WGSS 1105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Gender Variance, Grammatical Gender, Gender Role

• School: UConn
• Department: Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
• Course: WGSS 1105
• Professor: Vanessa Lovelace

Document Summary

Various kinds of two spirit people: gender variance and homosexuality in native american communities . Sexuality and spirituality: western influences massively impacted native american indian cultures, first referred to as berdaches, aka transvestites or hermaphrodites; later referred to as two-spirit, aka alternatively gendered people of either sex. Females were generally not included in discussions of two-spirit: if were included, more implicit version of same interpretation viewed. A way to integrate homosexual and therefore deviant males into north. Seen as manifestations of constructions of gender in native american cultures differ from western ways of constructing and defining gender. Defined primarily neither in terms of gender nor sexual preference. At core is ethnicity--awareness of being native american as opposed to being white or being a member of any other ethnicity group. Traditions of gender variance have been forgotten or repressed: disappeared in early 20th century. Two-spirited individuals now face rejection and discrimination: can only identify as a gay person.