i feel like there’s this huge misconception in lgbt circles about twospirit people. let me make something clear: being twospirit is not being nonbinary, genderfluid, etc. it’s a catch-all term for lgbt ndns that originated in 1990 as a pan-indian term for us, due to colonialism stealing the way that many of our nations described lgbt people (or didn’t, because some nations didn’t have a concept or word for lgbt people).
depending on the nation, twospirit people have different roles and meanings. most nations tended to use these identities to describe trans fem people/gay men (though some nations of course did and still do have separate vocabulary for trans masc people/lesbians and third gender people). one thing that historical and contemporary twospirit identities have in common is (a) importance in ceremony, and (b) being connected to our cultures in a way that they cannot exist outside of a cultural context, because “at the core of contemporary two-spirit identities is ethnicity, an awareness of being native american as opposed to being white or being a member of any other ethnic group” (jacob, s). contemporary twospirit identity was created to distinguish us and our unique struggles from the mainstream (white) lgbt community who never have, and likely never will, care about our struggles. in fact, many twospirit people dont consider themselves lgbt due to our alienation.
so basically: if you’re not indigenous and you choose to use twospirit as a way to prove a point in an argument or to give yourself wokeness points, stop. you don’t know what you’re talking about, and it will never be the place of a colonizer to define our identities for us. our identity is not “queer”, it’s cultural.
Europeans: “I don’t understand you Americans, if your working conditions, wages, and social safety net are so bad, why do you not simply unionize or strike?”
Americans:
Also there’s literally so many restrictions on unions and strikes at this point that striking on any significant scale is nearly de facto illegal
WHY HAVE I NEVER HEARD ABOUT THE LUDLOW MASSACRE, WHY WASN’T I TAUGHT THIS IN CLASS
my grandfather who helped unionize railway workers in the 30s told me about being shot at during strikes and union rallies.
Minneapolis is no stranger to bloody union busting. Some of my grandmother’s cousins were teamsters in Minneapolis on “Bloody Friday”when the flour mills and other businesses brought in the police armed with gatling guns. On July 20, 1934 “police took direct aim at the pickets and fired to kill. Physical safety of the police was at no time endangered. No weapons were in possession of the pickets.” Sixty-seven truck drivers and union supporters were injured, two men—Henry Ness and John Belor—were killed.
