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[felis_ultharus]

Also, I've updated my historical blog, about the disappearance of the Two-Spirit traditions in Canada.

An important subject, but a multi-tiered minefield to walk through. For starters, I'm a white guy writing about Native history.

Then there's the issue of gender variance and sexual orientation. The post-1950s West sees these as very different things, but we're pretty much the only time and place that did, and so in all the literature there's snarking between people who claim the historical Two-Spirit identity for trans history, and those who claim it for gay history.

Given that no one from the early 19th century and before is around to interview in depth, I've hedged my bets and not tried to make any positive declarations.

Comments

[terren-divided.livejournal.com]

I am at a loss as to where, but the last time I saw the term "two spirited" used it was in a fairly negative context. I believe it was somehow akin to first nation people using the term "two spirited" to differentiate from "gay", for which the speaker had a great deal of contempt.

(it stank of "self-hating gay" kind of mentality, similar to how the african-american community uses the term "down low" to somehow differentiate gay-black-males from being "gay", as if it's somehow "better" or more socially acceptable).

But I could be blowing that out of proportion.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

The Two-Spirited men I've encountered (granted, not many) also identified as gay, and tended to use the terms interchangeably for themselves. Others use it as a broader category, like queer.

I have encountered people in the queer community who have a lot of contempt for gay men and gay identity, though -- worst being those who think if you're calling yourself gay, you're "limiting" or "labelling" yourself, and thus somehow not as evolved as they are.

I encountered them most often in university settings, and always thought they were worse than fundamentalists in some way. Same arrogance, same self-righteousness, same urge to fit the square pegs of my life into the round holes of their theories, same belief that they know others better than they know themselves -- but without the right to plead ignorance that the fundamentalists could, in theory, plead.

Mostly the type I've encountered who get their knickers in knots over the existence of gay men tend to lord the term "queer" as superior to "gay." I've never encountered a Two-Spirit who did that, but I think I could understand that better, because there's the added dimension of rejecting a colonizing culture.

Still, I can't being myself to have any respect for any individual who doesn't respect who and what I am. If I ever do encounter a person like that, I'd be miffed, too.

Sorry. That was ramble-y.

[terren-divided.livejournal.com]

Yet more reason I seem to avoid the academic gay whatever crap/groups/etc. I stepped into the Pride Library twice at Western the whole time I was there. Anyway.

The whole "limiting" or "labelling" thing pisses me off too. I've gotten "yelled at" (figuratively speaking) for identifying as rather polar-gay, ie. I like teh menz, and don't feel any level of bisexuality whatsoever. Apparently that's as bad as a heterosexual person denying any level of homosexual tendency and identifying as such out of insecurity/fear/homophobia. Hurray for reverse discrimination.

Interesting random thought: My straight friend in Michigan has more gay friends than I do.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

I've gotten the same thing. I used to just stop going to groups where someone pulled that bullshit. Now I tend to call people on it, if I hear it. I'm not going to let these people chase me out of queer spaces anymore, which are supposed to belong to all of us.

There's a theoretical dimension to it all, too, that is fortunately less prevalent outside of academia. It's become taboo to say that there were exclusively homosexual people in history, post-Foucault. Sexuality was apparently universally fluid before those big nasty doctors came up with their terms, locking us all up forever.

You actually do the digging, though, and you can find them, and plenty of them. You can find exclusively homosexual men. You can find gay subcultures. You can find people who identify as whatever the word was at the moment -- "molly," etc. Theories of inborn homosexuality go back at least 2500 years -- they weren't invented in Victorian times. Theories of different sexual orientations crop up again and again.

But to someone who's certain of their anti-gay theories, it doesn't matter how much historical evidence you gather. You're wrong, and they feel they have the right to talk down their noses at you. I took this one woman for task once in the last year of my Master's at Concordia, and she just shut down when I presented my points, and told me that history was her field, and she knew better than I did.

[terren-divided.livejournal.com]

gotta love the "well, you're not as expert as me, everything you say is wrong" defense.

And alas I'm a touch too tired to write much of an intelligible response, but, interesting side note. Been reading the Sookie Stackhouse novels, by Charlene Harris (what "True Blood" is based on), and while Harris definitely explores the idea that being a vampire and immortal eventually leads to some sort of pan-sexuality, she also explores vampires that are essentially unchanging. One case has an exclusively gay vampire, who surrounds himself in with a small harem of men in a large mansion, and one other, very old, who was essentially "turned" as a young, 16-year old male prostitute from the norse era and has exclusively loved men (and specifically, young men) for two thousand years. She also implies he's 'started' as something of a pedophile, and during his more monstrous early years raped and fed upon young boys. Little bit disturbing.

It was a refreshing change from the overly-eroticized "vampires love anything and everything" we tend to see in that sub-culture of writing, definitely a good read.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

It sounds disturbing. And the exceptions do highlight how much of a cliché it's become. I think that's part of what turned me off the vampire genre a decade ago.

Funny, I was just researching Norse homosexuality, especially the speculations around ergi seers and seidmann (seidmänner...?)