Things Learned from LGBTQ+ Discussions

[SerenityLives]

Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!

If you think you have 2 spirits who are you, then that's a problem.

The Native Americans had a different concept of the spirit than Christians do. Theh thought unanimated nature like rocks and trees had spirits too.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by SerenityLives

The Native Americans had a different concept of the spirit than Christians do. Theh thought unanimated nature like rocks and trees had spirits too.

They also didn't have a problem with sexual identity. They didn't have sexual hangups like Christians.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by awareness

They also didn't have a problem with sexual identity. They didn't have sexual hangups like Christians.

And you discovered these basic insights by working closely with every Native American tribe over several centuries of supervised field work? Simultaneously researching every known Christian congregation over the same timeframe?

Or you just made it up? Yeah ... That's what I thought.

[SerenityLives]

Originally Posted by Ohio

And you discovered these basic insights by working closely with every Native American tribe over several centuries of supervised field work? Simultaneously researching every known Christian congregation over the same timeframe?

Or you just made it up? Yeah ... That's what I thought.

“The debate over marriage in American society and the fears expressed by some conservatives that allowing diversity will somehow destroy the institution of marriage is ever evolving. While there appears to be some who feel that there is only one kind of marriage, in reality there are many options regarding marriage. Traditional Native American marriage is one of the unique types that is interesting to explore.
First, however, a caution: at the beginning of the European invasion there were several hundred separate and distinct Indian cultures, each with their own view of marriage. This article discusses Indian marriage in very broad terms and we realize that there are many exceptions to some of the generalizations.
In American society, part of the discussion about marriage is really about sex. While sex was a part of traditional Native American marriage, marriage was not about sex. Prior to marriage, young people were expected to engage in sexual activities. Sex was not confined to marriage.
The Europeans, and particularly the missionaries, had a great deal of difficulty in understanding that women had power in Indian society and that they had the right to sexual freedom. Indian societies were not organized on the patriarchal, monogamous norms of European society. Christian missionaries were deeply shocked and offended by the fact that Indian women were allowed to express their sexuality. At the same time, many of the European men were delighted by this.
Among some contemporary American commentators, there is a view that there are only two genders: male and female. Yet, in many American Indian cultures, people did not make this an either/or situation. They viewed gender (and sexuality) as a continuum. Many modern Indians talk about a third sex/gender often called a berdache or two-spirit. Yet in traditional cultures, it wasn’t quite that simple. There was a recognition of the feminine and masculine in all people. There was not an either/or concept of being heterosexual or homosexual. There were in traditional societies male and female homosexuals and transvestites who played important spiritual and ceremonial roles. These individuals were seen as being an important part of the community.
Traditional Native American cultures tended to be egalitarian: all people were equal. This is one of the things that bothered many of the early Christian missionaries, particularly the Jesuits in New France, as they viewed marriage as a relationship in which the woman subjugated herself to the man.”
source: https://capacitybuilders.info/preven...iage-views.php

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.was...outputType=amp

“Major reasons offered by Europeans for why Indians were not human:
They seemed incapable of embracing European notions of reason;
Their passions and brutality made them only slightly better than animals (as opposed to the passions and brutality of the Europeans, which were more civilized, or something like that);
They could not master the “Arts of civil Life & Humanity.”[2]
Their sexuality was "animalistic" (as compared to the plain-old missionary position procreative sex that Christian missionaries held up as an ideal)
They chose to show a little skin, and not cover their bodies like "decent" God-fearing people”
Source: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Native...d_Christianity

You can also read the Creation Story of the Navajos, where it explains the creation of hermadaphrites, transgender, gay, and lesbian people.

