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.

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca: "I saw a devilish thing," 1528-36

Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca's report of his five-year captivity among the Indian's of Florida, from 1528 to 1533 states:

During the time that I was thus among these people I saw a devilish thing, and it is that I saw one man married to another, and these are impotent, effeminate men [amarionados] and they go about dressed as women, and do women's tasks, and shoot with a bow, and carry great burdens, ... and they are huskier than the other men, and taller...[1]

References

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

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, "Naufragios de Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca," in Historiadores primitives de Indios (Vol. I), ed. Enrique de Vedia, Biblioteca de autores espanioles, vol. 22 (Madrid: M. Rivadeneyra, 1852), p. 538. I wish to thank Ed Strug for translating this text.