This exhibit explores a slice of the myriad approaches taken to gender and sexuality by cultures and communities around the world. Not only do “non-Western” peoples have different ideas about men and women, several perceive more than two sexes. Rather than judging third gender persons to be horrible or pitiful mistakes, they are seen as being charged with holy purpose and extraordinary abilities. Same-sex erotic behavior can range from no big deal to a typical part of adolescence or of military life to culture-defining inspirational love story. By learning about the sexual diversity of pre-colonial indigenous civilizations, the unspoken assumptions at the root of Western civilization are uncovered.

For those in the West, it is tempting to naturalize and universalize our ways of thinking and being. We often assume that the way things are now is how they’ve always been and the way things are here is how they are everywhere—or, things are better here and now compared with elsewhere and in the past. European colonial powers imposed their attitudes toward gender diverse individuals and same-sex eroticism on the peoples they conquered and exploited across the globe, substituting their “civilized” Christian morality for indigenous knowledge.

Most cultures across time lack so much as a concept of “gender identity” or “sexual orientation,” so it is not useful to try to wedge the incredible diversity of categories that aboriginal peoples use to identify social roles or characterize behavior we might label “sexual” into our contemporary LGBTQ framework. Every group, even in the West, has multiple accounts of what kinds of humans exist, how they came to be, what they exist for, and why it matters. It is also impossible (and inappropriate) to claim the mantle of an identity from a culture outside your own. However, the existence of those identities and ways of being can inspire us to break down the myths of imperialism and claim new space in our own cultures.