The masculine and feminine archetypes as spiritual forces set up the psychic condition whereby bisexuality and other sexual expressions emerge. Not only is there a masculine archetype as a consort and companion of the Goddess and Earth Mother such as the Green Man, there is also a two-spirit archetype—a strong man-woman and a strong woman-man living in the soul.
While everyone is androgynous to some extent, certain people are more directly connected to the two-spirit archetype. The two-spirit soul is seeking to be lived in its many expressions. For some that may be within a certain spirituality that their two-spirit nature puts them in touch with—an inner healer, an inner shaman or an awareness of the value and unity of all things as a companion of the Goddess and Mother Earth, living in harmony with her.
Are you a two-spirit? In this chapter I explore the historical and archetypal expressions of the two-spirit and how the two-spirit may express itself in homosexuality and bisexuality.
I dream that
My former lover Sam and his wife have returned. They brought with them friends, another couple. They are putting on a play. My wife is in the play. She has a table with a projection screen, and she is to roll out the table with the projection screen. There is also a second cart with a projection screen that another lady has. Sam is in the singing group. His friend is leading the group. They sing a song, “She’s a strong man-woman. He’s a strong woman-man.” I say, “Well, praise God! Androgyny has finally come to the church.” (Journal 4-22-87)
My decision to trust the dreams that told me “the healing of your homosexual self is in freeing him from the parsonage” and “homosexuality is the treasure hard to find” as the voice of God in me resulted in a long journey into the depths of my own soul and the discovery of archetypal forces from an ancient time. The twists and turns of listening to my dreams, trusting synchronicities, following my intuition, and interacting with the spirit world through meditation and my paintings led me into the world of shamanism, the recovery of the Green Man, the discovery of the berdache or two-spirit archetype and a new under- standing of my relationship to both the masculine and the feminine. I came to understand that the bull that had chased me up the tree in that early dream and that had chased me into a barn in another dream where I discovered a woman hiding behind the mask of a dog was the remnant of an ancient masculine living in the depths of my soul—a masculine that had not lost his connection to nature nor to the Great Goddess and Earth Mother. I would discover him as the shaman in me. I would discover him as the Green Man in me. I would discover him as the healer in me. I would discover him as the Divine Masculine in nature. I would discover him as the light in matter. I would discover him as the divine light in the depths of my own soul connecting me to the Earth Mother as one with her. As the dream with which I started this chapter had indicated years earlier, I would discover androgyny and my two-spirit nature.
The connection to the feminine and especially to the mother has long been a common way the West has viewed homosexuality. Multiple studies have held that one of the causes of homosexuality is an over- protective, dominating mother and the absence of the father in a boy’s life. While modern brain research provides evidence that the origins of sexual orientation are far more complicated than simply the influences of parental complexes, there is evidence to suggest that the masculine and feminine archetypes as spiritual forces do set up a psychic condition whereby homosexuality emerges. Parents, to the extent that they become the carriers of archetypal forces already vibrating in the soul of a child, may assist in bringing to life the expressions of these very archetypes.
As a child I was close to my mother, identifying with her because of my natural interests in art, crafts, music, and activities typically associated with the feminine—baking, knitting, babysitting, growing plants and flowers, taking care of hurt animals, and dressing up in women’s clothes. As such one could say that my ego become overly identified with the feminine, driving the more masculine characteristics into the unconscious that, as I moved into adolescence, became projected onto men with whom I longed to connect in an effort to experience the masculine—a masculine different from the one I knew in the parsonage. As my dreams began to uncover and reveal the unconscious and archetypal dynamics underlying the conflicts of my soul, I discovered other forces at work in me. I discovered that my same-sex attraction was only a small piece of a much larger story. I discovered the shaman and the Green Man and their relationship to the Earth Mother. I discovered that my identification with my mother and the feminine was only the manifestation of a much larger dynamic, one that may have been present from my birth. I discovered that not only is there the archetypal configuration of the masculine as a consort and companion of the Goddess and Earth Mother, there is also what the indigenous cultures call the berdache or two-spirit soul.
