# What's the deal with the Gay Indian?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 16, 2003, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620 "2003-05-16T05:17:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@chuckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chuckster)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2003, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/1 "2003-05-16T05:17:21Z")
I’ve heard this story twice now, from vastly diffenent people. When debating the morality or lack thereof of homosexuality, someone will say something like: “Well, the Indians would have a man in their tribe/village who wore women’s attire, did women’s work, and was regarded with ‘tolerance’ or ‘understanding’ and was just another member of the tribe.”. I have been around long enough to know not to automatically believe everything I hear. There are seveal things that cause me concern about the accuracy of this account:
It seems to me that to lump ALL Indians into one category is not likely to be an accurate account of Indian society.
Furthermore, there is a strong tendancy of people, especially from the left end of the political spectrum, to reagard the Native American societies as some kind of perfect utopia which did not contain any of what they consider wrongs of our society.
Also, it seems to me that the more primitive the society, the LESS likely it is to tolerate different behavior.
Finally, our political culture and the internet in particular is infested with many instances of misinformation which is passed from one person to another.
For these reasons, I would like to ask if anyone out there has any hard information supporting or refuting the account of the ‘Gay Indian’.
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### Author:  [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2003, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/2 "2003-05-16T05:55:17Z")
“Different” is often a matter of social convention, not a matter of universal standards. For example, what would we do with somebody whose “difference” consisted of being ill-tempered and prone to violent outbursts? We would probably try to stop such behavior. Some Germanic cultures had a place for such people amongst their _berserkr_. So, are you saying that cultures with “berserkers” are less “primitive” than our own?
The specific social position you are talking about is also known as a “berdache” (European origin word). However, it was not necessarily a matter of sexual preference in and of itself.
[http://www.msu.edu/~lees/Kristina/Berdache.htm](http://www.msu.edu/~lees/Kristina/Berdache.htm)
[http://www.scrippscol.edu/scripps/~home/kday/www/Berdache.html](http://www.scrippscol.edu/scripps/~home/kday/www/Berdache.html)
[http://www.breakaway.org/openstudio/sylviawhite/bertrad.htm](http://www.breakaway.org/openstudio/sylviawhite/bertrad.htm)
[http://www.geocities.com/westhollywood/stonewall/3044/berdache.html](http://www.geocities.com/westhollywood/stonewall/3044/berdache.html)
Thus, while the “berdache” social role existed, identifying it as “gay Indian” misses the mark (although that might be one way that homosexuals in these cultures might be able to find a place).
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### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2003, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/3 "2003-05-16T06:04:36Z")
The popularization of this image is probably from the movie, “Little Big Man”, in which there was a cross gendered Indian, known as a _Heemaneh_ among the Cheyenne. While the movie is probably not the most reliable source of information on the subject, the concept is real:
[Cross-cultural Perspecives in the Psycholog of Women & Gender](http://www.radford.edu/~gstudies/sources/nz/crosaddr.htm)
> [@](#):
>
> \*\*When these anthropologist outsiders encountered individuals in Indian societies who apparently had an “intermediate” gender status, accomplished by combining or mixing the attributes and behaviors of females and male, they tried to fit these individuals into their own culturally-based understanding of gender. Thus, they used terms such as “man-woman” and “halfman-halfwoman” to translate the Indian terms for such individuals: nadle, winkte, heemaneh. Yet it now appears that these translations were misleading, limited by the anthropologists’ own notions of gender. Instead, the terms seem to describe a distinct third gender – one that is not simply a mixture of masculine and feminine, but defined separately from them (Callender & Kochems, 1983; Fulton & Anderson, 1992). The person is not a man dressing and acting like a woman, nor a woman dressing and acting like a man, but a man or woman who has adopted a third role – that is neither feminine nor masculine.
>
> ```
> These individuals were not simply "cross-dressing" (i.e. men or women dressing in the clothing of the other gender) but were wearing clothing appropriate to their third gender status: clothing that was a mixture of the items usually worn by women and men. More important than sexuality seems to be the adoption of particular forms of work, social habits, dress.
>
> For example, anthroplogist John Honigman (1954) notes that among the Kaska Indians of the Canadian subarctic, gender transformations were ometimes necessitated by the division of labor. They depended on large game hunting to survive. If a couple had no sons to help them with this task, the performed a ceremony of gender transformation on their youngest daughter. They tied the dried ovaries of a bear to a special belt for her, to prevent her from menstruating or becoming pregnant. These girls grew up developing exceptional hunting skills, participated as men in the male-only sweat baths, and were accepted by men on the basis of their activities.
