#two spirited

[bimdraws]

Pride art, part 3.

[prettiest-pride-flag]

Round 1, Match 135 — Two-Spirit vs. Obscurian

Which pride flag do you prefer?

Two-Spirit

Obscurian

Voting ended onMay 26

TWO-SPIRIT Definition: Two Spirit, Two-spirit, or, Two-Spirited, is an exclusive identity for Indigenous North Americans and is defined as an umbrella term for the many diverse, traditional, culturally-specific gender roles which do not fit cisheretoroperinormative standards. The term was coined for the purposes of pan-Indigenous political organizing. Unlike indigiqueer, which is a general term for being queer in an Indigenous way, two spirit is not intended to be a standalone identity. In order to be two spirit, one must hold a culturally-specific gender/social role that is recognized by one's specific Indigenous community. The roles that can be described as two spirit can vary widely. Some are ceremonial, some are social, some are spiritual, and some are combinations thereof. No single gender or sexuality category within Native American/Indigenous' cultures applies to all two spirit individuals and vice versa. Most tribes have a tribe-specific name that is used to describe a third or fourth gender category, and these categories are considered under the two spirit umbrella. Some of these gender categories encompass homosexual/homoromantic attraction; some encompass gender variance that includes individuals who in western culture may be described as gay, lesbian, bi, trans, genderqueer, GNC or those who have more than one gender identity; and some encompass sex variance that includes intersex individuals. Two-Spirit also may include relationships which are non-monogamous. As an umbrella term it can be more accurately understood as any traditionally-defined identity that does not make sense unless it is contextualized within the framework of a Native American or Indigenous traditional cultural understanding. Not all two-spirited individuals consider themselves transgender, non-binary, or LGBT+; however some two-spirited individuals do seek to be included under LGBTQIA2+, as there were Indigenous Native individuals fighting for gay rights at the Stonewall riot in 1969. Two-spirited individuals often serve a ceremonial role. In some tribes, when the term is used as an English synonym for a traditional ceremonial role, a two-spirited individual must be recognized as such by the Elders of their community. Flag creator: Unknown Colour meanings: The two feathers = woman and man, and the circle = unity in one.

OBSCURIAN Definition: Obscurian is an umbrella term for genders that are unable to be named, quantified, understood, explained, and/or determined. Obscurian is not to be confused with questioning, as a questioning person may end up having an understandable and explainable gender, and obscurian may be used as a permanent label. It is under the kenochoric umbrella. While obscurian is meant to be an umbrella term, it can also be used as a gender on its own. Flag creator: kenochoric (2020) Colour meanings: Unknown

[xtrablak674]

Self Portraits Are Always About You

[Reposted from my Apple Journal, Monday January 26th, 2026 at 7:30 a.m.]

I genuinely believe that anyone whose medium is photography, and they take self-portraits, all of their work, including photos of other people is still a self-portrait.

As an artist myself whose primary medium is the camera, I can attest that all of my work is about me, even when I am not clearly pictured. My initial exhibition theme was around my abstract works allowing me access to a wider range of venues and opportunities. But I was always more than that, and along the way my core work had always been self portraiture. A large part of this was related to my body dysmorphia, and always thinking that what I felt I looked like and how I actually looked were incongruent. I mean its a bit more than that, its literally a psychological diagnosis, so who was I to think that I could conquer it by forcing my mind to see the reality of my appearance.

Presumptuous to say the least, but that is what artist are, we are self-centered individuals usually trying to figure something out about ourselves and how we fit into the world. Even when we shift our lens to others, we are still trying to figure out who we are. This colors the work we capture of others because we resort to the same themes and explorations over and over again. Even Mapplethorpe, who I look at as a great inspiration, when I look at his work I continually just see him. Even in the cock of some anonymous Black man, I still see him reflected there within.

I myself have had a handful of models I have shot, and it's the same thing, I may be pointing the camera at them but I am capturing myself. The first one who comes to mind is Adele, who was going by Adam when I shot her. Adele clearly embodied my own two-spirited nature, even the algorithm on Tumblr thinks she was a woman, when she was still clearly in her male body. That was a conflict I always had believing myself to be someone that I wasn't, I was never a man or a boy, I obviously wasn't a girl either, I always sort of floated in the liminal space between those things. My identity wasn't monochromatic it had a dual nature that would morph depending on the time of day, my mood and the situation.

When I finally accepted that I was a transgendered non-binary person everything clicked together. Just like it did for Adele. What I love about my shoot of her is, I am respecting her in the way she deserved, which is what makes her shoot so timely even with her transition because I captured who she really was, no amount of surgeries or hormones could change that. In doing so I came to my own resolutions about myself and how I embodied my own identities and moved through the world with them.

This is what I mean, it's all a self-portrait. I could photograph my nieces, niblings and nephews, and all I am doing is showing parts of myself, parts I lost, parts I tried to recapture, and parts I cherished. It all ends up being me. My camera isn't on me as much as it used to be, but when I do point it at myself, I am still attempting to figure out am I the same person I was, and who will I be next?

