In the tradition of Native American tribes like the Zuni, gender was not presumed or imposed at birth. Instead of being defined and socialized as a boy or girl, children were referred to as the Zuni word “cha’le”, meaning “child” until the age of five. They then would assume their role as either a male or female according to their own inner spirits and the societal role that they gravitated towards.
The Zuni tribe was not alone in their fluid perception of gender, however. In over one hundred and fifty tribes across pre-colonial America, there lived Native American “two spirits”- people who identified and lived as a gender that did not match their biological sex. Two spirited people were allowed to dress as the gender they identified with, take upon the traditional role of that gender in society, and marry whoever they liked. Because they were considered to have a distinct, sacred balance of both male and female spirits, they were not just accepted but embraced. They were honored with a unique spiritual role within their communities, often as artists, teachers, healers, or religious leaders.
Flash forward to post-colonialist America, 2015. Over forty one percent of transgender or gender non-conforming people have attempted suicide at least once in their lives. The statistics for transgender people of color are even higher. People who are transgender or gender non-conforming suffer from bullying, abuse, and rampant mental illness. Many undergo unethical conversion therapies or rejection by their own families. Some are homeless after being kicked out of their own houses at a young age, eventually resorting resort to prostitution to support themselves.
Colonialism has ensured that our modern, Western conceptions of sexuality and gender are rigid, heteronormative, and, for those who are transgender or gender nonconforming, dangerously claustrophobic. The reality of these “Traditional American values” is that they are not American at all- rather, the lense through which we look at gender and sexuality is one imposed by European conquistadors who used Christianity as an excuse for homophobia and bloodshed. It is a mindset that has persisted for centuries.
By the time a child is in kindergarten, this mindset is both internalized and automatic. Our pernicious need to label, confine, and wrap someone’s identity neatly into a box is so ingrained in our DNA that these judgements extend beyond people and onto inanimate objects. We assign gender not only to clothes and toys, but also to concepts as abstract as colors, scents, and even God.
Somehow, in our collective minds’ grasp for clarity, we have decided that everything can be defined and that everything is black and white. We have decided, as a result of our innate need to understand every single thing in every single moment, that there is nothing more than our current experience of being human. And this is a tragedy, because society’s parochial ethos is not without consequence— or victims. In our anxiety-ridden struggle to grasp the magnitude of our world, we have lost its multitudes. We have also lost thousands of valuable, irreplaceable human lives.
Among recent casualties are Leehlah Alcorn, Blake Brockington, Zander Mahaffey, and Ash Heffner. They were all transgender, they were all teenagers, and they all extinguished their own lives after a lifelong battle with society and themselves, leaving the world emptier in their deaths. Their names are only four on a list of thousands- the amount of transgender people who commit suicide or are murdered in hate crimes is astronomical, especially among transgender teenagers and people of color.
We have reached a crossroads and are in the midst of a crucible. We cannot remain content mourning the death of yet another transgender teenager every month without analyzing the attitudes within our ourselves that contribute to a society they could not survive in. We know an equal society is possible- many Native American tribes, such as the Navajo, continue to respect two spirited people to this day. We now have a choice- we can remain close-minded, or we can change. We can work to preserve a dangerous culture, or we can work to preserve lives. There is no third choice. It’s a matter of life or death.
If we truly value the lives of the thousands of transgender people in America, we will choose change. It is by no means an easy choice- it will require us to consciously abandon preconceptions, judgements, and perhaps even our own personal convictions, religious or otherwise. It will require us not to destroy our current notions of gender, but to radically expand them, or, at the very least, unfalteringly question them, recognizing them as instrumental in our past of cultural and physical genocide, and in our present of widespread teenage suicides and murders. It will also require openness. It will require open minds- through which we can enlarge our consciousness and embrace gender diversity. It will require open eyes- through which we can see people not just as bodies but as souls. Most of all, it will require open hearts. It in our own hearts that the true revolution can take place, and once it does, it will radiate out into our entire community.