>
> Some anthropologists now feel that individuals of the third gender, by adopting a role that bridged the categories of female and male, became regarded as intermediaries for dangerous passages between categories. Thus, these third gender individuals often presided over transformational events such as birth, marriage and death and were highly valued by their communities as arbiters of continuity in a precarious world (Fulton & Anderson, 1992). **
>
> ```
Most primitive cultures have a niche for the cross-gendered; most American Indian tribes had names for them, and many were revered as healers:[Native American (Indigenous) Sexual Constructions](http://www.angelfire.com/sd/megan/sexed/twospirit/)
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### Author:  [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2003, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/4 "2003-05-16T06:14:36Z")
> [@](#):
>
> They tied the dried ovaries of a bear to a special belt for her, to prevent her from menstruating or becoming pregnant.
I wonder how well that worked.
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### Author:  [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2003, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/5 "2003-05-16T09:39:05Z")
Try googling Faafafine. This still happens in Samoa, with men taking on female gender roles and dress and the community is tolerant.
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### Author:  [@phraser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phraser)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2003, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/6 "2003-05-16T09:49:40Z")
Also try googling the term “Two-spirit”.
The Lakota have a tradition along these lines IIRC.
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### Author:  [@Boo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boo)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2003, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/7 "2003-05-16T13:44:07Z")
I thought he was in the Village People
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### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2003, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/8 "2003-05-16T13:51:35Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Boo \*
> \*\*I thought he was in the Village People \*\*
It takes a village to … no that woud be wrong, so wrong.
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### Author:  [@Boo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boo)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2003, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/9 "2003-05-16T14:04:15Z")
at the Y-M-C-A!!
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### Author:  [@SkeptoLesbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptoLesbo)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2003, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/10 "2003-05-16T14:15:32Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by chuckster \*
> \*\*
>
> Also, it seems to me that the more primitive the society, the LESS likely it is to tolerate different behavior.
> \*\*
Please define what you mean by “Primitive” because I do not necessarily see some of our modern time’s behavior as so evolved.
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### Author:  [@occ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/occ)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2003, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/11 "2003-05-16T16:14:30Z")
Nah, we don’t need to hijack to satisfy willful obtusity. I think everyone knows what he/she meant by “primitive” in that case.
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### Author:  [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2003, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/12 "2003-05-16T17:14:01Z")
A few years back I was working for a tribe which was going through the laborious process of federal recognition, whereby a tribe has to prove its existence as a social and political community distinct from its surroundings. The tribe has a modern tradition of acceptance of homosexuality, and there was a lot of circumstantial evidence to show that this practice is a very old one going back hundreds of years.\* I toyed with the idea of using that tradition to show that the tribe was running by a completely separate social standard from the surrounding community. It would have been a monumental task to conclusively prove it, but several anthropologists and researchers agreed with me that we could “see” it, even if we didn’t have time to develop it into probative evidence.
One of the most prominent openly gay Indian activists is [Jack Jackson Jr.](http://www.advocate.com/html/stories/875/875_jackson.asp), who is now working in the [Arizona state legislature](http://www.echomag.com/archives/cvr350a.html). As director of governmental affairs for the [National Congress of American Indians](http://www.ncai.org/), Jack has already placed his name on the books as one of the finest legislative minds working for American Indian interests.
Curiously enough, the NCAI offices here in DC are located just half a block from DuPont Circle in one direction and the (straight) strip clubs along M Street in the other. More than once I’ve noticed that when a big meeting knocks off, one group of guys will head uphill, and another group will go downhill.
- The best evidence would have come from colonial-era records, as there were supposedly a number of trials of Indians for homosexual behavior. Unfortunately the public records were edited or expunged by Victorian-era record keepers on moral grounds. Original copies purportedly exist, but the state in question is busy concealing all of its records concerning its resident American Indians and we’ll be lucky if the originals survive intact for use by future generations.
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### Author:  [@booklover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/booklover)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2003, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/13 "2003-05-16T17:35:02Z")
Coincidentally, I’m reading the journals of Lewis and Clark right now and under the entry for December 22, 1804, they mention meeting up with “a number of Squars (squaws) and men dressed in Squars clothes”.
