Part of being two-spirited is to be able to look objectively at two dualities or dichotomies without splitting. It is to be comfortable occupying that place in between without being consumed. There is a great void there, and the Two-spirit looks into it directly and fearlessly…
rational/irrational
spiritual/scientific
hot/cold
sadness/joy
light/dark
death/birth
male/female
young/old
past/future
Creator/Destroyer
wild/tame
(C)henry francis redhouse, 2013, including artwork.
“I am looking to the future and see all of that new life to come as an adventure—a hard one indeed—but an adventurous and positive journey just as well.” Photo by Leslie Danger, 2012.
Coming Out, Full Circle
02.04.2013
I try not, but sometimes I must look over my life and the changes in it that have occurred since I “came out” as two-spirit (transgendered). It shows me where I have been and what I have overcome, and steels me for the future and what will come. And I think sometimes that people are amazed and I hope inspired by the stories of their peers, brothers, and sisters in the LBGTQ community.
I do not recommend the method I used to “come out”. I wrote a letter to all my relatives and sent it in the mail. When my parents and aunt got the letter, and realized that I was sending it to everyone, they intercepted the mail of my grandfathers to shield the Old Ones from it. Later, when they had a time to talk amongst themselves, they allowed the grandfathers to read my note. They need not have worried; the Old Ones were the least affected by my announcement and I recall my grandfather pulling me aside at a family cookout, and leaning in close, he kissed me on my cheek, and said, “I don’t care who or what you are. I love you and I will always love you.” The rest of my family would have done well to be as adaptable as the elderly unexpectedly were.
As it was, my parents had a hard time adjusting to my new gender identity and are still adjusting. I expected to be kicked out and I expected to be disowned. I did not expect tears. My father cried. My mother cried. I could not console them. They would grieve for many years before coming to a place of cautious acceptance. I always knew that they did not ever stop loving me. But I have thought since then that their love was somehow “tainted” or that their pride in me was reserved for only parts of me, “not this.”
One of my brothers would not speak to me for two years, or attend family events if he knew I was going to be there. That first holiday season I spent away from all family, homeless. But, I “snuck into” Christmas at my parents the next year when he was there, and had not been told I was coming. He is getting better each day, and I think his new wife is a positive influence and advocate for diversity, since we are now talking, texting, and being together at family events again.
I have an identical twin sister whose reaction is still up-in-the-air with the reality that her identical twin is now her fraternal twin. She sees this as a betrayal beyond the physical; as if she does not know this person who used to share all her secrets anymore. I think we have lost something of the unique bond that twins share and I grieve for this each day I have lost with her since. I am uncertain where we stand with one another at this point. I am mostly confused by this. However, returning to my homestate someday soon, I can work on this relationship and try to ascertain what is happening in my absence with her.
Today most of my family’s reservations have less to do with me personally, and more with how they will explain things to others as family friends see the very obvious changes in our family dynamics. “I thought you had twin girls?” or “How is C*****?” and having to explain that I am not that person and do not have that name anymore. My family calls me by a fairly genderless childhood nickname, not my birthname very often anymore. But after thirty years, I doubt they can ever drop the feminine pronouns to refer to me, and I give them that. They are always trying and getting better. I have been away from my home-state and family for some time now and given us all space to reconsider and grow “used to” the idea that I am now their son and brother after so many years as someone else.
I lost friends and I lost my husband of ten years one cold December night, when I left my marriage home in the middle of the night, and never returned. I was immediately homeless and lived for two weeks in the back of my truck, before being given a bed in a [woman’s] domestic violence shelter. There just was no place else for someone like me to go. I lived in a rural area with few resources for the homeless; this was the only place I could go in the county. There were no shelters for men or families like in the cities. Eventually, I moved onto transitional housing with a roommate at an apartment for people between shelters and independent living. I finished my associate’s degree at a community college during this time, and even moved into my own supported-living apartment for the first time since I was 21.
I could say that I “lost my faith” also when I “came out” as well. I vacillated for several months whether I was a sinner of choice, or was born this way. I was raised a Christian and in another time and place, I would have been one of those rabid evangelicals holding signs that say “God hates gays.” Good friends from my former church told me that if God wanted me to be a boy he would have given me a penis when I was born. One by one, these friends dropped out of my life, and little by little, I did lose my faith.
