forbidden word: two-spirit
This is one of the terms you can’t say in the Trump Regime. See a comprehensive list at the Forbidden Words Project.
two-spirit
two-spirit, noun
Also two spirit, or Two-Spirit
two-spirit, adjective
being or relating to a person who is a two-spirit.
Usage
What does two-spirit mean? Two-spirit is a third gender found in some Native American cultures, often involving birth-assigned men or women taking on the identities and roles of the opposite sex. A sacred and historical identity, two-spirit can include but is by no means limited to LGBTQ identities.
Other Word Forms
-
two-spirited, adj
Etymology
Origin of two-spirit
Coined in 1990 by Cree educator Myra Laramee at the third annual Intertribal Native American, First Nations, Gay and Lesbian American Conference; coined concurrently with Ojibwe niizh manidoowag “two spirits,” from niizh “two” + manidoo “spirit” ( cf. manitou ( def. )) + -wag, plural suffix
Example Sentences: two-spirit
In addition, according to Indian Health Services, traditionally, for Native Americans, there is an identity known as two-spirit.
From Salon ● Jan. 9, 2024
The term 2SLGBTQI+ is widely used in Canada for people who consider themselves two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning or intersex.
From BBC ● Aug. 30, 2023
Canada’s travel advisory for the United States now includes a cautionary message for those who consider themselves two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning or intersex – or 2SLGBTQI+ for short.
From Reuters ● Aug. 29, 2023
She talks about how two-spirit people – which includes transgender people – have been part of Native American tribes for generations and were accepted for who they were and sometimes revered.
From Washington Times ● Jul. 6, 2023
Beside him, seven-foot-tall twins strum hologram guitars and sing a song of gratitude for safe sisters and two-spirit relatives.
from — Definition of two-spirit. (n.d.). In dictionary.com.
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Two Spirit Former Foster Youth on Surviving the Second Trump Administration: ‘Find Your People. Hang on to Each Other Tight.’
These are just some impacts that two Indigenous, transgender former foster youth have paid close attention to since President Donald Trump took office for a second time. In the past five years 27 states have limited access to gender-affirming care for transgender minors and the Trump administration has pushed states to end requirements that foster parents affirm the gender identity of foster youth in their care.
Arc Telos Saint Amour and Aiyana Clark, who both identify as Two Spirit — the term some Indigenous communities use to describe those with varied sexual or gender expressions — lead state and national organizations serving foster youth.
Saint Amour, of the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation, is the executive director of Youth MOVE (Motivating Others through Voices of Experience) National. The nonprofit advised the Biden-Harris administration on peer support and mental health advocacy and aided in the development of 988, a now-shuttered national suicide hotline that served the LGBTQ+ community.
“I do not say this lightly — the first year of the Trump administration, and the years to come, will literally be deadly for Two Spirit foster youth and other systems-impacted youth of marginalized identities.”
— Arc Telos Saint Amour, executive director of Youth MOVE National
Clark, of the Tulalip Tribes, works on legislation and other efforts to improve Washington state’s youth justice system, and has endured the turmoil surrounding gender-affirming health care firsthand over the past year. Clark is acting chair of the Washington State Partnership Council on Juvenile Justice. Their journey as a foster youth and advocate fighting to indigenize child welfare was featured in a three-part series published by The Imprint in 2023.
In separate interviews with The Imprint, Saint Amour and Clark described their experiences since Trump’s second term began. As they look ahead, both plan to focus on finding ways to strengthen support systems and policies that will protect all foster youth regardless of gender orientation, expression or identity.
What is the focus of your work in the foster care and youth justice systems?
Saint Amour: Youth MOVE National’s work regarding foster care youth and the broad child welfare systems is both rooted in system and policy reform as a harm reduction tactic, and abolition work, facilitating spaces where youth can be creative, innovative and envision long-term solutions for them, by them. We then take what we learn and work with system change-makers, legislators, governments and others to implement those scalable solutions and changes.
Clark: My main focus has always been the well-being of all foster care youth in Washington, regardless of how they choose to identify. They need to have supportive and loving homes.
Speaking as someone who got kicked out of a guardianship placement because of how I chose to identify, I do a lot of public speaking, especially as it pertains to my experience as a foster youth. Also, the council has made it a goal to hear directly from systems-involved youth who are currently incarcerated and we try to work with them to improve outcomes for them and their peers.
How has the first year of the Trump administration affected you personally and professionally?
