Any turtle islanders could help me learn more about two spirits, “2SLGBTQ?” and modernities?

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[–] 3 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Starting with, I am not two-spirit, I just know some people who are.

So, here are some random points

At one point it was used to describe, in English, non-euro-centric gender roles that exist within many of the Canadian First Nation tribes. Previous words (often used by non-native people) to describe those roles would often just be slurs. It's one term to try to describe something in many different cultures. It is an English-Language term, not a traditional native one.

There are hundreds of recognised tribes in North America, with many different belief systems and cultures. Trying to lump them together as one is kinda like saying the ever country in Europe is the same. So, the term is kinda hard to pin down, and it also doesn't apply to every tribe.

It very-specifically does not mean that you have the spirit of a woman and the spirit of a man.

Its meaning has expanded, and I've seen it used catch-all for LGBTQ+ by native people, often as a way to reject the idea that they need to fit into euro-centric cultural boxes. I also know that some people refuse to use it, because they feel it's something that is sometimes pushed onto them by outside sources (aka, well-intentioned white people), or it doesn't really fit into the historic cultural beliefs of the tribe they are from, or they just don't want to use it.
(see also "Native American" vs "First Nations" vs "Indian")

Something important: It is not an identity you can have if you are not from one of the tribes who lands are within the current Canadian or United States boarders.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 3 days ago (2 children)

    Interesting, thank you.

    So it's a colonial term catch-all for “queer” today, without the granularity of the gender roles, if at all, few tribe members had within those tribe’s social agreements.

    So def. a term that can be reappropriated by bigots, because it's unclaimed so many people. Though some claim it.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    It's used to replace other terms that were/are being used, but the term itself was made by first nation people.

    So, because the term was coined by people to refer to themselves, it's not really a colonial term, even if it's often used in place of other "colonial terms".

    Also, the old terms used to describe the non-eurocentric gender/sexual roles often. had roots in words from the language of one of the first nations, they were just being applied to multiple groups from multiple languages, and sometimes the root they used was for something like a prostitute.

    Like everything else, it's messy and complicated l, and basically any answer is at least a little bit wrong.

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