There are so many acronyms in Queerdom, but have you come across the one that looks like a super-secure, auto-generated password? I’m talking here of course about LGBTQ2S+, and for those not in the know, 2S stands for Two-Spirit. When thrown around by queer activists, the term is a reduction whereby the multiplicity of third gender roles from indigenous and global majority cultures all over the world is imagined to be one coherent concept, attributable to any gender nonconforming non-white person. Two-Spirit is a pan-Indian term that comes from tribes of North America, although different tribes have different historical roles for men, women, and homosexuals of either sex.
These days, it’s becoming more and more common for trans rights activists to conflate transgenderism, an ideology that was born, raised, and bred in the ultra-white, ultra-privileged halls of American academia, with indigenous gender roles. If you’ve ever wondered about Two-Spirit, an upcoming masterclass with K Yang and Isabella Malbin will dive deep into the colonization of indigenous and global majority traditions by western queer activists.
Isabella Malbin is a birth worker, radical feminist activist, and the host of Whose Body Is It, a podcast all about bodily sovereignty in the transhumanist age. For the masterclass she is joined by K Yang, a former trans rights activist and LGBT nonprofit employee with over 15 years of experience building multi-racial alliances to oppose corporate and state collusion, and support indigenous sovereignty. Together, they’ll offer a space to learn and strategize responses to this appropriative ideology.
“We are fed a script that pre-colonial cultures around the world all had third gender roles, and that to question trans and gender identity beliefs in our current context is unquestionably racist. In reality “trans” is a continuation of western colonial and imperial gender impositions; a corporate fiction used to alter language and laws around the world against sex based protections for women and girls, and granting unfettered access to women’s wombs for the advancement of bio pharmaceutical transhumanist reproductive technologies,” says Yang.
While this ideology is a continuation of Western colonization of Native women and girls, its harms are hardly limited to Indigenous women.
“Around the world, violence against women and femicide is increasing in tandem with the rise of a new digital economy based on AI and bio-data surveillance. In this master class, I demonstrate how colonization is an ongoing process that has only just begun to reveal its true intentions: the total takeover of female reproductive control and life as we know it. I provide a cross cultural comparison of socially constructed gender roles in historical and contemporary settings and demonstrate how trans rights activists have appropriated narratives about traditional and colonially imposed third gender roles around the world to advance an anti-female and anti-life agenda.”
If all of this sounds interesting, then definitely don’t miss tonight’s live stream of The Same Drugs (one of AfterEllen’s fave shows) with Isabella and K, tonight at 5 EST.
Once you’re good and riled up by what promises to be an electrifying talk with Meghan Murphy, Isabella Malbin and K Yang, go check out the masterclass here. It takes place July 28 at 6 pm CST (and will be available as a recording for those who cannot attend live).
