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Cultural

Indigiqueer

Indigenous and queer, in Indigenous ways: a Native word for gender or desire outside colonial boxes, built as an alternative to Two-Spirit.

  • One of twenty-two Cultural identities
  • No settled flag
  • 4 min read
A character with a cup of tea in a shop full of plants and pottery

A word that belongs to a people. This identity is held within a specific culture. The page is here to understand it, not to adopt it.

A shorter entry: the essentials, written to the same standard. The fuller guides are on the main identities.

What it is

Indigiqueer is Indigenous plus queer, and the order matters. It names being queer in a specifically Indigenous way: in gender, in orientation, in sex characteristics, or all three. It holds both the traditional roles that Two-Spirit points at and the newer, contemporary ways of being Indigenous and queer that no nation’s traditional gender system ever had a word for.

It exists because Two-Spirit did not fit everyone. Wikipedia records that the term was coined by Cree filmmaker TJ Cuthand, originally spelled Indigequeer, for people who did not feel comfortable with a title that implies two genders in one body. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki dates it to 2004 and the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, and credits the writer Joshua Whitehead with carrying it further. It is a word about the present and the future of being Indigenous, not only about the past.

It is closed. Indigiqueer is for Indigenous people, and both records fetched for this page say so in the first line. If you are not Indigenous, it is not your word, however well the shape fits. Non-Native use of Two-Spirit is recorded on Wikipedia as appropriation, and Indigiqueer inherits the same boundary. Read it as a guest.

Pronouns

Nothing about the word fixes a pronoun. He, she, they, two sets, or a nation’s own ungendered word. Many Indigenous languages do not gender pronouns at all, which can make the whole English argument feel like someone else’s problem. Ask.

Does this sound like you?

You are Indigenous, and gay or trans or non-binary describe your life accurately and still leave out the reason for it.
Two-Spirit was offered to you and the two did not land. Your gender is not a pair of anything.
You do not want a word you might have to be recognised in before you could use it. You want one you can pick up on a Tuesday and put down if it stops fitting.
In queer spaces you are the Native one. In Native spaces you are the queer one. Neither room is exactly home.
You know your nation had its own way of arranging this, and you may not know the word for it, and that gap sits somewhere under your ribs.
Being Indigenous and queer feels like a future to you, not a museum display someone is explaining to you.
You have had to prove you were Native enough in one room and queer enough in another, in the same week.

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Nearby identities

The distinction is the useful part.

Two-Spirit

The older pan-Indian umbrella, chosen in 1990, carrying ceremony, role and community weight. Indigiqueer was built alongside it for people who wanted the Indigenous part without the two-genders framing or the ceremonial claim. Many people use both, in different rooms.

Compare Indigiqueer and Two-Spirit →
Genderqueer

Queer about gender, open to anyone. Indigiqueer is queer about gender and about being Indigenous, and it is not open to everyone. If the Indigenous part is not yours, this is the word that is.

Compare Indigiqueer and Genderqueer →
Non-Binary

Defined against a two-box system. Indigiqueer does not start from that system; it starts from being Indigenous. Plenty of people are both, and say non-binary on forms and Indigiqueer to their own.

Compare Indigiqueer and Non-Binary →
Third gender

The flattening word outsiders use for every culture’s arrangement at once. Indigiqueer refuses that flattening on purpose. It is a word from inside.

Compare Indigiqueer and Third gender →

It might not be you if…

  • You are not Indigenous. There is no route around this, and being drawn to the word is not one.
  • Two-Spirit already fits you and your community uses it. You do not need a second word to make the first one real.
  • Your nation’s own word is alive and reachable. Many people would say use that one first.
  • You want a gender word with no people attached to it. Non-binary, genderqueer and agender are easier to carry alone.

Questions people ask

What is the difference between Indigiqueer and Two-Spirit?

Two-Spirit is a pan-Indian umbrella from 1990 that points at traditional third-gender and gender-variant roles, and often comes with ceremony and community recognition. Indigiqueer, coined by TJ Cuthand, was built for Indigenous people who did not feel that title fitted, especially the two-genders implication, and it also covers contemporary forms of Indigenous queerness that no traditional system named. Neither replaces the other.

Can a non-Indigenous person be Indigiqueer?

No. Both the LGBTQIA+ Wiki and the Two-Spirit record on Wikipedia treat Indigenous words as belonging to Indigenous people. The queer half of the word is open to anyone; the Indigenous half is not.

Is Indigiqueer about gender or sexuality?

Either or both. The LGBTQIA+ Wiki record covers orientation, gender and sex characteristics. It is on this site because for many people it is a gender word, not only a word for who they want.

Guide · 14 min readAgender Identity: What It Means to Live Without Gender

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Guide · 10 min readAm I Non-Binary? 15 Signs You Might Be, and What to Do Next

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Kai Moss Editor (pen name)

Last updated · How these pages are written and checked

No flag is shown because none is settled. Text: written from how people who use the word Indigiqueer describe it.

Sources:

  • Indigiqueer — LGBTQIA+ Wiki — Definition (an exclusive identity for Indigenous people queer in specifically Indigenous ways, covering orientation, gender and sex characteristics), the 2004 coinage by TJ Cuthand for the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, and Joshua Whitehead’s role in spreading it. Fetched 2026-09-03.
  • Two-spirit — Wikipedia — Confirms Indigiqueer (originally Indigequeer) as coined by TJ Cuthand as an alternative to Two-Spirit for people uncomfortable with its dual-gender implication; records non-Native use of Two-Spirit as cultural appropriation. Fetched 2026-09-03.

This is not a clinical instrument, not a diagnosis, and not evidence of anything about anyone. It describes experiences so you can recognise your own — or rule them out.