1/ Time to call on out the 2S part of the every shifting 2SLGBTQIA+ tag. Woke white people who casually use the term two-spirit are engaging in a form of cultural appropriation far more damaging than hipsters in feather headdresses.
2/ The term two-spirit was first used in 1990 at a conference in Winnipeg to describe gay and gender non-conforming people. In some indigenous cultures, it has a very specific meaning and others don't recognize it at all.
thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/two…
3/ Some indigenous communities, such as the Dakota, have an understanding of two-spirit that is quite different from contemporary theories of gender identity and does not include a 'third sex' or denial of sex differences.
genderdysphoriaalliance.com/post/two-spiri…
4/ Indigenous cultures are diverse and complex. Much traditional knowledge has been lost or distorted in the process of colonization. In some cases the only evidence we have of LGBT indigenous peoples comes from the writing of explorers and missionaries.
rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2016/1…
5/ In strongly patriarchal cultures the 2 spirit concept was used to accommodate gender non-conforming men. There were no 2 spirit women. On the other hand, the Iroquois Confederacy, where women had considerable power, did not have a 2 spirit concept.
culturallyboundgender.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/tow…
6/ While cultures vary greatly I can say without fear of contradiction that in no indigenous culture were gender non-conforming children treated with hormones and surgeries. Yet indigenous youth are over represented in Canadian gender clinics.
7/ The term 2 spirit is being used as bait to draw indigenous children into medical gender transition which represents the ultimate expression of the "settler-colonialist" ideology of domination of nature through technology.
8/ To make matters worse, many kids in the gender clinics are in foster care. That means that in their early 20s, when regret and detransition often start, they will be without any family support. There is a scandal waiting to break.
9/ A late postscript to this thread. This poem by @headwall12 provides a devastating commentary on medical transition from an indigenous perspective.
headwall.substack.com/p/flesh-offeri…
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