The term berdache is considered by many to be offensive, and in 1990, the term “two-spirit” emerged and is now used to distinguish people who embody characteristics of multiple genders, sexes, or sexualities.
Two Spirit Advocacy booth at Bemidji Pride 2025, Bemidji, Minnesota Two-spirit (also known as two spirit or occasionally twospirited, [a] or abbreviated as 2S, [b] especially in Canada) is a contemporary pan-Indian umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people who fulfill a traditional third-gender (or other gender-variant) social role in their communities. [2 ...
First, this paper points out the limitations of previous work on the berdache. Second, the paper shows how the berdache, far from being a cultural curio, was integrated within the vision-quest--guardian-spirit religious complex, ritual activities, and sacred societies. Third, the paper shows that the principal tribal groups of the northern plains had a worldview which integrated the berdache ...
insider.si.edu: Two-spirit people : Native American gender identity, sexuality, and spirituality / edited by Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine Lang
Two-spirit people : Native American gender identity, sexuality, and spirituality / edited by Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine Lang
Berdache, early European designation for American Indians (in Canada called First Nations peoples) who did not conform to Western gender and sexual norms. The term has been utilized in anthropology and other disciplines to refer to American Indian homosexuality, transgenderism, and intersexuality.
BERDACHE In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, French explorers, traders, and missionaries in the Mississippi Valley occasionally encountered Native Americans who could be classified neither as men nor women. They called such individuals berdaches, a French term for younger partners in male homosexual relationships. In fact, Plains Indian berdaches are best described as occupying an ...