Hello everyone!

I have question that I am curious about:  do you feel as a transgendered person you have two spirits in you: a male spirit and a female spirit?  Or is it just one singluar spirit that happens to identify with the gender opposite to your physical gender?

I ask this because four years ago I ran into a Native American acquiantance of mine.  She asked how I was doing, I told her I was engaged to be married and met a wonderful women, etc...

She gave a puzzled look and said:  "But you're a two-spirit?"

Bare in mind that at this point it had been 2 years since I stopped seeing my therapist who specialized in gender identity issues.  I stopped seeing him when he suggested we look into determining whether transition is the right option for me.  I was really, really scared to find out what the answer was.  I had previously told him I would love to be a girl more than anything - but I am not prepared for the consequences. I also didn't think I would ever pass.  Rather than joining a local TG support group as he suggested - I ran.  I decided block out of my mind that I ever saw this therapist and repress all my gender identity issues.  I did this successfully as no one seemed to think of me as different than the image I presented of a masculine, confident, player with a taste for blond bombshell girls.  

So I asked my friend: "What is a two-spirit?"

She responded: "you like boys."

I told her I had experimented with boys, but I am definitely very attracted to women.

I asked her how she knew I was a two-spirit.

She replied: "I...  just know" and smiled.

I then offered up: "You know - I think I am a woman trapped inside a man's body."   

She said: "Oh... well that would it explain it."

I later researched what a "two-spirit" meant in Native American culture.  Sure enough - a Two-spirit (according to Native American belief) is someone who has both a male and female spirit inhabiting their body.  These people are often transgender - but the term also applies to homosexuals.  In some tribes a two-spirit is revered as a holy man or woman.

In speaking about this topic with a girlfriend I met here on GS - we felt that we were both two-spirits;  a male and female spirit that are in conflict with each other.

Do others feel this way?  Or do you feel that there is just one "female spirit" in you?

Or is there a more secular way of thinking about this - could the "two-spirit" idea stem from the conflict that arises when gender identity tries to fit itself in with its physical identity?  

I'd would love to hear what others think about this!

I have always been female.  I just showed male in appearance and actions.  For most of my life I was acting the role I was born into.  Never really happy.  Now I am who I should have been all along.  Much happier, most of the time.  

to answer, yes I am two spirit.  I know there is another soul in me, and on ocassion he does appear.  But I am me, and I am he.  Two spirit.

Bobbi

I suppose the term applies to me.  I always wanted to be a girl, but I knew I had to survive as a male.  I had to learn certain skills to cope with being in a world where I was only allowed to play with boys, and I had to adapt.  I never really fit in with the boys, and even though I preferred to play with the girls, I was forbidden to do so at school, and many parents did't want me playing with their daughters.  They couldn't imagine that a 6 year old boy would want to just play Barbie dolls and color and do the other things girls did.  They were more concerned because I didn't seem to mind trading clothes with the other girls.  I even enjoyed it.  They just saw that as unnatural, even evil - some even called it an abomination.

Playing with the boys, I never really fit in.  I didn't want to fight, I didn't play with guns, I didn't get into sports, hated baseball, soccer, and football, and basketball.  Even when I was asked to play, i usually spent most of the games on the sidelines reading books or comic books.  For softball, I was the kid who chased the fly balls so that they didn't go into the lake or the other fields.  I often didn't even bother to come in to bat.

i read a LOT of non-fiction books, about radios, electronics, mechanics, and such, but I also liked to cook, knit, crochet, sew, and do beadwork and leather work.  I liked 4-H because most of the other kids there were girls, and they couldn't exclude me.  Later, we were having so much fun together, that they didn't want to exclude me.

When I first heard of two-spirit people in Native American culture, I could easily imagine how a young boy like me, too weak and small to hunt and fight and protect the village would probably have spent more time with his mother, but since he wasn't like the other girls, he would have studied the world around him, learning about herbs, medicines, animal behaviors, even insects and birds.  He would have had an unusual understanding of the world around him that was unlike any other man, and unlike any other woman.  He may have learned how to make a bully sick by putting something into his tea or food, or how to heal people who were sick.  He would have been respected, perhaps sometimes even feared, because they would not know if he caused a sickness, and hoped that he would be able to cure it.

These people must also have been powerful negotiators, because they didn't have the intense male egos that could be so easily bruised.  They understood that war would only mean more braves lost, leaving wives without husbands, children without fathers, and even if they won a few battles, the toll on the tribe would have been horrendous.  The two-spirit would have known which herbs could be placed into the peace pipe that would promote fruitful negotiations.

Even in today's society, we se many trangender people in the technology professions, especially computers, both male and female.  Many are able to function in their birth-gender, but reject many of the more traditional imposed roles.  For example, the men prefer not to wear suits and ties, and the women prefer to wear comfortable pants and shoes.  At the same time, they don't openly express transgender traits either, opting to put as little effort as possible into enhancement of appearance one way or the other.

It was interesting how easily I was able to smoothly transition as the hormones cicked in.  One engagement, I was working as male, but everybody knew that I was transsexual and in transition, the next engagement, I was working as female, and while many knew I had been male and still had a male legal name and legal gender, simply started interacting with me as female, using the feminine genders and everything.