Or from this article:
https://indiancountrytoday.com/archi...VEWQHWkjNn0rQQ
“Those who arrived in the Native American Garden of Eden had never seen a land so uncorrupted. The Europeans saw new geography, new plants, new animals, but the most perplexing curiosity to these people were the Original Peoples and our ways of life. Of all of the foreign life ways Indians held, one of the first the Europeans targeted for elimination was the Two Spirit tradition among Native American cultures. At the point of contact, all Native American societies acknowledged three to five gender roles: Female, male, Two Spirit female, Two Spirit male and transgendered. LGBT Native Americans wanting to be identified within their respective tribes and not grouped with other races officially adopted the term “Two Spirit” from the Ojibwe language in Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1989. Each tribe has their own specific term, but there was a need for a universal term that the general population could understand. The Navajo refer to Two Spirits as Nádleehí (one who is transformed), among the Lakota is Winkté (indicative of a male who has a compulsion to behave as a female), Niizh Manidoowag (two spirit) in Ojibwe, Hemaneh (half man, half woman) in Cheyenne, to name a few. As the purpose of “Two Spirit” is to be used as a universal term in the English language, it is not always translatable with the same meaning in Native languages. For example, in the Iroquois Cherokee language, there is no way to translate the term, but the Cherokee do have gender variance terms for “women who feel like men” and vice versa.

Old Prejudices In The New World

The Jesuits and French explorers told stories of Native American men who had “Given to sin” and “Hunting Women” with wives and later, the British returned to England with similar accounts. George Catlin said that the Two Spirit tradition among Native Americans “Must be extinguished before it can be more fully recorded.” In keeping with European prejudices held against Natives, the Spanish Catholic monks destroyed most of the Aztec codices to eradicate traditional Native beliefs and history, including those that told of the Two Spirit tradition. In 1530, the Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca wrote in his diary of seeing “soft” Native Indian males in Florida tribes dressing and working as women. Just as with all other aspects of the European regard for Indians, gender variance was not tolerated. Europeans and eventually Euro-Americans demanded all people conform to their prescribed two gender roles.

The Native American belief is that some people are born with the spirits of both genders and express them so perfectly. It is if they have two spirits in one body. Some Siouan tribes believed that before a child is born its soul stands before The Creator, to either reach for the bow and arrows that would indicate the role of a man or the basket that would determine the role of a female. When the child would reach for the gender-corresponding hand, sometimes The Creator would switch hands and the child would have chosen the opposite gender’s role and therefore casting its lot in life.

Native Americans traditionally assign no moral gradient to love or sexuality; a person was judged for their contributions to their tribe and for their character. It was also a custom for parents to not interfere with nature and so among some tribes, children wore gender-neutral clothes until they reached an age where they decided for themselves which path they would walk and the appropriate ceremonies followed. The Two Spirit people in pre-contact Native America were highly revered and families that included them were considered lucky. Indians believed that a person who was able to see the world through the eyes of both genders at the same time was a gift from The Creator. Traditionally, Two Spirit people held positions within their tribes that earned them great respect, such as Medicine Men/Women, shamans, visionaries, mystics, conjurers, keepers of the tribe’s oral traditions, conferrers of lucky names for children and adults (it has been said that Crazy Horse received his name from a Winkte), nurses during war expeditions, cooks, matchmakers and marriage counselors, jewelry/feather regalia makers, potters, weavers, singers/artists in addition to adopting orphaned children and tending to the elderly. Female-bodied Two Spirits were hunters, warriors, engaged in what was typically men’s work and by all accounts, were always fearless.

Traditional Native Americans closely associate Two Spirited people with having a high functioning intellect (possibly from a life of self-questioning), keen artistic skills and an exceptional capacity for compassion. Rather than being social dead-enders as within Euro-American culture today, they were allowed to fully participate within traditional tribal social structures. Two Spirit people, specifically male-bodied (biologically male, gender female) could go to war and have access to male activities such as the sweat lodge. However, they also took on female roles such as cooking, cleaning and other domestic responsibilities. Female bodied (biologically female, gender male) Two Spirits usually only had relationships or marriages with females and among the Lakota, they would sometimes enter into a relationship with a female whose husband had died. As male-bodied Two Spirits regarded each other as “sisters,” it is speculated that it may have been seen as incestuous for Two Spirits to have a relationship with each other. Within this culture it was considered highly offensive to approach a Two Spirit for the purpose of them performing the traditional role of their biological gender.”

