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.

Juan de Torquemada: mariones (effeminate men): 1609

Juan de Torquemada's Monarchia Indiana, which he began in 1609, refers to male Indians of Florida marrying each other. These Natives he calls mariones (effeminate men), and says that they dress like and do the work of women. He compares these Indian customs to those of the French and Greeks.

Los veinte y un libros rttuoies y Monarchia Indiana, ed. A. Gonzalez de Barcia Carballido y Zufiiga, 3 vols, [Madrid: N. Rodriguez Franco, 1723], vol. 2, p. 427); other trans persons' history references: vol. I, p. 166, 307, 318, 330; vol. 2, p. 12, 13, 287, 380, 386, 392, 393, 394, 417.