Two-spirit

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Two-spirit (also known as two spirit or occasionally twospirited, or abbreviated as 2S, especially in Canada) is a contemporary pan-Indian umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people who fulfill a traditional third-gender (or other gender-variant) social role in their communities. Coined in 1990 as a primarily ceremonial term promoting community recognition, in recent years more individuals have taken to self-identifying as two-spirit. Two-spirit, as a term and concept, is neither used nor accepted universally in Native American cultures. Indigenous cultures that have traditional roles for gender-nonconforming people have names in their own Indigenous languages for these people and the roles they fill in their communities. The initial intent in coining the term was to differentiate Indigenous concepts of gender and sexuality from those of non-Native lesbians and gays and to replace the pejorative anthropological terms that were still in wide use. Although...

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