Literary Analysis Essay on Asegi Stories: Cherokee Queer and Two-Spirit Memory

Introduction

From Qwo-Li Driskill's, "Asegi Stories: Cherokee Queer and Two-Spirit Memory" gives a connection between the past and the future among the Cherokee Two-Spirit and queer groups. The two Cherokee people groups have been hidden through the colonial past to the present. Two-Spirit is a contemporary phrase used amongst the native communities to refer to people whose genders exist outside the colonial logic. It is a term for people who don't fall into any societal-accepted gender category. These groups include people who regard themselves as Gay, Lesbians, bisexual, Queer or Transgender. 'Asegi' a word that interprets to strange is a term that is used to refer to the Queer group of people (Driskill, 2016). Trusted sources have indicated that there are many families with Two-Spirit relatives, although the information is not recorded. Even important traditionalists have vocally spoken about the Two-Spirit issues. The perspective of the issue is mostly affected by the issue of colonialism (Driskill, 2016). Female who engaged in a war against the colonialists were viewed as living as men. However, from the traditions of the Cherokee people, the role of women in leadership was accepted. From the colonialists' point of view, the female embodied women would be viewed as "Two-Spirit" just because the participated in roles believed masculine.

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Two spirited people have a long history and were considered special in some communities who were given the responsibilities for carrying two spirits. They were vital within the societies of our ancestors. Two-Spirits were believed to have "double vision" which made them view the world from both men's and women's perspectives. People did not interfere with this group of people, as this was within the realm of the Creator's wisdom. The Europeans later came to those communities armed with religion and started interfering with the affairs of the two-spirited people. With the rise of Christianity and other religious groups, the two-spirited people started being viewed as less human being (Driskill, 2016). They were seen as an inferior group and faced constant brutalities aimed at eradicating the two-spirited people. In the aboriginal communities, two-spirited people have been ostracized from their communities as people have adopted a negative attitude towards this group of people.

Although gender variance was accepted among several Native American tribes, two-spirits in the United States experience violence and ostracism. They face double oppression in modern times due to racism from homophobic society, both within their communities and among the native people. Not all tribes in Native America accepted the gender variance. This made some tribes to tolerate the trans-gender as opposed to embracing it. Even the tribe that appreciated Two-Spirits had a history of denigrating them as well. A factor that contributed to this state of affairs is believed to be the imposition of Christianity by colonizers, mostly from Europe (Driskill, 2016). A hegemonic Anglo-American culture also introduced homophobia within the already open-minded Native communities. Ironically, some Native Americans believe that the Two-Spirits was introduced by the White American culture. General antipathy within some tribes towards the Two-Spirits is vibrant to both the people with or without legacies of Transgender acceptance. This state makes the Two-Spirits to hide who they are while on the reservation. On the reservation, the Two-Spirits monitor each other to appear less effeminate in an effort to avoid violence. Activists in cultural and political movements represent the marginalized group to the dominant culture ignoring the diversities of people within the majority group. This approach strengthens the group identity giving them collective power while demanding and defending their rights.

The queer group and Two-Spirits of the world are common symbols of supposed transgender acceptance among Indigenous societies. Muxe do enjoy some privileges within their communities, mostly because they are male-bodied, and it appears that these social benefits are predicated on the same patriarchal systems that continue to oppress and denigrate female-bodied women. Two-Spirits, on the other hand, are struggling to assert themselves as valuable members of their tribes-tribes that have forgotten how they once valued difference. Strategic essentialism has led to the further denial of Two Spirits, who due to a presumed mutual exclusivity between queerness and cisgender must often choose between their gender identity and their Native identity. Through the Asagi Stories, Qwo-Li Driskill argues that sexuality and erotic are important tools in the process of decolonization. The colonial gender system turns the Indigenous bodies and sexuality against own selves. People's behavior and bodies can be regulated can be combated through the revival of diversity. There is a need to re-imagine the Cherokee erotic history and gender diversity in a contemporary setting. All forms of colonial hetero-patriarchy should be dismantled, to stop the ongoing colonial violence against the minority groups.

The world has had historical discrimination, in which three systems of discrimination intersect (Patriarchal, racist and classist), which are not mutually exclusive and reproduce particular forms of oppression in the lives of Afro-descendant women (Dill & Kohlman, 2012). The discrimination is characterized by inequality for the acquisition of insertion capacities in the world of productive work, access to education, health, housing, health services, among others; and market discrimination, which is understood as the differential treatment of people with the same productive developments to occupy positions in the labor force, for their ethnic, phenotypic and gender characteristics.