Bernard DeVoto, who edited this edition in 1953, places a footnote here that reads, “These are ‘berdashes’, that is, homosexuals; the Indians believed that they had been directed by a medicine vision to dress and act as women and they suffered no loss of status.”
This seems pretty progressive for 1953; I doubt DeVoto would’ve mentioned it if it hadn’t had some basis in fact. In my reading of gay/lesbian history, I also think that I’ve somewhere seen a photo of a well-known berdache. I’ll have to look it up when I get home.
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### Author:  [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2003, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/14 "2003-05-16T17:59:15Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I also think that I’ve somewhere seen a photo of a well-known berdache. I’ll have to look it up when I get home.
[We’wha](http://www.breakaway.org/openstudio/sylviawhite/bertrad.htm), probably the best known berdache.
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### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2003, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/15 "2003-05-16T18:39:52Z")
We’wha looks like a glum Isaac Mizrahi.
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### Author:  [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2003, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/16 "2003-05-16T18:51:55Z")
…Or [Robert Little Star](http://www.dqfad.com/gallery.php?mode=movie&dragid=507).
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### Author:  [@booklover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/booklover)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2003, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/17 "2003-05-16T19:03:59Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Otto \*
> \*\*[We’wha](http://www.breakaway.org/openstudio/sylviawhite/bertrad.htm), probably the best known berdache. \*\*
Yep, that’s the picture I’ve seen in some GLBT books.
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### Author:  [@SkeptoLesbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptoLesbo)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2003, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/18 "2003-05-16T20:51:57Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by occ \*
> \*\*Nah, we don’t need to hijack to satisfy willful obtusity. I think everyone knows what he/she meant by “primitive” in that case. \*\*
Whatever
:skips away humming:
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2003, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/19 "2003-05-16T21:39:39Z")
Here in Panama, I’ve spent some time with the Kuna Indians, who live on small islands off the Caribbean coast. They have the reputation of being accepting of homosexuality, and from what I’ve seen this is true.
The Kuna have retained most of their traditional culture. Men usually wear Western clothing (t-shirt and trousers or shorts), while women wear colorful and elaborate outfits including an appliqued and embroidered blouse (mola), skirt, kerchief and jewelry. Sewing molas is traditionally a women’s activity.
The female cook at the hotel I usually stay at always wears t-shirt and shorts rather than women’s clothing. (At 5’8", she also happens to be much taller than most Kunas of either sex.) I’ve been told she is a lesbian and lives on another nearby island with others. I’m not sure if there are also male transvestites there.
The last time I was at the same hotel, two men had set up shop sewing and selling molas nearby. Although they dressed in t-shirts and shorts, these were more colorful than men usually wear, and they also wore jewelry. One of the two was also ostentatiously effeminate in his mannerisms. (And was very catty about the quality of his partner’s molas. “Buy mine,” he said. “Why are you looking at his? Mine are _much_ better!”)
Such cross-gender behavior seems to be widespread. From [here](http://windom.cybox.com/logs/2002/03.08.html):
> [@](#):
>
> Molas are part of the traditional dress of Kuna women, and just about every Kuna woman makes and sells molas. However, in the Lemons we were visited by a transvestite male “master mola maker” named Lisa. He (or maybe she – I’m not sure of the etiquette here) was by no means the first Kuna transvestite we have seen. In nearly every village there are men who affect an effeminate manner, who make and sell molas rather than farm and fish. We assume they are homosexual, and we did see one obvious couple in Caledonia, an extremely traditional village. None (that we saw) dress in traditional Kuna women’s clothes, but most wear jeans and women’s style tank tops or t-shirts, and earrings and occasionally rouge (although we have seen a few “traditional” men also wearing rouge). Many are locally famous mola craftsmen. From all indications, they are fully accepted within the culture.
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### Author:  [@drhess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drhess)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2003, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-the-gay-indian/175620/20 "2003-05-17T01:10:07Z")
It will be interesting to see what the OP takes away from this discussion. I think you all have put his/her doubts to rest.
As for why people bring this issue up: I think that in debates (or more likely: college arguments in dorms over having one’s beliefs challenged) the fact that there are cultures that accepted gender and sexual roles much different from our mythic visions of an all straight utopia back before those gay people acted up, is meant to put to rest the idea that liberal values lead to bad things like homosexuality. In fact many strongly tradition-bound cultures accepted homosexuality, in their own way.
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