If we take a snapshot or an overview of my life at this moment when all seemed so bad, it amazes me how much I had lost: everything—financial (homelessness, loss of income), social (friends, family, church), emotional (stability), and spiritual (church, faith). In a way, everything that makes up a person’s essential identity was gone from my life. But as the story unfolded, I can look back and see how though this was tragic and immensely difficult, it was also a rare opportunity for a second chance to rewrite my whole story in a positive way.
For a time, having lost everything that made up who I was, I was greatly lost. I cannot stress how horrible this time in my life was, but how very necessary as well. I considered suicide many times. I began self-harming and cutting. I wrote sad and disturbed poetry. And I had no one to turn to, as friendless and without a faith-base as I was.
But when you question everything you ever knew or accepted about yourself, starting with the most immalleable characteristics of your identity, your gender, then also you begin to question all the things that make up who you are. And from that time I began rewriting my life and my identity. I looked at each facet of my identity and examined them all under the lens of free thought; the idea that everything was compromise-able in my new identity.
Having lost everything or changed everything that made me into the person who people knew up to this point, I was able to look at each facet or item independently. It was like everything—socially, spiritually, and emotionally, was laid out in front of me in a large lump of malleable clay. It was ready to be reshaped. As I took up each insensible handful of clay and examined each part of it subjectively, I asked how each item was serving me: was it helpful, was it necessary, was it good? I examined my core spiritual beliefs and the guilt associated with “being a sinner”, and rejected that teaching. I examined how I felt about myself and my poor self-esteem and made the decision to love myself as I was. I examined my “victim-status” I had donned from childhood abuse and poverty, and cast it off. And I placed these things which did not serve me aside, and used the rest to begin the reshaping: starting with my gender identity.
And though the process is not complete, I can say I like where it has taken me. I have replaced church friends with allies and the friends-closer-than-family. I am now at a place to accept their unconditional and undeserved love and it has given me clarity. I am not always pleased with how my body looks, but I am also at a place of acceptance in that. I have made positive changes in my spiritual life as well and found the Good Red Road of the two-spirits, which tells me that I am not a sinner or an outcast, but valuable and necessary to all life. It tells me that Creator does not make useless people or mistakes, but that I was born into this identity. I was not born “into the wrong body” as a victim but I was born two-spirited as Creator always intended. I have a real spiritual duty to the earth, my fellow beings, and myself as a two-spirited person. I replaced the guilt and rejection of the Christian faith with the Red Path of the ancestors. Nature is now my church and the earth is my mother. I have survived suicide and self-harming behaviors. My emotional state has stabilized, though I am ever vigilant and continue to be in counseling. I am becoming financially independent again, having now obtained a bachelor’s degree and some experience in my field. My continued absence from my family, who live in another state, has made all of our hearts grow fonder. Time away has been good for all of us as we all work out how we fit together as family again. I am looking forward to being reunited with my tribe and family and all I left behind soon. All goes in a circle as it should.
People who knew me “before-and-after” are equally amazed at the changes they see in me, even beyond the physical appearance. They either have forgotten that “other person” who existed in a microcosm of intolerance for thirty years, or they remember that sad person and applaud and love the new one who has emerged a more positive being. Sometimes I think that my life began in 2008 when I “came out” and that the person who existed before has died. But I cannot deny that I was raised a certain way and socialized as a different gender and person, but have somehow survived the better for it, or despite it all. Sometimes I feel very young, like a teenager just graduating from college at this point, and learning how to make his or her way in the world. But sometimes I think that “this is not my first pony-ride,” and I have the experience of a thirty-six year old as well. That is part of being two-spirited as well: seeing with two lenses—the experience of a whole life lived and the newness of one yet un-lived. And I am looking to the future and see all of that new life to come as an adventure—a hard one indeed—but an adventurous and positive journey just as well.
(C)henry francis redhouse, 2013. Artwork is property of its respective owners.
*I could not sleep last night because these thoughts were racing in my mind. I keep a notebook by my bed to write things down that come to me in the dreamworld like that. Some say writing is a gift but it is hard to convince me when I wake tired, having gotten up ten times to write down random thoughts and trying to make them into a coherent essay in the morning. Those who are given such gifts are often the most tortured by the gift. Anyway, when I use the words “we/us” in this essay, I am really speaking about LGBTQ2 and all the poeple of the extended rainbow alphabet who identify as such. Thank you.