The development of feminist theories has been energized with the arrival of thoughts and reflections from other latitudes, which make problematic evident previously ignored by homogenizing global feminism that equals all women, placing their causes of discrimination and marginalization solely under the gender oppression. In his article, Prospects for all-inclusive Sisterhood, Bonnie states that sisterhood has been a critical unifying factor in the contemporary women's movement. However, although the calls for a powerful sisterhood have been stressed by the women's movements, it is only a small segment of the female population has joined. In that sense, there are critiques of black feminism to Western feminism, who consider that the latter is the product of an elite of white women, North American and European countries, which are alien to the diverse identities of women, and therefore do not contemplate the racism that exists within them as an object of study and ignore the relationship between ethnic-racial categories and class in the exploitation and vulnerability of women's rights in the present. Black, Latina, and Asian theorists who contribute to feminist thinking question the concepts of "women's identity" and "Generic identity" since they consider that emanate from the idea that women have both homogenous and universal identity. This identity is the product of the influence of the dominant universal principles that modernity imposes to explain the reality, and that prevent the approach of problems such as racism, transphobia, and classism, which are part of systems of exclusion and oppression of women. All these lead to multiple discriminations (Dill & Kohlman, 2012).

The sisterhood movement is questioned for expressing discrimination and among women, by focusing on the conditions of ciswomen discrimination for assuming themselves as the reference and not studying or addressing struggles and realities of those who are trapped in other systems of domination. The Black feminists begin to question the racism that exists within the feminism and the need to address the complex constitutive intersections of the relations of subordination faced by specific women: responding not only to gender or class relations, but also to racism, transphobia, and effects of colonization and decolonization Reclaiming femininity is an important part of the femme identities. Its aim is to reclaim and reconceptualize femininity (Enke, 2012). There is a need to eliminate the sharp distinction between Trans femme and his femme. Many people without the trans-femme experience stigmatize the condition as they are not able to visualize the concept of trans-misogyny.

Transgender and gender-diverse people worldwide fall victims of hate and violence, which includes blackmail, sexual and physical attacks, and murders. Most of these brutal cases most often go unreported, and little or no attention is put to the main causes, such as anti-trans hate, trans-misogyny, racism, xenophobia and hatred against sex workers, and economic conditions precarious that Trans and gender-diverse people face in many contexts. These factors expose transgender people, especially racial discriminated people and migrants, to high levels of violence (Enke, 2012). In the case of transgender and transgender people (trans-women), and transgender women (Trans men) are identified with the typical behavior that is assigned to lesbians, so, in general, there is a tendency to generalize that all lesbian women are male women. This, at the same time, generates a stereotype that does not reflect the richness of the reality of lesbians or of Trans-men. However, this does not deny that there are certain lesbians who tend to identify with the ways of dressing or behaving in the opposite gender.

Thus, from a common point of view, trans-women are considered to be 'homerun', which produces strangeness. However, sometimes, being and behaving like a man is less visible, as opposed to when a man assumes the feminine gender. But, from the theoretical and political point of view, the rejection is given for other reasons, that is, because these female assume the bodies of patriarchy or try to imitate the culture associated with the male, which denies the efforts of some trans men to build a masculine identity differentiated from the masculine stereotype considered patriarchal. In this case, the use of the patriarchal term may imply discrimination and exclusion of a human group, in particular, by certain feminist approaches.

In addition to this identification between lesbians and Trans men or female masculinities, there is also a tendency to confuse the reality of homosexuality with that of trans-sexuality and transgender (Enke, 2012). These phenomena are different, while the first marks an attraction for people of the same sex; in the seconds, people feel or are of the opposite gender, and in general, these people are not homosexual. However, sometimes it seems that the border between homosexuality and trans-sexuality is not clear and there are gray areas, which complicate the ability to draw precise borders. There is a trend between the gay movement and lesbian to differentiate from trans-sexuality and transgender. The gay and lesbian identity began to build, among one of its aspects, distancing itself from trans-sexuality. According to Bonnie Dill, this distancing is established by distinguishing between gender identity and sexual tendency, which leads to the aforementioned conceptual separation (Dill, 2012). This differentiation has led to the exclusion of transsexuals from the gay and lesbian movement. In this respect, the Trans movement has been placed in a theoretical perspective that criticizes the discrimination.

References

Dill, B. T., & Kohlman, M. H. (2012). Intersectionality: A transformative paradigm in feminist theory and social justice. Handbook of feminist research: Theory and praxis, 2, 154-174.

Driskill, Q. L. (2016). Asegi stories: Cherokee queer and two-spirit memory. University of Arizona Press.

Enke, F...