Saint Amour: I could literally talk for days about the horrors our communities are experiencing, our staff are experiencing, hell, that I’m experiencing as a Two Spirit, queer and trans person of Mexican Native Indigenous descent — but it still wouldn’t be enough to demonstrate the gravity of the situation.
We have literally criminalized being queer and trans, and legalized active eugenics. That affects Two Spirit foster youth at disproportionate rates considering their intergenerational trauma, having lived with instability for so long, lacking loving, affirming and consistent adults, authority figures and systems.
I do not say this lightly — the first year of the Trump administration, and the years to come, will literally be deadly for Two Spirit foster youth and other systems-impacted youth of marginalized identities.
Clark: Seeing this culture war play out and the weaponization of an already heavily marginalized community — that is actively playing out in my life. I constantly face criticism and ridicule for identifying as transgender.
And when it comes to foster parents’ policies, if I were to have been younger and the current administration’s policies were existing, it’s fair to assume I could have potentially been put in the same exact situation that led me to go back into care to begin with.
What are your thoughts on how to work for the next three years under this administration?
Saint Amour: If you are in the field you need to apply for every grant possible and start diversifying your revenue portfolio. Large federal grants are a thing of the past. Get your board fundraising, ask friends for donations — this is truly a “do everything possible” situation, not only to protect the public, nonprofit, mission-driven sector, but to protect the livelihoods of your staff. I truly wish there was a magical, simple solution. There’s not.
You just have to keep going and push through. For foster youth, my best advice is to stick together. Find your people that get you, love you and affirm you no matter what. Find your peers that make you feel safe, make you feel like home, and then hang on to each other tight. Tell your stories, advocate for change, show up to local meetings, get involved. United, we are much stronger. It’s going to be a rough few years at minimum.
“It’s all a matter of really showing up in these next few election cycles and finding policymakers who really do represent us and inspire a lot of hope. It’s about reminding people we’re still here, and I’m not going to vote for you if you don’t acknowledge my existence.”
— Aiyana Clark, acting chair, Washington State Partnership Council on Juvenile Justice
What are you proposing in terms of changes, or focus?
Saint Amour: Two words — small and local. Start with very simple, small, easy to accomplish tasks. This may feel like chipping away at a brick wall with a toothpick, but even that has an impact. If you get wrapped up in the enormity of it all it can be hard to act, or try, or know what to do, or how to start. But if you pick something small and build up, it will come. Go to your school board meetings, go to your civic council meetings, you have to show up.
Clark: It’s all a matter of really showing up in these next few election cycles and finding policymakers who really do represent us and inspire a lot of hope. It’s about reminding people we’re still here, and I’m not going to vote for you if you don’t acknowledge my existence.
What strategy or approach do you think is likely to be effective in this current climate?
Saint Amour: Although this is familiar to most Indigenous folks given our history, this, even by those standards, is still not normal. This administration, the state of the country, this is truly a horrific, abhorrent and unprecedented moment in modern history. I believe in resisting the normalization or assimilation to that. Instead, keep fighting, but choose your battles carefully with intention and strategy, while not feeling guilty for choosing personal or professional security. I also believe it’s important to pay attention to the news.
Clark: I don’t think there’s anything worthy of being effective. Honestly. I think we are so far gone at this point when it comes to specifically trans people, people have already made up their minds about us. I want to be optimistic, but at this point, people are just outwardly being transphobic and disgusting, and there’s not really any repercussions for that.
How is it more challenging for foster youth to receive gender-affirming care in foster homes?
Saint Amour: Queer and trans youth experience disproportionate amounts of harm, violence and lack of safety and affirmation within the home and from caregivers, and this at least tangentially can be related to higher rates of CPS and child welfare involvement.
Youth, especially queer and trans youth when it comes to receiving gender-affirming care, lack the most self-agency, self-determination and bodily autonomy than almost any other age demographic besides potentially our disabled aging adult populations.
When you take this and mix in being a ward of the state, you basically have no rights at all, which was already making it incredibly hard for youth to receive hormone replacement therapy and forms of gender affirming care before this mess.
Aiyana, is there anything you’d like to share about your own access to gender-affirming care?
Clark: I was in foster care from a very young age and it wasn’t necessarily safe for me to express myself early on and get the health care I needed in my life. Here in the state of Washington, health care coverage typically ends when you’re 26. So with me being 25 now, and with the new Medicaid funding requirements and restrictions on transgender health care, I have to rush my procedures and try to get them done within the next year.