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by SerenityLives

“The debate over marriage in American society and the fears expressed by some conservatives that allowing diversity will somehow destroy the institution of marriage is ever evolving. While there appears to be some who feel that there is only one kind of marriage, in reality there are many options regarding marriage. Traditional Native American marriage is one of the unique types that is interesting to explore.”

“We forget everything. What we remember is not what actually happened, not history, but merely that hackneyed dotted line they have chosen to drive into our memories by incessant hammering.” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, "The Gulag Archipelago," 1918–1956

Funny thing about history is that you can make it say most anything you want, and such is never more true than with indigenous history. Nothing has ever been more diverse than the thousands of American tribes over thousands of years. Pick a time and pick a place, take a snapshot, and characterize the whole with whatever you have selected. Such is Native American history. Study the horrible revisionist movement called the 1619 Project for implications today.

In 1990 Kevin Costner starred as John Dunbar in the epic post Civil War classic "Dances With The Wolves" glamorizing the Sioux Nation and won 7 Oscars for Best Picture, etc. Viewers left the movie with disdain for the "villainous" Union Army white man and compassion for the plight of Native Americans. "Dances With The Wolves" has been called a "white savior" film. Lost in the memory of the story, however, was the treacherous Pawnees whose power hungry chief was hell-bent on Sioux genocide. So, do we characterize all Native Americans as Sioux or Pawnee? Lost also in the film was that the Union Army had just paid an enormous price to liberate the slaves under President Lincoln.

Such is the case with all aspects of Native American life, culture, character, worship, economics, etc. Take a snapshot in time to say anything you want. Truth is they were as diverse as the rest of the world is today. Truth be told Lieutenant John Dunbar was a compassionate missionary who loved God and man. He left his New England home to bring the Gospel of Christ to the Pawnee people. Now why do you think they left that inconvenient fact out of the story?

[Sons to Glory!]

Originally Posted by Ohio

“We forget everything. What we remember is not what actually happened, not history, but merely that hackneyed dotted line they have chosen to drive into our memories by incessant hammering.” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, "The Gulag Archipelago," 1918–1956

Funny thing about history is that you can make it say most anything you want, and such is never more true than with indigenous history. Nothing has ever been more diverse than the thousands of American tribes over thousands of years. Pick a time and pick a place, take a snapshot, and characterize the whole with whatever you have selected. Such is Native American history. Study the horrible revisionist movement called the 1619 Project for implications today.

In 1990 Kevin Costner starred as John Dunbar in the epic post Civil War classic "Dances With The Wolves" glamorizing the Sioux Nation and won 7 Oscars for Best Picture, etc. Viewers left the movie with disdain for the "villainous" Union Army white man and compassion for the plight of Native Americans. "Dances With The Wolves" has been called a "white savior" film. Lost in the memory of the story, however, was the treacherous Pawnees whose power hungry chief was hell-bent on Sioux genocide. So, do we characterize all Native Americans as Sioux or Pawnee? Lost also in the film was that the Union Army had just paid an enormous price to liberate the slaves under President Lincoln.

Such is the case with all aspects of Native American life, culture, character, worship, economics, etc. Take a snapshot in time to say anything you want. Truth is they were as diverse as the rest of the world is today. Truth be told Lieutenant John Dunbar was a compassionate missionary who loved God and man. He left his New England home to bring the Gospel of Christ to the Pawnee people. Now why do you think they left that inconvenient fact out of the story?

Yes and my readings of the Plymouth Pilgrim's encounters with various tribes also back this up - Native Americans were not in the least homogeneous and were actually quite widely diverse from tribe to tribe.

And interesting about the real John Dunbar who was a missionary to the Pawnees. The Pawnees, however, were not much taken with his message of the gospel.

