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Nov 14, 20222 min read

What is Two-Spirit Identity?

Updated: Feb 26, 2024

For today’s post as part of our Native American Heritage Month series, let’s define and learn more about the origin and meaning of the term ‘Two-Spirit.’ We call on you to continue to find ways to ensure that Native and Indigenous histories and voices are heard, affirmed, and uplifted in your communities and workplaces.




Defining "Two-Spirit"

  • Two-Spirit is a contemporary term used to describe sexual, gender and/or spiritual identity by some Native and Indigenous people.

  • Two-Spirit is often used as an umbrella term, as there are a variety of queer, genderfluid and gender-nonconforming identities in different Native and Indigenous groups.

  • The umbrella term is used by some to refer to all queer Native and Indigenous identities, but more often describes identities that resist and fall outside colonial gender binaries.

Origins of the Term

  • The term "Two-Spirit" was coined in 1990 at the 3rd Annual Intertribal Native American, First Nations, Gay + Lesbian American Conference in Winnipeg. It originated as a translation of the Anishinaabemowin term niizh manidoowag

  • “Two-Spirit” was proposed as an alternative term for the offensive and derogatory non-Native term berdache that was being used by anthropologists to inaccurately and imprecisely describe Native and Indigenous individuals whose social functions were outside traditional gender roles, or whose gender or sexual identities fell outside cisheterosexual Western norms.

  • Creating the pan-Indian term "Two-Spirit" was meant to resist colonization and erasure.

Two-Spirit is not interchangeable with LGBTQIA+.

  • Many Two-Spirit people can also identify with non-Native LGBTQIA+ identities, but Two-Spirit identity centers an individual’s indigeneity within their gender, sexual, and spiritual identity.

  • Two-Spirit identity should only be claimed by Native and Indigenous peoples.

Native and Indigenous Relationships to Two-Spirit Identity are Diverse.

  • In some tribes, Two-Spirit individuals identify as having both a masculine and a feminine spirit, and in other tribes, Two-Spirit individuals identify as a distinct alternative gender outside the binary.

  • Many gender-nonconforming Indigenous and Native peoples prefer to go by terms for describing their gender or sexuality that are specific to their tribe and its language. Additionally, not every tribe has a traditional word or phrase for Two-Spirit or queer identity, and not every tribe holds Two-Spiritedness as part of their worldview.

  • Historically, Two-Spirit people have often taken on various specialized work roles and spiritual or religious statuses. Two-Spirit individuals were often celebrated and held sacred for their unique roles and abilities in the arts, as healers, and in ceremonial leadership.

It is important to remember that many Native tribes and peoples did not hold binary conceptions of binary gender until after colonization. Before colonization, many Native American cultures recognized three to five gender roles.


According to the National Action Plan on MMIWG 2SLGBTQQIA+, “there are over 150 known words and terms in various Indigenous languages in North America that were used prior to contact to describe people who were gender diverse and LGBTQ+.”


Many Native and Indigenous peoples are working to reclaim and make visible the diverse range of Two-Spirit identities and stories in continued efforts to resist colonial erasure, recover and preserve cultural traditions, and celebrate all facets of indigeneity.


How will you continue to learn about and amplify these narratives?



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