I Do Not Believe in Sin
I do not believe in sin. The true measure of morality is not defined by the idea of godless sin, in a book that was not written until thousands of years after all things were created. There is no “original sin” in indigenous history. We do not believe that all of us are “born into sin” and need redemption from a “sinful nature”. Nature is not sinful! We are all born innocent as the animals and plants around us. There is no sin in them or in us. We are created to solely bring no hurt into the world. We were created to heal and to love.
I do not believe in sin. I believe in not bringing hurt into the world. And in love. And Creation.
If we are sin by being LGBTQ2, then, who do we hurt? We love. Love is not hurting. Love is healing and love is creating. Maybe we sin if we drink too much or litter the earth with our trash. For by drinking alcohol or littering, it brings direct hurt into the world (to myself, others, the Earth our Mother). But not by being two-spirited as Creator intended. Our love never hurts anyone. To the contrary, all who see and experience our love in all its beautiful forms are greatly and positively affected by it.
Love is as innocent and primeval as it gets. It is the first creation. For in the very act of creating, Creator expressed his love for us. All of Creation is love and love is in Creating. Creation is the greatest expression of love. I was created (with all of Creator’s love) just this way (two-spirited) and I do not believe that Creator would have made us this way only to condemn us later for being exactly who we were created to be.
All of creating is love. All of love is creating and healing. It is an unending circle—a circle of being, loving, creating, living. Join our circle! Welcome us into the rightful circle, the rightful place we have in our tribes and families. We are all the Creator’s expression of love. We are exactly as he intended. Aho.
(C)henry francis redhouse, 2012. Artwork is the property of its respective owners.
i will always be two-spirited…i hold a sacred trust from the spirits.
*warning for strong language.
**excerpts from my journal as I explore my gender identity and two-spirit roles:
27/06/2011 09:16 “How do I respond to bigoted women who declare, “I hate men!” when their relationships go south, when I am trying to be the very thing that they so hate? I am trying to acknowledge their feelings and the fact that most women (and some men) will in sometime of hier lives, be abused by a person who has a statistically-high probability of being male. See, I am trying to engender (that’s a bad word to use here, huh?), or be, the best kind of man I can be, because I made a conscientious decision regarding my gender identity. I was not born into this role but have tried very hard to develop the best path to manhood. So, sure, I can call them on their shit-talk and say, “Hey, I’m a man!” But they inevitably reply, “But you are not that type of man. You’re different.” Are they deconstructing my gender because my genitals differ from other guys or acknowledging that I was not always male, or that I am somehow a “better man” because of my two-spirited identity and my past? Mostly, though, I just say nothing and leave them to their inaccurate stereotypes and self-serving derogatory biases. And hope I never give them a chance to say “I hate men!” because of something I personally did.”
“But a “real man [sic]” sticks up for himself and others. If they said something else, like “I hate blacks, or gays, women, etc”, would I stand up for them properly then? Yes! Of course! But a part of me that has come down this forked path still believes that I have to take, or allow man-hating mongery, when I took the title “Mr.” Another part of me say I have no right to stand up for a group of people to which I originally or genetically do not belong, or for a group of individuals known statistically for their aggressive nature. However, I do not originally (or currently) belong to groups of blacks, Jews, women, etc; and yet I would stand up for them because they are “minorities”. Is it right to allow wholesale stereotypical bias/hatred toward a group of people who are the majority, like men or whites, or if current social bias is so strong toward that group, that I would scarcely find an ally in a large room to back me up (such as “I hate lawyers, politicians, communists, etc)? What makes one type of hate speech OK (lawyers, politicians, communists), and one type not-OK (gays, women, blacks, native americans, Jews)? The people? They are just that–people. Even lawyers. LOL”
“And if being male gives me immediate social privilege, do I really want that privilege at the expense of someone else (women, gays, whatever)? And yet, I have seen this over and over as unsuspecting persons not aware of my past as a two-spirit, immediately assign me a congruous gender based on my appearance, and a social place in our environment. Keep your damn male privilege; I’ll earn my own. I don’t need to take it from someone else to feel big.”
