Anthropologists have recently spent a great deal of time bringing to light the challenges that many gay, lesbian, transgender, transsexual, or Two-Spirit Native Americans have historically faced. As a result, what French-based term has fallen into disrepute to describe transgender people in Native American communities

Question

Social Studies

Raquel Mcneil

26 June, 16:45

Anthropologists have recently spent a great deal of time bringing to light the challenges that many gay, lesbian, transgender, transsexual, or Two-Spirit Native Americans have historically faced. As a result, what French-based term has fallen into disrepute to describe transgender people in Native American communities

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Answers (1)

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Lily Huffman · Answer 1

berdache

Explanation:

The term berdache was used by early French explorers to those Native Americans that went out of traditional gender and sex norms, while usually expressing androgynous characteristics and having relations and marriages with same-sex people who were likely falling into the more traditional gender roles (masculine men or feminine women).

However, as this term was coined by Euro-centric people, it adopted westerner ideas of gender, sex, and sexuality, which does not take the complexity of the Native philosophy into the account. Rather than staying within the Native culture, the term berdache pushes Westerner ideas and norms to the members of the Indigenous North American community.

This is why in the 90s the term Two-spirit had started being used, in order to describe the ideas that are common among Native Americans and their ideas, rejecting the traditional Western reading of the identities.