Tag: Gender

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How Queer and Trans Artists Reshape Divinity in Their Own Image

— For contemporary artists like Río Edén, Mx. Zeloszelos Marchandt, and Elliot Barnhill, making religious art is a revolutionary act

Río Edén, “Created in Divine image” (2020)

By Emma Cieslik

Surrounded by tulips and lilacs, a Black person with top surgery scars and a chest tattoo reading “Resurrected 01-26-2012” raises their face up to the sky. Titled “Created in Divine image” (2020), a phrase repeated in pink text against a background of gray clouds, that person’s hollow face is pierced by rays of pink, white, and blue light — the colors of the trans pride flag. In the Instagram caption accompanying his work, trans artist Río Edén wrote, “Blessed be those who live outside the binary, bless be those who challenge the binary, bless be those who are trans.”

Edén, also known as The Brooklyn Bruja, is part of a growing artistic movement visualizing the divinity of queer bodies and the queerness of religious figures. This movement gained steam in the last three years, right as scholars are rediscovering how Jesus and the saints may have been queer according to personal writings and hagiographies and have been depicted as queer for centuries by LGBTQ+ artists and others grappling with how divinity supersedes gender binaries. I myself have written about genderqueer-ness in Medieval theologians’ interpretations of Christ. At the same time, artists like Edén are depicting saints and religious figures as visually queer through the inclusion of top surgery scars, breast augmentation, body hair, and other attributes, while also celebrating the divinity and queer sainthood of LGBTQ+ folx today.

Edén is a trans autistic person of color, with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Complex Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD), Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and anxiety. He grew up in a Baptist family that later converted to Pentecostalism — an extremely homophobic religious sect. He was outed by his mom at 15 and entered conversion therapy at 17.  He was thus forced back into the closet, only officially coming out at 21. He began to medically transition almost three years ago, first starting hormone replacement therapy in June 2021.

Río Edén, collage featuring Daniel Davis Aston with freshly healed top surgery scars, surrounded by a pink and gold halo, candles, and flowers. This collage was created and shared on social media just two days after Aston’s murder in the Club Q shooting

“Created in Divine image” is made in Edén’s typical style of ethereal collages overlapping faceless figures, natural backgrounds, halos, and shimmering color gradients. Its religious imagery is strikingly similar to another collage featuring Daniel Davis Aston. In that work, Edén memorializes Aston, who was killed in the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs in November of 2022, as a queer saint martyred in the fight for trans existence.

For those who know Edén’s backstory, it may seem anathema for him to reclaim the religious words and symbols that made him feel shame. But Edén disagrees. He views his art as a form of divine protest. “I was taught that man and woman were created in the image of God,” he explained to Hyperallergic, “but then when they talk about trans and queer people, that message starts to fade off, and I don’t like to have queer people feel the way that I did where they feel excluded from having that divineness too.” For Edén, creating religious art is in of itself a revolutionary act: The White, straight, Christians who surrounded him growing up have controlled what Jesus and God look like for too long.

If they can depict Jesus as a cishet, monogamous White man, Edén argued, then he too can show that Jesus was made in his own image, as a trans person of color.

 Mx. Zeloszelos Marchandt, “Ecce Homo” (2023)

Edén’s practice is not just about dismantling heteronormativity in religious art, but also about depicting LGBTQ+ individuals of color as divine, in a similar vein to trans performance and visual artist Mx. Zeloszelos Marchandt. In “Ecce Homo” (2023), for instance, Marchandt depicts himself as a Black, Indigenous, and trans Jesus. Both Edén and Marchandt encounter Him through their own bodies, and thus visualize Jesus — mouthpiece for God on Earth — as a spokesperson for communities facing oppression today.

As Edén argues, no one really knows how Jesus presented or identified. The same is true of many saints, but in Alicia Spencer-Hall and Blake Gutt’s 2021 book Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography, Medieval scholars argue that illuminators visualized Jesus and God as transcending the human concept of gender. Many saints were queer and because of their proximity to God were depicted as visually queer by Medieval artists.

Elliott Barnhill  “Heavenly Body 1” (2023)

Queer depictions of saints date back centuries, and queer creators today are reclaiming and reviving this artistic tradition. Elliott Barnhill, a disabled transmasc queer Catholic and seminary graduate, reimagines saints who have canonically been depicted as straight, hyperfeminine, or hypermasculine. His own coming out was predicated upon “becoming aware that the things we now call queerness can be found in the lives of saints,” he told me. His mission to spread that awareness extends beyond visual depictions: He founded the Instagram account Queer Catholic Icons and the podcast Blessed are the Binary Breakers.