Being trans is a journey, and not all of us have the same journey. But I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like for people who are younger than me, who have state health care and are currently transitioning, who are going to lose access to gender-affirming care. The fact they’re going to be losing all these resources that scientifically has been proven to show mental health improvement, is just baffling.
from — Spears, N. M. (2026, January 26). Two Spirit Former Foster Youth on Surviving the Second Trump Administration: ‘Find Your People. Hang on to Each Other Tight.’ The Imprint. Retrieved July 30, 2026
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Indian Health Service
The Federal Health Program for American Indians and Alaska Natives
NOTICE
Per a court order, HHS is required to restore this website as of 11:59 PM, February 14 2025. Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate, and disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female. The Trump Administration rejects gender ideology and condemns the harms it causes to children, by promoting their chemical and surgical mutilation, and to women, by depriving them of their dignity, safety, well-being, and opportunities. This page does not reflect biological reality and therefore the Administration and this Department rejects it.
Two-Spirit
Though Two-Spirit may now be included in the umbrella of LGBTQI+, The term “Two-Spirit” does not simply mean someone who is a Native American/Alaska Native and gay.
Traditionally, Native American Two-Spirit people were male, female, and sometimes intersexed individuals who combined activities of both men and women with traits unique to their status as Two-Spirit people. In most tribes, they were considered neither men nor women; they occupied a distinct, alternative gender status. In tribes where Two-Spirit males and females were referred to with the same term, this status amounted to a third gender. In other cases, Two-Spirit females were referred to with a distinct term and, therefore, constituted a fourth gender. Although there were important variations in Two-Spirit roles across North America, they shared some common traits:
- Specialized work roles. Male and female Two-Spirit people were typically described in terms of their preference for and achievements in the work of the “opposite” sex or in activities specific to their role. Two-Spirit individuals were experts in traditional arts – such as pottery making, basket weaving, and the manufacture and decoration of items made from leather. Among the Navajo, Two-Spirit males often became weavers, usually women and men’s work, as well as healers, which was a male role. By combining these activities, they were often among the wealthier members of the tribe. Two-Spirit females engaged in activities such as hunting and warfare, and became leaders in war and even chiefs.
- Gender variation. A variety of other traits distinguished Two-Spirit people from men and women, including temperament, dress, lifestyle, and social roles.
- Spiritual sanction. Two-Spirit identity was widely believed to be the result of supernatural intervention in the form of visions or dreams and sanctioned by tribal mythology. In many tribes, Two-Spirit people filled special religious roles as healers, shamans, and ceremonial leaders.
- Same-sex relations. Two-Spirit people typically formed sexual and emotional relationships with non-Two-Spirit members of their own sex, forming both short- and long-term relationships. Among the Lakota, Mohave, Crow, Cheyenne, and others, Two-Spirit people were believed to be lucky in love, and able to bestow this luck on others.
Most Indigenous communities have specific terms in their own languages for the gender-variant members of their communities and the social and spiritual roles these individuals fulfill; with over 500 surviving Native American cultures, attitudes about sex and gender can be very diverse. Even with the modern adoption of pan-Indian terms like Two-Spirit, not all cultures will perceive Two-Spirit people the same way, or welcome a pan-Indian term to replace the terms already in use by their cultures.
The disruptions caused by conquest and disease, together with the efforts of missionaries, government agents, boarding schools, and white settlers resulted in the loss of many traditions in Native communities. Two-Spirit roles, in particular, were singled out for condemnation, interference, and many times violence. As a result, Two-Spirit traditions and practices went underground or disappeared in many tribes.
Today, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender native people throughout North America are reviving the Two-Spirit role and its traditions. National gatherings of Two-Spirit people have been held since the early 1990s, and regional gatherings are held in many parts of the country.
LGBTQ2S Advocacy and Native Out [PDF – 782 MB] Presentation
Two-Spirit People: Then and Now [PDF – 3 MB] Presentation
Other Media
The film “Two-Spirits” offers information about the history of Two-Spirit people and a mother’s loss of a son to a modern hate-crime.
“Two-Spirit: The Trials and Tribulations of Gender Identity in the 21st Century ,” Indian Country Today, 2015
from — Two-Spirit | Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender health. (n.d.). Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Health. Retrieved July 30, 2026
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Tribal Groups Assert Sovereignty as Feds Crack Down on Gender-Affirming Care
ELKO, Nev. — At the Two Spirit Conference in northern Nevada in June, Native Americans gathered in support of the LGBTQ+ community amid federal and state rollbacks of transgender protections and gender-affirming health care.
