Content List

Background

Hosteen Klah (Hastiin Tłʼa, 1867–1937) was a renowned Diné (Navajo) medicine person, singer, and master weaver. Klah learned sacred chants from a young age and eventually mastered eight major ceremonials (an extraordinary number, where most singers master only one or two). After a childhood injury and healing ceremony, his family identified him as nádleehí, and he then learned the traditional art of weaving from his mother and sister. According to historical sources, Klah is believed to have been intersex (Making Queer History n.d.; Roscoe 1998; Swan-Perkins Nov. 20, 2018). 

Klah’s contributions to cultural preservation were profound. In 1921, he befriended Mary Cabot Wheelwright, a Boston heiress interested in Indigenous arts. Together they founded the Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art in Santa Fe (opened 1937), now known as the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, as a “shrine of Navajo religious beliefs.” Klah shared his songs, ceremonial knowledge, and ritual objects with Wheelwright to document Diné traditions for future generations. The museum was dedicated in his honour, with a ceremony, and to this day it stewards many of the sacred items and sandpainting tapestries he contributed (Crisosto Apache Dec. 8, 2011). 

Contemporary Contexts

Navajo LGBTQ+ people often prefer the term nádleehí in their own language, but see Two-Spirit as a unifying concept across nations. Klah is frequently cited in Two-Spirit histories as a prominent Diné nádleehí who bridged male and female domains (Making Queer History n.d.; Swan-Perkins Nov. 20, 2018).

Two-Spirit and Indigenous queer perspectives emphasize aspects of Klah’s life that earlier non-Native accounts downplayed. For example, many mainstream historical sources noted that Klah never married, implying celibacy or asexuality. However, Navajo oral histories recollected in Two-Spirit narratives suggest he “had multiple partners of different genders” during his lifetime. This reframing challenges colonial assumptions about his private life and acknowledges the likelihood of rich, if discreet, queer relationships within his community. As settler public historian Amanda Timpson writes, while “most white historians” attributed Klah’s lack of marriage to either indifference or an anatomical issue, Navajo memory indicates otherwise – the physical details of his body matter less than the sacred role he embodied as a person “who embodied both a man and a woman” in society) writes, while “most white historians” attributed Klah’s lack of marriage to either indifference or an anatomical issue, Navajo memory indicates otherwise – the physical details of his body matter less than the sacred role he embodied as a person “who embodied both a man and a woman” in society (Yesterqueers, 2023).

Photograph Information

Image 1 is a Portrait of Hosteen Klah, circa 1920. This is a studio-style portrait taken by T. Harmon Parkhurst, a photographer who worked extensively in New Mexico. Klah is pictured wearing a traditional headband and Navajo jewelry. The photograph is archived at the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (New Mexico History Museum) and is often used in exhibits and publications. It is considered a definitive likeness of Klah in his middle years (Image courtesy of NMHM; Neg. No. 132146, public domain due to age). 

Image 2 is Hosteen Klah demonstrating a sandpainting, New Mexico, early 1930s. In this candid photograph by Franc J. Newcomb, Klah (center) is creating a ceremonial sandpainting on the ground as part of a healing ritual. Newcomb was a trader’s wife and close friend who documented many scenes of Klah’s life. This image, preserved in the Maxwell Museum archives, captures Klah in the act of performing one of his sacred duties. Such photos are rare because Navajo sandpaintings were meant to be transient; yet Klah allowed Newcomb to photograph and even helped reproduce some sandpaintings in his weavings. The Maxwell collection includes numerous other Newcomb photos: for example, Klah with family members in the 1920s, and Klah at the 1934 Chicago World’s Fair where he demonstrated Navajo culture to the public (Image from Maxwell Museum, no known copyright restrictions.)

 

Historical Context

Gay American Indians (GAI) was founded in San Francisco in 1975 by Randy Burns (Northern Paiute) and Barbara May Cameron (Hunkpapa Lakota). The origin stories can be found in Cherokee/Chickasaw scholar Brian Joseph Gilley (2006) and settler scholar Will Roscoe (2020). It is widely recognized as the first organization in North America specifically for gay Native Americans / Indigenous LGBTQ+ people, emerging at the intersection of the Red Power movement and the gay liberation movement, as described by settler scholar Gregory Smithers (2022) in Ms. Magazine, the Alameda Native History Project. Early meetings were held in Bay Area Native community spaces (like the American Indian Center) and apartments in the Mission and Castro, functioning as both a support group and a political home for Native LGBTQ+ people in the city. Maps of this early activism with multi-media can be found on Historypin. 