With seraphs bearing top surgery scars, Barnhill creates distinctly modern queer Catholic icons in bold defiance of the Church’s queerphobic stance. Similarly, queer femme artist Dani explores butchfemme identity in her portraits of Catholic saints through her Instagram account AndHerSaints. With intimate portraits of St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Joan of Arc, their works center on dignity: acknowledging that queer lives and experiences are sacred and holy.

All of these artists, along with others like text-based artist Girl of Sword and whole zines dedicated to trans+ Christian art such as The Transient Theology Project, are part of a queer artistic Renaissance that affirms the dignity and divinity of queer people centuries ago and today. In doing so, they not only challenge the dichotomy of queerness and religion, but disrupt queerphobic religious teachings that seek to harm queer folx. As these artists and scholars argue, their queerness just brings them that much closer to God.

Dani, “St. Thérèse & St. Joan of Arc” (2023)
Río Edén, “Our transness is omnipresent” ( 2023)

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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What is the Sexuality of G-d According to The Bible?

— In the previous article, we established that G-d is androgynous in gender. If G-d is androgynous, then what is the sexuality of G-d?

by Rebecca Wallace Keene

What is the Sexuality of G-d in the Torah?

Bisexual

While some people may think of discussing G-d’s sexuality as blasphemy, the authors of  The Bible did not believe so. The Bible has a lot to say on the topic.

In the Torah, we see G-d as married to all of Israel, both male and female. Indeed, the Song of Songs has G-d speak of taking their lover, Israel, into their bed

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—
for your love is more delightful than wine.
3 Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes;
your name is like perfume poured out.
No wonder the young women love you!
4 Take me away with you—let us hurry!
Let the king bring me into his chambers.”

In this example, G-d is bisexual as Israel contains both men and women.

Pansexual

However, to definitively answer the question of what is the sexuality of G-d, we need to look at other examples of G-d’s sexuality in The Bible. G-d describes themself as having birthed Israel from their womb.

“Listen to Me, O House of Jacob,
All that are left of the House of Israel,
Who have been carried since birth,
Supported since leaving the womb:
Till you grow old, I will still be the same;
When you turn gray, it is I who will carry;
I was the Maker, and I will be the Bearer;”

That implies G-d was at some point pregnant. So, who is the father? G-d often refers to themself as Israel’s father as well. Deuteronomy 1:31 says, “31 and in the wilderness. There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.” If G-d was pregnant, birthed a child, and was both mother and father, this is an example of asexual reproduction in The Bible. In this example, we see that G-d’s sexuality is fluid. G-d can and does play both the male and female roles in sexual relations.  G-d is not bound to sexual relations with only one gender, as G-d is androgynous in gender. In this sense, we might say that G-d is pansexual, able to have sexual relations with all genders.

Heteropoly

Further proof of G-d’s sexuality is that in addition to his metaphorical marriage to Israel, archaeology suggests that G-d had a goddess as a wife. William G. Dever, in his book Did God Have A Wife? Archaeology And Folk Religion In Ancient Israel, explains that we have found inscriptions of people worshipping “Yahweh and his Asherah” in ancient Israel. Of course, The Torah we have today prohibits the worship of anyone, but G-d. However, scholars believe this is because Asherah was purposely written out by a patriarchal society. Whatever the reason, if G-d did or does have a wife and also proclaims to be married to Israel, G-d is a polygamist. That shouldn’t be shocking as most men in The Torah had multiple wives. Further, this does show G-d in a traditional heterosexual relationship with one other being, which is in contrast to the examples we have examined thus far.

What is the Sexuality of G-d in The New Testament?

Lesbian

Finally, The New Testament tells a story of the Holy Spirit coming upon Mary and impregnating her.  As we established in Do Spirits Have Genders According to The Bible? The Holy Spirit is feminine. The word Ruach is feminine in Hebrew and The Spirit functions as a messenger between G-d and a prophet. She is seen to have creative and sanctifying power. These powers are considered feminine. So, that means that when The Spirit comes upon Mary the union is that of two females. In this example, G-d’s sexuality would then be Lesbian.

