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
- Ask whether the two-spirits-in-one-body image fits. If it doesn't, and something more open is wanted, that's the gap Indigiqueer exists to fill.
- Two-Spirit is older, was coined by consensus at a specific gathering, and is now widely recognised, including in official and legal contexts. Indigiqueer is newer, traced to one filmmaker, and is used more within contemporary art, writing and activist circles.
- Both require being Indigenous. Neither word is a general non-Indigenous synonym for two-spirit-feeling people, gender-diverse people, or queer people generally.
More likely Two-Spirit
- 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
- 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.
When both words are honestly available
- 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.
What people get wrong
Two-Spirit is an ancient word used by all Native American cultures.
The word itself dates to 1990. It points at genuinely old roles, but those roles had, and often still have, their own nation-specific names — Two-Spirit was coined in English as a modern umbrella and a replacement for a colonial slur.
Indigiqueer is just a synonym for Two-Spirit.
It was coined specifically because Two-Spirit didn't fit everyone — particularly its implication of two genders held in one body. Indigiqueer is broader and more contemporary, covering queerness in gender, orientation or sex characteristics without that specific framing.
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.