26/09/2011 09:58 “Dear Dad: I know you are trying to protect me. It’s what Dads do. You are afraid that I may get shot or something by some passing redneck who sees my rainbow gay pride stickers on my (equally redneck) truck. But, seriously? You took my rainbow “fuck hate” sticker off my window?! Am I 16 & driving the family van? NO! I am sorry if the strong language offends you. And I know that I take my chances with all the traveling I do. But if it’s safer to not speak out against hate and it’s safer to not offend people, Sorry, Dad, I just don’t want to be safe in that kind of world! Love, C.”
18/04/2012 07:27 “Being two-spirited is the one identity label I have chosen to explain my existence with, because, rather than merely defining me by whom I am attracted to, or by the set of genitals that I do (or do not) possess, two-spirited defines me entirely: physically, emotionally, and spiritually as a whole person. Not only a facet of my life, but a lifestyle in its entirety. Two-spirited tells me exactly where I fit into society, what are my expectations (and others’), how I should act, and who my people are. Two-spirited tells me everything I need to know to live in harmony with others and with the Earth. Aho.”
31/05/2012 09:52 “I will always be two-spirited despite/if/when my body completely changes. I have a responsibility to my community and myself to hold this tradition sacred even if that community does not recognize/realize/remember it yet. And I will always be proud of who I am and I will never stop advocating and living this way. If I could go back to the day of my birth and be born in one defining spirit, I would not do it. I hold a sacred trust from the spirits.Aho.”
(C) henry francis redhouse, 2012 (artwork is property of its respective owners)
That awkward moment when…there are no awkward moments. Or at least not as popular society defines “awkward”. I recently read a student op-ed about awkward moments and I realized that I have experienced virtually all of those so-called “awkward moments” and not felt awkward at all; because I am simply at a point in my life where I could care less what people see and what they think of me. Not only that, but I have lived my life as an invisible minority and the token “quiet person” for so long, I realize that the majority of people I encounter throughout the day do not even see me, and that they do not even notice that I am there at all. Being invisible is great for the self-esteem. No one notices me except myself and I can feel good without having to look outside for my intrinsic self-worth. It is entirely within me.
That awkward moment is not as the narcissistic op-ed claimed, when “1) there isn’t an app for that, 2) you fart having sex, 3) you find out you have been wearing your shirt inside out all day, 4) you are walking in one direction, then turn around and walk the other way and people are looking, 5) you’re talking about someone and they are right behind you, or 6) you can’t pick a wedgie in public.” No, that awkward moment is when, you have to come out as transgendered to your college so you can get safe housing. That awkward moment is when you have to come out as learning disabled to your professor so you can get extra help. That awkward moment is when you have to declare your gender to be one of two things: male or female, and either way is a lie, so you don’t know if that will disqualify from employment if they ever find out; or if you will be discriminated against for medical treatment based on your body type and what your insurance card says. That awkward moment is when someone sees an old picture of you and asks, “WTF?” and they have no clue whatsoever. That awkward moment is when someone gay-bashes your truck or pisses on your room door because you are different. That awkward moment is when you have to out yourself as autistic to the cops to keep from getting shot or tazed during an emotional public melt-down.
Essentially, these awkward moments have very little to do about how we see ourselves, which is within the loci of our control, but on how others view and experience us…and that is the very awkward moment that is entirely out-of-our-control and the scariest. Real life: It’s a bit more scary than just picking a wedgie.
(C) henry francis redhouse, 2012 (artwork is property of its respective owners)
Listen to the trees! High in the branches of this old, hollow trail tree, another tree bangs against it, making like a drum. This sound led me to re-discover this trail tree, and 10 others “the Decodons” in the same state forest. I now call this one “Drum Tree”.
Two-Spirit or Two-Spirited is a modern term used to explain and unify the concept of native and aboriginal persons who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, other-gendered, or transgendered. In Mohawk, the word is ron’on:wat, which means, “he has a pattern or of, or is a combination of things”. I like this word very much, because it allows one to visualize that beyond gender, the ron’on:wat is made of a complex design and embodies many different things.
Many objects in Native American lure and myth embody two opposite, but equal beings. A common more’ says that each of us are made of two wolves, one good and one evil, and that everything has these two spirits inside: Creator and Destroyer. Rain is both Creator and Destroyer: it grows crops and plants, and wreaks destruction in floods and storms. Wolf is both Creator and Destroyer: giving birth to new wolves, and being a prey animal, taking life from others. Tree is both a Creator and Destroyer force: Tree makes oxygen and creates shade and fruit; and also tears up the ground with its root system, even breaking down rock and minerals for nutrients.
