This week marks Transgender Awareness Week. It’s a time where we celebrate the self expression and self discovery of our transgender friends and learn more about how to be their allies. “When we use the word transgender, we are describing a person whose gender identity is different from the sex they were assigned at birth.” “Transgender” can encompass any variety of non-binary and gender-expansive identities.” “Transgender” is a relatively new term–first appearing in 1974 and moving into widespread usage in the 1990s. However, indigenous cultures have had diverse ways of exploring and expressing gender for centuries. 

 

For at least 30,000, indigenous peoples in North America have developed a beautiful range of religious practices, language traditions, and gender expressions. For example, Anthropologists and historians have studied the pre-reservation era on the Northern Plains. There they found that religious leaders, warriors, and adventurers had a diversity of expression–today what we might call, “transgender,” or what contemporary indigenous cultures may call “two-spirit” people.

 

Since the end of the 1st millenia, the Hawaiian People have farmed, fished, built homes, developed language, religion, and a rich tapestry of culture and community in these islands. Within this sensational diversity, Māhū–”third-gender” people–expressed physical, emotional, and spiritual expansiveness. Māhū often held important roles in Hawaiian society as “teachers, healers, and keepers of knowledge and traditions.”

 

Transgender Awareness Week, then, embraces and honors indigenous wisdom that has much to teach us. While honoring tradition, transgender awareness inspires new and creative possibilities for the world. Moving away from either/or thinking takes us to a place of allyship and celebration. There we find a transformative place of renewal, inclusion, and belonging–a place that enables us to truly see the beautiful and beloved people among us. In this way, Lord, make us instruments of your peace.