Gregory Smithers is a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of the book, "Reclaiming Two-Spirits."
Gregory D. Smithers has been sharing the history of Indigenous people in America as a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University for 11 years. Last month, he published “Reclaiming Two-Spirits: Sexuality, Spiritual Renewal & Sovereignty in Native America,” a guide through the history of Native people with both feminine and masculine qualities known as “Two-Spirits.” While his research stems from traditional sources such as written archives, Smithers’ most valuable sources were Native elders and community members, he says.
We spoke to the Australian-born Smithers about the history of Two-Spirit people, his motive for advocating for Native communities and the impact he hopes his book will have on audiences.
Richmond magazine: What drove you to write about Two-Spirit people?
Gregory Smithers: In general, historians have looked away because of the patchy nature of the written archive, the archives of colonialism ostensibly … I wanted to historicize the knowledge behind the term Two-Spirit, and, at the same time, I knew and had some really good friendships within the Two-Spirit Native American communities. I wanted to make their stories both personal and, at sort of a larger macro level, visible to both broader Native and non-Native audiences, but also the LGBTQ community as well.
RM: In your book, you mention how Spanish conquistadors terrorized Native communities through violence. What modern forms of violence do Native communities face at the hands of the non-Native community?
Smithers: When you see the tension in the relationship between federally recognized sovereign indigenous nations and the federal government, then you have sort of echoes of the past come up that haunt people's memories of what happened to their ancestors.
RM: In what ways have Two-Spirit people among Native communities reclaimed their space and history?
Smithers: Taking a deeper historical dive, it's things like taking knowledge and pieces of the language and concealing them from the eyes and ears of colonizers. … Two-Spirit people have, in the communities where this tradition has existed, had the role of caring for that knowledge and passing it down to future generations to keep it safe and away from those colonizers so that it can be preserved and then renewed with each new generation. … A lot of Native artists are using digital media to articulate not only stories about their past, their history and their ancestors, but to position Native people and Two-Spirit people in the present, and having a role to play going forward.
RM: What do you hope your book will accomplish?
Smithers: I do hope that people within Native communities engage with the book because, as many Two-Spirit elders told me over the course of researching and thinking about how it would frame the book, there’s still a lot of work to do within Indigenous communities in terms of raising visibility, awareness and reclaiming the place of Two-Spirit people within political, social and cultural life within a number of communities. … For non-Native readers, I’m really hopeful that readers approach the book with an open mind and an open heart and come to this knowledge on the terms that Native people present it to them and as I’ve tried to present it in the book so that they have a vocabulary and a basic historical knowledge base from which they can be really good allies to both Native people, but specifically Two-Spirit people.
Gregory Smithers will read from his new book as part of the award-winning “Writers in Residences” series on our Instagram account.
