ABSTRACT
“Living with Dual Spirits” is adapted from the author’s historic presentation at the 2006 Conference on Indigenous African Spiritual Traditions, Worldview, Family & Community Empowerment, Ritual, and Practice at Teachers College, Columbia University, in 2006. It sets same-gender sexual relationships and practices among people of African descent in a context of a dual or twin spiritedness that leaves room for heterosexual relationships/practices as well. The examples and concepts cited from African history challenge prevailing arguments within Black Nationalist and cultural-Nationalist discourses, arguments which have been antagonistic to or critical of homosexual or bisexual sexuality among Black people in the past. The author diverges from many of her peers and predecessors to assert that same-sex and bisexual practices among African people are integral to the cultures and histories discussed, not outwardly imposed or imported.
