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Voici l'histoire des femmes autochtones bi-spirituelles qui ont connu des oppressions dans leur communauté à cause de leur orientation particulière. Cet article raconte comment cette bi-spiritualité a été perçue comme un ajout à d'autres sexualités "queer" comme bisexuelles ou transsexuelles plutôt qu'à leur spécificité culturelle et leur unicité. Un fossé s'est créé dans la communauté "queer" entre les non-autochtones qui croient avoir droit à cette appellation et ceux qui croient que c'est un exemple de l'appropriation d'un élément culturel par la société dominante.
"I understand what you're saying," she said. "But saying non-Aboriginals shouldn't use the term two-spirited reminds me of a lawsuit I heard where Xerox sued someone to make them quit using the word Xerox as a verb." I looked at her and saw hundreds of years of colonization at work. This woman was queer, educated, and feminist, yet still was not questioning her own privilege. How could she compare cultural appropriation to corporate copyright infringement? She was completely missing the point.
I have noticed an increasing trend of non-Aboriginals beginning to self-label using the term two-spirited. "So what's the problem?" you may wonder. A non-Aboriginal self-labelling as two-spirited is an example of continuing cultural appropriation by mainstream society. The term two-spirited has a specific cultural context, and removing it from that context simply because one likes the meaning of it is an act of colonization and must be resisted. Eduardo Duran and Bonnie Duran discuss the need for Aboriginals to "create counterhegemonic discourses" (27). The term two-spirited is part of our counterhegemonic discourse and reclamation of our unique histories.
Aboriginal people coined the term two-spirit and are using it to reflect our past, and the direction of our future. We are using the term. It is ours. Paula Gunn Allen discusses the Native American concept of ownership, when she states, "possession was seen as a matter of use, not a matter of eternal right" (19, my emphasis). She continues, "People couldn't steal something that belonged to someone else because only one person can use something at a time" (19). My assertion is that Aboriginal people are using the term two-spirited, and out of respect, other groups should refrain from self-labelling with it while we are using it.
Two-spirited Aboriginal people experience intersecting...