Two-spirits: identity and culture

Historical truth about the diverse gender expressions and fluid sexuality of some Native peoples has almost been lost amidst favored stereotypes of overtly masculine warriors and the soft-spoken, silken-haired beauties they fought over; however, anthropological records-though touched by personal bias and unfair exclusions-offer good evidence of Native societies that wholly embraced and even revered those within their community who fell outside the gender binary: in English, the contemporary cross-cultural term for these people is "two-spirit."The implications of this term are vastly different than might be assumed; as such, it is often dealt with apart from the Western LGBT umbrella.A thick line justifies the separation here: a line of diverse yet comparable cultures, traditions, and even spirituality that, by its very nature, cannot be tossed together with a globalized notion of alternative gender and sexuality.In essence, to dissolve the term "two-spirit" (and all the more numerous traditional terms implied there within) into the Western LGBT umbrella is to assimilate a wealth of connected cultural identities; however, this cannot be understood without first examining the role of two-spirits in the historical records of their peoples, and in turn, acknowledging their post-colonial need to reclaim this identity.