Initially a social circle, GAI soon engaged in public activism and visibility work. By the late 1970s, they were marching as a named contingent in San Francisco’s Gay Freedom Day/Gay Pride parades, carrying banners that made Native presence visible in queer public space, which can be seen in the GLBT Historical Society archival images.

1. AIDS activism
With the onset of the AIDS epidemic, GAI members recognized that existing services often did not reach Native people in the Bay Area. They helped found the Indian AIDS Project and the American Indian AIDS Institution, organizations aimed at providing culturally specific information and support for Native people living with HIV/AIDS. Co-founder Randy Burns later noted that dozens of GAI members—82 reported in the Bay Area Reporter—died of AIDS-related complications, underlining how central this work became to the group’s mission.

2. Changing language: from “berdache” to “Two-Spirit”
GAI was pivotal in challenging anthropological use of the term “berdache,” which many Native people rejected as a colonial slur. Members advocated for terminology rooted in Indigenous self-determination. After the term “Two-Spirit” was coined in 1990 at a Native LGBTQ gathering in Winnipeg, GAI helped promote it as a pan-Indigenous umbrella term to replace “berdache” in both community and scholarly contexts. This is discussed with a full history of the organizations that pushed for this shift by Queer settler socio-linguist, Nicholas Lo Vecchio (2022).

At the 1992 American Anthropological Association meeting, GAI members met with anthropologists to push for a formal shift away from “berdache.” Subsequently, major scholars of gender and sexuality in Native communities increasingly adopted “Two-Spirit” and acknowledged GAI’s role in that change.

3. Publishing and storytelling
In the 1980s, GAI collaborated with scholar and activist Will Roscoe to produce Living the Spirit: A Gay American Indian Anthology (1988), one of the earliest published collections centering Native LGBTQ+/Two-Spirit voices. The anthology gathered essays, poems, history, and testimony by Native writers, and remains a key reference in queer Indigenous and Two-Spirit studies and can be further contextualized with archival fonds at the University of California. 

GAI also produced newsletters, flyers, bibliographies, and educational materials, distributing them throughout Native and LGBTQ+ networks. These materials helped other Indigenous groups across the continent form organizations such as American Indian Gays and Lesbians (Minneapolis), Gays and Lesbians of the First Nations (Toronto), WeWah and BarCheeAmpe (New York City), and Nichiwakan (Winnipeg).

Photo from June 24, 1979; Gay American Indians banner at Civic Center during San Francisco “Gay Freedom Day Parade”. Photo by Joe Altman.

 

Description and Identity

Thunder Woman—known in Cree as pîyêsiwiskwêw—was a Plains Cree Two-Spirit person remembered for embodying both masculine and feminine roles in the mid-19th century, as described by settler David Mandelbaum's through Chief Fine-Day (kâ-miyokîsihkwêw) in The Plains Cree (1979). Oral accounts describe Thunder Woman as having the outward voice and appearance of a man while living among women and wearing women’s clothing, reflecting Cree understandings of gender as socially structured rather than strictly binary (Pyle, 2018). Much of this description is owed to Kai Pyle, who did a community review for their PhD dissertation and following work in 2021. Kai Pyle is Two-Spirit Métis and Sault Ste. Marie Anishinaabe.

The Cree term ayahkwêw—used historically for individuals taking on women’s social roles while assigned male at birth—appears across 19th-century records and into modern Cree usage (Pyle, 2021), underscoring the continuity of recognized roles that bridge gender.

Life and Oral History

Though little documentary evidence survives, Thunder Woman’s story is preserved through Plains Cree oral tradition. She was related to Chief Fine-Day, who was from what is now known as Sweetgrass First Nation, in present-day Saskatchewan. His recollections, recorded by ethnographers, described Thunder Woman as ayahkwêw and “a very great doctor,” suggesting that her role extended into respected healing and ceremonial spheres—consistent with patterns in Cree and Ojibwe communities where Two-Spirit people maintained both gendered and spiritual responsibilities ). One oral tradition relates how Thunder Woman nursed a leader back to health, resulting in the name “Thunderchild,” now held by multiple Plains Cree First Nations, but likely overlapping with Sweetgrass First Nation (Pyle, 2018; Pyle, 2021; Trans Student Educational Resources).

