The Brenda and Glennda Show was a cable-TV talk show that employed guerrilla-drag street theatre to address gender, lesbian and gay politics, and AIDS in a format that was humorous and informative. This episode produced for Creative Time, Two Spirits Speak Out, was staged at Grand Central Terminal and hosted by Brenda Sexual (Duncan Elliott) and Glennda Orgasm (Glenn Belverio), and featured members of We Wah and Bar Chee Ampe, one of the first lesbian and gay Native American organizations in the New York area.

The show addressed gender roles and identity among Two-Spirit people, a community that identifies with a third gender in Native American culture, which is neither male nor female, but rather encompasses the individual spirits of both genders. Two Spirits Speak Out also discussed the historical whitewashing of the genocide and imperialism that followed Columbus’s “discovery” of the Americas and its legacy for Native Americans today. The show aired on Manhattan cable television in the spring of 1993.

Multiple Artists

Two Spirits Speak Out

Manhattan

1992