Welcome to the Two-Spirit Atlas
The Two-Spirit Atlas is a living map that uplifts the stories, languages, and lands of Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island. This current generation of the atlas serves as a prototype, focusing on the ways Two-Spirit identities are expressed, remembered, and reclaimed in relation to place. The Atlas is both a cartographic and relational project: it visualizes not only where communities are located, but how they are connected through kinship, history, and continuities of care.
This map begins on Turtle Island, but its roots and relations extend far beyond colonial borders. Future generations will grow to include the many Indigenous nations and territories where gender and sexual diversity are interwoven with community life, sovereignty, and self-determination. Lii Lozh di Kaastor is Michif for "the beaver lodge" and symbolizes how we, as Two-Spirit Peoples, imagine ourselves and act as regenerative environmental engineers, sheltering our kin and building homes for our knowledge and survival, as well as for the survival of others who live within our watersheds.
Defining “Two-Spirit”
The term Two-Spirit represents a constellation of Indigenous understandings of gender, sexuality, and spirituality that are deeply tied to community, ceremony, and land. Two-Spirit has a particular set of community relationships and challenges the outsider frameworks that have historically defined it from colonial or anthropological perspectives.
Two-Spirit identity is not a singular or universal category. It emerges from the recognition that each Indigenous nation has its own words, roles, and teachings related to gender and sexuality. The term functions as a bridge—a pan-Indigenous organizing concept that allows for shared advocacy and solidarity, while still affirming the sovereignty of local expressions and traditions (Hunt, 2016; Jolivétte, 2016; Smithers, 2022).
As Alex Wilson (2008) describes, Western queer identities often emphasize “coming out” of the closet, a movement away from secrecy. In contrast, many Indigenous Two-Spirit people speak of “coming in”—a process of returning to community and ceremony, of healing relationships disrupted by colonialism. Two-Spirit thus signals reconnection, not departure: a healing of gender, sexuality, and community (A. Wilson, 2008; Robinson, 2020; A. C. Wilson & Yellow Bird, 2005).
In this sense, Two-Spirit is not only an identity, but a practice of relational accountability. It expresses how Indigenous ways of knowing understand gender through land, kinship, and reciprocal responsibilities. Two-Spirit people embody this continuum, reminding us that our stories, languages, and bodies are all interwoven with place.
The Atlas as Relational Infrastructure
The Two-Spirit Atlas aligns with principles of Indigenous Data Sovereignty (Carroll et al., 2020; Kukutai & Taylor, 2016) and Land-based ontologies (Littletree et al., 2020). This means that knowledge represented here is not treated as open data to be extracted, but as relational knowledge—shared with consent, contextualized by protocol, and grounded in community authority.
Following frameworks such as OCAP® (FNIGC, 2014) and CARE Principles, the Atlas treats digital representation as a form of governance and resurgence. It is a space where Indigenous nations, Elders, and Two-Spirit community members define their own terms of visibility and access.
References and Further Reading
Carroll, S. R., Garba, I., et al. (2020). The CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance. Data Science Journal, 19, 43.
FNIGC. (2014). Ownership, Control, Access and Possession (OCAP®): The Path to First Nations Information Governance. First Nations Information Governance Centre.
Hunt, S. (2016). An Introduction to the Health of Two-Spirit People: Historical, Contemporary and Emergent Issues. National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health.
Jolivétte, A. (2016). Indian Blood: HIV and Colonial Trauma in San Francisco’s Two-Spirit Community. University of Washington Press.
Kovach, M. (2021). Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts (2nd ed.). University of Toronto Press.
Littletree, S., Belarde-Lewis, M., & Duarte, M. (2020). Centering Relationality: A Conceptual Model to Advance Indigenous Knowledge Organization Practices. Knowledge Organization, 47(5), 410–426.
Robinson, M. (2020). Two-Spirit Identity in a Time of Gender Fluidity. Journal of Homosexuality, 67(12), 1675–1690.
Smithers, G. D. (2022). Reclaiming Two-Spirits: Sexuality, Spiritual Renewal, and Sovereignty in Native America. Beacon Press.
Wilson, A. (2008). “N’tacimowin inna nah’: Our Coming In Stories.” Canadian Woman Studies, 26(3/4), 193–199.
Wilson, A. C., & Yellow Bird, M. (Eds.). (2005). For Indigenous Eyes Only: A Decolonization Handbook. School of American Research.