Role in Cree Culture and Community

Thunder Woman’s identity was embedded in language and protocol. The compound name pîyêsiwiskwêw merges a traditionally male spiritual name (Thunder) with the Cree word for woman, reflecting Indigenous frameworks in which gender diversity is linguistically and socially made legible—not erased (Pyle, 2018).

Two-Spirit individuals historically fulfilled ceremonial, healing, and mediating functions in Cree communities. The documentary record suggests that, rather than being marginalized, such people were often recognized for spiritual capacity and specialized labour roles. Within the community context, Thunder Woman appears to have been respected for her healing abilities and positioned within women’s social spaces (Pyle, 2021).

Settler Misinterpretations and Colonial Impacts

Missionary and anthropological records frequently mischaracterized roles like Thunder Woman’s. For instance, 19th-century Cree dictionaries translated ayahkwêw solely as “castrated male” or “hermaphrodite,” ignoring the cultural role of living as a woman. These mistranslations reduced Cree concepts to European binaries, a pattern well-documented in settler accounts that privileged physiology over social roles and ceremony. Such interpretations reinforced heteropatriarchal colonial norms and contributed to the suppression of Indigenous gender variance (Pyle 2018; Pyle, 2021). 

Despite this, oral testimony and linguistic persistence indicate that Cree Two-Spirit roles endured well into the 20th century, even as residential schools, church doctrine, and Indian Agents enforced gender conformity.

Legacy and Reclamation

Today, Thunder Woman is part of a broader movement of Two-Spirit reclamation wherein contemporary Cree scholars and community members draw on ancestral terminology, oral tradition, and linguistic continuity to reconnect with past roles. The Cree term ayahkwêw—once misinterpreted or stigmatized due to colonial influence—is increasingly recognized as evidence of longstanding gender diversity. The example of Thunder Woman illustrates what Pyle describes as trans*temporal kinship—an Indigenous method of relating across generations to reclaim Two-Spirit histories and identities (Pyle, 2018; Pyle, 2021).

We’wha was a Zuni lhamana—a social and ceremonial role in which a person assigned male at birth lived in ways associated with both women’s and men’s work. Born around 1849 in Zuni Pueblo, western New Mexico, We’wha became known for skilled weaving, pottery, and textile work, as well as for participating in important cultural and religious activities within the community.

In 1886, We’wha travelled to Washington, D.C., as part of a Zuni delegation and met U.S. officials, providing many Americans with their first recorded encounter with a lhamana person. We’wha continued to serve as a respected cultural figure at Zuni Pueblo until her death in 1896.
 

According to colonial accounts of We'wha's life, in Zuni society, a lhamana is a person assigned male at birth who takes on social roles, work, dress, and responsibilities traditionally associated with women, while also participating in certain roles associated with men. Lhamana people moved between gendered spheres of labour and ceremony, and their position was recognized, named, and respected within Zuni culture.

Rather than indicating a fixed gender identity in the modern Western sense, lhamana refers to a specific cultural role, involving:

• Women’s work, such as weaving, pottery, grinding corn, and domestic tasks
• Men’s tasks, such as heavy labour and certain ceremonial duties
• Community mediation and ritual participation

The term reflects Zuni understandings of gender as socially structured and multifaceted, rather than strictly binary.

We'wha's mentions are documented in Matilda Coxe Stevenson's “The Zuni Indians: Their Mythology, Esoteric Fraternities, and Ceremonies” (1904). These descriptions range from 310-313, mentioning that "We'wha's death was regarded as a calamity (313). The Zuni Pueblo Tribal Government & Cultural Resources do not document this, and another key author of this history is Will Roscoe, who wrote The Zuni Man-Woman in 1991, focusing on We'wha's life. Roscoe's text is a historical speculation rather than a contemporary account and the author is not Zuni.
 