I am indebted to work of Walter Williams and his review of the anthropological studies of berdachism as well as his own extensive field study of berdaches in many American Indian and indigenous cultures as detailed in his book The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Cultures. This chapter is not intended to be a review of berdachism. For those who might become interested in the topic, I refer you to the work of Walter Williams. Also, although there are female berdaches, my references are to male berdaches.
I am neither intending to apply nor impose the traditions of berdachism to Anglo-Americans. Such traditions clearly belong to the Native American and other indigenous cultures as sacred and intimate parts of their tribal stories. However, what does interest me is the archetypal aspects of these traditions and how the archetype of the berdache or two-spirit may now be emerging in other cultures and societies and how that archetype may apply to my own story.
A berdache is anatomically male but does not fulfill a standard man’s role in society. This person is often seen as effeminate, but a more accurate description would be androgynous. Berdaches mix together the behavior, dress, and social roles of both women and men. They often dress as women, do women’s work, and care for children. They gain social prestige by their spiritual, intellectual craftwork and artistic contributions to their communities, and by their reputations for hard work and generosity. Because berdaches are not seen as men or women but as having an alternate gender that is a mixture of diverse elements, they serve as mediators between women and men as well as between the physical and spiritual worlds.412 In fact, most important is their spiritual role as mediators between the physical and spiritual worlds, between the visible and the invisible. A relationship to the invisible or unseen world is critical to the berdache. Where the Western culture stigmatized the berdaches and wasted their spiritual power, the indigenous cultures recognized their capacity to mediate between the physical and spiritual worlds and successfully used these skills and insights for the good of the community.413
Berdaches often have a predisposition as a dreamer or visionary that some cultures believe connects them to the supernatural or spirit worlds. In fact, berdaches often receive their call and instruction through a dream or a vision. They often assist shamans or serve as shamans and medicine men.414 Such people have a clearly recognized and accepted social status and special ceremonial roles in their communities. In their sexual lives, they generally take a nonmasculine role, either being asexual or taking the passive role in sex with men. In some situations, a berdache becomes the wife of a man, and they live together as husband and wife.415
Of note, because of negative connotations associated with the word berdache due to its linguistic roots, in the 1990s Native American anthropologists replaced it with the term two-spirit to refer to what was traditionally known as the berdache.416 I have chosen to use the word berdache when I am referring to its long-standing historical use and to use the term two-spirit when speaking more about current times and the role of two-spirit people moving forward. In either case I am using the terms to refer to a person born with an androgynous spirit, as existing somewhere between the characteristics of women and men, and who possess the insights and perceptions of both. These are persons who have the perspective that others of a single gender don’t or can’t see.
Although berdaches may take on the dress and social roles of women and live with a man in a same-sex relationship, berdachism is ultimately a reflection of spirituality.417 In many indigenous cultures, everything that happens is due to the spirits and the spirit world. Physical, emotional, personal, and even community health has to do with our relationships with the spirit world. Whether we know it or not, we are always interacting with the energetic world. I was told in a journey to the Place of the Hummingbird that “the energy of the one is continually exchanging itself with the energy of the other.” It is the respectful, reciprocal relationship with all that is that sustains and improves the health of all.
My own psycho-spiritual-physical health is dependent on the health of my soul. The health of my soul is dependent on my relationship with the spirits and the universe. My own personal journey into dreams and into the world of shamanism has revealed this to me over and over. While shamans are not necessarily berdaches, because of the berdache’s spiritual connection they are often associated with shamanism and are considered to be powerful shaman or are the people from whom shamans seek advice.418
In Native American and indigenous cultures, families recognize the marks of a berdache early on in the life of a child. In fact, in many indigenous cultures, it is obvious from birth that a boy has the spirit of the berdache. They are often beautiful boys with effeminate voices and behaviors, avoiding rough-and-tumble play, seeking instead the play of girls. The mother often recognizes this early on and encourages the boy to participate in more traditionally feminine things such as cooking, sewing, and crafts.419
The day I read the description of a child born in American Indian and other indigenous societies that was recognized as having an androgynous spirit and given to things associated with the feminine who then became a berdache, I saw myself. Perhaps I wanted to see myself in that description. It gave me a context whereby to reimagine my childhood, to see it differently, to see myself differently, to feel differently, to understand myself differently, and to accept myself and my childhood. Again, the berdache is described as a non-masculine, effeminate child who likes to play with girls and girly things. He is also inclined toward the arts and enjoys dressing in women’s clothes. That pretty much described me as a child even into my early adolescent years. I was that child. I was non-masculine and described as effeminate, often being made fun of, called “sissy” or “a girl.” I didn’t care for sports or aggressive play and preferred playing with dolls and playing house with the girls in the neighborhood. I also had natural inclinations toward music and art, spending time drawing, painting, making crafts, baking cookies, knitting, and making artificial flowers and flower arrangements.
