Books:

Brown, Lester. Two Spirit People: American Indian Lesbian Women and Gay Men. Haworth Press, 1997.

In Two Spirit People Brown seeks to understand the unique place that American Indian lesbian women and gay men have in American society.  The author presents new views of a gay, lesbian, and bisexual Indians through the lens of American Indian spirituality.

Deschamps, Gilbert. We are Part of a Tradition: a Guide on Two-Spirited People for First Nations Communities. Toronto: 2-Spirited People of the 1st Nations, 1998.

Gilley, Brian Joseph. Becoming Two-Spirit: Gay Identity and Social Acceptance in Indian Country. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006.

Becoming Two Spirit is a sociological insight into Native gay culture and identity, with an emphasis on the problems and difficulties of being gay and American Indian.  Gilley uses oral histories and interviews for an in-depth understanding of how Indian gay men shape their identity, and confront continual misrepresentations and prejudices.

Horswell, Michael J. Decolonizing the Sodomite: Queer Tropes of Sexuality in Colonial Andean Culture. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005.

Horswell provides a fascinating insight into pre-Hispanic Andean culture by exploring notions of gender identity and the use of symbolic ritualistic ceremonies, which involved cross-dressed men creating an androgynous third gender.  Decolonizing the Sodomite is primarily focused on the Spanish colonizers which enforced their views of sexuality on the Andean people.

Jacobs, Sue-Ellen, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine Lang, eds. Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.

This is a series of essays written by anthropologists seeking to deal with their field’s inability to properly investigate the gay, lesbian, transsexual, and transgendered American Indians.  The essayists consist of Indians and non-Indians attempting to deconstruct sexual identity within Indian society.

Lang, Sabine. Men as Women, Women as Men: Changing Gender in Native American Cultures. Translated by John L. Vantine. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998.

Men as Women, Women as Men looks at the role of the “berdache” in several North American Native cultures.  Lang explores the roles of womanly men and manly-women in Native cultures, how the gender-role change was made, and what place these individuals had in secular, spiritual, and mythology of the different Native cultures.

Roscoe, Will. Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.

This is a theoretically and historically based work that explores alternative gender construction within Native North American cultures.  Roscoe examines the role of “berdaches” in historical records and reviews contemporary gay Indian issues.

_____, ed. Living the Spirit: A Gay American Indian Anthology. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988.

“Joining a reclaimed past to a vibrant present, this work provides a broad view of male and female homosexuality in Native American cultural history through anthropological reports, biography, mission records, photographs, oral literature, diaries, interviews, essays, autobiographical excerpts, poems, and selections from novels.”  --excerpt from Library Journal

_____. The Zuni Man-Woman. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991.

“This book focuses on the life of We'wha, perhaps the most famous berdache (an individual who combined the work and traits of both men and women) in American history. Through We'wha's exceptional life, historian Will Roscoe creates a vivid picture of an alternative gender role whose history has been hidden and almost forgotten.”  --From the Publisher

Trexler, Richard C. Sex and Conquest: Gendered Violence, Political Order, and the European Conquest. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press, 1995.

“A historical account of the berdache--biological men who performed the offices and work of women, including sexual service--in Europe and America at the time of the Conquest. Trexler examines the sexual culture of both early modern Iberia and the native American world of that era.”  --Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Williams, Walter L. The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.

A study of the berdache culture of Native Americans.  Williams examines the customs and social roles that the berdache had throughout many North American Native cultures.  Williams also explores the impact that contact with Europeans had on Native views of sexuality.

Articles:

Gutierrez, Ramon. “Deracinating Indians in Search of Gay Roots: A Response to Will Roscoe's ‘The Zuni Man-Woman’.” Out/Look 1: 4 (1989): 61- 7.

Pilling, Arnold R. “Northwest California Indian Gender Classes: ‘Those who could not marry,’ ‘Those men who have never been near a woman,’ and ‘Women who do men's things’.” Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists Newsletter 14: 2 (1992): 15- 23.

Towle, Evan B. “Romancing the Transgender Native: Rethinking the Use of the ‘Third Gender’ Concept.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 8: 4 (2002) 469- 97.

Most recent Compilation: Monica Butler

Annotated by : Cody Marshall

Web Update:

Tuesday, March 25, 2008 11:46 AM