today, we would generally refer to these individuals as Two-Spirit.”
Learn more about this in our new book, Be Gay, Do Crime: Everyday Acts of Queer Resistance and Rebellion, available for preorder with global shipping: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/be-gay-do-crime-everyday-acts-of-queer-resistance-and-rebellion
Pictured: We'wha, c1886. We'wha was a Zuni lhamana, who are people with typically male bodies who take on at least some social and ceremonial roles of women, and sometimes wear women's clothes. Some lhamana today identify as Two-Spirit.
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