Talk:Ozaawindib

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Pronouns[edit]

I am not sure the Wikipedia norms for pronoun use and whether this person should be going by "they." It seems the edit was recent. I see some other internet sources they use "she." In any case, I made an edit to use "were" instead of "was" to align with the pronoun. -KaJunl (talk) 21:52, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OK, the pronoun change was by a driveby IP that claimed the article "misgendered" the subject. People in the 1700's were not using they/them, and we'll need a reliable source for a particular pronoun. Here on talk I'll use it as we're unsure, but someone needs to look in the better sources to see if Ozaawindib made any statements about their gender. I'll try to look into it.
What often is the case in historical writings by homophobic colonists about Indigenous men "making themselves women" or "being made women" is they just meant the guy was gay. Especially if he propositioned (and married) "straight" men, as Ozaawindib did. Sometimes even the claim that an individual cross-dressed, if made by a colonist, has to be checked because often the colonist was simply unaware of what that culture considered male, female, and gender-neutral clothing.
The source calling this person a trans woman was a student paper, and their citation and rationale for calling Ozaawindib a trans woman is Gwen Benaway, who is not Indigenous, and has imposed a number of incorrect concepts on Indigenous cultures due to lack of familiarity. This is so often a problem with colonial writers in the field. - CorbieVreccan 23:19, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]