Clearly, G-d has a wide range of sexuality in The Bible. Therefore, in today’s language, we would say that G-d is pansexual and poly. G-d doesn’t choose who they love based on their gender. Rather, G-d loves all their creation.   Do not judge those who love freely without boundaries, for they are acting in the nature of our G-d, who is love.

This is the last article in a series of four. Please, click here and read the previous three articles, if you have not already done so. Please, also read my book for more information about sexuality in The Bible.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Do Spirits Have Sexuality According to The Bible?

— In my last article, I showed that according to The Bible, spirits have genders. However, gender and sexuality are different things. Do spirits have sexuality?

by Rebecca Wallace Keene

Do Spirits Have Sexuality In The New Testament?

The Bible seems to suggest that yes Spirits do have sexuality.  Of course, the most obvious example comes from the New Testament when The Spirit of The Lord “comes upon” Mary and impregnates her. This is a clear description of a spirit having sexual relations which results in a birth.  Luke 1:35: “‘The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.”

This is a very interesting passage because, as we established in the last article, The Holy  Spirit is feminine. This means The Spirit, female, came upon Mary, also female, and this union resulted in a child. As Sojourner once said, “Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From G-d and a woman. Man had nothing to do with him!” Yes. Lesbian sexuality is in The Bible, and, if you believe The New Testament, it created Jesus.

Do Spirits Have Sexuality In The Torah?

However, The New Testament is not the only place that shows spirits, or even G-d, as a sexual being. The Torah also has many verses that allude to Spirits having sexuality.

In Genesis 6:4, angels see the daughters of men and lust after them. Eventually, they mate with the women resulting in offspring. Clearly, they are sexual beings. The verse tells us: “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.” The Nephilim, as described by the non-canonical Book of Enoch, were giants, who resulted from the union of humans and angels.

In The Song of Songs, we see G-d speaking about Israel as his wife, whom he wishes to take to bed.  This entire book reads like a love letter. Clearly, then G-d has sexual desire and sexuality. This passage, like the story of Mary and The Holy Spirit,  is also an overtly descriptive sexual scene. It says:

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—
for your love is more delightful than wine.
3 Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes;
your name is like perfume poured out.
No wonder the young women love you!
4 Take me away with you—let us hurry!
Let the king bring me into his chambers.”

While these are the most vivid examples of spirits being sexual in the Torah, they are far from the only examples.  So, the answer to our question is yes. Spirits do have sexuality and desire. What sexuality then do we assign to G-d?

For more information about sexuality in The Bible please read my book.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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What is the Gender of G-d According to the Bible?

— In our previous post, we established that spirits do have genders. Thus, if we believe G-d to be a spiritual being, she/he must have a gender. The question then becomes, what is the gender of G-d?

by Rebecca Wallace Keene

 

The Bible tends to use the pronoun he for G-d. For this reason, throughout history, G-d has been seen as only a man. However, this ignores the fact The Holy Spirit is feminine in Hebrew, as we established in our post “Do Spirits Have Genders?”. It also ignores the many references in the Bible to G-d as a mother.

Aspects of G-d

Therefore, in order to determine G-d’s gender we need to explore the aspects and actions of G-d. We also need to examine the Biblical text for references to G-d’s gender.

What is the Gender of G-d if G-d is Creator

Perhaps G-d’s most important aspect is Creator. Genesis tells us G-d created the world. She/He also created humans in their own image. Which gender creates life in their own image? Only females. Only females have the ability to create new life on this planet. While reproduction does require both males and females, without the female’s ability to sustain that life within herself no new souls would be born into our world. Therefore, creation is a feminine aspect.

Warrior

However, G-d has masculine features too. She/he plays the role of a warrior. When the Pharoh refuses to let The Israelites go G-d sends 10 plagues the last of which is the death of every firstborn Egyptian child.  G-d also goes before the Israelites into war. Typically, we think of warfare as a masculine quality. Therefore, we can not say that G-d is only feminine.

Comforter

Yet, another feminine aspect of G-d is that of a comforter. Both Psalms and Isaiah assure us that G-d is our comforter. Isaiah 51:12 tells us: “I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass,”.   Psalm 23:4 states, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” Mothers and females are usually thought of as the comforters. Thus, we see that G-d has another feminine aspect.

