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.

Hill's "Transvestites among the whites," 1943

Hill's anthropological study of Navaho humor includes a section on "Humor Based on the Unfamiliar Actions of Foreigners." Hill reports that the clothing of white people is a subject for comment:

Once during a ceremonial which was attended by an unusual number of tourists, one of the older [Navaho] men remarked, "There must be a great many more transvestites among the whites than among the Navaho because so many white women wear trousers.[1]

References

Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (NY: Crowell, 1976) pg. 325.

W. W. Hill, "... Navaho Humor," General Studies in Anthropology, no. 9 (Menasha, Wis.: George Banta Publishing, 1943), p. 12. Also see Nancy Oestreich Lurl, "Winnebago Berdache," American Anthropologist vol. 55 (1953), p. 708-12.