The ron’on:wat also has the spirits of Creation and Destruction inside them like all beings. But also embodies the two opposite extremes: male and female. As such, they were often mediators between men and women, between tribes, and between the spirit and rational worlds. They specialized in curing sexual sicknesses, were often medicine people and skilled crafters. These are all Creator/Destroyer functions.
Early explorers reported that often the rono’n:wat occupied a place outside the tribe or village, or at the edge of the camp. They misinterpreted this to mean that these people were outcasts of their society. But to know why they lived on the boundary of their tribal lands, you must understand the tribal custom. For the Haudenasaunee, these people lived at the edge of the village or camp to be the first persons that visitors encountered, including whites. Traditionally, if one wished to visit a Haudenasaunee village, one would stay at the perimeter of the village and light a fire to signal their presence politely. You just did not walk into a community space and knock on longhouse doors. You waited until you were recognized by your small signal fire, checked out and deemed not-a-threat, and invited to join the group and then conduct your business appropriately. A rono’n:wat would often be the first person to bridge the gap or mediate between this visitor and tribe, sometimes as a sensitive buffer between visiting emisaries. They were especially skilled at sensing spirits and intent of such visitors and creating a buffer for the tribe against outsiders and intruders.
The Two-Spirited also embodies, beyond gender, many opposite extremes: such as the rational/spiritual worlds. I encounter this everyday: I am a biologist but I am also a spiritualist. I use both my spiritual and rational minds to solve problems, study trees, write, and sense in a way how science should inform the spirit; and the spirit inform the science. I use science and spirit hand-in-hand. For example: I am a tree-finder and have done this for many years. I am working on both a scientific and a spiritual task of locating and documenting authentic Haudenasaunee trail marker trees in New York State. I can “read” a forest both scientifically and spiritually as I search for these lost trees who still point the way to places no one goes anymore. I observe the age and species of the forest occupants. I can infer whether the area was agricultural, logged-over, or wild forever by finding scientific clues, such as species composition, landscape and ground cover, fire-scars and rib-scars on standing trees, and growth patterns. But I also rely greatly on my spiritual senses and observations: I listen to the trees. I open myself up to exploration and curiosity. It is very difficult to describe this process. But I see signs: a perfect specimen that catches my eye, a deep conviction that I should precede one way and not the other, a persistent silent sense that gets turned on when I am on a tree-hunt. As a person who is made of a combination of things, I do not find that my scientific and spiritual spirits oppose or exclude one another, but combine to make me a better scientist and a better mediator between rational and irrational.
Curing illness is also historically a field that the Two-Spirited persons excelled at. This is a Creator/Destroyer function as well, an opposite and extreme gift given to some. In healing, the rono’n:wat destroys the sickness and creates the wellness. I do not know much about medicine healing since I have not been given this gift. But I can imagine that a healer creates cures with herbs, with dancing and ceremonies for the sick. And they destroy the illness with these same powers. All remains in balance at the end: illness and wellness are checked and balanced by the cure.
Mediator is defined by AudioEnglish.com as “a negotiator who acts as a link between parties”. As such, the essence of the mediator function is find compromise and restore balance between two opposing forces, whether spiritual/scientific, Creator/Destroyer, male/female, outsider/tribe, or health/illness. Two-Spirited persons are at an especial advantage to serve as mediators. They already transgress between two worlds, the male/female, and are therefore uniquely equipped to balance opposing functions in many different ways.
(C)henry francis redhouse, 2012. Including artwork.
I dislike this saying greatly: “being born in the ‘wrong body”. I realize and I acknowledge that the expression helps some people to understand us better when they encounter a person like me—a two-spirited or transgendered person. It comforts parents of transgendered children to know “they did not cause this” and their child was just “born in the wrong body.” There is even a book written by a transgendered person entitled, “Wrong Body, Wrong Life”. It is a quick way to explain it; but it explains nothing and ruins everything I love about being two-spirited.
