Welcome to the NorthEast Two Spirit Society's website devoted to all things regarding our group. Here you'll find our activities going back to Oct. 2004.
Don't forget, we have a new and improved, even smudged, website for you to check out! All our new information will be posted there. After checking out our history with the navigation buttons to the left...click, bookmark and head on over to ne2ss.org.
Welcome to NE2SS' website devoted to providing information about and for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and two-spirit American Indians of New York City and the tri-state area (New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.) We invite all two-spirit people and their allies to attend our social/business meetings held every month at the LGBT Center (208 West 13th Street, NY, NY) on the 3rd Wednesday of the month.
What is a two-spirit? In crude terms, it is a LGBT Indian. For a more refined definition, here’s an historical perspective:
In many American Indian traditions, there were individuals, who entered into same-sex relationships, who were considered holy and treated with the highest respect and acceptance. They were the historians, the healers, and people of empowerment. They possessed a delicate balance of male and female "spirits", were often honored for being unique and having a different spiritual calling. One of the important functions they provided was as mediators between the spirit world and physical world.
The mission of NorthEast Two-Spirit Society is:
• To educate the LGBT and non-LGBT communities regarding indigenous and Two-Spirit histories and traditions;
• To ensure community cohesion amongst the NorthEast Two-Spirit people through the promotion of health and spiritual well-being by sharing our traditions with one another;
• To outreach, build alliances and coalitions with other community based organizations to increase the visibility of the Two-Spirit community to ensure the Two-Spirit community's needs and concerns are being addressed.
