On April 1, the Multicultural Student Center in the Memorial Union held an educational event as part of the Pride Week celebrations at the University of Maine. Two-Spirit 101 was hosted by the Office for Community and Connections (formerly known as ODI). Liliana Sapiel of the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes gave the presentation and led the discussion afterward. The event drew students of all backgrounds to learn more about the history of two-spirit individuals.
Two-spirit is a term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe individuals who take on a traditional third-gender role within their communities. The term was introduced in 1990, initially as a ceremonial term to promote recognition of these roles. More people have since embraced it as a way to describe their own identities. However, it’s important to remember that two-spirit isn’t universally used or accepted by all Native American cultures. Many Indigenous communities that have long recognized gender-nonconforming individuals have their unique terms and roles rooted in their specific languages and traditions.
The roles and identities of two-spirit people vary widely across different Indigenous cultures. Not all Indigenous cultures have historically recognized gender-variant roles, and even among those that do, the specific roles and understandings of gender and sexuality can be quite different. This means that no single Indigenous culture’s approach to gender applies universally across all Native peoples. The term is an umbrella term used to help unite a vast number of members of Indigenous peoples who are all diverse, creating a community and helping bring these identities back from cultural extinction. Most of the traditions around them all but stopped as the Europeans colonized America, forcing many Natives into boarding schools that erased culture, language and identity.
Two-Spirit is also uniquely Indigenous and would not make sense to those who don’t belong to that community. It would be seen as cultural appropriation if the individual doesn’t have the cultural connection to the ancestral history of the role in the environment they grew up in. Likewise, the term is not synonymous with nonbinary or trans, as not all queer Indigenous people identify as two-spirit.
Sapiel suggested that students who want to learn more about two-spirit individuals should discuss it with members of Indigenous groups, like Geo Neptune, a two-spirit member of the Passamaquoddy tribe and a master basket weaver. Sapiel then opened up the floor for different groups to discuss people’s backgrounds and their information on two-spirit going into it. Many discussed the valuable information they had learned from Sapiel’s presentation. The guests in attendance then asked if they had anything like it in their cultures, with many of the attendees expressing their or others from their communities’ stories about gender expression, with examples from India, Navajo, Taiwan, and others.
“The Contributions of Two-Spirit and LGBTQ Indigenous people cannot be overstated, and their presence in our communities can not be over-appreciated,” said Sapiel.
Two-spirit 101 was an educational, enlightening information session with passionate speakers and open discussion. It was certainly worthwhile to attend, especially because it was open to people of all backgrounds who had interest in learning more about two-spirit individuals and how they are integrated with the LGBTQ+ community as a whole.