While my brothers were playing ball with the boys in the neighborhood, I was tramping through the woods, playing in the ponds, catching tadpoles and gathering up frog eggs, taking them home to watch them hatch, or bringing home a wounded bird to take care of. While I did have male friends, they were more like me—preferring art and music to sports and activities more associated with an aggressive masculinity.
In my early teens I took a liking to caring for babies and became obsessed with taking care of a newborn baby in the church, holding it during church services and then returning home with its parents so that I could care for the baby. Later, I became a babysitter as a way to earn money.
I liked wearing women’s dresses even into my adolescent years. Although today I have developed a greater sense of my masculinity and have no desire to dress as a woman, I can still find that part of me, and I could take her shopping, and I know exactly how to dress her.
Along with those characteristics developed a same-sex attraction. It all seemed to fit together in a package. In same-sex relationships, like the berdache, I also preferred the passive role. So in many ways, even though I wasn’t born into an Indian culture, it would appear that I exhibited many of the characteristics of a berdache. However, the culture of the Judeo-Christian evangelical parsonage in to which I was born didn’t have a framework for such a child and while my non-masculine, musical, artistic, and nature-oriented attributes were not necessarily ridiculed and in many ways were even encouraged, the sexual side of this archetypal configuration was deplored and judged as morally wrong and a sin. While I made the choice not to live the same-sex attraction out in external relationships, I refused to reject it and made the choice to honor my two-spirit nature, my androgynous spirit. I found that other masculine inside me that allowed me to step more fully into the other characteristics of my two-spirit nature—the artist, the dreamer and ultimately, as my dreams would eventually reveal, the shaman and healer.
This book has been the story of my search for this other man living in my soul. As the book has revealed, I began to develop more of the masculine aspects of this two-spirit nature and to feel more balanced in the expressions of my masculine and feminine spirits. Williams points out that in his own field study and interviews with many berdaches he found a pattern that is more individual and unique and more androgynous than strictly feminine.420
In general, the West believes that sex is a certainty, and that one’s gender identity and sex role always conforms to one’s anatomical sex. Western thought tends to divide groups into dichotomies that are mutually exclusive: male and female, black and white, homosexual and heterosexual, right and wrong, good and evil. However, other world views are often more accepting of the ambiguities of life. In his study of multiple Indian cultures, Williams talks with Indian people themselves and explores how certain cultures are able to accommodate gender and sexual variation beyond the man/woman dichotomy without being threatened by it. In fact, acceptance of gender variation in the berdache tradition is typical of many native cultures’ approach to life in general.421
Williams points out that Western psychiatrists are often more interested in finding out the cause of a boy becoming feminine or homosexual as if there is some need to change or prevent such behavior. American Indians on the other hand are more interested in the social position of such a boy. Indian parents see no need to change such a child. In fact, they take an active role in encouraging a child to become a berdache or, at the very least, accept his inclinations as a reflection of an innate spiritual character. In these cultures, gender variation is an accepted reality and families accept that this is simply who their child will be.422
Because of the general acceptance by the community of a berdache there is no suppression of his feminine behavior. Neither does he internalize a negative or poor self-image as is often the case in Western culture where such behaviors and inclinations are considered deviant. As a result, berdaches who value their position have fewer incidents of problems related to alcohol and suicide. As one Crow traditionalist said, “We don’t waste people, the way white society does. Every person has their gift.”423
Some anthropologists suggest that the boy who chooses to become a berdache is the boy who shies away from the pressure to develop an aggressive masculinity, fearing the masculine role of warrior in many cultures. However, Williams points out that if that were true there would be berdaches in all warlike tribes, and there are not. Another theory for the existence of berdachism is that it is the result of too much “mothering.”
