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 emerges from a specific historical, spiritual, and political moment, rooted in Indigenous self-determination rather than external classification. Its contemporary use is demonstrated through a dream experienced by Myra Laramee, a Cree woman active in queer Indigenous organizing, during a protest against Manitoba’s colonial child welfare and custody policies. While sitting in the tepee of an Indigenous mother on a hunger strike on the grounds of the Manitoba legislature, Laramee dreamt of seven spirits shifting between male and female forms. Two of these spirits identified her as niizh manidoowag—an Anishinaabemowin term commonly translated as “Two-Spirit.” Laramee later shared this dream at the third international gathering of Indigenous lesbian and gay activists in 1990, where the term was taken up as a unifying yet deliberately open concept (Canadian Museum for Human Rights, n.d.; Laramee, M. (n.d.).
In this sense, Two-Spirit represents a constellation of Indigenous understandings of gender, sexuality, and spirituality that are deeply tied to community, ceremony, and land. It carries particular relational responsibilities and challenges outsider frameworks—especially anthropological or colonial lenses—that have historically attempted to explain Indigenous gender systems from the outside.
Two-Spirit identity is therefore not singular or universal. Each Indigenous nation retains its own words, roles, and teachings related to gender and sexuality. The term functions as a bridge: a pan-Indigenous organizing concept that enables shared advocacy and solidarity while affirming the sovereignty of local expressions and traditions (Hunt, 2016; Jolivétte, 2016; Laing, 2021; Smithers, 2022).
As Alex Wilson (2008) observes, Western queer frameworks often emphasize “coming out” as a movement away from secrecy. Many Indigenous Two-Spirit people instead describe a process of “coming in”—a return to community, ceremony, and relationships disrupted by colonial violence. Two-Spirit thus signals reconnection rather than departure: a practice of healing gender, sexuality, and kinship together (Robinson, 2020; A. Wilson, 2008; A. C. Wilson & Yellow Bird, 2005).
In this way, Two-Spirit is not only an identity but a practice of relational accountability. It expresses Indigenous ways of knowing that understand gender through land, kinship, and reciprocal responsibility. Two-Spirit people embody this continuum, reminding us that stories, languages, bodies, and territories are inseparable—and that no single definition can contain them.
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
Canadian Museum for Human Rights. (n.d.). What does “Two-Spirit” mean? Part one: Origins. https://humanrights.ca/story/what-two-spirit-part-one-origins
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.
Laramee, M. (n.d.). Two-Spirit is not a definition [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/Eu4xNUq2hGE
Kovach, M. (2021). Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts (2nd ed.). University of Toronto Press.
Laing, M. (2021). Urban indigenous youth reframing two-spirit.
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.