Native American LGBTQ+ People, 1528-1976, by Jonathan Ned Katz

These documents about LGBTQ+ Native Americans present years of testimony from a wide variety of observers: military men, missionaries, explorers, trappers, traders, settlers, and later, medical doctors, anthropologists, homosexual emancipationists, and LGBTQ+ activists.

In a few rare instances, the voices of LGBTQ+ Native Americans are heard.

This is adapted from Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (NY: Crowell, 1976). The notes to these documents contain numbers of additional sources.

Published originally on OutHistory in 2011; last edited June 21, 2024.

Hernando de Alarcon: "Men in women's apparell," 1540

The earliest relevant data for any part of California is found in Captain Alarcon's brief observation, dating to 1540, of the natives of that area:

There were among these Indians three or foure men in womens apparell.[1]

References

Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (NY: Crowell, 1976) pg. 285.

Hernando de Alarcon, The Relation of the Navigation and Discovery which Captaine Fernando Alarchon Made, vol. 4 of The 'Principal Nauigations, Voiages, Traffiqves & Discoveries of the English Nation. ed. Richard Hakluyt 12 vols, (Glasgow: J. MacLehose, N.Y.: Macmillan, 1903-05), p. 286.