Becoming Two-Spirit: Gay Identity and Social Acceptance in Indian Country

7. Difference and Social Belonging in Indian Country

Adapting to Homophobia among Indians 181 chapter seven Difference and Social Belonging in Indian Country 182 Adapting to Homophobia among Indians Adapting to Homophobia among Indians 183 As the members of the Green Country and Denver societies would agree, Two-Spirit people do not represent an alternative form of Indianness. Rather, they are and see themselves as committed to formally accepted community standards of social behavior and moral responsibility . Nonetheless, Two-Spirit people represent a contradiction with dominant perceptions of a masculinity that is inherited from historical constructions of Indian men. Two-Spirit people, however, perceive Indian societies’ endorsement of the masculinist standard as a contradiction of the traditional values that emphasize the social acceptance of all differences.As we have seen,Two-Spirit identity is in part an attempt to reconcile inherited and traditional attitudes toward difference within communities. Notions about difference are enfolded into the ways all Indian people distinguish themselves from white society as well as make distinctions between each other in tribal traditions, religious beliefs, blood quantum, politics, economics, social class, and sexual orientation. In this way, Two-Spirit identity is representative of the ongoing struggle between multiple forms of difference. In an effort to reincorporate their uniqueness into contemporary Native communities, Two-Spirit people strategically emphasize their cultural sameness with Native communities while deemphasizing sexual orientation as a personal defining characteristic. In doing so, they make use of community-recognized historic and contemporary tribal and supratribal Indian traditions. The use of these traditions acts to ensure a recognized connection with the Native communities in which they grew up or seek participation. The incorporation of dominant Native ideology into notions of what Two-Spirit represents creates a reliance on specific traits recognized as “Indian” within multitribal notions of race,gender,and cultural practice.Despite their“perfection” of Indianness, Two-Spirit people assume that any indication of their sexual orientation will not go unnoticed, and as a result any gendered or sexual transgression will generate hostility from their respective communities. Two-Spirit people perceive that acceptance in Native 184 Difference and Social Belonging communities hinges not only on the fulfillment of ideal Indianness but also on how communities perceive their sexual orientation. In this way sexual orientation as a socially recognized difference becomes the single greatest alienating factor for Two-Spirit people in perception and reality. As we have seen, members of the Oklahoma and Colorado groups employ several strategies in dealing with alienation, which include (1) remaining in the closet, (2) changing rules governing performance out of dominant community view, (3) outright public displays of performative resistance, and (4) making oneself useful in Native communities through HIV/AIDS activism and caring for children. While these strategies have differing results, and are somewhat contested among Two-Spirit people, they represent ways of finding a place in communities. While finding a place in a community is crucial to what it means to be Two-Spirit,it is also an example of the ways identity is actively constructed at the intersection of difference and social belonging . Notions about individual and group difference in the construction of identity can be seen in the various ways Two-Spirit people interact with each other and Native communities. Difference as a personal attribute is manipulated as a way to emphasize sameness with the larger Native community, while it is also used to signal individual uniqueness. Individuals may at one time define themselves as simply Indian, while drawing on representations of distinct tribal traditions. By using individual differences as both an incorporating and exclusionary device, non-gay Indians and Two-Spirit peoples unwittingly invoke power relationships . That is, differences take on social meaning and are given the power to include and exclude individuals based on a constant comparison to ideal types of “Indianness,”“Creekness”(as a tribal example), or“TwoSpiritedness .”As we have seen,ideal types of Indianness range from dominantmasculiniststandardstoTwo -Spiritperfectionof women’swork,and from tribal membership to social participation. Whether we are speaking of the dominant Indian community or the gcs and Denver Society,representations of difference – racial classification, masculinity and femininity, individualandcollectivebehaviors–cometodetermineindividualunderstandings of social belonging. Difference and Social Belonging 185 As Two-Spirit men effectively construct ideas about their Native, gender, and sexual identities in relation to dominant ideological standards , they also critically engage the several crucial contradictions in Indian cultural...