Disciplinarian

Still, G-d also functions as a strict disciplinarian. Proverbs 3:11-12 teaches us:

“My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline

or be weary of his reproof,

12 for the Lord reproves him whom he loves,

as a father the son in whom he delights.

As Deuteronomy 8:5 reminds us discipline is often thought to come from a masculine aspect, such as a father.  “5 Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.” Thus, if G-d is both a comforter and a disciplinarian, G-d has aspects of both the feminine mother and the masculine father. This androgynous gender of G-d  continues to be seen as we look at G-d through the study of Kabbalah.

What Gender is G-d in Kabbalah?

The study of Kabbalah teaches us the following aspects of G-d: Crown, Understanding, Wisdom, Justice/Judgement,  Love/Mercy, Splendor/Majesty, Victory, Beauty/Compassion, Foundation, and Kingdom. These aspects make up The Kabbalah Tree of Life. The Tree of Life is balanced with a feminine trait on one side and its masculine counterpart on the other. For example, love/mercy are across from Justice/judgment. Love and mercy are considered feminine while justice/judgment are considered masculine.

Therefore, G-d clearly has aspects that are male and aspects that are feminine. It is important to note that the only aspect of G-d on the tree which is connected to all the others is Beauty/Compassion which is at the center or heart of the tree. Beauty and compassion are feminine aspects of G-d and they are the center or heart of all the other aspects. They are where all the aspects of God connect. Shekhinah in Kabbalah studies is a purely feminine aspect of G-d and is seen as a mother or sister. It represents nurturing and compassion. This is the lowest aspect of the Kabbalah tree of life and is therefore responsible for linking the lower physical world to the higher realm.  Shekhinah is the Jewish Divine Feminine and is mentioned in the Zohar, Midrash, and Talmud, as stated by Shekhinah: The Divine Feminine.

What is the Gender of G-d in Torah Verses?

Mother

In the Torah we see G-d spoken of in terms of a mother. Isaiah 46:3-4 has G-d declare that she/he has carried Isreal in their womb, born them, and will carry them.

“Listen to Me, O House of Jacob,
All that are left of the House of Israel,
Who have been carried since birth,
Supported since leaving the womb:

Till you grow old, I will still be the same;
When you turn gray, it is I who will carry;
I was the Maker, and I will be the Bearer;

“And I will carry and rescue [you].

Clearly, this is an image of G-d as a female, for we know that only a female has the ability to carry and give birth to children.

Father

However, we also see G-d as a father. Deuteronomy 1:31 has Moses tell the people, “31 and in the wilderness. There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.” Thus, G-d is both mother and father according to the Torah.

What is the Gender of G-d if G-d is Wisdom

Yet, G-d also appears as lady wisdom. As we saw in The Kabbalah Tree Of Life, Wisodm is an aspect of G-d. As Feminine Images of God pointed out, G-d is portrayed as the feminine lady Wisdom in Proverbs. Proverbs 8:1 clearly states that Wisdom is a” her.” “Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice?” Lady Wisdom tells us in Proverbs 8:30 that she was present at the time of creation. This should be of no surprise as we know that creation is a feminine aspect of G-d.

So, G-d is Androgynous. G-d has aspects of both the male and the female. She/he is both mother and father.  G-d is the original they/them. Be very careful when you judge Gender Fluid or Trangender people, for they are truly made in the image of our creator. Do not tell women that they are inferior or not able to teach. For G-d in the feminine creator aspect of Lady Wisdom created the world. Women are the embodiment of wisdom.

If G-d’s gender is androgynous, what is the sexuality of G-d? Stay tuned for the last article in this series to find out. You can click here, and enter your email address to be notified of all future articles.  To learn more about gender and sexuality in The Bible please read my book.

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Do Spirits Have Genders According to The Bible?

— Do spirits have genders? This question is important for our understanding of G-d. While it may seem a hard question to answer, The Torah has a lot to say on the subject.

by Rebecca Wallace Keene

Do Spirits Have Genders in Grammar

First, we know that grammatically the word for spirit is feminine in Hebrew.  The Hebrew word Ruach means spirit or breath and it is grammatically feminine.  This alone doesn’t automatically mean that a spirit is female as the grammatical gender of a word in Hebrew doesn’t necessarily refer to physical gender.  Yet, the term Ruach in Hebrew thought is the messenger between G-d and the prophet. Therefore she is seen as having creative and sanctifying feminine power, as The Holy Spirit: The Feminine Aspect Of the Godhead stated. This suggests that Ruach is feminine in more than just grammar. That would mean, Spirits do have genders.

