Two Spirits
Posted on: September 14, 2008 - 12:55pm
Maestro
Posts: 359
Joined: 2008-06-30
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Two Spirits
Hello,
Yesterday I enjoyed a presentation by two people from the native two spirit community and was able to speak to them afterwards. I enjoyed it very much.
A point was made that in most of the Native North American languages there were more than two genders and that some languages recognized as many as six distinct genders. These genders all had social roles to play and were honored.
It was also cool from the standpoint of the discussion of marriage where mixed orientation marriages were common with men who were idnmetified as male/hetero might take a wife who was of one of these genders and who my be physially male and not socially identified as such and that each of themn kept their own identity.
But I thought thast these ideas of more than two genders being recognized wouold be of some interest here.
Yesterday I enjoyed a presentation by two people from the native two spirit community and was able to speak to them afterwards. I enjoyed it very much.
A point was made that in most of the Native North American languages there were more than two genders and that some languages recognized as many as six distinct genders. These genders all had social roles to play and were honored.
It was also cool from the standpoint of the discussion of marriage where mixed orientation marriages were common with men who were idnmetified as male/hetero might take a wife who was of one of these genders and who my be physially male and not socially identified as such and that each of themn kept their own identity.
But I thought thast these ideas of more than two genders being recognized wouold be of some interest here.
this is just a ficade
I find the whole idea that these people were very sex positive and accepting of issues of personal identity to be very cool. Plumbing was not automatyically the frame for gender identification and they had no ideas about sexual orientation as socio sexual identities. People were identified by their social roles and who they slept with or what their plumbing was had little to do with it for many of the first nations.
Imagine if the perception of who you were, your masculinity or femininty as seen by others was based solely on who you said you were. With non idea of who you "really" are but just on who you act as and what you do among your people. Imagine if who you chose to sleep with had no bearing on how others percieve you or identify you. Imagine more that two gender catagories and no concept of sociosexual orientative catagories.
this is just a ficade