- Joined
- Dec 3, 2020
Thinking all Native American tribes share a culture is only slightly less absurd than expecting all of Asia to share a culture. The history of the term, though, is a bit more complex--it was intended as a replacement English translation of the Native American term(s) it covers. The original word used in English was 'berdache' which started out as a slur for...well...sissy exclusively-receptive homosexual man.Two sprit is a made-up term that was created in 1990 in English and then translated into Ojibwe specifically for Gay Indians; it was expanded to include "trans" Natives much later. Historically, the "two spirit" concept is mostly only found in Algonquian-speaking cultures. Anyone who is not a member of those tribes is talking out of their ass.
And as for Black transwomen, my preliminary research has shown that most Black MTFs are HSTS, not AGP, and very few are sex offenders, unlike the white MTFs, who are mostly AGPs... and more than half of them are sex offenders.
It fell out of use pretty much because, well, in every other context, calling somebody berdache would be fighting words.
(Incidentally, we got 'enby' as part of this: They were very concerned that there was no Western terms for third gender people, so...they created one. Yay.)
None of these terms ever meant troons. Troons are just really big on appropriation, when you get down to it.