The Native American’s “Two Spirit” People
Native American culture has a long history of holding androgynous people, intersex, masculine females, and feminine males in high regard. Today, the most common way to define such people is to say that they are “two-spirit” people.
In the past, the early French explorers called feminine males “berdache” from the Persian word “bardaj.” This term meant an intimate male friend. Many of the androgynous males married masculine men while the masculine females had feminine women as wives. However, many Native Americans focused on the person’s spiritual gifts.
In the Native American belief, everything that exists comes from the spirit world. They see transgender or androgynous people as doubly blessed because they believe they have both the spirit of a woman and a man. They honor these people for having two spirits, seeing them as more spiritually gifted.
So, instead of stigmatizing these people, many Native American religions look to them as teachers and religious leaders.
Rather than emphasize a person’s physical body, Native Americans focused on the person’s character, or “spirit”, as being the most important aspect of them. Instead of looking at a two-spirit person as someone trying to make themselves into “the opposite sex,” they found that it was more accurate to understand them as people who take…