This idea is based on psychodynamic theory that too much mothering causes a boy to become anxious about his masculinity and ultimately reject it. Instead of identifying with his masculine and male role, the boy identifies with mother and the feminine. In this view, berdachism is a fear of and a flight from masculinity. Williams’s own field study of berdachism concludes that berdaches seem “anything but neurotic and their peaceful inclinations would be honored in many gentler cultures.”424 While in the West it has been a long-standing theory and belief that a boy’s relationship to his parents—too much mother and not enough father—is the cause of gender variance including homosexuality, modern brain research and a greater understanding of gender identity has caused the basic propositions of this theory to be rejected.425
From the American Indian and indigenous point of view berdachism doesn’t occur from outside sources such as an overprotective mother or an absent father but is a reflection of the child’s inborn character or spirit.426 To the Indians, a man is what his nature and his dreams make him. They accept him for what he is and for what he wants to be. They accept his gifts and find a place for him to serve within their society.427
Western homosexual and heterosexual identities are based entirely on sexual preference. There is no spiritual component associated with sexual identity in the West. For the Indian it is the character of the person that is of prime importance. Sexuality is a part of that char- acter.428 Also, for the American Indian, sexual preference and gender identity are two independent variables. One can be homosexual in behavior without being gender nonconformist and without having an identity different from other men. American Indian values recognize these differences, which Western culture confuses by labeling anyone who participates in same-sex relationship as “a homosexual.” By socially constructing only the berdache as different, with their partners as “normal,” Indian cultures avoid categorizing people into two opposed categories based on sexual behavior.”429
The fluidity in sexuality demonstrated by the ability of men who identify themselves as heterosexual to adapt to sex with a male is not accounted for in theories of homosexual orientation or heterosexual orientation. These men are responding to the femininity of their partner. The particular genital equipment is not crucial.430
Partners of berdaches are not considered homosexual. They are considered husbands. Therefore, they can leave the berdache and marry a woman. Since he was always a husband he is also suitable as a husband for a woman. For the husband of a berdache, heterosexual marriage is not ruled out any more than male marriage is ruled out for men married to women. Allowing for cultural and individual variation, the American Indian institution defines itself around gender role rather than sexual behavior.431 This allows for a greater diversity in sexual expression. While berdaches or two-spirit men traditionally had sex with men, there are reports of two-spirit males marrying a woman in order to produce and raise children.432
The fluidity of women’s and men’s role and the mixed-gender status of the berdache in American Indian societies open up other possibilities for understanding what we call homosexuality. What if instead of focusing on the sex between two men we focused on the spirit or nature of the men involved, recognizing that in the same-sex relation- ship they might be living out their different natures, their individual spirits, expressions of masculine, feminine, and/or androgynous spirits. Williams points out that “sexual behavior of berdache is often considered a serious reflection of their spiritual natures.”433 It might even be that there are other spiritual natures that express themselves in same- sex relationships besides what the indigenous societies call berdaches. Certainly, over the past several years, gender diversity and alternative gender expression have emerged other than the traditional male and female. Gender identity is much more fluid. Sexual attraction much more varied so that it isn’t tied to a particular gender. What if we, like the American Indian and indigenous societies, begin to focus on the spirit or the nature of a person with an understanding that a person’s spirit may also have an alternative sexual expression that is true to it.
For example, the transgender is a multifaceted term. One example of a transgendered person might be a man who is attracted to women but also identifies as a cross-dresser or as a woman. Other examples include people who consider themselves gender nonconforming, multi- gendered, androgynous, third gender, and two-spirit people. All of these definitions are inexact and vary from person to person, yet each of them includes a sense of blending or alternating the binary concepts of masculinity and femininity. We might begin to view these people as having particular spirits or inborn natures rather than seeing them as somehow flawed or the result of some psychological or emotional problem or the result of too much of one parent and not enough of another. Rather than forcing people to fit into the binary system of male/female and masculine/feminine, what if we evolved a system to include the spirits of such people as they are?