[SerenityLives]

Originally Posted by Ohio

“We forget everything. What we remember is not what actually happened, not history, but merely that hackneyed dotted line they have chosen to drive into our memories by incessant hammering.” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, "The Gulag Archipelago," 1918–1956

Funny thing about history is that you can make it say most anything you want, and such is never more true than with indigenous history. Nothing has ever been more diverse than the thousands of American tribes over thousands of years. Pick a time and pick a place, take a snapshot, and characterize the whole with whatever you have selected. Such is Native American history. Study the horrible revisionist movement called the 1619 Project for implications today.

In 1990 Kevin Costner starred as John Dunbar in the epic post Civil War classic "Dances With The Wolves" glamorizing the Sioux Nation and won 7 Oscars for Best Picture, etc. Viewers left the movie with disdain for the "villainous" Union Army white man and compassion for the plight of Native Americans. "Dances With The Wolves" has been called a "white savior" film. Lost in the memory of the story, however, was the treacherous Pawnees whose power hungry chief was hell-bent on Sioux genocide. So, do we characterize all Native Americans as Sioux or Pawnee? Lost also in the film was that the Union Army had just paid an enormous price to liberate the slaves under President Lincoln.

Such is the case with all aspects of Native American life, culture, character, worship, economics, etc. Take a snapshot in time to say anything you want. Truth is they were as diverse as the rest of the world is today. Truth be told Lieutenant John Dunbar was a compassionate missionary who loved God and man. He left his New England home to bring the Gospel of Christ to the Pawnee people. Now why do you think they left that inconvenient fact out of the story?

So you make my point clear, there is diversity including the fact that some tribes did recognize other genders, and the New Testament is “that we remember is not what actually happened, not history, but merely that hackneyed dotted line they have chosen to drive into our memories by incessant hammering”.

Homosexuality is part of that revisionist movement of Christianity putting its own twist of views on the greek/roman sexuality.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by SerenityLives

So you make my point clear, there is diversity including the fact that some tribes did recognize other genders, and the New Testament is “that we remember is not what actually happened, not history, but merely that hackneyed dotted line they have chosen to drive into our memories by incessant hammering”.

Homosexuality is part of that revisionist movement of Christianity putting its own twist of views on the greek/roman sexuality.

For you to maintain your own little gay marriage, you must attempt to discredit the most authentic and reliable BOOK mankind has ever owned.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by Ohio

And you discovered these basic insights by working closely with every Native American tribe over several centuries of supervised field work? Simultaneously researching every known Christian congregation over the same timeframe?

Or you just made it up? Yeah ... That's what I thought.

I don't hold your ignorance against you. We can't know everything. Try reading this :

Diné Bahane': The Navajo Creation Story
https://www.amazon.com/Din%C3%A9-Bah.../dp/0826310435

But I don't advise it if you have sexual hangups. I won't give some examples out here, but if I did, Untohim would delete this post promptly. And you would be up in arms.

[SerenityLives]

Originally Posted by awareness

I don't hold your ignorance against you. We can't know everything. Try reading this :

But I don't advise it if you have sexual hangups. I won't give some examples out here, but if I did, Untohim would delete this post promptly. And you would be up in arms.

I know in some native American cultures, there are five genders instead of two and they all have a role in society. Seems to me like they were getting along well in native american society, before the europeans attempted to converted them to Protestant Christianity values. At the time, they would rather kill the Native American savages or “pagans” in an attempt to “save them in the name of Jesus Christ”. So some of the claims on this thread that trans people or other gendered people are destroying society is just full of paranoia. Now I know that different tribes can have variations on the “two -spirit” formulation based on heritage and attempting to fit white cultural norms of linguistics to native american terms, but that just supports my point that when Paul was writing about “homoseuxality”, the term “homosexuality” may have different nuances of meaning pertaining to that specific era or Greek/Roman culture audience he was writing to.

I saw a comment that someone made on a 2 spirited yotube video that really encapsulates this point. It says “It is obvious that we are born from spirits of both a mother and a father. That makes two spirits in a body. Both are vital even though one may be suppressed and the other expressed in the world. I am physically a male and the suppression of my female personality caused very bad sociopathic personality in me. thank fully I outgrew those behaviors”

To me that sounds like toxic masculinity in men raised in two-gender cultural/religious backgrounds.