These colors represent important ideas connected to this flag and community.
History
The Two-Spirit symbol represents Two-Spirit people, Indigenous North Americans who embody multiple gender identities and roles within their own cultural contexts. Two-Spirit is a Pan-Indigenous term that emerged in the 1990s to describe Indigenous gender and sexual minorities, reclaiming and revitalizing traditional Indigenous understandings of gender diversity that predated Western colonization. The symbol was developed by Indigenous LGBTQ+ communities to represent their distinct identity, separate from mainstream Western LGBTQ+ frameworks, while honoring traditional indigenous perspectives on gender and spirituality. The design incorporates circular and spiral elements reflecting Indigenous artistic traditions and spiritual symbolism. Two-Spirit identity represents both the reclamation of pre-colonial Indigenous gender systems and contemporary Indigenous LGBTQ+ experience, making it significant within Indigenous sovereignty and decolonization movements.