We must begin to open space for the multi-diversity of gender expression and allow individual spirits to make choices that are congruent with their soul. For some that may be two masculine men in a loving and sexual relationship. For others that might mean a masculine man in a relationship with an effeminate man or an androgynous male. For still others that might mean a bisexual man in a relationship with a woman. For others their same-sex behaviors may in fact be part of a larger identity with a certain spirituality that their two-spirit nature puts them in touch with—an awareness of the value and unity of all things. Each must find his or her own soul’s expression. As we each find space for our soul’s expression of our diverse sexualities and gender identities, hopefully the culture will begin to mirror the same and open space to embrace the diverse ways the soul expresses itself.
I suggest that pursuing and living our soul’s purpose is a more important part of our self-identity than who we are sexually attracted to or who we have sex with. As a bisexual man with androgynous characteristics (more feminine when I was younger than perhaps now, as that feminine nature has seemed to have given way to a gentle man) I can feel sexual attraction to either a man or a woman.
My personal journey has brought me into agreement with the Indian view that everything that exists is spiritual. Williams, in his admittedly generalized overview of American Indian religious values, says “[e]very object—plants, rocks, water, air, the moon, animals, humans, the earth itself—has a spirit. The spirit of one thing (including a human) is not superior to the spirit of any other. Such a view promotes a sophisticated ecological awareness of the place that humans have in the larger environment. The function of religion is not to try to condemn or to change what exists, but to accept the realities of the world and to appreciate their contributions to life. Everything that exists has a purpose.” 434
In the beginning I didn’t know this about my own same-sex attractions. I only knew somewhere deep inside me that my homosexuality was more than it seemed. As we have learned, in the Native American and indigenous cultures a person who is physically male might have the spirit of a female, might range somewhere between the two sexes, or might have a spirit that is distinct from either woman or man. Whatever category, this person is seen as different from men and accepted spiritually as “not man” in the community. Some cultures call this person a “man-woman” like the reference in the above dream. 435 They were believed to be born this way, with natural desires to become women and, as they grew up, they gradually became women.436 In many indigenous cultures such boys were seen as acting out of their basic natures and made berdaches by the Great Spirit and were thus accepted as such.437
An androgynous spirit is more important than a person’s anatomy or dress in understanding berdachism. Although berdaches are anatomically male, physical body parts are also much less important than a person’s spirit or character. When the American Indian refers to the nature of a berdache, they are referring to his spiritual essence rather than names that the white man uses to denote a berdache. These names include such terms as hermaphrodite, transvestite, transsexual, or homosexual.438
While in recent years there has been an increased tolerance and even increased acceptance of LGBTQ persons and other gender nonconformists in Anglo-American society, they are still met with discrimination, bigotry, and misunderstanding. Little tolerance continues to exist for gender ambiguities outside of opposites of men and women. Many gender nonconformists conclude that they only have one alternative: to make themselves into the other sex.
American Indian and other indigenous cultures provide alternative gender roles along a continuum between masculine and feminine through the tradition of berdachism.439 Just like in the dream above that refers to a “strong-woman man” and a “strong man-woman,” in indigenous cultures it is the mixture of the masculine and feminine that is important. Categories are less rigid and gender concepts more fluid. As Williams’s work shows, “just as berdaches can physically move freely between the women’s group and the men’s group, so the lack of boundaries marks their gender status as well. They mix the attributes of both female and male, and add alternative aspects that are unique to the berdache status.”440
As a bisexual and androgynous man born into a Judeo-Christian evangelical minister’s home that neither understood my spirit nor accepted it as normal, I am eternally grateful for my dreams. From the dream of “the bull that chased me up a tree to keep me from returning to the small town in which I lived” to the dream that said “healing the homosexual is freeing him from the parsonage” to the dream that said “homosexuality is the treasure hard to find” to the dream with which I started this chapter that says “androgyny has come to the church” to the dream of the orb as “my soul’s next manifestation,” they connected me to a forgotten and primordial past and to a spirituality that embraced who I was and am at the soul level and to the call to fulfill a sacred destiny—the soul’s longing.
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