“I want people to not kill themselves for who they are,” said organizer Myk Mendez, a trans and two-spirit citizen of the Fort Hall Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in Idaho. “I want people to love their lives and grow old to tell their stories.”
“Two-spirit” is used by Native Americans to describe a distinct gender outside of male or female.
The conference in Elko reflects how some tribal citizens are supporting their LGTBQ+ community members as President Donald Trump rolls back protections and policies. In March, the National Indian Health Board, which represents and advocates for federally recognized Native American and Alaska Native tribes, passed a resolution declaring tribal sovereignty over issues affecting the Native American community’s health, including access to gender-affirming care.
The resolution calls on the federal government to preserve and expand programs that support the health and well-being of two-spirit and LGBTQ+ Native Americans. Tribes and tribal organizations are navigating how to uphold their sovereignty without jeopardizing the relationships and resources that support their communities, said Jessica Leston, the owner of the Raven Collective, a Native public health consulting group, and a member of the Ketchikan Indian Community.
In January, Trump signed an executive order recognizing only two sexes — male and female — and another to terminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs within the federal government.
An Indian Health Service website describing two-spirit people was removed this year but restored following a court order. The page now has a disclaimer at the top that declares any information on it “promoting gender ideology” is “disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female.”
Two-spirit is not a sexual orientation but refers to people of a “culturally and spiritually distinct gender exclusively recognized by Native American Nations,” according to a definition created by two-spirit elders in 2021. According to two-spirit leaders, people who did not fit into the Western binary of male and female have lived in their communities since before colonization.
Already, tribal citizens and leaders say some people have had trouble accessing gender-affirming care in recent months, with some community members being denied hormone treatments or having their medications delayed, even in places where gender-affirming care remains legal. Panic has spread, and tribal citizens have considered leaving the country.
“There is a chilling effect,” said Itai Jeffries, who is trans, nonbinary, and two-spirit, of the Occaneechi people from North Carolina, and a consultant for the Raven Collective.
Mendez said he requested hormone treatment at his local Indian Health Service clinic at the end of June and was told by his provider that the facility has had trouble receiving the treatment for patients.
Lenny Hayes, a two-spirit citizen of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate in South Dakota, said the Indian Health Service clinic on the reservation also isn’t dispensing hormone treatment, though it is legal for people 18 and older. Hayes is the owner and operator of Tate Topa Consulting and provides educational training on two-spirit and LGTBQ+ Native Americans and Alaska Natives.
The National Congress of American Indians passed a resolution in 2015 to encourage the creation of policies to protect two-spirit and LGBTQ+ communities. And the organization adopted a resolution in 2021 to support providing gender-affirming care in Indian Health Service, tribal, and urban facilities.
The National Indian Health Board’s resolution cites homophobia and transphobia as contributing to higher rates of truancy, incarceration, self-harm, attempted suicide, and suicide among two-spirit young people. The board also lists health disparities among the broader Native LGBTQ+ population, including increased risks of anxiety, depression, and suicide.
Two-spirit and LGBTQ+ Native American and Alaska Native young people are particularly vulnerable to depression, suicidality, and sexual exploitation. In Minnesota, a 2019 state survey found that two-spirit and LGBTQ+ Native American and Alaska Native students had the highest rates of those ages 15-19 who responded “yes” to having traded sex or sexual activity for money, food, drugs, alcohol, or shelter.
Tribal leaders are also concerned that Medicaid cuts recently approved in Trump’s budget law will undercut efforts to expand testing and treatment for HIV infection in Native American communities.
The rates of HIV diagnosis among Native American and Alaska Native gay and bisexual men increased 11% from 2018 to 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Despite this increase, Native American and Alaska Native gay and bisexual men are among the groups with the least access to HIV tests outside of health care settings, such as community-based organizations, mobile testing units, and shelters.
As tribes respond to state and federal regulations of two-spirit and LGBTQ+ people, organizations and communities are focused on providing information and resources to protect those in Indian Country, even from the president.
“He will never, ever wipe out our identity, no matter what he does,” Hayes said.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
from — KFF Health News. (2025, July 30). KFF Health News. Retrieved July 30, 2026
July 30th, 2026
New England
This is one of the words/ phrases you can’t say in the new Trump Regime. See a comprehensive list at the Forbidden Words Project.
image: rainbow flag © holly troy 7.2026
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Two spirit people / always have someone to hug / living deep inside