I began investigating gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (GLBTQ) representations of the sacred in my late teens. In college, my knowledge of same-sex desire and gender-variant deities evolved into a study of the spiritual roles and legacies of GLBTQ people. Such legacies are abundantly evident in parts of the world where indigenous and pluralist religion has remained uncontaminated, as in the Indian subcontinent where hijras (male-bodied individuals identified as female) are seen as harbingers of good luck and curses and perform ceremonies at weddings . and births. The earliest written accounts of traditional same-sex desire and gender variant roles in the Western Hemisphere can be found in the journals of early colonizers, as well as in an engraving commemorating Vasco Núňez's massacre of third-gender American Indians de Balboa in what is now Panama. Pejoratively called berdache by early anthropologists (from Arabic, meaning "slave"), many modern GLBTQ First Nations people have adopted the term Two-Spirit as a pan-tribal identity that reclaims their traditional spiritual and social roles while transcending labels . which denotes mere sexual orientation. The term affirms them as unique and complete human beings. So what is the spiritual legacy of GLBTQ people in diaspora traditions? The answer is as interesting as the different strands of conjuring throughout the “New World.” Because of the overwhelming abandonment of West African practices by African Americans in the United States and the tendency of white anthropologists to overlook gender variation in spiritual traditions originating from Africa, few mentions of this legacy exist. In the predominantly Protestant context of the Southern United States during the 18th…… half of the document……h, Sharon. love evokes/blues. Available through New Dramatists Script Library.Conner, Randy P. Cassell's Encyclopedia of Queer Myths, Symbols, and Spirits: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Traditions. London: Cassell, 1997. Conner, Randy P. and David Hatfield Sparks. Queering Creole Spiritual Traditions: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Participation in African-Inspired Traditions in the Americas. New York: Harrington Park, 2004. Feinberg, Leslie. Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman. Boston: Beacon, 1996.Hoff, Bert H. "Gays: Guardians of the Gate - Interview with Malidoma Somé." MenWeb - Men's Problems: Men's Voices magazine. 1993. Network. 08 February 2011. .Murray, Stephen O. Male Wives and Female Husbands: Studies in African Homosexuality. Basingstoke [ua]: Macmillan, 1998.