[Photos Courtesy of the Brown Estate]

[mint-o-matic]

I've said this before but

"I'm [minority] but I don't wanna stick up for myself cause-!"

Give me the gun. I will shoot whatever fucker is harrasing you to hell and back. I will fill that cardiac arrested motherfuck with so many holes they could be classified as swiss cheese.

[iammisthaven]

Redesigning the Two-Spirit Flag for Pride Month 2025

𖤓 Happy Pride Month Everyone! 𖤓

I wanted to share the designs I have been working on for the Two-Spirit pride flag, as we continue the ongoing fight for LGBTQIA+ rights worldwide and honor those who have lost their lives for the movement. 

𖤓 The Original Flag 𖤓

The most prevalent Two-Spirit pride flag is the traditional pride flag (or the trans or nonbinary flag) with the symbol of a circle, denoting oneness, and two feathers, signifying female and male. This flag design was initially submitted by Tumblr user 2Sanon on December 17th, 2016. 

Although I like the traditional design, I wanted to create additional variations of the Two-Spirit flag so that our community has options as to which flag they’d like to display to celebrate their identities. I belief that the Two-Spirit flag should foster pan‐Indigenous solidarity and reject the colonial labels placed upon Indigenous LGBTQIA+ individuals. With that being said, here they are (with explanations as to my thought process)!

𖤓 Redesigned Two-Spirit Pride Flag 𖤓

For my initial redesign for the Two-Spirit pride flag, I took inspiration from Anishinaabe, Ojibwe, Mapuche, Inuit, and Sámi flags. Although that's an expansive selection, I wanted to gain a comprehensive picture of the colors which have traditionally held meaning to a variety of Indigenous peoples. It’s important to allow Two-Spirited people to attach their own meaning to the stripes and circular symbol, however, here is a guide which explains their symbolic meaning as a Two-Spirited individual to me: 

𖤓 The design contains a red stripe, which traditionally has represented global Indigenous solidarity and a call to action for the MMIW Movement. 

𖤓 Green symbolizes the Earth, healing, endurance, new growth and the sovereign rights of Indigenous peoples to their lands. 

𖤓 White, as in the transgender flag, represents those who are intersex, consider themselves to have a neutral or undefined gender, or are in the process of transitioning. 

𖤓 The lighter blue stripe represents the sky or the universe, as well as a connection with spirituality or the sacred. This specific shade of blue is drawn from the flag of Nunavut, where it represents the North Star. 

𖤓 The darker blue stripe represents knowledge and assurance, as well as the elixir of life, water. 

𖤓 The yellow circle at the center of the flag represents oneness, as the circle does in the traditional Two-Spirit flag, as well as symbolizing the sun or the moon.

A concise history of Two-Spirit identity

For those unfamiliar with the history of the term “Two-Spirit” or “Two-Spirited,” it’s an English translation of the Anishinaabemowin term niizh manidoowag. Queer Indigenous activists in Canada and the United States created the official term for alternative indigenous gender roles and identities during Third Annual Native American, First Nations, Gay & Lesbian American conference held in Manitoba in 1990. Two-Spirit identity facilitates the reclamation of indigeneity from Western discourse and combats against the settler-colonial imposition of cis-heteronormativity on indigenous peoples.

For those interested in learning more about the history of Two-Spirit identity, check out these educational articles:

What Is Two-Spirit? Part One: Origins | CMHR

Discover the history and meaning of Two-Spirit. The term speaks to community self-determination, rejects colonial gender norms and celebrate

Two Spirit and LGBTQ+ Identities: Today and Centuries Ago

Post submitted by Ana Flores, HRC Senior Manager, Inclusion, Education & Engagement

More flag designs!

A variation of my redesign without the circular symbol: 

While researching for this project, I came across this brilliant piece of artwork done for the 10th Annual International Two-Spirit Gathering held in 1997 in Onamia Minnesota. The painting is by George Littlechild and is currently held in the Oakland Museum of California. 

The following alternative redesigns for a Two-Spirit pride flag are inspired by Littlechild’s painting. The colors are drawn from his piece, but retain the same meanings for me as in the initial redesign. 

Thank you for reading this post!

I hope that everyone has a safe pride month. Here are some additional video resources on Two-Spirit identity for those who would like to learn more about how to protect and uplift the community: 

Two Spirits | Native American Gender Diversity | Independent Lens | PBS

Two Spirits explores the life and murder of a Navajo boy who was also a girl.

Links to the flags which inspired my designs: 

Sámi flag - Wikipedia

Flag of Nunavut - Wikipedia

[rainbowpasta577]

So everyone. I admit this now.

Im two spirited.

And since some of you may confuse it for me being trans; heres what I means.

As for short form; trans people feel that they have two genders mixed together.

Yet; two spirited means that I feel that I have several souls inside of me existing at the same time 24/7. (And it's a main use for Native / metis folk).