July 16, 1832 – A Colonial “Chief” Is Made
On July 16, 1832, during a U.S. expedition to the headwaters of the Mississippi, Indian agent Henry Rowe Schoolcraft gathered an Ojibwe council near present-day Cass Lake. With no hereditary ogimaa (civil leader) present, he placed a silver medal around Ozaawindib’s neck. He declared her a “chief” so that the United States would have a recognizable figure to deal with. This act did not come from Ojibwe political protocols but from U.S. colonial practice: the invention or elevation of “chiefs” to simplify negotiations and consolidate control. Ozaawindib’s story reminds us that even moments that appear to honour Indigenous leaders can also reveal how colonial power tried to reshape Native governance and gender on its own terms.

Mention in The Narrative of John Tanner (1830)
In The Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner (1830), Tanner describes meeting Ozaw-wen-dib, (Yellow Head or Brown Head), an Ojibwe person he identifies as A-go-kw, a term referring to individuals assigned male at birth who lived as women and were recognized as such within their communities. Tanner notes that Yellow Head was skilled in women’s work, had lived with several husbands, and later married the chief Wa-ge-tote. pp. 106–108.

He says that the winter around 1800, while hunting in the Red River country (p 94) near the future settlement of Pembina, John Tanner records a visit from Ozaw-wen-dib , an Ojibwe agokwa from Leech Lake who, as Tanner writes, “made [herself] a woman” and was “called [a] woman by the Indians” (p 105).

Artwork Info, depicting Ozaawindib's brother or step-brother, Wesh-Cubb
Charles Bird King, WESH-CUBB. A CHIPPEWAY CHIEF., From History of the Indian Tribes of North America, ca. 1836, hand-colored lithograph on paper, sheet: 20 1⁄8 x 14 1⁄8 in. (51.2 x 35.9 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1985.66.153,255.2

Possibly painted by James Otto Lewis at the Prairie du Chien treaty council in 1825

Free to Use

Artwork Description: 
“Dance to the Berdashe is a very funny and amusing scene, which happens once a year or oftener, as they choose, when a feast is given to the ‘Berdashe,’ as he is called in French . . . who is a man dressed in woman's clothes, as he is known to be all his life, and for extraordinary privileges which he is known to possess, he is driven to the most servile and degrading duties, which he is not allowed to escape; and he being the only one of the tribe submitting to this disgraceful degradation, is looked upon as medicine and sacred, and a feast is given to him annually.” George Catlin first sketched the scene at a Sac and Fox village in 1835. (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 56, 1841; reprint 1973)

Artwork Info:
George Catlin, Dance to the Berdash, 1835-1837, oil on canvas, 19 1⁄2 x 27 1⁄2 in. (49.6 x 70.0 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr., 1985.66.442

Free to Use

The "Two-Spirit Papers" are materials in the vast Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies at the U of M Archives, particularly linked to the Richard LaFortune (Anguksuar) Papers, which document Two-Spirit issues, Native American representation in GLBT spaces, gender, HIV/AIDS, and the American Indian Gay and Lesbian Center. You can find Two-Spirit materials by searching the Tretter Collection's finding aids for terms like "Two-Spirit" or exploring specific folders within the collection, which include flyers, publications, photos, and even ceremonial items like sage and tobacco. The collection is located at the Elmer L. Andersen Library.

The Two-Spirit Archives at the University of Winnipeg is a dedicated and growing research centre committed to preserving and celebrating Two-Spirit history, culture, and activism. Guided by the Two-Spirit Archives Advisory Council, the collection ensures that Two-Spirit voices remain central in documenting their own stories and contributions. 

Founded from materials collected and donated by Two-Spirit activist Albert McLeod, the archives feature one of Canada’s most comprehensive holdings on the Indigenous Two-Spirit movement, including newsletters, photographs, art, textiles, media, and organizational records from Manitoba and across North America. 

By stewarding this history, the University of Winnipeg works in partnership with the community to support teaching, learning, and research while contributing to ongoing processes of decolonization and cultural reclamation. The Archives welcomes donations that help expand and strengthen this vital resource. 

14th annual flyer for the Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirit (BAIITS) Powwow. 

1st annual flyer for the Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirit (BAIITS) Powwow. Two-Spirit artist Michael Horse made the flyer.