Do Spirits Have Genders In Torah Verses

Genesis

For further proof, we must look to specific verses in the Torah.  If we believe that each of us was created with a spirit or with the breath of G-d, then the creation stories in the book of Genesis have a lot to say about the gender of spirits. Genesis tells us that G-d created us in her/his image, male and female she/he created us. This would suggest that spirits do have gender and can be either gender. Still, some may argue that the gender referred to in Genesis applies only to our physical form and not to our spirit.

Angels

Therefore, we must look to other examples. Angels in the Torah are always referred to as men. This clearly means that angels do have genders.  In fact, this is how homosexuality has come to be associated with the story of Sodom in modern culture. The angels in the story, who the men wanted to rape, were male.  Genesis and the noncanonical book of Enoch record a story of angels lusting after and mating with human women. If angels have lustful feelings and sexuality it seems likely there must be female angels. Otherwise, why would angels be created with sexual desire for females? So, this again leads us to the conclusion that spirits have genders and can be either gender.

What Does It Mean If Spirits Have Genders

So, do spirits have genders? It seems clear that The Torah supports the idea that spirits do have genders. This is significant when we try to understand G-d and the heavenly host. Clearly, if they are spiritual beings, they must have genders.  What genders should we apply to them? For too long G-d has been referred to as only male. Is this a fair and accurate description, especially since the Hebrew word for spirit is feminine?

These are topics I plan to discuss in upcoming blogs and my upcoming book The Gender and Sexuality of G-d. So, please come back and read the next few blogs.  You can subscribe and be updated about all future posts by clicking here and entering your email address.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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‘Ancient porn’ sheds new light on Bible verses

Gay sex is a sin. The New Testament makes that abundantly clear.

Or does it?

According to one of the UK’s most prominent evangelicals, if Christian scholarship engages with archaeological evidence from the rediscovered ancient city of Pompeii, much of St Paul’s teaching on sexuality must be radically reinterpreted.

In a new online video for the Open Church Network, Revd. Canon Steve Chalke argues that by studying the remains of Pompeii, and understanding the ancient Roman world’s highly sexualised culture, we can find new meaning in chapters such as Romans 1, which have traditionally been misinterpreted to condemn same-sex relations.


 
Revd. Canon Steve Chalke says, “For too long the remains of Pompeii have been little known to members of the general public, but when the chance to examine them is taken, it becomes abundantly clear that in ancient Rome, sex was everything. 80% of the artwork recovered from Pompeii and its sister town of Herculaneum is sexually explicit and also reveals a fascination with the image of the stiff, erect penis – a symbol of power and pleasure.  This is the context into which the New Testament was written.

“If you were a man in Roman culture, so long as someone was your social inferior – a slave, a gladiator, a woman etc. – it was considered socially acceptable and respectable to penetrate them.  A married man would have a mistress for pleasure and a non-Roman boy for ecstasy.  They called these people ‘infames’; those utterly lacking in social standing and deprived of most protections accorded to citizens under Roman law. There is also much evidence that Roman women also engaged exploitative sex – typically with female slaves, gladiators or male castrated slaves – whose testicles had been removed or rendered inoperative, so that they could not produce sperm and lost their desire for sex but still had the ability to perform it. Juvenal, the poet, tells us that bored Roman women took these eunuchs as lovers.

“So engrained was this way of thinking and behaving that it became incorporated into religion.  Drug and alcohol fuelled orgies featuring men sleeping with women, men sleeping with men and women sleeping with women and men were even classed as acts of worship.”

Chalke argues that against this backdrop, verses such as the often quoted Romans 1 v 27 (“In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error”) should be understood to condemn the power-driven sexual hierarchy and abuse so common to Roman life, with the rest of the chapter condemning their sex-driven approach to worship and idolatry.

“Every Christian believes God to be a God of love.  It is no wonder that these abusive practises are condemned by inspired scripture.  But, it is a disingenuous misreading of the text to conclude that what Paul describes in Romans 1 can be used to prevent people forming loving, faithful and nurturing relationships with people of the same-sex.”

The video, containing graphic images that were discovered in Pompeii, which also deals with the three other passages in the New Testament that have traditionally been used to condemn any kind of homosexual activity or even orientation has been released and is available at openchurch.network.

