Queer History 122: We'Wha

How a Zuni cultural ambassador shattered Western assumptions about gender while making history...

When President Grover Cleveland welcomed a tall, skilled Zuni "woman" to the White House in 1886, he had no damn idea he was actually meeting one of the most remarkable gender-transcendent figures in American history. We'wha wasn't trying to pull one over on anyone—in Zuni culture, We'wha's identity as lhamana (what we now often call "two-spirit") was not only accepted but revered. But watching this Indigenous diplomat navigate Victorian Washington D.C., serving traditional foods to congressmen's wives and demonstrating Zuni crafts while white society remained completely clueless about We'wha's assigned sex at birth? That's some next-level cultural subversion that still resonates powerfully today.

Let's cut through the historical bullshit and colonial filters to understand who We'wha really was—a master potter, weaver, and spiritual leader who became perhaps the most famous lhamana in American history. Behind the remarkable story of We'wha's six-month visit to Washington lies a complex…