No Gender November №5: The Third Gender
Take it from the Navajo, expanding gender expands potential.
Note: This is part of the November 2018 “No Gender November” portrait series on my 6yo’s lunch notes. Follow along and learn non-binary with me!
< №4 Work | << Start at the beginning | №6 Multi Dimensional Being>
This is Hosteen Klah, a Navajo artist and medicine man. Well “man” is inaccurate here. Hosteen was a lot of things including a Nádleehi — a Navajo gender status meaning “one who is transformed” or “one who changes”. Nádleehi are born anatomically male, female or intersex. What’s interesting to me is what Klah accomplished in a life never framed by binary thinking.
Unencumbered by stigma, Klah attained master status in weaving (a traditionally female craft), chanting and sand painting (traditionally male roles). Starting each from a young age without question he was trained in and excelled in each art to national recognition and the chance to found the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe.
Though this one isn’t a lunch note, it does influence how I want to parent Max and Ezra. Klah’s life for me has made me question what binary thinking has kept me from, and in return them. I don’t want them to be held back from anything, ever. When they tell me what is a girl song, or a girl color I already see that thinking seeping in. So far I’ve learned to simply remind them “color is for everybody”, “music is for everybody.” I’d like to think I’m helping to raise a generation of XYs that think multidimensionally. What do you think?