So, what exactly is the “right body” to have anyway? Is the right body beautiful, perfectly- portioned, sculpted by muscles made in the gym? Is the right one a certain shade or color? And maybe more importantly, what is the “wrong way” to have a body? Because nobody wants to have a “wrong body”, right? Is the wrong body maybe disfigured by an accident, or disabled in some way? Is it a bigger body, or a fat one? Are the transgendered people I know and love really living in the “wrong body”? Or is society’s ideal the wrong one?
There really is not a “right” or “wrong” way to have a body. Bodies are just had. They are a random combination of parental genes expressed physically. Some of the body is under our own personal locus of control, such as muscle-building or cutting hair. But the base is really just genetics we all have or we don’t: mere genetic expression.
So, what are these people (transgendered and those who are not) really saying when they use this expression of “wrong body”? What I feel inside when I hear this is not comforting and not very flattering. The expression implies that something is wrong with me, my body, my mind that thinks it is in the wrong place. It implies that a terrible thing must have happened to “give” me the wrong body, or that Creator made my existence a curse at birth for his maniacal pleasure—a joke on the natural order of things. It implies that there are only two ways to have a body—the right way and the wrong way. But bodies are just had; they are neither right nor wrong. And as hard as we as transgendered thinkers try to stay outside the boundaries of the binary, having a right/wrong body is as binary as male/female constructs. Another box to squeeze into. In truth, my traditions teach me that there are more than two ways to have a body—and we are made of infinite combinations of all these ways: color, genitals, height, weight, mass. Bodies have color. That is not right or wrong. Bodies are tall or they are short. That is not right or wrong. Bodies have disabilities or they do not. That is not right or wrong. Bodies have genitals. That is neither right nor wrong either.
Creator made us all unique with our separate gifts to offer, never as a cruel joke or a curse. I embrace who I was born as—a two-spirited person. I embrace all of Creation; most of all I embrace my Created self. Society sometimes does not embrace me. Even the tribes have been known to reject the ones who were born different. But that is a western idea based on a white, heterosexual, binary gender system. Historically, in most American tribes there are more than two genders: three, four, and up to seven different varieties of gender that each have their gifts and talents to lend to the community. In the past, third-, fourth- and seventh-gendered persons had valuable functions to fulfill in the tribe. They were foster parents, medicine people, skilled crafters, hunters, warriors, chiefs, mediators. Some ceremonies could only be conducted by the two-spirited “other genders”. But these things have long been lost in the memories of historical trauma and westernization. But that certainly does not mean that the “other genders” are not valuable today. Creator teaches that we all are valuable, all of Creation is valuable: from the tiniest microcellular organism under the ground, to the eagle in the sky, and every human being given this watch over the Earth. We are all intrinsically valuable because we are all holy Creation!
Transgendered Rabbi Levi Alter says, “Gender is merely a covering for the soul. We take it off and we put it on. We change it and tailor it to fit us.” Bodies are just clothes and the carriers of the spirit that defines us as individuals. Sure, my body does not easily fit into the western binary system of male/female. But it is not wrong. Let me say that again: YOUR BODY IS NOT WRONG! It carries the sacred inside Creation. Creator makes infinite combinations of all your parts to make you who you are—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Your body is not wrong—whatever it looks like to you and others. It is Creation. It is not a “mistake”, a curse, or a bad joke. You were not made this way by anyone’s malicious intent. Creator makes more than one or two kinds of bodies; and more than one or two kinds of minds; and more one or two kinds of spirits. Look around you at the infinite variety of the human body/mind/spirit. No one’s is more righter than your own Created self!
And that is why I love and do not hate being transgendered. To hate yourself is to hate Creator. To be sure, I hate what society does to me, or the struggles I have faced, and the depression and suicide attempts I survived to get here, and how people treat me; but I do not hate me. At times it may seem that my body and my mind are in an irrevocable dichotomy and at war with one another. Especially when it seems that surgery or hormones are impossible and living up to society’s ideal of “maleness” escapes me completely. If you subscribe to the statement that you were born in the wrong body, and you were ever given the chance to live in the “right one”, would you really want to? You—and I, would most certainly not be the same persons we are today! I would not be writing this essay and I would not be the loving, unique, valuable Creature that I am at all. It would be…all wrong.
Are you a boy or a girl? No. Are you?
(C)henry francis redhouse, 2012 (artwork is property of its respective owners)
henry's home for wandering trees 