During my reading of shamanism material I came across the term two-spirit. Two spirit is a term for gay Native Americans. Does anyone here think of themselves as a two spirit? What does that term mean to you spiritually and culturally?
If you're non-native you need to not take the concept of two-soul people and try to apply it to yourself. It's a role with great cultural significance to a lot of tribes and nations that doesn't need to be co-opted and bastardized by non-native people to fit an already highly appropriative, colonizer society's romantic idea.
Pansy, I really don't think that biggayguy meant any harm. Here's the wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-Spirit Personally, I find it fascinating, because it seems to correlate with oriental philosophies of ying and yang. If metaphysical concepts can be given gender-specific norms, then I think a healthy person would be a balanced one. That is, men who are capable of compassion to nurture and care for people, and women who are capable of aggression for the purpose of self defence. I personally always hated the expression, 'he's in touch with his feminine side.' I personally don't think that metaphysical concepts can be associated with gender, but while some may be more prevalent with a specific gender, a strive for balance is a healthy thing.
I dunno... sometimes I feel like I was supposed to be a guy and cross dress as one and other times I have the need to be girly and wear make up and dresses... is that what you meant by two-spirited? though i don't think i would call it that.. :O
I believe in soul mates, but the 2 spirit thing kind of sounds like they thought if a guy was gay, then he was more feminine, and therefore his body contained both a male and female spirit, and the reverse of this would be for lesbians. Im not sure if that's accurate, but if it is, then it sounds like stereotypical garbage. That's just what I got from it though, so the real meaning could be completely different.
Two-spirit is not the same thing as being gay. It transcends the concept of being gay/bi/straight. If I were born into a Native-American culture I might have identified that way, but since it's not part of my culture or heritage, I don't. I do think it's really a neat concept and a brilliant part of the culture though.
I've always thought the term was used to describe gender roles and identities, rather than sexuality. Anyway, for me, gender has less to do with being masculine or feminine, since there are plenty of feminine gay men who are comfortable with their maleness, and transwomen who are into traditional masculine activities, just to give a few examples. It runs deeper than stereotypes... I guess for me, it's more like feeling apart from "male" and "female", yet also able to blend in with and identify with either at times.
I have nothing but respect for native culture. Can we not learn more about spirituality from native americans?
Please feel free to learn about other cultures!! Educating yourself is a beautiful thing. Learning about other cultures and appropriating parts of them you think are neat are two very different items. I seriously don't encourage white people to use indian cultural ideas to their advantage, because it's often coupled with ignoring the strife those cultures have faced by white-washing (for example, I know more people in my family who would admonish gender variance than those who understand and embrace the idea of two soul people, due to the influence of Christianity on our culture). This is especially true for ndn cultures, because of the rampant misrepresentation in media. It's very troublesome, because it continues to promote the romantic, dead race idea that leaves us incredibly marginalized! I'd be very interested in hearing about any other natives who identify as two-soul or the same in their cultures. I don't, because for lakota tradition it's really not the equivalent of just being queer, it's a very spiritual role that I wouldn't be able to fulfill because of my distance from the original culture. It's very interesting.
This is really upsetting to hear. In my youth I had many a heated debate about the topic of your people with equally hot-blooded and proud Americans. Many people claim to believe what can be scientifically proved and genuinely believe they are learning factual truths. They are totally and utterly ignorant to the fact that science itself can be manipulated and which information is made public can be, and often is, controlled by humans with agendas. In effect, they believe what they are told with blind faith, because they want to. I'm starting to see an alarming bias, especially in sites like Wikipedia. I'm so sorry to hear that the crimes against your people continues to suffer the ignorance of modern man's "science".
