Two-Spirit vs Indigiqueer
Two-Spirit is a 1990 English umbrella pointing at older Indigenous gender and sexuality roles across many nations; Indigiqueer is a younger word coined for In
The short version
Two-Spirit was chosen in 1990 at an Indigenous gay and lesbian gathering in Winnipeg, credited to Albert McLeod, to replace "berdache" — an outsider term and a slur. It comes from the Anishinaabemowin niizh manidoowag, two spirits, and was always meant as a placeholder pointing at much older, nation-specific roles until each nation's own word could come home. Both belong to Indigenous people of North America and are not available to non-Indigenous people as self-description.
Indigiqueer names being queer in a specifically Indigenous way — in gender, orientation, sex characteristics, or all three — without the "two spirits in one body" framing that its name implies. Coined by Cree filmmaker TJ Cuthand, originally spelled Indigequeer, it was made for Indigenous people who didn't feel comfortable inside that framing, and it holds space for both traditional roles and newer, contemporary ways of being Indigenous and queer that no nation's traditional gender system had a word for.
How to tell them apart
Which one is more likely
More likely Two-Spirit if…
- You're Indigenous and the framing of two spirits carried in one body describes something real for you, especially if it connects you to older, nation-specific roles.
- You want the word most widely recognised across pan-Indigenous, legal, and mainstream contexts.
- You want a word that explicitly points back towards traditional roles predating colonisation, even while using English to do it.
More likely Indigiqueer if…
- You're Indigenous and queer but the two-spirits-in-one-body image doesn't fit your experience.
- You want a word that holds contemporary, newly-named ways of being Indigenous and queer, not only older traditional roles.
- You're drawn to how the word was built — by and for Indigenous people working in queer art, film and writing, without needing to fit an older framework.
- Both are closed to non-Indigenous people; neither is a translation of non-binary or queer that anyone can adopt regardless of ancestry.
- Both exist because Indigenous nations had, and often still have, their own specific words for gender and sexual diversity, and these two English umbrellas were built to gesture at that reality without replacing it.
Five questions to tell them apart
The compare tool asks the five statements that separate Two-Spirit from Indigiqueer most, and scores them on your device.
What people get wrong
Questions people ask
Can a non-Indigenous non-binary person use either word?
No. Both are specifically for Indigenous people. A non-Indigenous person whose gender doesn't fit man or woman has plenty of other words available — non-binary, genderqueer and others — but not these two.
Do Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer replace each nation's own traditional words?
No, neither is meant to. Both are pan-Indigenous English umbrellas, useful for talking across nations or with outsiders, but they sit alongside, not instead of, each nation's own specific terms for its gender and sexuality roles.
Read both in full
An Indigenous North American word for gender that arrives bundled with community, ceremony and a job to do — and it belongs to Native people only.
IndigiqueerIndigenous and queer, in Indigenous ways: a Native word for gender or desire outside colonial boxes, built as an alternative to Two-Spirit.
More comparisons
Not sure which is yours?
Twenty questions across six dimensions, about four minutes, then a ranked shortlist rather than a verdict. Scoring runs on your device; nothing you answer leaves it.
This compares two descriptions, not two people. It is not a clinical instrument, not a diagnosis, and not evidence of anything about anyone.