Two-Spirit
An umbrella term for Indigenous North American gender and sexuality roles. Not available to anyone else.
Two-Spirit is an umbrella term used by some Indigenous people in North America for gender and sexuality roles that exist within their own nations and do not translate into European categories. It was adopted at a gathering in Winnipeg in 1990, chosen deliberately to replace the anthropological term berdache, which was a slur imposed from outside.
It is not a single identity and it is not a synonym for trans, gay or nonbinary. Each nation has its own roles, its own words and its own history, and Two-Spirit is a term in English that sits above all of them so that people can organise together. The specific words belong to specific peoples.
The roles it points to were widespread before colonisation and were targeted directly by it. Missionaries and colonial administrations suppressed them, which is why the reclamation carries a political weight that the English-language identity words do not.
🔴 It is only available to Indigenous people. A non-Indigenous person cannot be Two-Spirit, whatever their gender, and using it is taking a word that survived an attempt to destroy the people it belongs to.
The correct way to use it about someone else is the way they use it about themselves, and the correct way to use it about yourself, if you are not Indigenous, is not to.
Two-Spirit is not a translation of nonbinary
It gets reached for as evidence that other cultures had a third gender all along, which flattens hundreds of distinct nations into one convenient example and puts them to work in someone else's argument.
It is also recent as a word, agreed in 1990, even though the roles it covers are old. Treating it as an ancient universal term misses both what it is and who decided on it.
Saying it well
Say this
- They are Two-Spirit.
- 2S, as in 2SLGBTQ+.
- A Two-Spirit person from their nation.
- I am not Indigenous, so it is not my word.
Not this
- Two-Spirit is the Native word for nonbinary
- I feel like I have two spirits
- Berdache
- Using it as a non-Indigenous person
Questions people actually ask
What does Two-Spirit mean?
An umbrella term adopted in 1990 by Indigenous people in North America for gender and sexuality roles within their own nations.
Can a non-Indigenous person be Two-Spirit?
No. It is specific to Indigenous people of North America and is not available to anyone else.
Is Two-Spirit the same as nonbinary?
No. It is not a gender identity in the European sense and covers many distinct roles across many different nations.
Where does the term come from?
It was agreed at an Indigenous LGBTQ gathering in Winnipeg in 1990, to replace the imposed anthropological term berdache.
What does the 2S in 2SLGBTQ+ stand for?
Two-Spirit, placed first in the Canadian ordering to acknowledge that those roles predate the rest of the acronym.