Chalke continues, “The content of the video is so graphic that we’ve had to place a parental warning label on it – however I have not released this out of any desire to provoke or shock for the sake of it.  Because of widespread ignorance of the ancient world and Greco-Roman culture in churches across the West, we throw Bible verses around without understanding their context.  We misunderstand Paul’s criticism of rituals that exploit power and abuse people and then, out of ignorance, use them to try to prevent people of same-sex orientation from finding loving, committed and fulfilling partnerships and of entering into, what I believe is, the holy institution of same-sex marriage.  For the Church, the Bible is the corner stone of faith and practise.  It is time we took it more seriously. The Church has a duty to use every tool of modern scholarship available in this task.”

The ancient city Pompeii was buried – although not, as we now know, destroyed – when the nearby, supposedly extinct, volcano Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, covering it and the nearby town of Herculaneum and their inhabitants in many tons of pumice and volcanic ash. Although the disaster remained in people’s minds for many years it was eventually forgotten, until the exploration of the ancient site started in 1748.

However, work to excavate the city still continues today and it is only in relatively recent years that there has been sufficient public access to allow the findings to influence theological and cultural scholarship.

Complete Article HERE!

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Before European Christians Forced Gender Roles, Native Americans Acknowledged 5 Genders

By Pearson McKinney

[I]t wasn’t until Europeans took over North America that natives adopted the ideas of gender roles. For Native Americans, there was no set of rules that men and women had to abide by in order to be considered a “normal” member of their tribe.

In fact, people who had both female and male characteristics were viewed as gifted by nature, and therefore, able to see both sides of everything. According to Indian Country Today, all native communities acknowledged the following gender roles: “Female, male, Two Spirit female, Two Spirit male and Transgendered.”

“Each tribe has their own specific term, but there was a need for a universal term that the general population could understand. The Navajo refer to Two Spirits as Nádleehí (one who is transformed), among the Lakota is Winkté (indicative of a male who has a compulsion to behave as a female), Niizh Manidoowag (two spirit) in Ojibwe, Hemaneh (half man, half woman) in Cheyenne, to name a few. As the purpose of “Two Spirit” is to be used as a universal term in the English language, it is not always translatable with the same meaning in Native languages. For example, in the Iroquois Cherokee language, there is no way to translate the term, but the Cherokee do have gender variance terms for ‘women who feel like men’ and vice versa.”

The “Two Spirit” culture of Native Americans was one of the first things that Europeans worked to destroy and cover up. According to people like American artist George Catlin, the Two Spirit tradition had to be eradicated before it could go into history books. Catlin said the tradition:

“..Must be extinguished before it can be more fully recorded.”

However, it wasn’t only white Europeans that tried to hide any trace of native gender bending. According to Indian Country Today, “Spanish Catholic monks destroyed most of the Aztec codices to eradicate traditional Native beliefs and history, including those that told of the Two Spirit tradition.” Throughout these efforts by Christians, Native Americans were forced to dress and act according to newly designated gender roles.

One of the most celebrated Two Spirits in recorded history was a Lakota warrior aptly named Finds Them And Kills Them. Osh-Tisch was born a male and married a female, but adorned himself in women’s clothing and lived daily life as a female. On June 17 1876, Finds Them And Kills Them gained his reputation when he rescued a fellow tribesman during the Battle of Rosebud Creek. An act of fearless bravery. Below is a picture of Osh-Tisch and his wife.

Osh-Tisch (Left) and his wife (Right)

In Native American cultures, people were valued for their contributions to the tribe, rather than for masculinity or femininity. Parents did not assign gender roles to children either, and even children’s clothing tended to be gender neutral. There were no ideas or ideals about how a person should love; it was simply a natural act that occurred without judgement or hesitation.

Without a negative stigma attached to being a Two Spirit, there were no inner-tribal incidents of retaliation or violence toward the chosen people simply due to the fact that individuals identified as the opposite or both genders.

“The Two Spirit people in pre-contact Native America were highly revered and families that included them were considered lucky. Indians believed that a person who was able to see the world through the eyes of both genders at the same time was a gift from The Creator.”

Religious influences soon brought serious prejudice against “gender diversity,” and so this forced once openly alternative or androgynous people to one of two choices. They could either live in hiding, and in fear of being found out, or they could end their lives. Many of whom did just that.

Complete Article HERE!