Call me whatever gender you want; just don't call me late for dinner LMAO

[queering-ecology]

LGBTQ America: A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer History—chapter 09. Sexual and Gender Diversity in Native America and the Pacific Islands by Will Roscoe. part 2

Two Spirits in Native Tradition: Roles, Genders, Identities and Diversity cont.

In the twentieth century, ‘berdache’ “became the standard anthropological term for alternative gender roles among Native Americans. By the 1980’s, however, there was call for a change among scholars. In 1990, at a gathering of Native American and First Nations people, the term ‘two-spirit(ed)’ was coined. “Today, the term is used to refer to “both male-bodied and female-bodied native people who mix, cross, or combine the standard roles of men and women” (09-5).

The author acknowledges in a footnote that the term has its limitations (translation errors, and the fact that many tribes believe that all of us have the essence/spirit of male and female in us). But none of his reasons for these limitations match with my main critique both with the term two-spirit but mostly with the way it is often spoken of. Even within the acknowledgement of individuals who do not conform 100% to the Western concept of man or woman, the people are still fit into a binary. They are referred to as ‘male bodied’ and ‘female bodied’ two-spirited people.

To me, this often feels like an easy way for people to ‘short cut’ their understanding of native genders—as soon as they understand the way someone is sexed, they can still fit that person into a category, even if those categories are imperfect. Intersexuality is a ghost when topics of sex and gender arise. More and more, we understand that sex is not immutable, it is yet another social construction—the process of someone developing in utero and then continuing to grow and change in their lifetime is so complex that very often people do not fit neatly into either the distinct category of male or female.

(See the link below for a better image of this)

Whether that is their very chromosomes, hormones, secondary or primary sex characteristics—all these things and more combine to create a person. A person whose very sex is unique to them, as their gender is unique to them. Who knows the true reality of the two-spirit’s biological sex? No one—unless they are given extensive expensive testing that has only recently become available.

The truth is that intersexuality is natural and is common in humans, even in the Western world with its biopolitical control and its dualisms. The reason two-spirit people were and are held so special is because they do not fit neatly into these categories. To me it feels a kind of modern colonial erasure to try and sex the bodies of people who often very clearly and blatantly blurred all barriers. It feels as if it misses the entire point of the term two-spirit, as least as I understand it. But, I have not read much into what other two-spirits (especially elders) think about this concept. “Two-spirit males have been documented in at least 155 tribes; in about a third of these a recognized status for females who adopted a masculine lifestyle existed as well”. (09-6) But as Roscue later adds, “absence of evidence cannot be taken as evidence of absence” (09-8).

In general, the lives of “native women have been overlooked […] and obscured by Euro-American sexual and racial stereotypes. Taking a broader view reveals that women throughout North American and the Pacific Islands often engaged in male pursuits, from hunting to warfare and tribal leadership, without necessarily acquiring a different gender identity” (09-8). Roscoe then offers some examples of Indigenous women being awesome. The author then lists examples of traditional terms for two-spirited people across various tribes and explains that many of them cannot be literally translated into gender binary terms like ‘man-woman’. “These terms have lead anthropologists, historians, and archaeologists to describe two-spirit roles as alternative or multiple genders” (09-6). In fact, “many native societies are capable of accommodating three, four, and possibly more genders, or having a gender system characterized by fluidity, transformation, and individual variation” (09-7).

The author discusses how two-spirit children were identified often as youth by the certain type of activities they liked to participate in. Oftentimes ceremonies ‘marked’ people with two-spirit status. He then goes on to discuss the other ways two-spirits lived in society. “In many instances, male and female two spirits were medicine people, healers, shamans, and ceremonial leaders” (09-8). Certain ceremonial functions were specific to two-spirits and they were often seen to hold great power (09-8). “Because two-spirits occupied a distinct gender status, their relationships were not viewed as being same-sex” (09-9). !!!! This feels so important for some reason!!

Sexual and Gender Diversity in Native Hawai’i

This section further emphases that indigenous peoples have had genders that go beyond male or female, man or woman and also that colonial violence is a tragedy. While I respect and love the people of Hawai’i and their struggles are so, so similar to Native Americans, I believe that the vast majority of Native Hawaiians do NOT consider themselves Native American (or American Indian or even just American) so my covering on this topic will be limited.

Roscoe speaks about the mahu stones that have extraordinarily sacred significance—these stones have a powerful history and connection to the mahu people (their gender diverse term). (This summary is literally so terrible and not at all a true representative of how important and beautiful this topic is, I apologize). Like the people, the stones faced colonization and were figuratively and then literally buried—“in the 1920s they were buried beneath a bowling alley” (09-15). They have since been reclaimed and are now being properly respected but, for the native peoples, “the Land inheres as sacred—beyond human perception and conception, beyond our capacities for belief and imagination—in and of itself” (09-15) and “If there were no humans on earth, they would still be sacred” (09-15). The stone’s spiritual power ‘has never been interrupted’ (09-15).