i feel like there’s this huge misconception in lgbt circles about twospirit people. let me make something clear: being twospirit is not being nonbinary, genderfluid, etc. it’s a catch-all term for lgbt ndns that originated in 1990 as a pan-indian term for us, due to colonialism stealing the way that many of our nations described lgbt people (or didn’t, because some nations didn’t have a concept or word for lgbt people).
depending on the nation, twospirit people have different roles and meanings. most nations tended to use these identities to describe trans fem people/gay men (though some nations of course did and still do have separate vocabulary for trans masc people/lesbians and third gender people). one thing that historical and contemporary twospirit identities have in common is (a) importance in ceremony, and (b) being connected to our cultures in a way that they cannot exist outside of a cultural context, because “at the core of contemporary two-spirit identities is ethnicity, an awareness of being native american as opposed to being white or being a member of any other ethnic group” (jacob, s). contemporary twospirit identity was created to distinguish us and our unique struggles from the mainstream (white) lgbt community who never have, and likely never will, care about our struggles. in fact, many twospirit people dont consider themselves lgbt due to our alienation.
so basically: if you’re not indigenous and you choose to use twospirit as a way to prove a point in an argument or to give yourself wokeness points, stop. you don’t know what you’re talking about, and it will never be the place of a colonizer to define our identities for us. our identity is not “queer”, it’s cultural.
going through the TFA Allspark Almanac made me want to draw my version of human prowl, and so I did, using the base from the holoform prowl in the show ahah. *sobs* he’s so handsome…