I had always feared that I would transition and would then have to keep it a secret that I had ever been a male.  I didn't want to have to live a different set of lies, just because hormones and surgical procedures had corrected a birth defect.  I didn't want to have to lie about my past any more than I wanted to lie about who I really was.

I didn't reject masculinity entirely.  I sang in choirs as a bass (though I was suicidal when I first got the news of my bass voice).  I also enjoyed dating, and being a "gentleman" for my dates.  I liked pounding metal into bowls and ash trays, and even enjoyed welding metal together, but I also enjoyed building electronic kits, and making my own ham radio gear.

I guess I was two-spirit, even though the girl was closer to my "true self".

Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts on this.

Do people think a person's gender identity separate from the male and female spirits?

Or does each spirit have its own identity?  

Or are the spirits a type of energy - like the yin/yang in oriental philosophy?  

two spirit apples to me also

.I do have a male and female personalities , and they do interlace each other on a daily basis

I can be maled oing male traits and some thing shifts(best way for me to explain it)  to the other gender

My Therapist ,and others call them triggers  . the thing is in finding whats these triggers are for me . Plus how to avoid them from acctivating  in public situations  SO others im with wouldnt be embarrist   or' wonder what in the hell was that!

"Two-Spirit" would explain me quite well.  Although I am most comfortable as Michelle, I have to cross the line at times for work.  I've often wondered if that part of me that was male ever regrets how strongly my female side has become.  My heart gets confused at times, as my gender identity and partner preferences don't always match. The one thing that is certain..... the inner me is definitely female. 

I´m definately a two spirit person. I´m in my later years now, but ever since being a three year old I´ve wanted to be a girl and have taken every opporunity to put on girl´s clothes or to play with girls. I never came-out to my family, though I was an active member of the Beaumont Society for some years and went to a lot of their events - you can imagine how tricky it was keeping everything secret, clothes hidden, etc.etc.

     The thing is that my female-self sleeps a lot of the time and I am, to any observer, a normal, hetrosexual, happily married man. But when my female-self wakes up, she screams for attention. And, in later years, this can be more than a bit of a difficulty!

     But on balance, having 'two-selves' is a wonder and a blessing. Even when I´m in apparently male mode I often feel, see things and act more as a woman: it´s a wonder to have such empathy with the female world one lives in; and it adds so much to the pleasure of living. I´ve only very occassionaly been sexually attracted to men; but for most of the time I seem to be able to switch-off my male side when I´m the company of women - I can´t stand macho-male company - and I can mix with women freely with no sexuality; I just love to be one of them although I realise that they can only see me as male.

     I´d love to hear from any older tranny or trransexual who has had the same sort of life experiences.

                                                                                                                                                             Chloe

I've had very similar thoughts to what several of you have said. I do feel a bit like there are "2 spirits" inside me sometimes. While I first had some feelings that I didn't understand way back in childhood, it's only very recently (relatively speaking) that I've allowed myself to explore them to any degree even close to what I am now. I still find this all very confusing.

I began referring to myself as two-spirit some time before I ran across a reference to Native American Two-Spirit persons using that term.  It just felt right to me for what was going on inside me.  We share a lot of similarities in our paths, Mirala.  Military actually trained me to make my voice louder and deeper (command voice), so I am working to reverse that.  We also share a lot of interests; yes many of them are macho ones.  I fake a good male when I need to.  My martial arts make it easier for me to risk potentially violent situations.  I occasionally work out in heels just in case and practice getting them off quickly.

Still, two-spirit is the only term that really fits for me.  I have studied NA culture for years.  There are tribes that do not endorse being a two-spirit person.  Plains tribe cultures speak to me strongly because I have shared similar ideals, since I was pre-teen, about the world around me.  I refer to my other part as my brother and he thinks of me as his sister.  I have talked about this in my blog some time back.  I sometimes wonder if the male part of me was ever real or a construction to deal with the world around me.  He is pretty stereotypical alpha male but I know that is something I created during high school in my latter years until I believed it was real.  It still exists but due to years of "training".

Debbie,

Your experiences and thoughts touch home too. You have clearly done a lot of critical thinking on this issue.

Michelle,

Sex, Gender Identity and Partner preference are three different things and, as we know, do not always match up as expected.  You are entitled to experiment without guilt.  It is not like society helped us figure this all out.  Besides, most bibles are translated from Hebrew or Aramaic incorrectly and by people with "issues".

Great topic.

I wouldnt say I relate so much to the concept of Two Spirits within myself, but I do use it to convey what and where I am to other people. Two Spirits was an extrodinary progressive social attitude... a person of one sex can have the gender traits and role of the opposite sex and that was ok... how neat is that?
I think that is why it is such a useful concept, as a social construct - but am I a two Spirited person? well, probably no more or no less than anyone else...we all have personality traits that on a bell curve will be more typically male or female

I feel I failed to mention that understanding "Two-Spirit" in the Native American cultures, as they mean it, requires an "understanding" of NA spiritual beliefs, including what the Lakota word "wakan" means.  Language differences can grant a different subjective meaning to the same word used by both cultures.  I suspect, but have not confirmed, that the cultural attitudes between Lakota and Apache would even change the meaning for transgendered persons in their respective languages.  700+ NA tribes means there is no single traditional NA attitude/belief/culture.  There is a strong influence of white cultural and religious beliefs that has warped the true meaning of many NA words/concepts.